then we move on to abby joseph cohen of goldman sachs. ng you abby joseph cohen, the synthesis of our financial system with our economics. stay with us. this is bloomberg. ♪ this is bloomberg. ♪ >> this is bloomberg surveillance. japanese prosecutors have on furtherrlos ghosn charges. he is suspected of transferring his personal investment losses to the company. the prosecution retains the right to hold ghosn for 10 more days. ending a year dominated by scandal. now profit will reach 15 billion kroner. as dotsit warning comes deals with -- danske deals with investigation. thank you. china's top policymakers said significant cuts to taxes and fees would be made in 2019. the government tries to put a full under the economic -- floor under the economic slowdown. is this going to be enough? paul: it depends on how aggressive trumps trade is going to be. if we get a fairly benign approach coming through to the u.s., and i think we will because the taxes are starting to hurt the u.s., then what you are seeing is this managed slowdown. the c

don't understand either why, you know, trump has been so vindictive about cohen and so complimentary towards flynn. does abbie know? >> i don't know. but i think we do have to take into consideration here that michael cohen presents really an unprecedented risk to president trump. it is not just about the campaign. it is about the transition. it is about his entire business empire. to potentially endangered his children, which is something president trump is very sensitive about. that could be why there is a certain level of anonymous toward michael cohen who had in his possession not only documents that could imperil trump's entire empire but also secret recordings. he secretly recorded the president and people around him. that might be one explanation. i don't know whether president trump knows what michael flynn has been talking to investigators about for the last year or maybe he doesn't know but is hoping for the best and it is time to signal to someone who has been an early supporter of his. but that's a really major unanswered question here that we have to wait and see until we could find out more. may

cohen is asking a judge he serve no jail time, no prison time for his cooperation in the investigation. abbyip is at the white house with the latest. it is not unusual for the president to go on a tear on twitter about the russia investigation, but he's definitely on a tear this morning. >> absolutely. after a brief hiatus over this weekend, the president is back on the subject of his former personal attorney, michael cohen. he's saying cohen lied, essentially, to get leniency from the court, and he lied specifically about things relating to trump. the president is claiming that what cohen is accused of has to do with fraud, big loans, taxis. he said he made up stories to get great and reduced sentences for himself and his wife and father-in-law. the president said he lied for this outcome and should in my opinion get a full and complete sentence. just a fact check. what michael cohen pled guilty to is lying about something that he claims he talked to president trump about. a business deal they were pursuing in moscow during the campaign. the president goes on to talk about someone else who

abby phillip, thanks very much. >> now to mueller and his court filings regarding paul manafort and michael cohen.e are joined with the breakdown. you had revelations on the cohen side. really remarkable, cohen implicating the president in a federal campaign finance crime, but also revelations on the mueller side, maybe a little murkier. if you could highlight a couple big points, tell us what we learned. >> one thing we did learn from all this on friday is that the president, donald trump, is really the central figure in all of these investigations. the ones here, over at the sdny in new york and really the mueller investigation. what we learned in the cohen filings, moe significantly, as you said, is that investigators from the department of justice, from the u.s. attorney's office here in new york are essentially implicating the president in crimes. they say that he directed -- he was part of and he directed michael cohen to make those hush payments, of course, to women who have alleged sexual affairs with him. we also learned from the mueller filing that russians had reached out to michael coh

and he told michael cohen what to do, according to michael cohen, even though the president says i didn't direct him. >> what do you make, abbyent being somewhat silent about his former fixer? >> silent today. not so much yesterday or -- >> after this interview? this interview is sort of -- i mean, it's really -- >> yeah. >> it's believable, when you listen to him. he's sort of a different kind of person than the somewhat blowhard kind of guy we knew him to be. >> yeah. and i think that there is -- a degree to which yesterday when the president was tweeting, i didn't direct him to break the law -- he is always talking about a case that he probably should not be talking about. and it is -- it would be surprising if people did not whisper in his ear, hey, this is serious this time. maybe you shouldn't talk about it. i think president trump, you can't count on him not talking about michael cohen, because he does often but he says the same things over and over again, that cohen is a liar. the problem, though, the more we go down this line, the more we're seeing why it's not just cohen's word against trump's. it's cohen -- it's tr

. >> abby, the person who has taken a different tact and it is fascinating to watch this is michael cohen. michael cohen who once said he would take a bullet for president trump, who was so dedicated and dutiful to the president has decided to take a different tact and to confess and to -- i mean, from what we can tell, to sort of open up to everything that he has done. "the new york times" has an interesting article this morning on why michael cohen had done this. mr. cohen it says has concluded that his life has been utterly destroyed by his relationship with mr. trump and his own actions and to begin anew he needed to speed up the legal process by quickly confessing his crimes and serving any sentence he receives according to his friends and associates and analysis of documents in the case. he has told friends he is mystified that he is taking the fall for actions that he carried out on behalf of mr. trump who remains unscathed. still he is resigned to accepting responsibility. it is so frankly shakespearian to me. >> a drama. >> it is. >> it's as if he never watched "the sopranos." it

abby phillip in buenos aires. thank you very much. >> thanks. >>> there is other news that we're following this morning, as well. president trump's former attorney michael cohen apparently had been expecting to be protected by the president if he faced any charges. we'll talk about that. >>> and we'll continue with remembrances of president george h.w. bush who has passed away at the age of 94 and his ability to reach across the aisle. apparent from this speech. watch. >> president clinton beat me like a drum back in 1992. [ laughter ] and then we became friends. and some of his friends look at him and say, have you lost it with this crazy guy? and some of mine look at it and say, the same thing, what are you doing with clinton? and just because you run against someone does not mean you have to be enemies. politics does not have to be mean and ugly. h going to extremes for perfect skin? where does it end? new olay whips. while not equal to cosmetic procedures, our b3 complex hydrates to smooth skin. injections? rejected. beautiful skin? accepted olay. whenshe was pregnant,ter failed, in-laws were coming, a little bit of water, it really- it rocked our world.

abby, what we are hearing from the white house is so much expected to come to us today because it's the deadline for these memos when it comes to both paul manafort and cohen, the white house is quiet and even some reporting they are fought planning much of anything even though there's a report. what are we hearing? >> i don't think anybody should expect the white house to have much of a plan when it comes to anything coming out of the court filings, whether it's today or any other day, really. the strategy for several months now from the white house's perspective is to let president trump take the lead on how to respond to robert mueller. president trump alone is the person who is directing the pr strategy, the communications strategy around responding to these issues and you are hearing from his attorneys but primarily the tone is being set from the top. a lot of white house officials are fine with that because i think they don't really want to be in the business of sort of dealing with the legal ups and downs of this case especially when they don't have full transparency when it comes to what might be coming down the pike, but the thing with president t

abby phillip, thank you both. >> coming up some time today, robert mueller will reveal new details in two major cases. what we could learn from new filing uzs in connection to michael cohen and paul manafort. >> plus, cnn's exclusive new details on the scramble to rein in president trump after he fired fbi director james comey. stay with us. am i willing to pay the price for loving you?. you'll make my morning, but ruin my day. complicated relationship with milk? pour on the lactaid. it's delicious 100% real milk, just without that annoying lactose. mmm, that's good. lactaid. the real milk that doesn't mess with you. and try calcium enriched lactaid. 100% real milk with 20% more calcium. still no lactose. this is my paris, follow me. ♪ mon paris. the feminine fragrance. yves saint laurent you may be learning about, medicare and supplemental insurance. medicare is great, but it doesn't cover everything ...only about 80% of your part b medicare costs. a medicare supplement insurance plan may help cover some of the rest. learn how an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company might be the right choice for you. a free decision guid