i tried to be transparent throughout this. >> the president wasn't such a big fan of mike flynn after all. >> he asked if there was a fisa warrant. >> i don't think congressional allies did any favors by these. >>. >> rod rosenstein told the president he is not a target of the investigation. >> his main goal is to help bring the investigation to an end. >> he has been hired more as a lobbyist. >> i tried and tried and couldn't. andrew came of and tried to get her back in. >> i felt a calling to get up and do something. >> we made every effort to save this woman's life. >> this is "new day" with chris cuomo and alisyn camerota.

>> welcome t your "new day". alisyn is off. i'm fortunate to have erica hill here because we have a lot of news. 15 pages of redacted notes written by the fired fbi director after seven different interactions he had with president trump and mr. trump's attempts to influence the russia investigation. comey writing the president expressed, quote, serious reservations about the judgment of michael flynn. and salacious claims that vladimir putin bragged to trump about russian hookers. the kremlin just put out a statement denying that putin ever told trump anything like that. and rudy giuliani is joining the trump's expanding legal team. a bombshell report looks back at donald trump allegedly lying about his wealth to get on the forbes 400 list while posing as his own vp of finance, john barron.

there is a lot to cover this morning, to put it mildly. let's begin with cnn's abby phillip live in west palm beach, florida. abby, good morning. >> reporter: good morning, erica. president trump is claiming he's vindicated by these memos. he tweeted late last night there was no obstruction and no collusion. but the memos do show one thing, which is james comey has been fairly consistent in what he said with his interactions with the president and he painted a picture of a president consumed by this russia probe. personal memos from fired fbi director james comey obtained by cnn detail conversations comey had with president trump. >> i think what folks will see, if they get to see the memos, is i've been consistent since the very beginning right after my encounters with president trump. >> reporter: comey revealing in his memos, the president said he had serious reservations about former national security adviser michael flynn.

during the infamous dinner with mr. trump at the white house where comey says the president asked for a loyalty pledge. comey writing, the president pointed his fingers at his head and said the guy has serious judgment issues. comey also describing another meeting he had with the president a couple of weeks later in which he says the president kicked everyone out of the oval office, including attorney general jeff sessions. he then returned to the topic of michael flynn, saying that flynn is a good guy and has been through a lot. he said i hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting flynn go. he's a good guy. i hope you can let this go. i replied by saying i agree he's a good guy but said no more. just days after he was fired he then asked me if this was a private conversation. i replied that it was. he then said he wanted to ask me a question and i could decide whether it was appropriate to answer. he then asked, do you have a fisa order on michael flynn?

that same day comey says he met with mr. trump, who suggested he spoke to russian president vladimir putin. the president said the hookers thing is nonsense but that putin told him we have some of the most beautiful hookers in the world. comey addressing the salacious claim last night. >> he told you that he had had a personal conversation with president putin about hookers? >> yes. >> did you believe him, or did you new he was speing hyperbolical? >> didn't seem to be speaking hyperbolically. >> do we know if the president had had conversations with president putin at that point? >> i can't recall. i think there have public reporting that he had spoken as a welcome, congratulations on taking office at that point. i'm not suggesting they talked about how beautiful the hookers were in russia. i know there was at least one publicly recorded conversation. >> reporter: president trump repeatedly denied having a

relationship with putin before taking office. but comments over the years raised questions about their ties. >> i spoke directly and indirectly with president putin, who could not have been nicer. >> i have never spoken to him. >> reporter: hours before the bombshell memo is surfaced, rudy giuliani announcing he's joining the legal team. he hopes to bring the mueller investigation to a conclusion. he said, it needs a little push. so it's already been a busy twitter morning for the president this morning. he's tweeting again about this comey book tour and also questioning why, as he says, general flynn's life can be totally destroyed while shady james comey can leak and lie and make money from a third rate book. the president goes on to say is is that really the way life in america is supposed to work? i don't think so.

it's worth recalling here that general flynn pled guilty to lying to the fbi and the president himself fired him from his job as national security adviser. clearly the president here is not over the book tour despite what sources tell us is people in the white house believe he's weathered this one fairly well despite the numerous interviews and all of these memos coming out the last several days. >> it's all relative. usually the head of state ignoresm completely. the bar has been lowed. the rules have been changed. abby, thank you very much. put that tweet back up. a little window into the mind. shady james comey. shady spelled incorrectly, unless referring to slim shady, the alternate persona of eminem. there's that. misspelled word. not a big deal. something we have come to expect

from the president of the united states. but also something in there that is at odds with what mr. trump himself said to jim comey. let's discuss. 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 far as ting to twitter, social media. we think we know thoughts on any given day. you compare that going inside to these private meetings that we now know about, they paint a different portrait. with respect to michael flynn, there was a question as far as his judgment. you have the chief of staff wondering if he is under some type of surveillance warrant, which shows that to pose the question means the white house may have some concern.

if you look at some of these tweets, obviously it doesn't take a genius to look at that and figure what's going on. jim comey is a liar but look at what they did to poor michael flynn, not pointing out that flynn lied to the fbi, as abby mentioned. >> "the wall street journal" reporting that the call that was redacted had apparently come from russia, which is not an unimportant detail as we look into all of this. to seeing the thoughts of this president on twitter, it also brings in, though, as you pointed out, chris, those change based on the is circumstance. we see a lot of that consistently. so we're used to that. one thing that did not change as we look through the memos that were released is the fixation on certain aspects, right? certain things that we know the president has always been focused on. chief among them, some of the details of this dossier and why we are talking about them. and more salacious details, john. >> yeah.

i mean, look, the salacious details are clearly a fixation. he is worried that melania is into find out. says he never snt the night in a moscowhotel, doe say he has spoken to vladimir putin about that russia has the best hookers in the world apparently. >> putin is now pushing back -- or the kremlin is pushing back. >> we are having an elevated conversation around the world, people. the dossier is a repeated obsession with him. he says, for example, one way to push back on leakers is to put reporters in jail and jokes about that. you do have the sense that he is throwing flynn under the bus at one point in the conversation, talking about putting reporters in prison ask and showing a consistent anxiety about the dossier and apparently conversations with putin that vice president been divulged. >> josh, i love your fbi head on this. what do we see this morning?

the president of the united states goes out of his way to try to keep some type of opportunity to move closer to russia. maybe he has benign intentions. maybe they are self sevening. but the behavior is clear. what do we see from vladimir putin? every chance the man gets he sticks a knife to donald trump. on something pretty much irrelevant, what does vladimir putin care if he was quoted as saying we have the best women -- of reduced social responsibility. that's what he calls prostitutes. he doesn't care. but it is an opportunity to make donald trump look bad. let's look how dond trump talking to reporrs.ginally when

>> there's the reduced social responsibility euphemism he uses there. he does say those women are the best in the world. it does raise a legit issue. is the president saying it in a conversation with vladimir putin that heimir putin say it to someone else. do you see what i'm saying or am i wrong, that putin writing him off as a beauty pageant guy and he's all about women and the idea that he would, and then repeats the allegation of exactly what would hurt trump the most. he knows what he's doing. >> yeah, he does. he is throwing shade without throwing shade. if you don't see the description of what he's saying. it is interesting from the fbi

days i noticed that looking at statements that come from the russian government, when they are denying something, it's not the unitedtate other happened i countrie where if something happen you say it did not happen. but we mentioned this word salad. i immediately keyed on the word immediately. the president couldn't immediately rush off to the hotel. okay, well, does that mean there was a lapse in time? maybe he had a meeting first? you have to look at every single word and scrutinize it. i'm not saying that took place. maybe we will figure it out some day. it raise a lot of questions and eyebrows whenever a denial takes so long to deny. >> here's something else that raises eyebrows too. as part of the memos, be comey talks about his interaction with reince priebus. he details interaction february 8th where he wants to know if a fisa order for michael flynn. and comey, what he answered is redacted. however, he says, listen, i

answered him. but then i also explained this is the way it should work. this is not the way we do business. the reason you don't ask me directly, the director of the fbi, you don't want any evidence of impropriety for the white house, for me, for anyone. that is the misunderstanding with many in the administration with how things work, especially for things there to protect them. >> clearly donald trump is not going to know that. this is his first run for political office. the white house staff was full of people at the time who had been professionals in government. chief of staff reince priebus. the tone comes from the top. the president may not know the protocols. that impulse seems to be reinforced by the people around him. that shows a slippery approach to protocol. the reason institutions matter, they keep people in check. >> to your point too, we don't

know where the question came from. we had this memo. was this actually a question reince priebus had? was it something he was told to ask? >> both interpretations are possible. >> so, josh, when we look at these memos, one of the big political questions will be did they help or hurt? the context is to whom? to comey or to the president. the president is playing them out in a very obvious way. no collusion, no collusion, no collusion. he throws his own people under the bus. >> that is up to the american peop. i caution both sides. the president taking to twitter saying this proves i'm innocent. representative pelosi was saying this proves that the president is corrupt. this doesn't prove anything. we have to -- if we're being fair, let's focus what they are. cop temp rain kwrous observations from one party to these conversations.

what they do provide, as i mentioned, this is the ultimate he said, he said where the american people to decide who is more credible here, the president or jim comey? >> look, they are con contemporaneous memos. it gives them credibility. they dove tail with previous accounts comey was given. >> i don't disagree. i personally believe what jim is comey said. if we're being fair here, this isn't some type of intelligence product or something that has been crab raorroborated. two people say didn't happen and one person saying is it did. >> john, josh, thank you. we have new details, both is serious and salacious, contained in these comey memos. that much we know. what will they mean to you? that matters. what they mean to lawmakers.

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comey's memos about his interactions with president trump, they have some details in there. they reveal attempts by the president to influence the russia probe. joining us now is democratic senator ben carden of maryland, a member of the foreign relations committee. senator, thank you for joining us. >> chris, it's good be wi you. thank you. >> the memos, do you care? >> well, two points. it's been reported that the mueller team okayed the release of this information so it doesn't interfere with the mueller investigation. secondly, the public should have access to as much information as possible to make their own judgment. the more that can be made public the better we are. >> what do you learn? >> well, not much. i think what we have seen so far indicates that there was clearly a lot of information between russia and the president and information coming out. there are a lot of areas of

concerns. it's up to the mueller team to connect can the dots. that's one thing you still don't understand, how this all comes together. >> what are the chances at the end of all of this, crimes found to be committed to anybody close to the president and his campaign or by the president himself? >> well, we have already seen that there have been indictments that have been issued. there's already been many, many areas of concern. whether it will lead to indictments, the mueller investigation is keeping that information close at hand. that's how they should. an investigation cannot work in the public. they have to complete all the information before making judgment. we want to make sure that that investigation is not intimidated by the president or anyone else and that mr. mueller has the complete authority to complete the investigation and that we

end this threat of him being fired. >> he says, the president himself, they're still there. and three, four, five months, i want to get rid of them but they're still there. do you think that means deputy ag, ag, rosenstein and special counsel are safe? >> i certainly hope so. if the president tries to fire rosenstein or mueller he is interfering wh an investigation. that crosses the line. i have talked to many of my colleagues on both sides aisle. the mueller investigation needs to move forward without any further intimidation from the president. interfering with rosenstein or mueller would be interfering with that investigation. >> well, you say you have talked to your colleagues. he's got one of his senior colleagues, grassley, working with some of your colleagues to put a bill through committee to do exactly that.

if there is even unanimous consent among you guys in congress to protect special counsel, what would you be able to do if the president made a move to get rid on of rosenstein or special counsel? what could you even do? >> i disagree with leader mcconnell. we should have protected the independence of the mueller investigation. but leader mcconnell has made it clear that he is not doing this because he doesn't believe the president will interfere with the investigation by firing mr. mueller. >> we both know that is a completely specious premise. i don't think somebody will do something so you won't protect against them doing it doesn't work in any other areas. you put it in place just in case. you have to believe it's possible because the president, by all accounts, has been considering it and hates the investigation itself. mcconnell doe't want to move. it seems his political motives are getting the best of him, no?

>> chris, you're making my case. i agree with you completely. we should have acted. it is very clear that the president is trying to intimidate the investigation. it would be the right thing to protect the independence. we should have passed legislation well before now. leader mcconnell is not going to do that. the point i was raising is he says he was doing that -- he's not doing it because the president will not take those actions. you asked what happens when the president does take those actions. leader mcconnell told us he wants to protect mr. mueller. so i would expect congress and the american people will not allow the president to take those actions without consequences. >> the question becomes i don't know what the consequences would be. mike pompeo, are you a vote for him or goodness him for secretary of state? heitcamp switching her vote. might that happen? >> well, she's not on the committee.

>> i'm opposing him in the committee. i do that because i want our chief diplomat to work with the chief partners. pompeo indicated they should go alone. i'm opposing him because i don't believe he would be be an independent voice in the white house. >> the authorization for use of military force. do you believe it needs to be redraft redrafted? do you believe actions like what just happened in syria, no direct criticism of president trump but of all of you in presidents overstep their ting statutory authority to conduct military actions against sovereign nations? do you have to change that? >> i believe congress needs to

pass an updated use of fill mary force. three presidents have used the 2001 authorization that we used against afghanistan because of the attack on our country 9/11. to use it in syria against isis. that is a contorted view of the authorization given by congress. i don't believe the president has that authorization. but he is going forward with it. it is important for congress to take back the constitutional power. and we need to redefine the authorization for force that the president can use against isis. >> the reason i was purring back on the notion of the american people won't allow, congress won't allow congress to do something. that same argument applies on this issue. i push people here on the show. they say, yes, the president should come to congress. when he didn't, you did nothing. what good is an aumf if you don't have any resolve to reinforce it.

>> it goes back to the provision who has the power to did clare war? only congress. we passed the war powers act. many administrations have ignored the war power act. the courts will us to enforce this. >> right. >> the president as commander in chief gives orders. it is extremely difficult for us to exercise our constitutional power. what we need to do in regards to what's happening today against isis or in syria, congress needs to take back the authority. we need to act now. >> right. and the question will be will you have the resolve to enforce the rights that you may have ascribed yourself through law. that's the negative side. that's end on a friday on a positive side. tammy duckworth, senator, new mother, takes her baby to vote with her on on the senate floor. everything she has endured.

everything she embodies as a lawmak lawmaker. what does this moment mean to you? >> well, chris, first of all, the modernization of the senate rules so a mom can bring her baby on the senate floor recognizes how the senate should operate as a family. we are so proud to have an additional to our family in the united states senate. tammy is going to be a wonderful wonderful. and i hope she brings a spirit to the united states senate that we can get things done. >> the more children you have around you the better. i think it will freshen the perspective, make you think twice about what you say and what you do. it's a good start. senator cardin, thank you for joining us on the show, as always. >> good to be with you. thank you, chris. >> erica? heroic efforts on the deadly southwest airlines flight. you'll hear directly from a nurse who tried to save a fellow passenger's life.

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some passengers on board that southwest airlines flight with an engine failure on getting a $5,000 check and $1,000 travel voucher in an effort to restore their

confidence. it comes as we learn more about the heroes who stepped into action on that plane when a woman was nearly sucked out of the window. firefighter andrew needum pulled her back into the cabin and tried to save her life. >> god created a servant heart in me. and i felt the calling to get up and do something, stand up and act. i'm no different than any other firefighter in this country. for some reason, whatever reason that is, it was me that day. >> joining us now another hero on that flight, retired nurse peggy phillips who helped administer cpr on the victim. we appreciate you taking t for us. first of all, how are you doing today? >> you ow, it's been sort of a whirlwind. all of this is really very new to me. i'm really a pretty low key person as far as getting myself out in front of people and the

media. so this has been brand-new and a little terrifying. i'm a little tired. i worked yesterday and i work today too. but, you know, hanging in there. i'm doing okay. i'm fine. >> when all of this happened on the flight, you immediately -- you hear the call. we need somebody who knows cpr. you immediately run back and start to help. do you remember those moments? do you remember what was going through your mind? >> you know, it was really -- i'm trying to think how to put it. i was really almost relieved to hear them say we need someone who knows cpr, because i thought i can help. i know this. this is my skill set. i can do this. i'm a registered nurse. i can do this. i can help someone. and that was the last thought i had before i went back and started helping andrew. >> was that a relief in some ways for you because you had someone else to focus on? you could help in that moment and distract yourself as well

from the reality of everything else that was happening? >> it absolutely was. it helped me. i'm sort of an action person anyway. to just sit there and know basically everything was out of my control. for a registered nurse, we're not used to that. we're used to being in control. when i could get up and actually do something i was trained to do and hopefully help someone, it was a sense of relief for me. it really was. >> you had said that you realized quickly that jennifer reardon would need more than cpr, yet you didn't give up? >> no. no, you don't. that is part of the training that you get for cpr. you continue. and you want to give the person every chance that you possibly can. and you want to walk away from the whole incident is and feel like no matter what the outcome was, you did your best, you

tried your hardest to save a life. >> we have seen pictures of jennifer reardon the last couple of days. she is a mother of two. well loved by her community, her family. have you had any interaction with her family? >> i have not. my thoughts and prayers are with them daily. there's probably not a moment in the day that goes by that i don't think about them. and i know how devastating this is to them. and i kn how much theyre suffering. yoknow, i just want them to know that she was never left alone. there was always someone with her. and we definitely tried our very best. >> rally around her in those moments. just to hear that your loved one was not alone on can make such a difference too. we cannot ignore the heroics of the pilot tammie jo schultz. >> several of the flight

attendants came up and hugged me. they were directly involved in the whole situation that we were in at the time. the pilot was so gracious and so calm. she walked down and literally leaned over into ichiro of seats and asked is everyone okay she was concerned about everyone. she showed incredible passion and poise. i was incredibly impressed by her. >> a lot of people i think are saying same thing, a number of people who were not on that flight. southwest is sending money and travel vouchers and there was talk how that could be used for counseling. is that something you see yourself doing, sitting down and talking to someone about what you did just a few days ago? >> i'm very blessed. i have a wonderful support system with all my fellow

nurses. they have all reached out to me in various and sundry ways. that has been -- that's the way i can cope with it and deal with it. they understand exactly what happened and how i was feeling at the moment because that's how they would be feeling too. that has been a bless to go me. >> peggy phillips, appreciate you taking time for us. i know it's been a lwind. thank you. >> it has been, but you are so very welcome. >> there were some good people on that plane and they made a difference. thousands of students planning a walkout demanding gun reform. they picked today for a reason. live from parkland, florida where the student-led movement began.

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at&t, not so much. we give you 75 mbps for $59.95. that's more speed than at&t's comparable bundle, for less. call today. two florida sheriffs deputies killed in an apparent ambush in gilchrist county, florida. the gunman walked up to the window of a restaurant where the officers were eating thursday afternoon and opened fire. 30-year-old noel ramirez and 25-year-old taylor lindsey are gone. the alleged shooter identified as john hubert highnote was found dead from a gunshot wound near the scene. president trump expressing his

condolences to the families of the slain officers. the killer grandma who became the subject of a nationwide manhunt captured. two federal deputy marshalls arrested her in south patted a island restaurant. authorities believe she shot a woman who resembled her to assume her identity. she had been on the run since late march. she's currently being held in jail. the music legend died after taking what he thought was invite din but it was a counter fit pain killer laced with fentanyl. he was found unresponsive in his minnesota estate two years ago. a toxicology report released last month showed prince had high concentrations of fentanyl in his body. students at nearly 2,500 schools across the country walking out of their classrooms in a call for action on on gun

control. the new push coincides with the 19th anniversary of the columbine hh school shooting. that's not lost on the students at marjorie douglas high school in parkland, florida. good morning. >> reporter: good morning, erica. that connection between marjory stoneman and columbine reaches to the fact that there are about 40 students from msd who were in littleton, colorado right now trying to be with the current students of columbine who aren't due in school today. they used this as a day of service. that's something here at msd are conflicted with. this call for a national walkout was started by a teenager in county can county soon after the february 14th shooting here in parkland. to mark this 19th anniversary. a lot of these kids, you have heard them talking about being part of the mass shooting, mass shooting generation. they all trace it back to columbine 19 years ago.

the principals said walkouts aren't really our thing on this day. we have had a day of service for a long time. we would ask that you do something like that today instead of just walking on out. so marjory stoneman douglas will have projects for them to do during that time. a lot of students do plan to walk out at least symbolically. it has taken a life of its own the past two months here. at 10:00 a.m., they're going to have a moment of silence for one minute for all victims of gun violence. they will tack 13 seconds onto that to remember those 13 lives were lost at columbine 19 years ago. during the day they are expecting to do a lot of service projects. they will do a banner they will send to columbine. chris, erica, the students have tried to develop a relationship not with just the current students at columbine but with the adults who were there at that time. they have a pen pal program where they link up with some of the adults where they can text and talk to them and talk about

their feelings and what to expect as they get older surviving something like that. >> they will have personal challenges. now they have challenges as citizens. they are seeing change ain't easy. even when it is overwhelming, when it seems everyone wants to help you and is on the same page. change ain't easy. thank you for the coverage, my friend. so another big story we have been following getting near the end. at&t ceo taking the stand defending the merger with time warner as the only way to keep pace with tech companies. how compelling is that case? the latest in the battle next.

at&t resting its case now in a major antitrust trial calling their final witness. the justice department, remember, is suing to block the telecom giant's $85 billion purchase of time warner. time warner owns cnn. let's discuss with hadas gold and brian stelter.

take us into the courtroom, the significance of the most recent testimony was? >> so yesterday was a big day. at&t ended on a really big note with the at&t ceo randall stephenson taking the stand. and he really brought in this sort of historical perspective of why at&t is trying to buy time warner. it's really to keep up with the times and be able to better compete with netflix, amazon and facebook who he said get these reams of user data. not only are they creating the content but also controlling the way people watch the content. stephenson spent a lot of the time talking directly to the judge. the judge is who decides the case. he called this an important moment for at&t. he compared it back when at&t was transitioning from wires to wireless and said they weren't expecting that change to happen as fast as it did so this time they are trying to prepare better for that change. >> all right. so, stephenson, his testimony, brian, obviously there is an order, sometimes it's based on

convenience but usually it's on strategy. they ended with the big man at the top of their food chain. why, and what did it mean for this case overall? >> i think because he was presenting the big picture and most compelling argument for why at&t says it needs to be able to buy time warner. he made a comment that stood out to me on the stand. he said if you miss a moment of innovation, a cycle of innovation, your company may not die but it's going to get sick for a while. certainly you can thinkbout that being true across all industries. in this case the judge asked hi youknow, seven years ago where did you see this marketplace going? where did you see it looking? he said my answer would have been different seven years ago. things are changing rapidly. netflix being the best example of that. no one thought seven years ago netflix would be in most americans' homes making huge numbers of tv shows and movies. so you hear stephenson making the argument at&t needs time warner not to be anti-competitive but to keep up and continue with that pace of change. the judge mentioned turner

classic movies at one point. what's going to happen at turner classic movies? that's going to happen to everyone's favorite channels and favorite shows. in the past turner has made those channels widely available across all cable packages, all streaming services. the concern in this case is that at&t might try to hold those channels tightly, keep them away from rivals, but at&t says that's not the case. stephenson made this dramatic nouncement in court that surprised a lot of people. he said we're announcing a new streaming service, really small package, no sports but it's free for customers of at&t and he said we need to come up with new bundles and new packages but make them available to everybody. so announcing a new product kin was his w of saying we need to keep innovating. >> hadas, what's next? >> the justice department has

started their rebuttal witnesses. the first was an expert in synergies who are going to try to further poke holes in at&t's argument that this will be good for the industry, that this will be good for the business and that most importantly prices for consumers will not rise as the government has alleged. >> all right. so you have rebuttal, then surrebuttal and then closings. any kind of suggestion as to timing? >> we might be seeing the closings by april 30th, so really just a few days. we're really coming down to the end here because, as the judge has consistently warned both sides, there is a timeline here. there's a merger deadline on june 21st. he said if they don't wrap everything up by the end of april, then he will not be able to get his opinion in in time before that deadline. >> and surrebuttal, sorry, lawyer speak, and then there's the other aspect of strategy here. very often lawyers will say i don't want to get the judge, him or her, that angry at me but ultimately i'm just worried

about the jury, i'll have a separate relationship with them. not here. this is a bench trial. this judge will make the decisions. so how that judge feels about you and how you've conducted yourself matters. this timeline, therefore, matters. so, brian, the idea of how does each side prepare for what happens with the verdict, what do we know about that? for the government this is somewhat easy. if they win, great, they have a precedent. if they lose, we tried. we never really won going after a merger like this before. what about on the at&t side? >> the government wins, it may move on to other antitrust matters, maybe look at amazon, for example. the at&t and time warner sides, they have been preparing for this deal for 18 months. they're ready to close it and brick these two companies together within a matter of days if there's a favorable ruling. of customers in the short term but a lot in terms of the companies. they would finish this deal ght away. if that does not happen, you can see time warner, cnn, hbo,

warner brothers may be sold off in pieces, maybe to different companies. you would do that potentially because that way it wouldn't be an antitrust concern depending on who's the buyer. but that's an open question, a big question mark. certainly there would be other buyers out there that are interested, but at&t and time warner, they are locked in this together until that june deadline. >> hadas, have you picked up on anything during the trial where this judge may have suggested any kind of apportionment of a verdict? hey, i'm going to let it go forward, but not with these entities or have you heard the government suggest that in any way? has that come up at all? >> yes, actually. first of all, caveat, it's hard to tell based off of a judge's questions which way he's going to go. sometimes judge try to question themselves and be their own devil's advocate but a specific day a judge asked an executive from charter cable, which is a rival distributor to at&t, he was talking about this arbitration offer that time warner has put on the table.

this offer would say if there are ever disputes over prices, if a distributor thinks that time warner prices are going up too high, then they could come to the table and do kind of a blind arbitration where a neutral third party would then determine whose contract is best. now, some of the distributors don't like the way the arbitration offer is arranged. they sayhat is sort of blind. but the judge said to the executive, hey, how would you feel if we restructured this offer, would that be better for you? the executive said, yeah, it would be. everybody was thinking maybe the judge will try to restructure this arbitration offer and that's the way that they could move forward. >> that was kind of a fishing expedition for me but it had happened and you remembered it and nailed it. thank you very much. well, my friends, it's almost 8:00 in the morning and there is a ton of news on this friday, so what do you say? let's get after it. >> i've been consistent since the very beginning. >> i'm not sure why the house republicans would even want this out. >> it doesn't seem like there's

very much new in there. >> vladimir putin told donald trump that they have beautiful russian hookers. >> you have the white house chief of staff asking the fbi director whether one of his colleagues is a subject of a fisa order. >> rudy giuliani has been a defender of donald trump in a very significant way outside the courtroom. >> he's clearly been hired to try to negotiate with mueller. >> it is michael cohen that is consuming him. >> i think the michael cohen document and computer seizure is probably the most significant thing. >> the whole thing is a giant hoax. >> two families who lost children at sandy hook suing alex jones. >> i held my son with a bullet hole through his head. all right, good morning, welcome to your new day. it is friday, april 20th, 8:00 now in the east. alisyn is off, eric a hill is here. breaking news on the james comey memos, 15 pages of partially

redacted notes written by the fired fbi director after seven different interactions that he'd had with president trump. and mr. trump's attempts to influence the russia investigation. comey writing the president expressed, quote, serious reservations about the judgment of michael flynn. and salacious claims that vladimir putin bragged to him about russian hookers. and then all of a sudden out of nowhere, the kremlin puts out a statement this morning denying that putin ever said that to mr. trump. >> just another friday morning. former new york mayor rudy giuliani joining the president's expanding legal team to push for an end to the russia investigation. this as "the washington post" comes out with a bombshell report alleging donald trump lied, posing as his alter ego john baron in 1984 all to get onto the "forbes" 400 list. we begin with abby philip who joins us live from west palm beach, florida.