this is "new day weekend" with victor blackwell and christi paul. top of the hour now. and it is good to be with you this saturday. the white house is starting the weekend in damage control mode. this is after learning about a tape recorded by president trump's longtime fixer and former lawyer, michael cohen. >> on this tape, then-candidate trump and cohen reportedly heard discussing a payment to a former "playboy" model. it isn't the only recording cohen made, we've learned. here's cnn's justice correspondent, jessica schneider. >> reporter: michael cohen secretly recorded multiple conversations with president trump, sources tell cnn, and the tapes are in the hands of investigators. two months before the election,

cohen recorded a discussion with trump discussing a payment to the former "playboy" model karen mcdougal, according to rudy giuliani. mcdougal claimed she had a nearly year-long affair with the president after melania gave birth to barron in 2006. >> i was attracted to him, yeah. he's a nice-looking man. you know, i liked his charisma. >> reporter: mcdougal has said trump tried to hand her cash after their first night together. >> after we had been intimate, he tried to pay me. i didn't know how to take that. >> did he try to hand you money? >> he did. >> reporter: trump denies the affair. mcdougal said she didn't take the money that might -- that night, but she eventually sold her story to the "national enquirer" for $150,000. the tabloid never published it. giuliani told cnn that trump didn't know he was being recorded during the discussion. on the tape, trump and cohen discussed buying the rights to mcdougal's story from ami, the parent company of the "enquirer. kwtd cohen advised he pay by

check so it could be documented. the recording was one of several seized during a raid of cohen's apartment, hotel room, and office. there are other tapes of michael cohen and powerful individuals that the fbi seized beyond the president that could be embarrassing for the people on the tape and for cohen, according to a source familiar with the tapes. prosecutors in new york city are examining possible election law violations related to payments michael cohen made to women who alleged sexual encounters with trump. adult film actress stormy daniels received $130,000 to keep quiet about an alleged affair. she's since sued trump over the agreement. daniels' attorney is urging cohen to release the recordings. >> if michael cohen is a true patriot as he wants the american people to believe and as lanny davis wants the american people to believe, then michael cohen should release all of the audio recordings. i will tell you for a fact, there's more than one. there's multiple recordings. and all of them should be

released for the benefit of the american public. >> reporter: for now, michael cohen isn't commenting. he's been seen on the streets of new york city but has stayed mostly silent, at least publicly. he sat down with abc anchor george stephanopoulos off camera this month signaling his willingness to work with special counsel robert mueller stressing his family, not the president, comes first. last night after a week of twisted words from the white house regarding russia, cohen quoted the legendary broadcaster walter cronkite and said "it has never been more important than it is now for jefferson to distinguish between innuendo and fact." jessica schneider, cnn, washington. this morning russia is putting its own spin on president trump's one-on-one meeting with vladimir putin calling the summit better than super, magnificent. revealing that they talked about syria, the ukraine, and military security. right now we're getting all our news from moscow in terms of what happened in helsinki since

the white house hasn't said anything about what happened behind closed doors. international correspondent sam kyly is live from moscow. good to see you this morning. help us really get a grip of what russians are saying happened at the summit. >> reporter: well, as you said there, it was sergei lavrov who said it was magnificent, better than super. that was the initial reaction with him seen high fiving subordinates in the core doors of power in the presidential palace in helsinki. that was the immediate aftermath. then we saw the chaos in the united states with claim and counterclaim by the president himself about what went on. then slowly what we've seen is the russians take hold of the narrative starting initially with this idea that it was a positive summit, then suggesting three leaks and innuendo that there have been questions of security, cyber, terrorism,

cyber a suggestion from the russians that they jointly tackle cyber iespionage and crime, in terms of interference with the presidential elections in 2016 and the 12 indictments of russian intelligence officials. on top of that, talks about future arms treaties, nothing serious about this. and syria, this is coming out in dribs and drabs from the ambassador to washington in russia here at the moment, hints coming from the foreign services in general suggesting that there was -- there is talk about a repatriation of 1.7 million syrians from the population around syria back into syrian territory. that doesn't sound too bad an idea until you consider that from the american perspective, any repatriation of syrian refugees is completely off the cards if they're going to go back into territory controlled by bashar al assad in alliance with the russians.

creation of friction there. but again, owning the narrative. then we get to the position of a suggestion coming from the vladimir putin that the white house had since the meeting pushed back on. but there are suggestions that it was being entertained by donald trump if not the rest of his administration on having a referendum among the population who were essentially living in an area captured by russian-backed ukrainian proxies and russian troops themselves in the east of ukraine. remember, of course, russia annexed crimea. donald trump has refused to condemn that although it has been condemned by the united states and all of her allies. and now a suggestion that he might even be considering a referendum there. again, recently, the white house spokespeople pushed back on that. >> all right. sam kiley, thank you very much for walking us through it. joining me to talk about this, from new york, amy parn, political analyst and senior political correspondent for "the hi hill."

and sarah westwood, cnn reporter live in berkeley heights, new jersey, near the president's golf club. welcome back to both of you. sarah, let me start with you. post wouldn't and no but not that no clarifications from the president, for those around the president, how do they see or assess the degree of control they have over the narrative of coming out of helsinki? sam listed all of the russians' narratives about what came out of the meeting, how do they assess what they're giving the american people and do they have control? >> sources have told cnn that the immediate aftermath of the summit was focused more on containing the fallout from that disastrous press conference trump had alongside putin and less on the substance of the meeting. that was made difficult because trump and putin met alone with their translator. there are many administration officials who still don't have a full picture of what was

discussed let alone the american people. and because the white house has refused to provide details of these agreements that the kremlin is claiming trump and putin struck, that's left an information vacuum that obviously moscow has been more than happy to fill. because the white house was back on its heels, on defense all week this week, that allowed russia to shape the narrative surrounding the meeting. the only thing the white house has been out front on have been negative. one is the potential deal involving putin's request to have two american citizens handed over to the russians for interrogations. obviously that was an extremely controversial prospect that the white house did say trump was considering before ruling it out a day later. the other was the invitation that was extended to putin to visit the white house sometime this fall. at the time that that was announced via a tweet, the director of national intelligence, dan coates, office a stage and in a position to find out publicly from a

reporter. the two things the white house tried to be up front about have been disastrous and worse. >> let's talk about when dia coates was being interviewed by andrea mitchell and learned on live television that vladimir putin was being invited to the u.s. in the fall, the white house. the president specifically reportedly not happy with his laughter after learning that. is he in trouble? is his job in jeopardy? >> you know, i think president trump has gone back and forth on how he views coates. and there were some reports that he was trying to be nicer to him because he thought he box office to leave. now he is -- he was about to leave. now he is angrier, i'm hearing from sources, at coates for the comments. this is what happens, as sarah said, when there is a vacuum. when people aren't, you know, given information. and when two leaders meet one on one and there aren't readouts provided, this is a pretty traditional, standard thing. that once leaders meet, they're

briefed, you know, they brief their counterparts, they brief other agencies. and it goes on and on. and there has been a vacuum all week. and people i've been hearing from, nfc officials, you know, former nfc officials, who have complained, who said, you know, this is not how we do things. this is why russia is now controlling the narrative. >> any indication, sarah, that the next meeting will be inclusive, that will not be initially one on one but will include the d&i, the secretary of state, the chief of staff, that this will be an expanded meeting from the start? >> it's likely that president trump is going to be advised to have more senior officials in the room with him. you heard coates during that appearance this week say that he would have suggested trump do the meeting a different way. the complete lack of other individuals in the room besides trump, putin, and their translators, has created a situation where there's a

possibility that other administration officials may never know everything that was discussed during that meeting and are left looking at these potential tentative agreements that putin and trump supposedly struck through the lens of trump's recollection. and as we know, that's not always reliable. so certainly that's something that trump may be advised going forward. again, think about the timing of when this meeting will take place. in the fall when republicans are potentially -- before the midterms in november. this is going to be a really difficult time for republicans to be put again in the awkward position of having to criticize president trump's unpopular strategy toward russia. >> amy, let me ask you a legislative question here. senators rubio and van hallen introduced several months ago this deter act which would essentially trigger automatic sanction against russia if the director determines russia has

interfered in another election. it's getting bipartisan support, support on thursday. what's the viability of that, that even president trump would sign that, encroaching upon the executives' powers, or that if he doesn't, that they'd get veto-proof majorities in both chambers? >> i don't think it's very likely, victor. i mean, if the president has -- if he's indicated a reluctance to do that, congress tried to put something out earlier. the president has sort of pushed back against that. i don't see that happening at all. what you are seeing is more and more republicans behind the scenes come out and say, you know, i'm not okay with this. i'm not okay with this. and i've been hearing more over the last couple of days. that's pretty interesting. and then you had a congressman talk about the problem in the pages of "the new york times" which was also, you know, something that was relatively shocking for a lot of people. i think going forward, i think a lot of republicans will be voicing their apprehension about what's happened with russia. and especially as putin tries in

moscow, tries to control the narrative increasingly. >> amy, sarah, thank you both. >> thank you. still to come, something a lot of people have been waiting to see this upcoming week. the trial for former campaign chairman paul manafort. the charges he faces and what we can expect to hear from this. plus, all 17 victims have now been identified in that deadly boat accident in missouri. coming up, we hear from a woman who lost nine family members including her three children. and a prominent houston doctor shot and killed on his way to work. coming up, the hunt for his killer and the doctor's connection to former president george h.w. bush. (vo) why are subaru outback owners always smiling? because they've chosen the industry leader. subaru outback holds its value better than any other vehicle in its class, according to alg. better than rav4.

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manafort. >> remember that manafort was at the helm during a critical time in the campaign. his prior lobbying work for ukraine, pro-russian government, that's what led to his ouster at the end of the day. and then it made him a target for the special counsel. >> jury selection begins on wednesday. in total, manafort faces 25 criminal charges in two separate cases. one in virginia, the other in washington, d.c. now in virginia, he faces 18 counts of bank and tax fraud. seven other charges in d.c. include failing to register as a foreign agent. the trial is scheduled to start in september. prosecutors from special counsel robert mueller's team have laid out almost 500 pieces of evidence they plan to present including pictures of manafort's five homes and his expensive cars and his pricey clothing. >> cnn legal analyst and former new york city homicide prosecutor paul callen with us now. thank you for being here. first and foremost, your thoughts on 500 different pieces of evidence. common? >> no. this is a really huge and complex case they've put

together against paul manafort. i was going through the exhibits earlier today, and there are actually 24 pages of numbered exhibits which come out to over 500 exhibits in the case. not to mention all of the witnesses, including five given immunity by the judge. it's a complex federal case. >> anything that you saw in the evidence that stood out to you? >> yes. the most interesting thing i think were the items of luxury that the prosecutor is going to show to the jury by way of pictures and in other ways to prove that paul manafort lied about his taxes. the taxes that he should have paid and his income. for instance, there's a picture of a putting green on one of manafort's homes in the hamptons. there's a pictures of a $21,000 watch that he owns, pictures of expensive automobiles. actually, even pictures of extremely expensive suits that

manafort wears. this is an indication of what we call a lifestyle case. the government puts up all of the things you own to show how much they're worth. then the government puts up another chart showing possible sources of income. in the chart, the jury will see that his income doesn't even come close to supporting the luxury lifestyle that he lives, and then they ask the jury to believe that this is obviously a case of tax fraud. he made a lot more money than he's declaring, and he's, therefore, guilty of tax fraud. >> you mentioned the five witnesses that are seeking immunity. we do not know who those five witnesses are. we want to be clear about that. this case started as a russia investigation, and his moves now evolved into what we see here, money laundering, bank, and tax fraud and the like. and what does the fact that there are five witnesses seeking immunity, what does that tell you that might be revealed? might it go beyond this money laundering? >> you know, i think you'll hear

a lot about how paul manafort conducted his business, his connections in ukraine, his connections probably to the russians, as well. and eventually this probably in the end, not in this trial, but it's going to be linked back to president trump in the end because i suspect that what manafort has always been looking for is to link to russian contacts and maybe some of them started with manafort's dealings even before he went to work for trump. this is the beginning of a process that i think that mueller's going to use to try to link the russians to trump. >> dr. tony paige last history who said he thinks the best defense for manafort is to simply be patient and quiet and wait for president trump's pardon. do you think that's going to happen? >> i think it may well happen. i think page's annaalysis is accurate.

if you're paul manafort sitting there, i think you'll hope for a more aggressive defense than that. i think you'll try to build reasonable doubt into the minds of the jurors bay saying that this -- by saying that this is an unfair analysis of my income, that there are lots of other ways -- i've been a successful businessman for many, many years. there are lots of other ways this money could have been accumulated and that the government is trying to smear me by saying that i've been very, very successful in what i do. so i think you'll see a case where manafort's attorneys try to prove reasonable doubt in the case and say look at this case, they have to depend on five witnesses who got immunity from testimony. there are ways you'll see a fierce attack by the defense. >> all they need is reasonable doubt. thank you, sir. >> thank you. former president george h.w. bush is offering his condolences this morning after the murder of a prominent houston doctor. coming up, the search for the killer and some of the unusual details involved in this killing. and you know, all 17 victims have been identified in that deadly duck boat accident in

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so glad to have you with us. 27 minutes past the hour. i'm christi paul. >> i'm victor blackwell. good morning to you. >> so listen, this morning we

know all 17 victims of the missouri duck boat crash have been identified. a team from the ntsb says it could take up to a year for details to be released. >> this happened in table rock lake, branson, missouri, a memorial was held for the 17 victims. the ship sank in hurricane-like winds of almost 70 miles per hour. this morning a mother who lost nine family members including her three children. she says the decision to try and beat an approaching storm may have cost her relatives their lives. >> there's big, huge waves, choppy. everybody start getting like, hey, this is a little bit too much. then it got really choppy and big swells of water started coming into the boat. then a huge wave swept over. when the wave swept over, the last thing i heard my

sister-in-law yell was "grab the baby." >> reporter: that's when the boat started sinking. >> my head pushed up to the top of the water, and i lost control. i couldn't see anybody. i know it wasn't, but it felt like i struggled for -- it felt like i struggled for at least an hour. it was probably like ten minutes. >> so far survivors have been released from the hospital. doctors say it's unclear when coleman will be able to go home. police in houston are looking for the suspect who shot and killed a cardiologist who treated former president george h.w. bush as he was a patient of his. cnn correspondent paolo sandoval is live for us in new york. so i understand this doctor, he was more than a physician to the former president. he was prominent in the houston medical community. >> reporter: his name was mark hausknecht, had been in practice for nearly four decades. well respected. a pillar in the medical community in houston. police in the texas city are trying to find his killer, and more importantly, a motive. police in houston searching an

area near the texas medical center for a murder suspect after cardiologist mouse hausknecht was gunned down -- mark hausknecht was gunned down riding his bike to work. the doctor was riding north when he passed the shooter also on a bike going the other direction. >> the suspect was on a bicycle, as well. drove past, rode past the doctor, turned, and fired two shots. the doctor immediately went down. >> reporter: a private ambulance passed by the scene, an emt stopped to help before the houston fire department arrived. >> i seen somebody flagging us down. i said, you know, something's wrong. then i drove up further, and i seen a gentleman sprawled out on the floor with blood all over him. >> we stopped, rendered aid to the best of our ability. >> reporter: authorities said investigators don't know if the shooting was targeted, random, or caused by road rage. a few people may have witnessed the attack, and police are looking at surveillance video. >> our homicide investigators are interviewing people. another good thing about our medical center, as you know, there's a lot of cameras. we're hoping that we can get

some -- some footage of this. >> reporter: one of hausknecht's former patients was president george h.w. bush. his spokesman issued a statement saying, "mark was a fantastic cardiologist and a good man." president bush said in a statement, "i will always be grateful for his exceptional compassionate care. his family is in our prayers." a houston methodist hospital spokesman also releasing a statement saying, not only was he revered by his patients, but mark was highly regarded among his peers and colleagues. he was recently recognized as a super doctor. so far police have only described their suspect as a white or hispanic man in his 30s. at the time of the shooting yesterday morning, he was riding a light-colored mountain bike. ultimately authorities are pouring over surveillance video in the area and hoping that someone perhaps saw something. after all, the shooting did happen during what was considered rush hour there on the hospital complex. guys? >> just bizarre. paolo sandoval, thank you very

much. still to come, michael cohen, the president's former attorney and fixer, secretly taped a discussion with the president about a payment to a former "playboy" model. new questions now about how far they would go to suppress allegations of an extramarital affair from going public. also, secretary of state mike pompeo is organizing a meeting of international political and religious leaders. and they're going to talk about religious liberty. we're talking about the agenda here, and there are questions raised about how dedicated the trump administration is to religious freedom. whenshe was pregnant,ter failed, in-laws were coming, a little bit of water, it really- it rocked our world. i had no idea the amount of damage that water could do. we called usaa. and they greeted me as they always do. sergeant baker, how are you? they were on it. it was unbelievable. having insurance is something everyone needs, but having usaa- now that's a privilege. we're the baker's and we're usaa members for life.

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ask your rheumatologist about cosentyx. the president's former attorney, michael cohen, secretly recorded a discussion with the president about a payment to a former "playboy" model. the news is sparking new questions about just how far the president and his lawyers will go to suppress allegations of an extramarital affair from going public. here with me to discuss, cnn political commentator and former senior communications adviser for the trump campaign, jason miller. jason, good morning to you. >> good morning. >> all right. first question here, you were with the campaign in 2016, september of 2016, specifically, when this conversation happened. did you know about the payment or conversation about the payment? >> not at all. and everything i'm learning here is from cnn or "the new york times," rather public sources of information. i think important to keep in

mind is that we're having a conversation about a conversation that neither one of us have heard, nor has anybody else outside of the legal team. who has seen the transcript is the trump legal team who doesn't believe there's anything at all problematic for the president. i think it's important to keep in mind that what we're talking again about here is a conversation, a brief conversation that was recorded from a former trump attorney who has gone and hired a bill clinton attorney in lanny davis, and ultimately this is under the purview, under the investigation of the southern district of new york, not the mueller investigation. if this was something that was problematic for the president, i think rosenstein would have kept it with the mueller investigation. this is something i think that's more problematic for mr. cohen. >> okay. so i was going to say before you got to the last two sentences, everything you said there was fact. the last two were opinion. i can't fight you on your opinion there. but you did say we're talking about a conversation about a conversation, yes. the context is important, right?

this is a conversation that if when hope hicks said in november of 2016 that we, quote, have no knowledge of anything of this, if that were true, this conversation could not have happened. so that leads to the next question. the story has changed repeatedly, both about karen mcdougal and about stormy daniels. what the president knew, what he was involved in, where the money came from. what credibility does this administration, does this president, do his supporters who speak with -- about him on this, in this context, what credibility do any of you have now in trying to convince the american people something did or did not happen? >> i would say, again, you're innocent until proven guilty here. i haven't seen one piece of evidence put forward saying that the president's statements or anything from his team have been inaccurate or wrong. >> okay, stop there. stop there. >> okay.

>> sarah sanders from the podium at the white house said president trump knew nothing about the payments to stormy daniels. then word that he not only knew but reimbursed michael cohen. >> only the legal team is the one that will speak with more authority there. that's why you need to have your outside legal entity that's doing the speaking on that and not asking someone behind the podium to do it. good for the mayor to make sure that those details are tight and detailed -- >> how about this, let's take another one here. hope hicks said in november, 2016, "we have no knowledge of any of this," speaking about the karen mcdougal payment. "we now know that the president discussed potentially an additional payment to mcdougal or reimbursing ami," the parent company of "the national enquirer," "for its payment to mcdougal" in september of 2016. >> as we know from the cnn.com story that i believe that you're referring to, that there was no

payment to karen mcdougal from trump world -- >> correct. >> so again, what are we talking about because there wasn't payment -- >> we're talking about honesty, right? the campaign -- >> hold on. victor -- >> the campaign says we had no knowledge of any of this. that's not true. >> yeah, the campaign didn't have any knowledge of any of this. you're trying to say that there was no payment from the trump org -- >> her answer wasn't there was no payment, it was we have no knowledge of it. two months prior, one would assume that "we" includes the candidate himself, right, or is that unfair here? >> again, i think you're trying to put words in people's mouths. there was no payment to miss mcdougal. so i think it's a moot point. nothing has changed on that front. >> okay. the audience knows exactly what was said because we've reported it, and we now know what is truth. let me move to one other thing here about -- it may be laughable, but those are facts. let's move on -- >> no, but victor --

>> go ahead -- >> no, it's -- look, i mean, you can dismiss it, but there's no payment to miss mcdougal -- >> that is true. i am not -- >> the cnn.com story is very clear to that point. so i don't see -- >> we're not debating that. >> i don't see what's inaccurate here -- >> the question is -- i think we've laid out what is inaccurate. the campaign says that they had no knowledge of any of this. we now know that the president, indeed, had or then candidate had knowledge of it. that on its face is -- is the truth versus what we were told two months later. >> we're going to have to agree to disagree on this because from the campaign side, didn't know anything about this. >> okay. >> that's not something that i can speak to. again, what i can speak to is the cnn.com story that we're talking about that was reported last night that clearly states out that there's nothing that's problematic in here for the president. and to this point, this remains -- >> that's rudolph giuliani's spin on it.

>> there are other sources that were there that made that pretty clear, as well. again, going back to what i think is the bigger picture, i think people at home should keep in mind, if this fundamentally were problematic for the president, i believe that this would have, again, my opinion, but i think it's also the opinion shared by trump supporters and legal experts, this would be under the purview of the mueller investigation and not the southern district of new york. i think that's a critical detail, victor. >> okay, jason miller, thank you very much. the state department is hosting dozens of world, civic, and political leaders at a meeting this coming week to talk about religious liberty, something that people are very passionate about. we're going to talk about why secretary of state mike pompeo says the president's praise for russian president putin fits right into this agendas.

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this coming week, it's a first-of-its-kind event for secretary of state mike pompeo bringing together foreign and religious leaders for a meeting on how to safeguard religious freedom around the world. politico is reporting it's playing well with president trump's evangelical voter base. foreign affairs correspondent for politico who's covering the story with us now, as well as john thea, author of "believe me: the evangelical road to donald trump." "believe me" coming from donald trump's many speeches where he says "believe me, believe me," where this is coming from. >> yes. >> thank you both for being with us. appreciate it. i wanted to ask you, nahal, the "washington post" reporting that last year the u.s. government list of worst violators of religious liberty, russia is on that list. secretary of state mike pompeo had said in a call with reporters earlier this week that the praise of putin is part of

the strategy for president trump here. that the u.s. is hopeful that the engagement president trump has had will begin to turn this in the right direction and that the administration has spoken with russians on religious freedom. is praise a good strategy? >> i think that very much remains to be seen. russia has had an increasingly troubling track record on religious freedom. and i -- i don't know that praising vladimir putin, although it might make him happy on a certain egotistical level, necessarily means that he's going to change policies that he feels help keep him in power to a certain degree. you know, i guess it doesn't necessarily hurt if the president was -- if the president was trashing vladimir putin, it's not necessarily going to push him to do more to help religious groups. but praise, i think we'll have to see on that. it could just be a neutral thing. >> how -- how much is president trump willing to go to bat for

this issue with russia, john, and does it matter to evangelicals? >> yeah. i'm not sure how much donald trump is going to bat. i know his staff, his secretary of state, mom. had -- his secretary of state mike pompeo, had said he is going to go to bat. o'think this is a huge issue for evangelicals. trump wasn't on elidge just liberty. religious liberty to many evangelicals means something very different than the kind of international religious liberty for all religions, not just christianity, that many religious liberty advocates and scholars put forward. so, for in america, in a domestic situation, trump voters, they see religious liberty as essentially religious liberty for their christian beliefs and their understanding of the christian identity of america. >> but they don't see it for say

muslims? the president you know ran on this playing that he was born to keep muslims out of the u.s. and muslim countries. how do you classify? how do you correspond two very different ideals? >> sure, i think many evangelical leaders pay lip service to religious liberty for muslims, for all faiths, but ultimately, the trump policies have not back thad up, whether it be the muslim band or several other paless. >> i want to ask you, pyeongchangio also said this, he said it will not be a discussion group. it will be about action. we look forward to push back for greater freedoms for all. he wants more than talk, more

than words, what actionable efforts are expected out of this event this week? >> we do expect to see simply more than declaration. one of the things people are hoping theed a pipstration will do and the other leaders that are gathered. we are talking 80 countries, is perhaps the creation of institutions to promote religious freedom, maybe appoint religious ambassadors or commission that convene to try to figure out, engage it domestically. if i can add one more thing on the russian front, the state have not commented on whether russia has been invited to this event. i was told to a pretty important staffer that russia has thought been invited. let's not forget that. that's not necessarily being nice to the russians to invite them. >> i have to get the last

question in. because there are some readvantar evangelicals refuse to forgive donald trump. i want to listen to what pastor jeffers said. >> we are choosing to support his policies. we're not under any illusion we were voting for an altar boy when we voted for president trump. we knew about his past. by the way, none of us has a perfect past. we voted for him because of his policies. >> john, why do they look the other way? do they simply hope he is going to put, go in the direction of their policies, their driving force? to support the president? >> i think sadly someone who identifies as an evangelical question is what we see here, the end justifies the mean,

advisers to donald trump are certainly interested in things like abortion and religious lib as they understand it. it's huge. whether or not trump had the affair with mcdougall or stormy daniels or anyone, whether or not he lied about it is really irrelevant and if it comes out all of this is true, it's not going to move the needle for trump's evangelical support one bit as mentioned in that clip. >> we still appreciate you taking your time to be with us. thank you. we'll be right back.

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absolutely guaranteed. sometimes they do right themselves. so few have good juicy ideas, you don't need a script, can you wing it. >> we have moved past the tightly scripted comedy the impact gives eight rawness of a spontaneity the audience is seeking i think in the comedy they watch these days. >> the original series, the history of comedy airs sunday fight 10:00 p.m. eastern right here on cnn. this is "new day weekend" with kristi blackwell. >> over a week they are worried the meeting may have