that's more speed than at&t's comparable bundle, for less. call today. welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. thank you for sharing your day with us. the republicans make a giant tax day push hoping to reset the political debate over the tax plan. they hope there is still time to change what has so far been a terrible election decline. there has been a big price to pay for the syrian chemical weapons attack. the big surprise? ambassador nikki haley is the one paying it, not vladimir putin. james comey's book is out today. he says the president so often

lacks policies of morals and decency. >> the president doesn't get to decide who goes to jail. we're numb to it. we wake up in the morning and see the president of the united states is accusing people of crimes without evidence and pronouncing them guilty saying they should be in jail. that should wake all of us up with a start because there's been so much of it that we're a little bit numb and that's dangerous. >> to comey in a moment. we begin the hour with stormy, sean and that court case that is a mix of bizarre and high consequence. the porn star stormy daniels was on "the view" just moments ago. she said she won't be threatened to stay quiet, but she says newfound fame is not her central goal. >> yes, there is a lot of publicity but i didn't do it for that because this is not what i want to be known for. as a matter of fact, i hid for quite a while, and it's overwhelming and intimidating

and downright scary a lot of times. show me somebody who wouldn't be like, oh, we want you to do the same job you have been doing and we'll pay you more. who would ever say no to that? >> daniels also released the sketch of a man she says threatened her not to talk publicly about the president or his deal with her. >> i would have gone to the police and gone, okay, a man approached me. this is what he said to me. he told me leave mr. trump alone. and their very next question the detective would ask me, why would somebody tell you to leave mr. trump alone? and i would have had to answer that question which was not public at the time, and i would have had to tell an entire police department -- and police reports are public record, i know that for a fact -- i had sex with donald trump. >> tabloid, yes. reality tv, yes again. but news also because the president's lawyer is now under criminal investigation, and the president is trying to both get a sense of what the feds know and trying to get some control over who gets to see the

material seized from his long-time attorney and fixer, michael cohen, materials that include conversations about stormy daniels. shimon prokupecz is live from new york. shimon, still legal implications here as we watch what is a tabloid story playing out again. >> john, you said it right. there were some serious decisions the judge made yesterday. we had our shiny object with sean hannity. we had the theater with stormy daniels, and really, i have not seen this many cameras and reporters covering a case here in new york like this in quite some time. so you had all of that. but legal implications here is that the judge has ordered the federal investigators, the prosecutors and the fbi agents who seized some 10 boxes, hard drives, electronics, all sorts of information, that they now have to share that information with michael cohen's attorney. now, that's pretty significant. the prosecutor in court said he didn't want to do that. there were arguments, obviously, all day on that, but in the end

the judge sided with michael cohen's attorney, and they're now in the process of waiting to get this information. so what happens is, the prosecutors are going to have to duplicate all the material that they have seized and forward that to michael cohen's attorney. and then what's going to happen is whatever material may be in there that pertains to the president, to donald trump, they will give that to his attorneys. so the president's attorneys will be able to see whatever material that is related to him that was seized by the fbi early on in this case. this is unprecedented, and that is why the prosecutors here did not want to go ahead and do that. >> but shimon, am i correct in saying that the president's attorneys will get to see the materials that relate to him but not before the prosecutors? the prosecutors can look at it at the same time, is that correct? >> reporter: right. there's two things here, john. the prosecutors who are actually investigating this case cannot view any of that material. they can only duplicate it. there is a taint team. that team is now charged --

they're separate, they're not investigating it -- they can review the materials just for duplication purposes. they cannot share anything they find or that they duplicate with the prosecutors who are investigating the case. >> complicated as we go forward, but again, high consequence. the president's attorney, the president involved. stormy daniels involved because she said some of those materials likely relate to the settlement with her. with me to share their reporting and insight, dana bash, and jackie krasinoch. i guess it's not so bizarre because it happens every day, but before you can watch a new show, you have to watch the porn actress on "the view." she's making money off this. people are going to say james comey is making money off his book, and we'll get to him in a minute. but besides that, there are some fundamental giant consequential legal questions here that cast a giant cloud over the trump white

house. >> part of what's going on, and you can look back at the bill clinton scandals and you'll find the same thing, which is the underlying solaciousness of what everybody is talking about often leads to questions that are much more fundamental about truth and lying and documents and proof and all of the stuff that involves the legal system in a way -- >> and where they come from. in this case a campaign, and who knew. >> i think we all struggle, you know, because these are not the kinds of topics that we want to be sort of talking about. but at the same time you can't avert your eyes to what are these really serious questions, you know, involving the president of the united states. >> and you mentioned involving the president of the united states. i just want to mention that cara skanelle who was also in the courtroom yesterday in new york, she's a cnn reporter, she pointed out that it was sort of made public that in the search warrant of michael cohen's office and so forth, there are

five paragraphs in one of the attachments that deal directly with seeking papers of the president of the united states. this is michael cohen's attorney saying that was in possession of my client. so thereinlies the whole crux of why we care about this. and we didn't know about that. we still don't know what exactly is in those five paragraphs, but that's one of the things that came out yesterday, and it reminds us that this isn't just solacious regarding stormy daniels or karen mcdougal, the other woman who had an affair with the president, or sean hannity, who knows what that's about. at its core, it's about the president of the united states. >> you mentioned sean hannity. sean hannity is one of the president's biggest supporters, obviously. that said, the fact that he has been reporting about the cohen situation, about the raid, about all of this and hadn't disclosed whether or not using sean hannity as a journalist.

he doesn't have a platform, he has a microphone. he didn't disclose that he had this relationship with michael cohen. yesterday he had several conflicting explanations as to what his relationship was. he said he wasn't his attorney, then on his radio show he said he was his attorney, gave him 10 bucks. then he was asking about real estate deals. so we don't even know the truth yet or what that involves, but he tried to make it clear it didn't involve a third party, so perhaps there is no nda involving sean hannity, but the fact that was kept a secret from his viewers and is a problem. >> that's the cover of the day. i want to come back to the point you just made. sean hannity is not a journalist. but sean hannity speaks on a platform that calls itself a news network.

he speaks every night to people. a lot of people who support the president of the united states have every right to support the president of the united states, and he is many times an advocate for the president's policies almost always. this is sean hannity on the night of april 9. michael cohen's offices have been raided. sean hannity has a relationship with michael cohen. he has sought legal advice from michael cohen. instead he says this. >> it has been clear, as i have been warning, mueller is out to get the president and it appears at any cost. here's what happened. upon referral from special counsel robert mueller, the fbi has raided the office, home and hotel room of michael cohen, the personal attorney of the president of the united states. keep in mind, cohen was never part of the trump administration or the trump campaign. this is now officially an all hands on deck process to impeach and totally malign the president

of the united states. >> keep in mind he was never officially on the campaign of the president of the united states. he's a personal friend. the search of those materials asked for communications between hope hicks and corwin lewandowski, campaign manager and key adviser on the campaign. it is, forgive me, dishonest not to tell your viewers, look, i had a relationship with this guy. it's not a big deal. i just want to be honest with you up front. why not? >> it's a major breach of trust if he wants to call himself a talk show host or whatever without disclosing his personal relationship with this man. whether he wants to call him his lawyer or not, there is a conflicting matter here for sean hannity. if he's saying michael cohen is not his lawyer, then there's no attorney-client privilege to protect him. he can be called an investigator, he can be questioned about this. either way he's stuck in a box

here. as far as the comey raid and stormy daniels goes, there is a result of what they find in michael cohen's information regarding the president. there is apparently a lot of information there. and there is the campaign violation possibility. $130,000 as a campaign contribution, that is $100,000 above the legal limit. >> you keep hearing from the president's defenders, fire rosenstein, shut this investigation down. the deputy attorney general says, sorry, bob, this isn't your jurisdiction, i'm going to hand this off to new york. it goes to federal prosecutors in new york, where not only does the prosecutor say, let's take this forward. then it goes in front of a judge to get a warrant. if this is such as stake, don't you think with the dozens of people involved in it, we would know about it?

>> especially because i think the u.s. attorney in that district recused themselves. >> a republican by the name of jeff sessions? >> a republican by the name of jeff sessions who was recommended by rudy giuliani. even though, we all watch billions, recusal is necessary. in all seriousness, he did recuse himself, but the fact of the matter is, as you mentioned, there are real career officials there who are doing what they believe is right because of evidence that we don't know about that exist. >> and the judge, kimber wood, clearly not giving the prosecutors whatever they want here. it appears to be trying to find a middle ground so everybody gets to see the documents and protect themselves. the president has every right to legal counsel, he should be able to protect himself. we're getting in breaking news. there's been an emergency landing of a southwest plane, that plane landing in philadelphia. you see him on the tarmac now. we're getting details of what exactly happened.

you see emergency responders there in philadelphia. we'll get details in a moment. ot you can barely feel. flonase sensimist.

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some important breaking news we're monitoring here at cnn. you see that airplane on the tarmac in philadelphia. a southwest flight was forced to make an emergency landing. live pictures on the ground in philadelphia. if you look to the left and right of your screen, you can see some visible damage there. the foam, what appears to be firefighting foam, on the ground there. emergency responders on the scene as well. it's hard to get information in these early moments, but let's bring in one of our aviation analysts, mailes bryan joins us from boston. miles, it's good to see you but not under these circumstances here. it's southwest. we know it's a 737. you can see some damage around that engine. just from your expertise, what can you see and what are your questions? >> what we're seeing, john, is what's known as an uncontained engine failure. jet engines fail more

frequently, probably, than we all care to recognize. they're very reliable, but often when they fail, they're designed to fail so all the parts stay internal or go out the tailpipe and not cause any further damage, making it sort of a non-event which is why we don't hear about it so much. every now and then, though, you get a contained failure in which some piece or part escapes from the cowlick of the engine, and essentially those are pieces of shrapnel that come off at very high rates of speed and can easily pierce the skin of the aircraft. we've had some initial reports that that might have happened in this case very early. i remember back in the mid himi, i remember a delta flight in florida, actually happened in pensacola, where an uncontained engine failure there caused the death of a passenger as a

result. that was on an md-88 which is where the engines are tightly fitted right close to the fuselage in the back. in this case the 737, you see it highlighted there. the left side, the engine hangs underneath the wing, and so the risk of jeopardy is slightly diminished because it's just farther away from the passengers. and the seating arrangement and window arrangement of these aircrafts is designed so that if these things happen, people are not in harm's way. so that's what happened. obviously the aircraft is perfectly fine to fly on one engine, and it did, in fact, land safely. obviously the flight crew made the right decision and did an emergency evacuation, as you can see, based on all of this. and we will have to just see what sort of damage was caused to the aircraft. of greater concern, were any passengers injured by this shrapnel? >> to that point, miles, stand

by for me if you can. i want to bring jason carolyn to the conversation. he's in new york. jason, at least one passenger perhaps injured? >> that's correct, miles. according to what we learned, this was southwest flight 1380. it left this morning from new york city initialliey headed to dallas. when it was midway through the flight, something happened with one of the left engines. this according to a passenger who was on board that flight. he says once on board, something from the engine injured -- ended up injuring a passenger who was on board. we have calls out to emergency responders there on the ground, including fire, the faa, airport as well. again, this was a southwest flight 1380, a 737 from new york city headed to dallas.

just when they were apparently west of philly, something happened with the left engine, and again, a passenger on board was injured. you can see the flight there on the tarmac. emergency crews are there on the ground. we have calls out to fire, the faa, the airport as well. as soon as we're able to get more information, we'll bring it to you as soon as we can. >> i'll let you continue your reporting, jason, and please come back as soon as you do have more information. i want to go back to miles bryan, our aviation expert. i want to caution viewers that it turns out you either get additional information or the timing is a little bit off. but if that information is indeed correct -- miles, i'm sorry, stand by for me. christopher johnson was a passenger on that flight. he joins me now on the phone. christopher, please tell me. you were headed from new york to dallas. what did you hear and what happened on that plane? >> hi, john. we were leaving la guardia heading to dallas. we were west of philadelphia

probably about 30,000 feet, and all of a sudden we just heard this loud bang, rattling and then it felt like one of the engines went out. the oxygen masks dropped and flight attendants did a good job. the pilot came on and said we're diverting to philadelphia and, you know, there was a serious medical injury. i don't know much about that, but i was sitting in the front. with a couple passengers. we just got the mask on and as soon as we landed, we were thankful. the pilots did a great job, the crew did a great job. got us down to philly and that's when i took the photo of the engine, and it appeared that it just shredded the left side engine completely. so we were coming down -- we dropped probably from 30,000 feet to 25,000 feet, and then the pilot kind of regained control and brought it down

safely to philadelphia. so we got off the plane and onto buses and we're trying to head over to the tarmac in philly. >> christopher, as this played out -- you were seated in front of where the engine would have been on the plane, is that correct? >> that's correct. i was in the first row in the bulkhead, and i felt it on my side. so as soon as we -- we just kind of calmed down and then -- there were several medical people on board that attended to the injured passenger, but like i said, i don't know much more information about that, i just know it was pretty scary, but the pilots did a great job. >> christopher, appreciate that. i don't know if you can stand by for bun second. i want to get back to cnn's jason carroll who i believe has additional information. >> we can tell you that flight left from la guardia airport. it was bound for dallas. it left at 10:43 a.m. this morning. it was supposed to land at 1:03.

according to a passenger we spoke to on board, apparently there was an issue with the left engine, a bit of shrapnel flew off in the left part of that engine. ended up somehow injuring a passenger on board. we do now have a statement from southwest airlines. i want to read part of it to you. it says, we are aware that southwest flight 1380 from new york, la guardia, to dallas love field has diverted to philadelphia national airport. we are in the process of transporting customers and crew into the terminal. the aircraft, a boeing 737700 has 140 customers and crew members on board. we are in the process of gathering more information. safety is always our top priority at southwest airlines, and we are working diligently to support our customers and crews at this time. once again, you can see the aircraft there on the tarmac. it appears as if the passengers have already been evacuated. once again, a passenger who was on board that flight says there was an issue with the left

engine. he says a bit of shrapnel flew off from that left part of the engine and somehow ended up injuring a passenger on board. again, when we have more information, john, as soon as we can bring it to you, we will. >> thank you, jason. when you have more information, please return. i want to show you a photo of the damage to that window. when you heard the big bang, did you see anyone injured on the plane, and was there a breach? did shrapnel break a window or break through the plane in any way? >> from what i'm hearing, yeah, from passengers on the back side, it did breach. but i wasn't there so i didn't see exactly what happened. >> you didn't see exactly what happened. we appreciate that. christopher, stay with us if you could. 140 passengers, five crew members on that plane. you're listening to passenger christopher johnson who is crediting the crew and the

pilots for being kwacalm in the middle of all this. joining us as well on beeper, miles. miles, now that you heard jason carroll and you heard christopher johnson about what happened here, by one account, and often we get additional information, an injury on board and possibly some breach from shrapnel. is that how you're taking it so far? >> that could be the supposition here. you have what would cause the injury. i suppose doing a rapid descent, if the seat belt wasn't on, there could have been injury from that. this is an uncontained engine failure. shrapnel does indeed spin out at a very high rate of speed when this happens. that can cause injuries. there was a delta flight in the mid-'90s, similar situation. that was actually on the ground

in that case. when these events happen, the engines are most stressed on takeoff when they're near full throttle. failures tend to happen in those circumstances. that's when you're stressing it the most. when the aircraft is at cruise and the throttles back, less likely to happen. again, there are a lot of moving parts moving quickly in a jet engine, and one failure can tip some dominos and cause a failure like this. generally speaking, though, they're well designed to contain all that shrapnel. so when they fail, it stays outside or goes out the tailpipe. in this case it did not, and we can only hope what injuries there are are not too serious. >> mary, from your experience at the department of transportation, sadly you had experience investigating these kinds of things. from looking at the pictures and what we've heard, the passengers

saluting the crew and are credited for keeping people calm. one person saying perhaps a breach from shrapnel. we don't have information on that yet. the southwest statement does not address the question of an injury. you look at these pictures and from earlier accounts, what comes to mind? >> if there isn't an injury, if people are just cleaning up, a baby in a car seat was saved because shrapnel hit the car seat. this just shows how dangerous this is. there are thankfully some over the years that have resulted in no injuries. there are things that have

happened. engine failure can cause a fire. control surfaces have been lost, hydraulic systems have been lost, and that could affect your ability to actually control the plane. in those cases the plane was lost. so here, i would have to echo, kudos to the flight crew for getting this plane down on the ground. quick thinking. if it was an uncontained engine failure that led to an exposed decontamination, which means all of a sudden you don't have pressure on the plane, planes have been lost because of that reason, too. very, very dangerous situation. i hope and pray that no one is hurt or no one is killed, but if that's the case, everyone is very fortunate and credit to the flight crew. >> mary, quickly, what kicks in from a government investigator's standpoint right now? >> right now the ntsb is on the way. they might have other people in the area working on other things. they will take control of this.

the most important thing right now would be to isolate those repair and maintenance records on that engine. given there have been a number -- and not on southwest -- on a number of different airlines uncontrolled engine failures in the last couple years, they'll want to see, is there a pattern? is there one particular part? maybe it's the manufacturer. that was the case of the sue ci -- sioux city crash in iowa where there was a flaw right out of the box of manufacturing, and right away that flaw grew and the stress on the engine finally caused it to fail. so they're going to look at the manufacturer, maintenance, parts, anyone who touched that engine, because we want to make sure it doesn't happen again. like i said, the plane could have been lost, many lives could have been lohst, so they're ver fortunate and the ntsb will treat this as a warning play. that's kind of a pattern. if you have one bad part, maybe

a manufacturing flaw, the ntsb is going to want to find that and get that information out to other operators. maybe the engine was nearing its %-pk like an old plane, but it's difficult for had he to see the screen. that's what they're going to be doing, and of course their first concern is always the safety and the lives of people on board. >> we'll watch these pictures from our affiliates . christopher johnson is with us. i want you to take us back as we hear from our experts about how these things play out. you said you were at about 35,000 feet when you heard a bang. the pilot came on and said there was a problem. just walk us through, you said it was a drop in altitude and

then a relatively stable landing from there? >> yeah, it definitely was a stable landing. we started descending, making a turn back to philadelphia. we were probably with one engine for maybe 10 minutes. and, you know, i watched it on the southwest where we obtain information from 800 to 805,000, it's a smooth landing. >> we're trying to get a report and information is often contradictory or hard to get. we have a report of one injury. what was the scene on the ground in terms of the flight crew gets you off the plane? were you taken to buses, ambulances on the ground? what was that scene like? >> they did a great job.

they got us row by row, got us off. they tended to the injured person first, got him off the plane. after that, you know, we got our stu stuff. >> we're told one passenger has been transported to oy. >> our compliments to the crew and also first responders. one person was jrpd remembered. we'll keep track of this breaking news. when we come back, james comey's book is officially out today. he continues his tour and the white house doesn't like it.

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was a book in the making for some time or was there some watershed moment where you concluded you must write it? if it's the latter, what was the watershed moment? i look forward to reading the book. >> you may have heard i was fired. >> a little bit of humor there. former fbi director james comey. one subplot of the book tour is whether one of his answers might contradict anything he told the special counsel or might possibly undermine his credibility as a possible future courtroom witness. here's a good test. take your answers about president trump's chief of staff, then chief of staff, excuse me, to vice president cheney. remember, he's a potential witness. listen closely. >> there's a reason that president george w. bush, for whom scooter libby worked, refused to pardon him after reviewing the case in detail.

there was overwhelming evidence that he lied intentionally to investigators and to the grand jury. to pardon now is an attack on the rule of law. >> it's an attack on the rule of law. there is a reason president george w. bush, for whom scooter libby worked, refused to pardon him after looking at all the facts in the case. it was an overwhelming case. there is no reason it's consistent with justice to pardon him. so it's an attack on the rule of law in my view. >> not exact-exact, but as close as you can get to exact-exact. all the law enforcement training, especially the fbi training, coming into play there. everybody is watching this. through the white house you're watching this, if you're on the legal team, you're watching this. if you're in the special counsel's office, you now have to go through the book. that was a disciplined guy there going forward. >> that discipline is also going to potentially limit the sort of wow factor as this book tour

marc marches forward, right? if he's disciplined, as we think he's going to be, to only stick to the stories he tells in the book in a very literal way and not sort of stray into all sorts of other areas, then, you know, it's not like we're going to be hearing new stories going forward. so i think there is going to be an element that people say, yeah, we heard all this before. how many times can we hear it? the book tour may continue and i think some of the interest may fade. >> a paradox of james comey right now is in his haste to appear apolitical and above the fray, he made a lot of decisions that were politically motivated or at least aware of the political confinement where he ripped into hillary clinton as being extremely careless, and to expose investigation to her and not donald trump, that was something he put out 11 days before the election without knowing if there was anything relevant on anthony weiner's laptop. this was all being aware of his own words that if he didn't go far out there and be critical,

it would appear that the administration was putting its thumb on the scale. it's just remarkable to see that juxtaposition. >> by his own words saying the reason he came out was he didn't want hillary clinton to be an illegitimate president had she won. that in and of itself is political. this was more about protecting the fbi, it seems like. it was more about protecting their reputation rather than worrying about hillary clinton. >> and it backfired. >> and it backfired. >> in every one of these cases you try to find a historical comparison. we live in the age of twitter, we live in the age of trump and other magnifying factors to the times we live in now. i want you to listen to john dean from the watergate days. had some pretty impressive stories to tell. his lawyer said, don't write a book. >> i had long conversations with my criminal defense lawyer, and he said, john, they're going to inevitabl inevitably, if you do a book,

they'll cross-examine you on everything in the book. if you, on a buick tour, make statements that may be slightly inconsistent which they will make seem greatly inconsistent. so he said, i'm just telling you, you would be smart not to do it. i thought that was good advice, and so i followed it. i didn't do a book, i didn't do interviews, i didn't do anything. >> it was good advice in dealing in the '70s with richard nixon, not in 2018 with donald trump who has a tool richard nixon didn't have, which is twitter, and he didn't go after dean, obviously, anywhere close to the way that donald trump is. >> if nixon had twitter, he might have been calling him a slimeball, or potentially jail. >> probably. i kind of doubt it, but it is entirely possible. the cultural reality of where we are right now is what it is. >> and one of the political realities right now is that team

trump savages comey and tries to say, you can't believe this guy. you would think the democrats would come to his defense. of course, they won't, because of the point you just made, they think he cost hillary the election. coming up is an adviser to the campaign. quote, the damage comey did to the country by the role he played in the election far, far surpasses any credit he now gets for calling trump out. history will remember and judge him for the former, not the latter. >> yes, i talked to people in her orbit in the last day or so, and one of the people i talked to, i said, don't you want comey out there criticizing donald trump? you all think donald trump is a very good president. the person responded to me, we don't need comey. the sense i got, they can't see past their anger. they can't see past their anger about the initial, you know, press conference that he held.

>> and comey's book and interviews are fueling that anger. him saying pretty explicitly that he just decided to put out the information about reopening the investigation 11 days before without having a really good answer as to why not just wait until you know whether it's relevant. and it turned out not to be. >> remember, they were all on the plane when that came out. i remember trying to get ahold of people and them saying, we have no idea what you're even talking about. so this came as a surprise internally as well as externally, and they're not going to let that go. >> i wouldn't want any brownie points with hillary clinton or at the time of his firing. >> he defends them all and sort of shrugs and says, maybe i could have made a different psition, but he never says, i

wish i wouldn't have made it. >> quick reminder for our viewers, the former fbi director james comey sits down with cnn's jake tapper thursday at 4:00 p.m. eastern right here on cnn. when we come back, remember the big price the president promised russia and iran would pay after the syrian chemical attack? well, it seems to be at the moment closer to home. sitter instead of your brother. hey! oh, that's my robe. is it? when you switch to liberty mutual, you could save $782 on auto and home insurance. and still get great coverage for you and your family. call for a free quote today. you could save $782 when liberty stands with you. liberty mutual insurance.

the breaking news we're following, that southwest airlines flight forced to make

an emergency land ing in philadelphia after a catastrophic engine failure. they landed safely. they a southwest flight 1380 took off from la guardia in new york and was head to do dallas. 140 passengers and crew members on board. one passenger appears to be in the hospital. we'll get you the latest information on that as soon as we get it. president trump promised, remember, that russia would pay a big price after the recent chemical weapons attack am sin syria. it looks like, though, ambassador nikki haley will pay that price instead. >> you'll see russian sanctions will be coming down. secretary mnuchin will be announcing those on monday, if he hasn't already, and they will go directly to any sort of company that were dealing with equipment related to assad and chemical weapons used.

>> but the president put the brakes on those new sanctions. the "washington post" was the first to report this, and was quick to say that ambassador haley made, quote, an error that needs to be mopped up. we now have larry kudlow talking about this. it is clear there is a tug-of-war in the administration, but it's also clear the president said, stop, don't do this. >> fascinating. this is just coming in from our intrepid white house reporter jeff zeleny who just talked to larry kudlow at the white house -- >> in mar-a-lago. >> -- excuse me, in mar-a-lago, and what he said about nikki haley is she got ahead of the curve. there mooifight have been some momentary confusion. that's something to have a top official saying on the record, dissing the u.n. ambassador. may i just add quickly on the broader question of whether the sanctions are going to take

place, kudlow told jeff zeleny about confusion. no, and then makes clear there is confusion, we have a set of sanctions and additional sanctions are under consideration but not determined. >> not determined. but when she went on "the "today" show" she specifically said russia and iran would pay a price. stop this. clearly they're still trying to work this through. the president stopped it, and nikki haley wants a smackdown. >> lawmakers trust what she says, other countries trust what she says. this isn't -- i think you're absolutely right, and she is being thrown under the bus right now. maybe if she and tillerson didn't dislike each other, we should give them a call, find out what's next. >> and she reacted pretty suddenly, pretty sharply on an

issue, so what the white house tries to do is place the blame on somebody else. somebody else takes the fall. >> especially on russia. >> especially on russia. >> and house speaker paul ryan was saying it forces people in congress to say, finally the administration has taken tougher actions on russia. >> i won't get into what sanctions should be applied, except that we obviously should be applying sanctions to russia. we have moved miles in our russian policy. not only did we scuttle the reset, not only are we sanctioning russian oligarchs, we're sanctioning russia itself. we have so improved our policy with respect to russia. far more hawkish, far more realist realistic. >> pushed on by the president, though, on his own team. a pretty dramatic case after the u.n. ambassador gets out there.

>> any time you're talking about russia and the relationship between the united states and russia, it's always in the context of this cloud that's over the president about whether or not he's got some kind of u lte rior moefsh for his policti policies. the combination of james comey saying i don't know if the russians have anything to blackmail the president, and then the sort of abrupt, hey, i don't want to do sanctions on russia, yes, there were sanctions but he was very much pushed in the direction by capitol hill and others. so it is always a cloud hanging over this presidency. >> it's not just that, it's not just the confusion, and frankly, the intrigue about top white house officials not knowing it, it's about what this means internationally for our allies. they're confused and that's not good. >> the strategic miscommunication by the president. guess what, congress now

faces another decision before november. i'm just worried about the house and taking care of the boys. zach! talk to me. it's for the house. i got a job. it's okay. dad took care of us.

pennsylvania voters facing another special election after learning dent is running for congress in the next several weeks. he said originally he was going to run, but now he says he won't finish his term. court justice neal gorsuch just cast the final vote against the trump administration. and he four other justices ruled that a law for land deportation and other crimes is vague. the case previously ended in a 4-4 tie after the death of ant a -- anthony scalia.

the service the taxpayers use to file taxes on line is partly down. the irs says it's working to resofele their resolve the issues so taxpayers can continue to file. today it the last day to file those returns. you don't want to miss the deadline. we hope to see you this time tomorrowme tomorrow. wolf starts right now. hello, i'm wolf blitzer. it's 1:00 p.m. here in washington. from wherever you're watching around the world, thanks very much for joining us. we start with breaking news in the disaster disguised over the northeast. the southwest airlines flight lost an engine. the engine appears to have simply blown apart. you're looking at live pictures coming in right now. some of that shrapnel from the engine may have cut right into the plane. the plane was on the way from la guardia airport in new york city to dallas, texas with 148 passengers and crew on board. it made an emergen