>> that's an extraordinary bombshell to hear about. the fact that somebody in manafort's position had that sort of leverage on them from a russian intelligence agent, that has enormous significance. total speculation, of course. this could be part of what we hear that manafort was not being forthright about, and that could certainly lead to a more tight nexus, sort of a missing link if you will between actual government agents and directly trying to influence the campaign. >> but then i guess in order for it to link to the president, there would have to then be a second stage of that connection, right? i mean theoretically, manafort could have been acting without the president knowing anything about it, right? >> that's right. i think there always have been two steps here, ryan. the first is trying to show some sort of direct link to the campaign itself. the second step, of course, would be what kind of knowledge the president had of it. >> all right. we will see what 2019 brings, and if we ever end up learning