Since the news media is generally horrible about conveying what is actually happening in litigation, here's the show so far:
1. Trump/Cohen obtained an arbitration award for violating the NDA.
2. Daniels filed an action in CA state court seeking recission of the contract.
3. Trump/Cohen removed the case to federal court.
4. Today: Daniels filed an Amended Complaint in the case. It includes re-tooled allegations concerning the contract, and adds a defamation claim on the basis of Cohen's statement in February to the effect of acknowledging the 130k payment and suggesting that "Just because something isn’t true doesn’t mean that it can’t cause you harm or damage. I will always protect Mr. Trump."
Here's the amended complaint:
https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.704250/gov.uscourts.cacd.704250.14.0.pdf
Generally, in court proceedings, you have the opportunity to (a) include all of the claims you have, and (b) amend your claims at certain early stages of litigation. This is not a "new" suit. It is the same suit with new claims.
What's interesting is that Avenatti finally included the strongest argument for invalidity - that it was void on policy grounds as an illegal campaign contribution. He had not included that in the original complaint, so it's good to see that he's gotten some help. The only downside to that argument is that it essentially admits that Daniels was actively conspiring to keep an illegal campaign contribution secret. However, the current FEC is unlikely to act anytime soon on the complaints that have been lodged with the FEC on the subject, so Daniels admitting complicity in the scheme is probably not going to amount to anything as far as the FEC is concerned.
To put that another way, let's say that you are involved in scheme to sell cocaine over several shipments. You sign a contract and an NDA. You get paid up front by the buyer, and then decide to stop the contracted shipments. The buyer threatens you with a contract action over the contract, and so you proceed with a declaratory judgment action on the grounds that "We didn't have a contract, because I was selling cocaine!" Well, yeah, that will probably get you out of the contract.
The original Complaint had described unspecified threats or coercion alleged to have resulted in the January 2018 signed denial by Daniels. Those are all now gone from the Amended Complaint, as it is now clear, based on the 60 minutes interview, that the January 2018 "threats" were threats to enforce the contract.
Of course, the other reason for taking out the January 2018 Daniels statement is that it undercuts the defamation claim against Cohen. First off, the defamation claim essentially boils down to it being damaging to Daniels reputation if anyone denies she had sex with Trump. Secondly, Cohen's February statement of "Just because something isn’t true doesn’t mean that it can’t cause you harm or damage" is (a) not a direct statement that Daniels is lying, since it is to some extent phrased hypothetically, but (b) more importantly, if it is taken as an inferential statement to the effect that "Daniels is lying", it is hard to square that with the facts on the ground at that time - i.e. she had signed a written statement that there had been no affair.
In other words, at best, the defamation claim is "Cohen damaged Daniels reputation by agreeing with her signed statement, which she now disavows." And, remember, this Amended Complaint no longer alleges that statement to have been the product of any duress or threats. There is no claim in Daniels' Amended Complaint which alleges any threats of any kind at any time.
So taking these claims together, the Amended Complaint says:
1. The contract should be void since it amounted to a conspiracy among Daniels Trump and Cohen to keep a crime secret, and
2. It is damaging to Daniels' reputation for people to (a) agree with her signed statement at the time, and (b) claim that she didn't voluntarily have sex with Donald Trump.
Oh, yeah, there was something in the news about some payments being funneled from the UAE to Trump. Probably some really boring news that doesn't involve sex in any way, and involves countries that are hard to find on a map.