welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. thank you for sharing your day with us. another giant story change from the president's top lawyer. rudy giuliani now says maybe trump campaign aides did communicate or collude with russians, but he says it's no big deal because the candidate himself didn't. plus long-time fixer michael cohen says the boss directed him to rig polls to help generate fake news about trump's popularity. rigged polls. fake news. go figure. and they're still sparring over who is to blame for the

partial government shutdown, but today the president and the speaker of the house nancy pelosi united and taking time to pay tribute to four americans killed yesterday in that suicide bombing in syria. >> i want to take a moment to express my deepest condolences to the families of the brave american heroes who laid down their lives yesterday in selfless service to our nation. >> sadly, this week was marked by the great tragedy of our losing our brave men and women in uniform. they were killed in a terror attack in syria. so very, very sad. >> amen to that. we begin today with an eye-popping statement and a significant story change from the president's lead attorney. rudy giuliani telling cnn there might well have been cooperation or collusion between the trump campaign and russia. >> i never said there was no collusion between the campaign or between people in the campaign --

>> yes, you have. >> i have not. i said the president of the united states. there is not a single bit of evidence the president of the united states committed the only crime you could commit here, conspired with the russian to see hack the dnc. >> the faulty spin about the only crime committed here, the faulty spin about the law. that is a dramatic realtime revision of a trump administration constant, that there was no collusion, full stop. on the president's twitter feed alone, 60 tweets feature the no collusion defense. now rudy giuliani wants you to ignore everything you've heard and seen before and believe this. >> you didnhe didn't say nobodyd he didn't. he didn't say nobody. how would you know? >> now, you just heard him. what he just said requires you to suspend logic and forget that the president's lawyer himself and the president forget that they ever said this. >> is it still the position of

you and your client that there was no collusion with the russians whatsoever on behalf of the trump campaign? >> correct. >> there has been no collusion between the trump campaign and russians or trump and russians, no collusion. >> that was then, and here we are, this is now. with me to share the reporting and their insights, npr's tim rokif, phil mattingly. he said forget everything you have on tape, forget everything the president said, forget everything i have said, forget everything documented, we have a new story. why? >> i think rudy is trying to do the right thing for his client, which is to try to get some distance between president trump and candidate trump and paul manafort, the chairman of the campaign, who it was revealed in the court filings in the last couple of weeks had been sharing

internal poll data with people who were connected to the russian government, according to the special counsel. so i think -- you know, based on our own reporting behind the scenes, they realize this is something they need to do. they probably should have done this a while ago, but i think now is probably better than never, right? but even just the comments that rudy giuliani made to chris cuomo last night, this is like cleanup in aisle rudy, right, where he has to come back and fix it again in clarifying it to dana bash this morning saying, i don't want the trump campaign, i represent president trump and that's really what i was talking about. look, i think this is where they needed to get to legally, politically. it just took a while for them to get there. >> he, by default, his choice, he mentioned the dnc hack, too. we know another area the special counsel is looking into is were there some communications between the president's ally roger stone, roger stone's

friend corsi, we know that's a subject of controversy, too. we know they know more than we know. on the connection of the polling, paul manafort and campaign for president, donald trump, shares this polling with russians. paul manafort knows because he has work tied to the kremkremli. rudy giuliani said what? >> it's not collusion. >> how is that? >> it's given to them. >> it's not given to everybody. >> i can't speak for paul manafort. first of all, the most inappropriate, the most inaccurate stuff is internal polling data. all of it is cooked. >> i've been covering campaigns for 32 years, i think, if my math is correct. i don't know of any campaign that shares their polling with the russians, friendly

governments, non-friendly governments? anyone else? >> i thought it was the outside polling data that was the wrong data. >> i'm making light of this because of the absurdity of what rudy giuliani said. we cannot connect these dots. the special counsel is trying to see if they can be connected. if you have polling data that say, here are our strengths, here are our weaknesses. why they have this inactive polling information, that's gold. >> sirens kind of went off across the board. okay, this is actual substantive documentation of something trading hands that could have a tangible effect on how someone would operate if they wanted to mess around with the election. i think the difficulty with rudy giuliani right now, and i think a lot of us heard it last night and thought, does he know something is coming? we've seen this before, where he looks like he steps in something, when in fact he is laying the groundwork for sgc t

something. he told dana bash he didn't know anything in advance, but as you point out, they know more than we know. the special counsel knows more than everybody. is there something here to lay the ground work for something? rudy giuliani said no. >> and this is what rudy giuliani does. you mentioned cleanup on aisle rudy. exhibit a, and all of our heads snapped back when we remember for months and months and months, no collusion, no one in the trump campaign. that's what the president said, no one in the campaign, not just him. payments to stormy daniels and karen mcdougal? the president had nothing to do with that. >> paying some stormy daniels woman 140,000 which is going to turn out to be perfectly legal. that money was not campaign money. sorry, i'm giving you a fact now that you don't know. it's not c campaign money. no campaign finance violation. >> they funneled through a law

firm. >> funneled through a law firm and the president repaid it. >> he did? >> yeah. >> there is no campaign finance law? >> zero. >> you don't decide that on cable television, you decide that looking at the laws and then maybe potentially in a courtroom. >> and michael cohen, the president's attorney who was involved in that transaction, has pleaded guilty to a campaign finance violation. under the eyes of the law, at this point it was against the law. the thing to know about rudy giuliani is he is part of the president's legal team. he is the public face of the president's legal team most of the time. he's sort of the tv lawyer. but he's not doing the nitty-gritty legal work of building the defense, he's doing the public defense. and so what i take from him coming out is that he is doing -- he is making a public relations case. he is trying to work the refs ahead of what may be coming. >> work the refs because one of

the bigger questions is whatever bob mueller decides from a legal perspective there will be a political conversation especially now that the democrats run the house. will there be impeachment? even if there isn't impeachment, they can investigate every one of these questions for the next two years while he's in the house. is this working? >> yes, especially since there is no republican leaders in the house. the president is running an election in what is expected to be an historically large field of democrats and will take place in the mueller investigation. there are so much we don't know quite yet. they'll be able to use that to launch the president's credibility as we're seeing his favorability is slipping, even within his base. >> many of the lawyers who were sharing information with trump's legal team have stopped doing so because manafort is cooperating

now. roger stone is a friend of the president. i suspect everything he hears by the special counsel gets relayed to team trump. what does rudy giuliani know that we don't? >> i think people like roger stone, jim corsi, people like that, have been providing information to the president's lawyers. jared kushner and donald trump jr.'s attorneys are also sharing information. but i think you're right, what you're seeing is there is sort of a closing in of the circle here, and what it means is that the president's lawyers are ever more in the dark because they don't know what else mueller has. he may have intelligence intercepts showing that people in -- on the russian side were talking about what they were hearing from inside the trump campaign, so these are the types of things they're completely in the dark about and it's unnerving. that's what you're seeing from giuliani because this polling thing was a very big surprise to

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the great-tasting nutrition of ensure. with up to 30 grams of protein and 26 vitamins and minerals! ensure. for strength and energy. today, day 27 of the partial government shutdown. that's 27 days of a stalemate between the president and the democrats. spoiler alert, you probably already know this, there is no end in sight. how nancy pelosi is defending her position to suggest that the president reschedule his state of the union address. she says his demands are a luxury. >> i'm not denying him at all, let's get a date when the government is open. maybe he thinks it's okay to not pay people who do work. i don't. and my caucus doesn't, either. the president's insistence is a

luxu luxury for the country. insisting on a wall is a luxury the country can't afford. >> the president just moments ago taking it one step further saying she, meaning pelosi, and other radical democrats, as the president calls them, has i jack -- hijacked the party. >> we need strong barriers and walls. nothing else is going to work. while many democrats in the house and senate would like to make a deal, speaker pelosi will not let them negotiate. the party has been hijacked by the open borders fringe within the party. the radical left becoming the radical democrats. >> cnn's abby phillip is live for us at the white house. abby, when you list ton ten to speaker and you listen to the president, things don't appear to be getting any closer.

>> i think you're right, john. when you look in that window, it gives you a piece of the president's state of mind. he gave a lengthy section of the speech almost entirely dedicated to his desire for a border wall. the president, in those comments this morning just like all the previous days of the 27-day shutdown hasn't changed his language at all. he hasn't changed his demands and is not moving off his mark. the sense we're getting at the white house, really, nothing has changed. the democrats came to the white house and met with president trump which by all accounts was a pretty collegiate meeting, but there were no breaktl dbreakthra result of that. one wrinkle is nancy pelosi has asked the president to cancel or postpone his plans to give the state of the union address on january 29th, which is in about a week and a half, and the white house is still deliberating on how to respond to that. it's been interesting to see

them not respond formally to this which is a shot across the bow from nancy pelosi. president trump hasn't even mentioned it in his twitter remarks this morning. so what we are hearing from white house aides is that they're still trying to figure out what to do here. should president trump give his own remarks in some other kind of venue to perhaps further prosecute this case for a border wall, but at the end of the day, on the 29th of january, this shutdown is still going on, it's clearly a sign this process is not moving forward in any way, shape or form, the fact they're considering any kind of venue for the state of the union address, john. >> there doesn't even appear to be a process to be broken. appear by phillip, appreciate it live at the white house. michael scherer joins our conversation. if you talk to people around the white house, people who take phone calls from the white house, they say there are presidential aides calling around saying, where's the deal? you don't hear that from the president and you don't hear that from the speaker at all.

the maris poll out today. the question, will something cause the president to blink? among registered voters, his approval rate is down. among republicans, it's down a little bit. white men with college degrees, down a little bit. women with no college degrees, down a bit. pieces of the president's base, one poll. don't go running off to vegas. but if you're the president, this is the beginning of the ramp-up to reelection, you're seeing a torn economy and your numbers going down a little bit. is that enough to get him to say let's somehow find an opening here? >> another challenge he faces is he ran for president as the guy who can make the deals. elect me, i'm the one who can make the deals. the other thing he ran for president on is building the wall. now these things are linked. he can't unlink them, he can't get out without making some sort of a deal, and he's in a really, really tough spot there.

>> he appears to be recognizing it. whether the public rhetoric hasn't changed, and i think that's true, there hasn't been any crack in his public rhetoric, but my colleagues at "the times" reported that he is in private frustrated and upset and fuming and all of the things we always say about him. i think the quote that was attributed to him, we're getting crushed on this. because guess what? he's watching tv, and even on fox news, even on the places that he watches, this is playing out in a way that isn't beneficial to him politically and i think he recognizes that. if there's anything he cares about, it's what he looks like on tv. >> where is the offramp? what force convinces one, meaning the president and the speaker, or both, meaning the president and the speaker, to decide we have to try to be grown-ups here. immigration as much if not more than any other issue proves the two americas we live in. pugh asked this question of adults. do you favor or not favor a

border wall? 82% of republicans favor it, 6% of democrats favor it. the president is fighting for one, speaker pelosi is fighting for another. >> if you are a republican, i . think you want the president to hold his ground. those who don't want the wall don't want to see him cutting a deal with them. they're opening the door for the president to use this exact same tactic on any other number of issues he's looking to highlight as he runs for president. the reason why things are so stuck is there are no real incentives for anyone and it's leaving americans' lives and essential services hanging in the balance. >> are there any cracks apparent? i know republican senators have come forth. that's not enough. you would have to get the

leader's attention and the leader would have to get the president's attention. you do have ron johnson, republican senator, said, right now, are you seeing any pressure on democrats? i think republicans are getting the lion's share of the pressure. the president accepted the blame so people are happy to give it to him. >> as the days and weeks have went on, i think it's amazing how little republicans are feeling this right now. they're saying, look, our guys don't want to move on this. they feel far more pain if they cross the president in the districts than anything else. you talk about the senate? there are groups trying to work unsuccessfully, trying to wriggle out of this right now. as long as that's the case, leadership isn't going to change their position. leadership isn't going to pick up the phone and say, our guy has a problem here, we have to move. if that doesn't occur, what

triggers the president? what changes the dynamic here? the incentives are misaligned right now and there is not a sign they're going to soon. getting the market to move in a positive manner might do something, but even if you say it affects the gdp, people aren't sure of it because of the fight he continues to have and the fight he needs to have. >> if he gets to that point and he signals he's ready to take a lot less for his border wall, the question is will the democrats give him any? coming up, the president's long-time fixer admits trying to fix on-line polls, rigged polls. get the irony?

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we all know the president likes to complain about rigged polls and fake news. now we know he likes to rig polls to generate fake news. former trump fixer michael cohen admitted today, as first reported by the "wall street journal," that he hired a tech company back in 2014 and again in 2015 to try to rig a pair of online popularity polls in donald trump's favor. the hope was it would generate favorable headlines and cable chatter. the first, a high-ranking

republican. the cost? a million-dollar payment. he said, what i did was at the direction of and for the sole benefit of donald j. trump. i truly regret my blind loyalty to a man who doesn't deserve it. what can you tell us about this bizarre story? >> it is bizarre, indeed, and just fascinating, because as you said the president loves to complain about rigged polls but apparently doesn't have much of an issue when he's rigging it for himself. the "wall street journal" story says michael cohen hired this man john gogger, who works for a tech company in virginia, to rig online polls to make donald trump look good. in early 2014, he said he went to the trump tower to get his payment of $50,000 from michael cohen.

according to the journal, michael cohen handed him a walmart bag full of cash but only of $12,000, 12 to $13,000, the story said, instead of the full $50,000 payment. now, according to the journal, even though gogger was only paid this amount of money, michael cohen proceeded to, in 2017, go to donald trump and ask for the $50,000, which donald trump proceeded to pay. now, michael cohen tells the "wall street journal," i should note, that the cash payment part of this is not true, and this is actually the most bizarre part of the story that he was handed a bag full of cash. michael cohen said to the journal, all moneys paid to mr. gogger were bay check, but clearly according to the story you just read, john, he's not denying the.

>> michael cohen also asked them to set up a twitter account for cohen to boost his profile. on the one hand it's like, you can't make this stuff up, and if you brought this script to hollywood, they would laugh you out the door. on the other hand, though, it is significant because one thing president trump is trying to do is coffee boy michael cohen, essentially saying efr, he was of my lawyers, he did some low-rate stuff. this story reminds us that the president can't do that. michael cohen was his right-hand man, his dirty trickster, his

fixer, and when trump was trying to boost himself, michael cohen was his point guy. >> and there's so much we don't know and michael cohen will be testifying publicly before a democratic-controlled oversight committee in just a short amount of time. everybody thinks every single day there is a new revelation every other week. it just underscores that a lot more could come out and the white house is not thrilled. i can't believe mj left out the idea that there is apparently a unc boxing glove that was given as payment as well? i would say, one, it's the testimony i'm struck by, and two, anyone who covers the campaign for any piece of time, it just underscores how off the cuff jerryrigged, not put together, kind of random group of people.

>> all 40 democrats running for nomination. >> the very things the president has made his mission in life to attack, right, the idea of fake news, is the sort of -- i mean, it's not like this should be a huge surprise, right, but the thing his own campaign tracked in and the thing he denies on behalf of his campaign is again the thing his campaign was engaged in. and so the -- you know, it's kind of one more on the can you believe this meter that we've been living with for the last two and a half years. >> the not comedy part of this is an organization, a person, donald trump and the trump organization reimbursing michael cohen for services he paid for in order to help the president's potential campaign, that is at the very heart of the southern district of new york's case against michael cohen related to

stormy daniels and karen mcdoo mcdougal. these are all of a piece. >> that they blatantly ignored the rules and the laws and spent their money. i think michael cohen will have several trips to capitol hill. the oversight committee who has been listening to the president, and the president says michael cohen is a liar. he's also dropped innuendo about his in-laws. elijah cummings says, mr. president, be quiet. >> when we cannot get information because people feel intimidated, that's a major problem. we just had some concerns with regards to some of the statements that the president made about in-laws of mr. cohen, and we just wanted to make sure that the president was just reminded of what the law is. >> it tells you two things. number one, we live in a new washington. there is one branch of congress that is saying no and giving other advice or other warnings

to the president. that didn't exist until this month. and number two, they can call witnesses, and mr. cohen will be just one of them. >> absolutely, and i think his testimony will be one of the clearest public indications we have as what we can expect moving forward in these investigations. i agree with you and phil this will not be michael cohen's only trip to the hill. and what cnn and other journalists have reported, michael cohen is concerned about the impact this will have on his family as he opens up and is likely to tell congressional officials more. as we go to break here, up next, the congressman just announced he's resigning. we'll give you details as to why when we come back. a. otezla is not an injection or a cream. it's a pill that treats differently. for psoriasis, 75% clearer skin is achievable, with reduced redness, thickness, and scaliness of plaques.

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topping our political radar today, get ready for the next campaign. senator chuck schumer already laying plans to try to pick a senate seat in 2020. congressional campaigns said schumer picked the challenger on senator mark mcsally. he's also had similar conversations with kelly and with grant woods who once served on the late senator john mccain's staff. tom marino says he's leaving congress. he says he'll take a job in the private sector. marino has served congress since 1997. he leaves next week. the boston globe reports representative paul mcmurtry

allegedly grabbed the backside of a woman at a cocktail party last month. he apologized. nancy pelosi asking that the president postpone his state of the union speech. but the president has other things on his mind.

the president was at the pentagon last hour. his stated goal for making the trip across the potomac river, to outline the new defense strategy including a new take on what the united states has come to the conclusion is an urgent need to upgrade the united states's missile defense. the president did talk about that, but clearly in his speech he has other things on ms. mihi, clearly the border standoff, nato and paying his dues.

>> without our borders being defended and being unprotected, i want to thank you for helping us out during this caravan period. but now you have more caravans coming and they're on their way out. we protect these countries, which i'm willing to do, but many of them are so wealthy, they could easily pay us the cost of this protection. we'll be with nato 100%, but as i told the countries, you have to step up. you have to pay. >> it is still two years in this weekment fas week. fascinating to me where you see him read the prompter, and you see there where he's just riffing and talking about what he wants to talk about. >> and what's the thread through all those things he talks about? it's things that have been on tv and things in the media. things that have been written about him, right? "the times" had a story about

his desire to pull out of nato, the wall is all over television, the caravan is being documented on fox. this is what drives him. it's not briefings, and administration people who try to put him in these settings where they say to him, this is missile defense, sir. this is what you should talk about. it doesn't work. it works briefly for a fleeting moment and then he moves on to what he wants to talk about. >> which is potentially good for him. it's a commander in chief moment, and to the president's credit, he did pay tribute and voice his condolences for the four americans tragically killed yesterday in syria. at the top of the speech, we didn't hear from him yesterday. but then it's a commander in chief moment. they wanted to talk about what the pentagon has concluded is an urgent need to upgrade missile defense because of china, because of russia. others in the administration would argue because of iran as well. good for the president. and yet he wants to digress from time to time because -- >> he's the president and he can. look, this is only, i believe,

the third time in his presidency that trump has gone to the pentagon, and in these comments you really get an unscripted sense of what his mindset really is. i think michael is absolutely right about his fill on tv. this is a president also making a pr case to the american people while we have a standoff over the wall, over priorities of democrats who have control of the house do not agree with. he's making the case directly to the american people. would he go seeing this on cnn. >> that's the fight of the moment. not that missile defense is unimportant, not that it's unimportant to the president, but his fight at the moment is the wall. that's what he's going to talk about. >> i interviewed last week sam nunberg, and he said there are things he'll come back to. complaining about the wall, complaining about nato, these are things he'll always come

back to. last week he was speaking -- or maybe it was earlier this week, he was speaking to the farm bureau organization. he talked about the wall extensively. i'm pretty sure he had a script that was mostly about agricultural-related issues. >> one thing people on capitol hill and around the country are waiting for is what will he say about syria policy? not just that the tragedy happened, but the tragedy happened after he said first i want to get troops out immediately, then he said, i don't want to rush this. rand paul is a bring american boots home yesterday kind of guy. listen. >> he wants to be different than most presidents who say, we're going to go to war but we're never going to win, we're never going to come home. to those who say, and lindsey graham is frankly wrong on this, to those who say we leave and then reorganize, they've been killing each other for a thousand years over there. we've killed some of isis.

can they not kill 1%? can they not do their job? >> this is an interesting debate, and the generals will say, this is proof we need a little more time. to rand paul's point, they've been fighting each other forever and troops have been there for years. not our job anymore. >> i think this is the most fascinating debate in washington right now. at the white house rand paul wasn't the only one over there. marco rubio was over there, senator ernst was over there. senator ernst served and continues to serve in the military. who is going to win this fight instin instinctively and talked about in the campaign extricating u.s. forces from overseas, and not just where the allies are on this issue but where the top advisers are on this issue. the lobbying senators use television, house senators use the phone, house senators use m

impersonal meetings. both sides are using that as an example of why their perspective should win. how this ends up or whether there is some kind of muddled middle ground here, they're keeping an eye on this. up next for us here, beto o'rourke on the road again, outside texas, thinking about 2020. before we go to break, the man who beat beto o'rourke, ted cruz. he's grown a beard. wants to tell you how. >> this is a razor. stop using it.

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beto o'rourke is on the road looking for the big answer. the former texas congressman and progressive darling currently on a solo road trip, and if he has an itinerary, his aides are not revealing it. of course, weighing heavy on his mind, whether or not to run for president. a decision that one of his closest friends tells our jeff zeleny is anyone's guess. >> if anyone would know, i would be one of the first ones to know, and i legitimately think he could go one way or the other. he could call me tomorrow and

say, i'm doing this, and i would be relatively surprised. he could say i'm not doing this and i would be relatively surprised. >> he is doing live showings and journalin journalings. quote, i've been stuck lately, in and out of a funk. it's been more than twenty years since i was last not working. maybe if i get moving, on the road, meet people, learn about what's going on where they live, have some adventure, go where i don't know and i'm not known, it will clear my head, reset, i'll think new thoughts, break out of the loops i've been in. >> it's a fascinating question, because people say he just lost a senate race, so there is no way he can be the democratic candidate nominee. donald trump took over a party.

he had been a democrat, he had been independent. is this a way to make your decision, go on a road trip? first we went to the dentist with him, now we're going to kansas with him. what's next? >> this is more candid than the dozen of more candidates running for president. i think what makes beto's situation a little different is if he does decide to get in this race, he does have a campaign waiting who are already building an organization. they even managed to get some top flight talent in some of these earlier primary states. possibly even some of his closest friends. >> what is the burden? again, donald trump has defied the polls, defied convention. he changed his mind on a number of issues. what is the bar for democrats in the sense that beto o'rourke represented a district just outside el paso down at the border. what would be done to address visa overstays?

i don't know, o'rourke said, pausing in an interview. when it comes to many of the biggest policy issues facing the country today, o'rourke's default stance is to call for a debate. i don't know? it's his district. >> i also think to some degree having no solid position to get pinned down on and hammered on isn't the worst thing in the world. yes, he's going to have to figure out the answers to those questions if he decides to run for president, but there is no necessarily clear model or clear box to how people declare to run, decide to run or when at this point in time. so it's tough to say he's not doing the right thing now or it's the wrong way to go about it. who knows? and is he authentic? >> trump proved you can go a long way by flouting the sort of, you know, political sort of overly political thing that a lot of these other candidates are checking off all the right

political boxes. he's sort of not doing that and maybe that will come across as refreshing. >> maybe. maybe as he travels. he's gone from kansas. maybe he'll go to kansas city to root for not the team on your necklace but to root for the good guys in new england. thanks for joining us on "inside politi politics." brianna keilar starts right now. i'm brianna keilar live from cnn's washington headquarters. underway right now, the goalposts seem to now be in the parking lot as the man defending the president says he can no longer rule out that the trump campaign colluded with the russians. plus the man who used to defend the president now admits rigging online polls to help the campaign. and the president admits he's getting crushed