john avlon, let's start with china retaliating. here's the graphic. 128 u.s. products. 120 involve fruits, nuts, wine, steel products, pork products, recycled aluminum. what do we think is going to happen now? >> it's a step to the trade war. what is interesting to me is pork on 25%. that is a pitch back to iowa. and the khaochinese ambassador, governor of iowa. that is targeted to eye eye, designed to inflict pain on the ambassador. worse can come. this is only $3 billion. it is not even approaching what the u.s. has done. so watch for escalation. >> so what determines whether there's escalation or not? >> whether china does another round. >> that's the only thing? i don't know. i'm just asking. >> cnn is reporting this is about the first round of aluminum tariffs. the second round, if china decides to match that, then we have more problems. >> china plays trump interestingly. they could have is easily gone at the same level. u.s. tariffs are worth $50 billion. these are $3 billion. it seems like they are planning to see whether he will double down on this, r

joining us is alex burns and john avlon. we start, john, on north korea. and, what, 10, 12 days ago. the idea of if everything goes right here, this would be amazing. this would be a real peace development. could be the stuff of a prize. everybody laughs. then we have the big moment with moon and kim. and we learn that moon is really engineering this. there are pluses and minuses. now the president is standing up there saying i had everything to do with all of this. but then pompeo says -- hold on, hold on -- we have our eyes wide open. what's your read on the plus/minus on the political optics o north korea? >> look, this goes well beyond optics. it's what the possibility of a deal getting done and not going off the rails when trump sits down with kim. all right. so here's what's important. he has changed the calculus around this negotiation. he deserves credit. in a way that didn't occur before. north korea has played this forever. i think it is different that moon is the president of south korea. he also really wants con sillatisil sillation. they have

>>ed point john avlon made, the democrats have offered more money on the wall. i just wonder if at the end of the day, this is about the president taking messages from the app coulters of the world. here he is now saying daca is dead. those are his words via twitter moments ago. i wonder if this is about a little bit indication negotiation and more about the president more worried about his base going into the midterms and 2020. >> ann coulter has never moved the president in one direction or the other. >> why did he spend the weekend with shean hannity and jeanine pirro? that's who he spent his weekend with. >> i'm palms up about why people are worried that the president chooses to make friends with people from fox instead of cnn. if you are worried about his dinner partners -- >> how about folks outside the television news business. >> i don't know. the president comes from the television news business. this is where he comes from. he also has dinner with developers. he's not a politician. he's not going to dine with people from the democratic or republican pa

let's bring in cnn's david gregory and john avlon. can resist for a moment on a substance basis, the plus/minus. >> when you talk like that, i just want to give you a hug. >> why stop there? >> i'm a fan of affection. just have your eyes open when we embrace. men always have is their eyes open. everybody knows it. >> part of it does seem a little superficial. we'll get to that. but i think that the idea of president trump on the world stage being embraced, being seen as, you know, the alphas, the president of the united states, someone who is going to dictate a new road forward on america's security policy, i think that matters that he's been embraced and been courted by the leader. there is clearly a stronger relationship there than with other european leaders. and i think that perhaps macron has had some impact. so what it sounds like to me, examine the signals that we're picking up out of the administration, i think trump wants to get out of this deal and immediately move to doing a new one. and i don't think he wants to completely

and let's bring in cnn political analyst john avlon. so, big stakes. emmanuel macron comes here with a really loaded agenda, staying in the iran deal. we know that there are some negotiations going on curiously between the europeans and the americans, but they don't involve the russians or the iranians. so, there's -- this is a very odd thing that's going to happen here. >> this is an odd thing. look, macron has positioned himself as the trump whisperer. he is determined to been ally of the united states despite the america first rhetoric and really hugged trump tight, but that belies the deep differences between the two men on really fundamental issues of policy, not just the iran deal. macron lobbying him to stay in because the u.s. pulling out would remove a lynch pin. but syria, but climate change, but trade. i mean, these are fundamental issues. and macron is a radical centrist and trump is a conservative populist. beneath that real attempt to emphasize the two country's h historical relationship, there's deep differences. >> macron poses the ques

let's bring in cnn political analysts david gregory and john avlon. david gregory, so, a lot of substance for these two leaders to tackle. i thought in abby's piece the overarching question was the one that macron posed, what's your plan b? you pull out of the iran nuclear deal, then what he was basically saying to the president. >> you know, since it's a meeting with the french, i think the ambience in the room is what's important. the ambience of the visit. you might count on that from me. i think the stage craft here is what matters. here is president trump who is on the world stage with western european leaders, countries where he is deeply unpopular. he's not the first. i covered george w. bush also deeply unpopular in western europe, but he has an opportunity here because of personal relationships to do something that they are advocating for, which is to stay in the deal. and i think this plan b idea about the iran nuclear deal is important on its face, which is you -- how do you toughen the deal in a way, which i think likely secretary of state

jim chute toe and john avlon here. a newly classified declassified memo has been released and provides new details on the scope of robert mueller's investigative mandate. deputy attorney general rod rosenstein explicitly authorized mueller to investigate whether paul manafort colluded with the russians in the 2016 election and to probe any crimes related to payments that manafort received from the ukrainian government. >>> meanwhile, president trump's focus continues to be on curtailing illegal immigration. the president tweeted once again about caravans he says of immigrants taking advantage of what he calls our nation's weak border laws. it comes as the white house is making a new legislative push aimed at strengthening border security. we'll begin our coverage this morning with live coverage in washington with our top story, the mueller investigation, a lot of folks predicting its end but a lot of folks still working on it. >> this memo lays out the scope of the special counsel investigation shows that it's not comi

we have our cnn analyst john avlon. the new tariffs on china, i'm not sure this is what larry kudlow meant by deescalating. the markets were quelled after his advisers came on and said this is a negotiating tactic. we're going to deescalate things. and then the president does? >> yeah. those two things would be in contradicti contradiction. i think the president's supporters has a point. nobody has gotten tough with china. the problem is the escalation people worried about seems to be occurring. those can get out of control very quickly. >> they may have already gotten out of control. >> there is another side to this. you obviously saw the president is spooked by what happened in the markets. there's something in the criticism about all of this that is perfect for trump. the establishment doesn't like his way of approaching china. >> this is what he really meant. >> this is a consistent point of view on trade. it is hard to be unhinged if you have never been hinged. people were able to put a damper on him, keep him from

let's discuss this with john avlon and david sanger. so david, when the president says he's willing to walk away if the meeting with kim jong sun is not fruitful, do we know what the stated goals of this meeting are? >> well, we know one stated goal, alisyn, which is he said he wants to bring about complete verifiable, irreversible denuclearization of the korean peninsula. but that's the very end point. and people have been saying that. presidents have been saying that for many, many years. so the question is, does the white house have a theory of the case of how they are going to go do this negotiation. do they understand what it is they want to get out of this initial meeting, what kind of process they want to set up, and then once they set it up, how do you keep it moving along very quickly. i've already been told by south korea app officials and others there are already some differences about how much time you allow for this to happen. as for his walk out of the room in 2016 when he was critiquing the iran deal, he said to me and to

well, john avlon, trey gowdy was on last week. he said he would be looking into this. >> captain benghazi. they went after that with such aggression. here he said he doesn't like the allegations. now they're like, yeah. >> i'm digging captain benghazi. >> the urgency was there. what's that about? >> that's the point. >> pruitt caused a number of self-inflicted wounds in a short amount of time. he has 19 people on a 24/7 security vehicle, baseline salary $2 million at a time when the budget for the epa is being cut. these are not good facts. god bless kennedy and graham for laying in and focussing on common sense. he has policy and pesky ethical concerns. the president can say is he supports him, but the fact pattern doesn't look good for scott pruitt. >> i would look through it differently. he's having a rough week. that was just really bad he did that. they were up forced errors and it has to stop. that is not like he has to go. we know the president is defending him. i don't know. i don't see what pushes him out in this administ

we're back with john avlon. and a.b. stoddard.e was making the rounds on capitol hill to sort of talk to people, assuage whatever fears they have. what do we think is going to happen with mike pompeo? >> he is able to and has a push to the state department employees where that whole agency was eviscerated with cuts of 30% under rex tillerson. tons of vacancys, low morale. that is actually very encouraging to them. he is taking it very seriously. that gets you pretty far. there is a new group of 30 bipartisan national security experts releasing a letter today, making a push for his confirmation. is he is a perfect fit? no. regrade on a curve in terms of who he is going to pick, who is in his favor at the moment. if they are confident and qualified, i think people who willing to take what they get. given the chaos and national security apparatus, the comings and goings, bolton this week, people getting fired, syria and north korea on the table, i just think in the end they will take someone impeccably credentialed like mike palm and

david sanger, john avlon, thank you both very much. there's so much news today we have to keep getting -- moving this along. there's all sorts of breaking news. a big trial ended with bill cosby being guilty of sexual assault. one of the women who testified against him said it was an honor for her to take the stand. she plains what happened in that courtroom next. you know, i used to be good at this. then you turn 40 and everything goes. tell me about it. you know, it's made me think, i'm closer to my retirement days than i am my college days. hm. i'm thinking... will i have enough? should i change something? well, you're asking the right questions. i just want to know, am i gonna be okay? i know people who specialize in "am i going to be okay." i like that. you may need glasses though. yeah. schedule a complimentary goal planning session today with td ameritrade. sometimes you need an expert. i got it. and sometimes those experts need experts. on it. [ crash ] and sometimes the expert the expert needed needs insurance expertise. it's

let's bring in errol lewis and john avlon. border crossings for the month of march up 37%. here are the incomes. they're interesting. look specifically at what has happened in march through the years. you can see in 2017 there was an outlier year, which was quite low. 16,000. 2018, it goes up to 50,000 border crossings. the president has a predicate for sending troops to the border. he can just look at these numbers. he can reveal these. that may not have been his motivation. but other presidents have done this. so how significant? >> i think it's is significant politically more so than operationally. i don't think we're going to look at the next round of numbers and see it drop down to 16, 14, 13, or anything ike that. and it's not intended to. this is what i would call security theater. it's akin to what you see at the airports. they make you take off your shoes, hop on one foot, to make you feel some effort is being made to secure the nation. we know from the experts that's not what is going on at all. this is not a matter of if there is a wall there, if there are troops

let's discuss with chris cillizza and editor at large and john avlon. have a lot of excerpts. do you know what he means by saying the fbi would be worse off. it doesn't seem like the fbi is in good she t inoday terms of the president going after it, in terms of their reputation, appearing to possibly be tarnished, all that stuff. >> yeah. it appears he's projecting into the alternate reality where hillary clinton is president and people find out that the fbi hadn't divulged that there were classified e-mails on anthony wiener's computer and calling into question the validity of her presidency and whether the fbi was colluding by suppressing information and the whole spectrum of a democrat being in power of the white house helping another democrat. we know what happened instead, president obama and james comey were sensitive about the appearance of favoritism. so much so that of course comey infamously violated a certain degree of procedure under the assumption that hillary would win and that information would need to be out there to keep the integrity o

let's bring in john avlon and jeffrey toobin. jeffrey, the president is the subject of mueller's probe, not a target. what's the difference? >> there are three categories of witnesses in federal investigations. there's a witness who is someone who has information of value. there's a target, who is almost certainly going to be indicted, then there's a subject, someone who is being scrutinized who may be indicted, who may not be indicted. and that's the category that trump falls in. but that's a very serious thing. if you are a subject of a criminal investigation, that means you are -- they are looking at you as someone who may be a criminal. >> play that out a little bit. in an interview with prosecutors from mueller's team where they are gathering information, that status can change. >> it can change. but if you are a lawyer and are told, as you have a awe right to be told, that your client is a subject, you almost always tell that person to take the fifth. you don't take chances. now, if the client is the president of the united

let's bring in jeffrey toobin and john avlon. we have this dove tailing of law and politics here. >> right. >> politically how does this lay out right now? >> this is incredibly high stakes moment for the president and his administration. not only is this the first real crisis without a lot of his close confidants, hope hicks no one in this as the pressure ratchets up. the president finding out about this on television. the temptation to fire mueller with also james comey's book coming out within seven days will ratchet up pressure as well. whether the president flies off the handle, does something rash that people have been encouraging him not to do like fire mueller. also reconciling the fact that this is his justice department. this is a u.s. attorney for the southern district appointed by him to replace preet bharara. there's an extra sense of betrayal to further inflame his actions. >> he can't fire rob mueller directly. rod rosenstein would have to decide what he wanted to do. let's go down that road. people ask the preside

let's bring back john avlon and james gagliano. did the president know he was doing this?t question applies to jim comey in writing this book. the ongoing investigation and beneficial time for selling books. people were talking as it wasn't vetted. as he was a former employee, he had to submit it to the fbi and mueller for clearance. what is your take? >> i'm not casting any as percents from the fbi. the vetting process works this way. pre-publication review has to look at any book. at headquarters and anything with a field division in the country. they send that section out. they did this lightning quick. here is the thing. this is what troubles me about the disclosures in the book. the book is a disclosure. >> meaning? >> it means, james comey is still an employee of the fbi. an employee by department of justice standards is anyone who holds or has held a position of trust in the agency. secondly, of the 13 disclosures, some are classified information. duh! one disclosure is this, you may not speak about any materials relevant to an ongoing or open case or investigation.

. >> joining us to discuss it, we have cnn political analyst john avlon and david sanger. david, let's start with the numbers. let's start with mexico and what the president is proposing on the border. if you look at the numbers this past month there has been a spike. it is up 37%. if you look at the actual raw numbers, look how much it is up. in 2018, there were 50,000 illegal border crossings in march alone. it's much higher than 2017. that appears to be something of an a nonly. the others are similar to 2018. so does the president have a justification for this. >> what happened when he first came in, his rhetoric was so strong we think it did suppress border crossings over time. that wasn't a permanent solution. now he is back to the norm. is putting national guard on the border new? no. president bush did it. president obama did it. i don't think anybody particularly objects to doing that if it's going to work and certainly if it's going to bolster border patrol. is it the kind of solution and permanent solution he had in mind? does he want to keep the national guard b

let's bring back john avlon and michael smerconish.as a big deal if you're stormy daniels's legal team. somehow he is opening the door here to -- yeah, right. to being deposed or somehow changing the story. you go. you do you. >> michael avenatti, i think michael avenatti is a skilled trial lawyer and has emerged as an enormous burr in the saddle of president trump. at this point what are we fighting over? stormy daniels is seeking to get out of a nondisclosure agreement. for what? so she can tell her story? what did i say on "60 minutes" three weeks ago with with anderson cooper? she's already told her story without any blowback. as far as i know there hasn't been an attempt by michael cohen to collect from her the million dollars that the contract speaks to. i don't know that it's all that surprising what the president said. he is trying to thread a needle. what he is trying to say is i wasn't part of that agreement. that was michael cohen's business. i wasn't in the loop. and i don't know where the money came from. but nevertheless

. >> no thank you to john avlon. >> he doesn't do it for the thanks. >>> the "washington post" out withing report on president trump. a former forbes reporter said donald trump lied about his wealth to get onto the forbes 400 list. that reporter joins is us and you will hear the audio ahead. you'll make my morning, buty the price ruin my day.ou? complicated relationship with milk? pour on the lactaid, 100% real milk, just without that annoying lactose. mmm, that's good. mayor maybe they're justnts posinan ordinary couple.uple. either way, this room came at an unbeatable price. no one looks out for you, like travelocity. with price match guarantee, you'll always wander wisely. ♪now i'm gonna tell my momma ♪that i'm a traveller ♪i'm gonna follow the sun♪ ♪now i'm gonna tell my momma ♪that i'm a traveller ♪i'm gonna follow the sun transitions™ light under control™ transitions™ internet providers promise business owners a lot. let's see who delivers more. comcast business offers fast gig-speeds across our network. at&t doesn't. we offer more complete reliability with up to 8 hours of 4g wir

john avlon, julie, thank you very much. >>> lawmakers are concerned about the white house direction or lack thereof when it comes to syria. a senator sandied a briefing on the syria strategy. how does he feel about it? next. ♪ bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens ♪ ♪ brown paper packages tied up with strings ♪ ♪ these are a few of my favorite things ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ these are a few of my favorite things ♪ let someone else do the heavy lifting. tripadvisor compares prices from over 200 booking sites to find the right hotel for you at the lowest price. so you barely have to lift a finger. or a wing. tripadvisor. >>> cnn has learned that the president isn't getting full-throated support from members of his own party when asked about whether or not they will back trump in a reelection bid. roughly two dozen senators and members of congress told cnn they're not ready to back their party's standard there. this is unusual. let's discuss with and more with republican senator ron johnson of you with wii who was at an important meeting about what the plan is for the united states. one step sidew

let's bring in cnn political analyst john avlon and cnn asha. i think the big headline is it wasn't just one time they were thinking about getting rid of mueller, which makes sense. if you want to get rid of him once. it's only gotten worse. but the idea from sarah sanders, she was is incorrect. they believe the president can remove mueller directly. this guideline supposed to be done by the guideline, it doesn't supersede his authority. your take? >> so as you said, chris, this keeps getting worse. which means if he had wanted to do this firing, he should have dup it a year ago. it gets more and more self interested as we go on. what you're talking about is a theory called the unitary executive, the president has all the power to do whatever he wants in the executive branch and you're saying he could do it directly without following the rules that his own branch has for him. you know, at that point i think what you will get is a constitutional crisis/no man's land. because the provision he would technically be violating if he wanted to get into

john avlon is here, michael zelden who worked with robert mueller at the department of justice. john, it's not about being unfair to the president, it's about being real. you don't say that it's your fault this guy went down when i was saying that you should be worried about the guy. >> in these contemporaneous memos, he's saying flynn has serious judgment issues. trump fired flynn for not only lying to the fbi, which he confessed to, but lying to the vice president about his contacts with russia. so this is a selective retelling of the past and it contradicts the president's own statements. he talks about loyalty a lot, but it does seem to be a one-way street. >> you summed it up quite nice there. so as we look at that, the other thing that really sticks out here, well, a number of things but to your point the back and forth. sometimes the president changes how he feels about things depending on the day, depending on the news of the day, depending on the tweet. that being said, it is consistent in these memos as to what the president is preoccupied with, and a lot of that has to

let's discuss with john avlon and david gregory. a little danielle steel with the white pouchs under the blue eyes. >> we know this story line. we know the back and forth between the two players, the president and jim comey who is going to be heavily criticized, as he was by democrats and republicans later. but democrats at the time of the election for how he intervened in this e-mail investigation is and tried to manage his media profile and that of the fbi's in a way that was deservedly criticized. but we know this back and forth. but i think the timing of it now at this crescendo moment in the mueller investigation, with the president, you know, making threats about firing the standpoint attorney general i think speaks to one of the most troubling aspects of this presidency. that is that president trump does not seem to respect the rule of law or the institutions of law enforcement in our government or our intelligence agencies. is and that is a huge problem. what comey puts out there again is the fact that when the facts of the

let's bring in john avlon and david gregory. great to see you guys. let's talk about dr. ronny jackson. there are all of these allegations that are really troubling that have come out from what democrats say are 23 current and former staffers that worked with him but knit they were unconfirmed. instead of shutting all of this down because of these, you know, accusations and rumors, et cetera. >> well, yes. there is certainly an argument to be made for that. supporting that is the fact that he has a lot of support from those who work closely with him in the obama administration and bush administration until now. i don't think it will get to that point because i think he will be done. he will withdraw and subtly or not so subtly pushed from continuing this. even this administration's penchant for a fight, do they want this when they have other things to deal with? that said, i can certainly see this president is and his support, saying, no, let's do this to really show overreach on the part of the on democrats. especially if there are things that can't be proven. >> >> you

let's bring in john avlon and jeff ri toobin. john, this is a big week. >> yes. >> there are a lot of really significant international things on the president's plate. he teed up none of that this weekend in any meaningful way. he is all about discrediting criticism of him specifically in the context of the russia probe and michael cohen. 20 something tweets. >> 24. >> 24 sort of unhinged -- my favorite was the out of context complete witch hunt. just -- i mean, it is a -- it is a glimpse into the mind of a president who is not thinking presidentially in terms of the responsibility of the office, in terms of the -- you know, the big week ahead with french president macron, north korea. really high stakes stuff but while melania was off with the ex-president's club, seemingly much happier than ever, donald trump was at mar-a-lago firing off angry, unhinged tweets that really -- the contrast to that is so stark but that's the reality of interior life of this president. >> there is -- james comey has a problem with these memos that h

john avlon is here and josh campbell. he was former special assistant to james comey. now, in some of these memos we see this back and forth between the two men. let's put up on the screen what the president said about his concerns about mike flynn to james comey. very much at odds with what he just tweeted. he then went on to explain that he had serious reservations about mike flynn's judgment. and illustrated with a story from that day in which the president apparently discovered during his toast to theresa may that, redacted, had called four days ago. the president pointed his fingers at his head and said the guy had serious judgment issues. i did not comment at any point. so, josh, once again, the president says what he needs to say in the moment to advance his own interests. right now he wants to make mike flynn a victim. tweet that james comey ruined his life. when, to james comey himself, he gave comey reason to be suspicious of flynn. >> that's right. what's so interesting about these memos is that we are obviously -- we have a very unusual chief executive as f

let's bring in john avlon and david gregory. good morning to both of you. what were your takeaways? >> i think jim comey is an important part of the mueller investigation because of his interactions with trump and the question of obstructions of justice. i think his opinions and interactions with president trump are devastating to the president and his assault on rule of law and his disdain for institutions. having said that i didn't like that interview. i think yet again he is obsessed with his standing, media standing, his kind of political standing. i love how he says he doesn't want to go down the road of getting into politics, yet that is exactly what he did in the clinton e-mail investigation both times. he protected the trump investigation but he had no problem just waving around what was happening with the clinton investigation. and at the very end of the campaign by sending that letter -- by revealing all of these e-mails that were on anthony wiener's computer server, without knowing if there was any evidence of crime, he did tilt the balance. when he said i didn't think ab

. >> and you as well, john avlon. >> sort of. >> you made it super easy. great to have you here. >>> time for cnn "newsroom" with erica hill. >> good morning. i'm erica hill in today for john and poppy. we're an hour away from a very big first in the mueller investigation. the first sentencing of a defendant who flipped. we'll go live to the courthouse in just a moment. >>> first, a bombshell from the special counsel himself. a memo written last august attached to a brand new court filing which shows mueller was specifically empowered to investigate former trump campaign chairman paul manafort, and not only for manafort's possible collusion with russians during the campaign. cnn's shimon prokupecz is in washington. what more are we learning? >> you never see this kind of filing by justice department officials. the memo really just lays out exactly what the special counsel was authorized to investigate by the deputy attorney general rod rosen stein who was overseeing the russia

i want to bring in political analyst john avlon, the author of "washington's farewell," margaret hoover, a white house staffer for george w. bush and douglas brinkley, white house historian. i've been wanting to talk to you all evening. margaret, i want to ask you about the passing of barbara bush. what did you think? >> i was deeply saddened. i as any american citizen grew up with her as the first lady when i was a young girl. worked with her. >> i had the privilege of working for her son and working with the bush family and for the bush family. she was a great matriarch of a great american political dynasty. i want to underline, this is a family who have held public service and the legacy of serving the public in the noblest sense. they surprised personally in order to offer their best to the public. and she also represented. an era where women were wives and were homemakers how a woman could have an identity and be strong and be a stalwart homemaker and family person. and still have her own identity and sense of self and contributions. her contributions to literate sit are lock lasti

. >> david drucker, john avlon, we should shall see. our guests woud out of the correspondents dinner because he was so offended. ways to lthe northern belly fat. percussion massage. not cool. freezing away fat cells with coolsculpting? now that's cool. coolsculpting safely freezes and removes fat cells. with little or no downtime. and no surgery. results and patient experience may vary. some rare side effects include temporary numbness, discomfort, and swelling. ask your doctor if coolsculpting is right for you. and visit coolsculpting.com today for your chance to win a free treatment. you can do it. we can do this. at fidelity, our online planning tools are clear and straightforward so you can plan for retirement while saving for the things you want to do today. -whoo! ...to give you the protein you need with less of the sugar you don't. i'll take that. [cheers] 30 grams of protein and 1 gram of sugar. new ensure max protein. in two great flavors. new ensure max protein. (burke) so we know how to cover almost anything.en almost everyt

i want to bring in political analyst john avlon, the author of "washington's farewell,"

outfront" now to david gergen, former adviser to four presidents, including nixon and clinton, and john avlon, editor in chief of the daily beast. brynn describes the drama around this. it's hard to describe, in a world where one can no longer be surprised, how surprising this moment was for those of us today. cohen is trying very hard to keep any communications he had with sean hannity private, claiming attorney/client privilege. >> it was a spit take. the last name we expected to hear was sean hannity. we know they're all really tight, but we never imagined the president's personal fixer was also representing his number one advocate on tv. it just -- it's the kind of stuff if it was in a script or a novel, it would get thrown out for being implausible. but it's there. now hannity is saying, he was never my attorney. that creates additional problems for michael cohen, who claimed attorney/client privilege going forward. >> here's the thing. the two stories just do not square. michael cohen saying, i've only got three clients. one of them's the president. one of them is the other guy with the