Return to Transcripts main page

Don Lemon Tonight

President Trump Wants Congress to Investigate His Stunning Charge at That Obama Wiretapped Him; President Trump Supports Republican Paln to Repeal and Replace Obamacare; Tweeting about Arnold Schwarzenegger and "The Apprentice". Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired March 07, 2017 - 23:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:00:15] DON LEMON, CNN HOST: President Trump says he wants Congress to investigate his stunning charge at former President Barack Obama wiretapped him. But he may not like what they find.

This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon.

House intelligence committee member Adam shift says he if the President wants an investigation, fine. Let's have one. And promises it won't take long to get to the truth.

Meanwhile, President Trump warns house Republicans of mid-term blood bath if they can't pass healthcare, but the real cost of replacing Obamacare could be much more serious. We are going to talk to two people who stood up at town halls to say that they owe their lives to affordable care act.

Let's get right now to senior political analyst, Mark Preston, also national security analyst Juliette Kayyem, the author of "security mom" and Jill Doherty, the former CNN Moscow bureau chief, now at the Evans school at the University of Washington.

So, Mark Preston, to you first, because the White House has really been doing summer salts, back flips, pretzels, all trying to figure out how to respond to these unfounded accusations that were made by the President that the former President wiretapped him. White House press briefing today, Sean Spicer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's been a full three days since the President said that President Obama had his wires tapped, his phones tapped at Trump tower. In those three days has the White House come up with any evidence whatsoever to prove that allegation?

SEAN SPICER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Yes. I addressed this multiple times yesterday. I think the President -- we put out a statement on Sunday saying that we would have no further comment. We have gone back and forth with you guys. I think there is clearly a role that Congress can play in its oversight capabilities. They made it very clear that they have the staff, the resources and the process. I think that's the appropriate place for this to handle. I think if we were to start to get involved, you would write stories about how we were involved. So, it's a no-win situation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you believe that President Obama --

SPICER: You know, I get that's a cute question to ask. My job is to represent the President and to talk about what he is doing and what he wants.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why would the President want Congress to investigate for information he already has?

SPICER: I think there is a separation of powers aspect here. As I mentioned to Jonathan, that we think it's --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You talked about resources and time. Why waste that?

SPICER: It's not a question of waste it. It's a question of appropriateness.

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Will the president withdraw the accusations? Does he have any --?

SPICER: Why would he with draw it until it's adjudicated. That's what we are asking is for them to look at this and see if there is --.

PRESTON: No regret to them?

SPICER: No.

PRESTON: It's not (INAUDIBLE)?

SPICER: No, absolutely not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Did you follow that, Mark? A separation of powers and I mean if he already has the information --

PRESTON: Right.

LEMON: Go on. I'm sorry.

PRESTON: Well, you know, I mean, look. What is happening here is that President Trump --

LEMON: Did you understand what he said?

PRESTON: No, yes. I understand what he was doing.

LEMON: Yes, no, yes.

PRESTON: No, I understand what he is doing. I don't necessarily understand what he said because what he has done is he has been asked to go out and to answer the unanswerable, you know. We talked about this last hour. You know, let's just look at this week. It's Tuesday right now, OK. LEMON: Yes.

PRESTON: They unveiled the details of Obamacare, right? They are going to take the nation's healthcare law, ripped it up and redo it or so they say, OK. It's a major thing. They also issued a new travel ban, OK.

LEMON: Yes.

PRESTON: And then you have Donald Trump out there tweeting that he has been wiretapped, enforcing his spokesman to go out there and speak to the free world about the silliness of him having explaining that.

LEMON: Well, the thing is that so here is what this is how it works. This is how it actually works in reality.

PRESTON: OK.

LEMON: You have information. You find the evidence of.

PRESTON: Right.

LEMON: You present it to the American people. I have found evidence and here is the evidence that the former President wiretapped me. Therefore we need to investigate this administration because of this to see how the extent of that wiretapping and whether it was above and beyond. But with no evidence, why would you --

PRESTON: You live in 2016, friend. We are in 2017 now. We live in 2017.

LEMON: So Juliette, I mean, again, as I said last night, I mean, this is -- it's not funny but it's laughable. But Juliette, Mark and all of you, (INAUDIBLE) Maggie Haberman from "New York Times," and this is new reporting that is in to CNN. This is CNN contributor but she reported in "New York Times." They have an article that just published about what was happening behind the scenes after the President tweeted his explosive accusations about wiretapping and here is part of what they write.

They said he sounded defiant at conversations at Mar-a-Lago with his friend Christopher Ruddy, the chief executive of Newsmax media. By the way, he was - Ruddy was here last night. Mr. Ruddy said, in other conversations that afternoon, the President sounded uncertain of the procedure for obtaining a warrant for secret wiretaps on an American citizen. Mr. Trump also canvassed some aides and associates about whether an investigator even went outside the government could substantiate his charge. So, I'm not the President, but --

[23:05:04] JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Right.

No, you are not. You are not the President. So, all of this -- these details of how a wiretap occurs would have been readily available to the President during a transition and certainly during his daily classified briefings. And so, one of the things that worries me from a national security perspective is - I mean, I'm just going to say it, Donald Trump woke up that morning and made it up. Like let's just -- we are spending 72 hours --

LEMON: I agree with you. Because if he had called his -- whoever, his national security advisers the FBI or anyone they would say, well, Mr. President, this is how you obtain a warrant and if you are indeed surveilled, it works this way. But the fact that he is even considering hiring an outside investigator means -- with the entire intelligence community at his disposal, he doesn't understand how this works?

KAYYEM: No. And he doesn't understand sort of the rules of how wiretaps work or the possibility, which is maybe out there that there's a wiretap and it picked up conversations of Trump people. We have to believe that the Russian ambassador is under some sort of surveillance at all times.

But, this is not just an audience of Americans. The world is watching this. And as I always say when I'm on your show, every one of these crises is self-created. We have not been tested under this administration. People need to believe Donald Trump because we have been attacked or there's a major event or something goes on in North Korea. I know a lot of allies and certainly a lot of enemies who are looking at what happened over the last 72 hours who are saying I am never going to believe this person. And that is damaging to Trump and the presidency, but that's damaging for us and our safety and security.

PRESTON: Jill, I know you're standing by, but I want to bring Mark back in. Because Mark, as it occurs to me, this is not the first time he's considered hiring outside investigators or even has hired outside investigators for something that completely turned out the be completely false and found no evidence of.

PRESTON: Well, he told us he hired investigators that went out to find President Barack Obama's birth certificate.

LEMON: Have we seen the proof of that, what the investigators found?

PRESTON: No. But he seemed pretty confident when he said he hired investigators to go and do it, of course, no proof was in the pudding.

LEMON: So Juliette, let's get back to this FISA thing and how it actually works. You actually have had a FISA wiretap on you because of someone you have dealt with and you didn't know about it until after the fact. So explain how this happens.

KAYYEM: So, based on my work, it's likely that I have talked to people who might be under a foreign intelligence wiretap that has to be approved by a court. I am not the subject of their foreign intelligence surveillance. When I went through security clearances, I learned that some of my communications had been picked up. There are what's called minimization requirements. In other words, because I wasn't the target, they have to minimize and not retain records my security clearance happened at a time when this was going on.

The person -- I didn't even ask what the issue was, as the nature of my work that there are people who are under foreign intelligence surveillance act. And that's it. I mean, it's just -- but I understood what was going on. I didn't think anyone was targeting me. And that's the nature of the rigorous -- you know, process by which --

LEMON: And usually, Juliette, it's from the other person if it's a private U.S. citizen, as you are, it's the other person who is from a foreign government that they are surveilling and you happened to be picked which is what happened with Flynn and the Russian ambassador.

KAYYEM: Right. Or the person was here in the United States, yes.

LEMON: Right. OK. All right.

So Jill, let's talk about the politics of it. The ranking Democrat on House intelligence committee Adam Shift is saying that he accepts the President's call for an investigation to all of this. Could this end up being be careful what you wish for scenario with, you know, that leads back to Russia for this administration?

JILL DOHERTY, EVANS SCHOOL, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON: It could if it's carried out correctly, who knows what it will find out. I mean, they are bringing in a lot of information, the hacking, the interference and now this issue, you know, of tapping phones. Who knows what could come up? And that's why this kind of Pandora's Box could be very dangerous for the President because something could be revealed that might be embarrassing for him. It might be the reverse. It might be exonerated.

But this is dangerous because now it's going to proceed. Again, if it is carried out fully and robustly as it should be.

LEMON: Don't you see -- I mean, I do and Jill you would have much more knowledge than I do of Vladimir Putin sit back just sort of laughing at all this chaos that he has caused?

DOHERTY: Well, you know, I have been watching -- it's really very interesting to see how the Russians are reacting, which of course I do every day. And you know, there was a period where like Donald Trump, Donald Trump, all the news was about Donald Trump even more than Vladimir Putin, and then it started diminishing and that was a few weeks ago. And so I think what was going on was they were watching what was going on with Donald Trump. And, you know, the great hoax of ending sanctions, having a great relationship, working together to fight terrorism was not taking place. So they -- now what they have been trying to do for their own people is to explain, you know, why this is happening and diminish expectations. So there's a lot less Trump news right now than there was.

But what they have done, Don, that I think is very, very interesting, it mirrors a lot of what Donald Trump and the White House and some of his supporters actually say. Here is some of the things they're talking about the Oligarchic media. Oligarchs, of course, we always think of, you know, the rich Russians, but now they are turning that against the United States and saying it's the oligarchic media who are out to destroy the President. And why? Because the oligarchic media are the feel who control the country, believe it or not. And they're talking about McCarthyism. I mean, everything is kind of mirrored in a strange way. But the

whole idea, the final message is that the United States is in chaos. There may be a coup against Donald Trump and it's very, very dangerous.

[23:11:20] LEMON: You are right about it. And if anyone wants to hear more about what Jill said about this, she wrote a piece on CNN.com talking about this saying that this chaos is actually helping Putin back in Russia and part of which she just explained is in there. It's a fascinating piece.

But Mark, I want to come back here and talk about the politics here in the United States because the nominee for deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein was grilled at the confirmation hearing today. Jeff Sessions recusal, he had been the person to oversee any investigation Trump's campaign alleged ties to Russia. And I want you to take a look at this and then we will talk about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROD ROSENSTEIN, DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL NOMINEE: I want to make sure you're all clear on this, I don't know if there is an investigation. I don't know anything, but what I read in the newspapers at this point.

SEN. AL FRANKEN (D), JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: I well, I actually find it very disturbing that you did not read the declassified report on Russia's activities during the election. I find that very, very disturbing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Mark, what's your reaction?

PRESTON: Well, couple things. I think that he is trying to distance himself as much as he can because the fact is he is going to have to oversee the investigation now that Jeff Sessions has recused himself. Let's not forget, too, he was a U.S. attorney in Baltimore. He wasn't a U.S. attorney for here in Washington, D.C. And look, he was probably smart to not have read in or really know a lot about the case because he is going to have to go in and oversee the investigation.

LEMON: Yes. Those intelligence -- house Intel hearings will start in March 20th, Juliette. What should we be looking for with that?

KAYYEM: So, I think it's interesting that it's going to be open. I think one of the more surprising if not exciting for many of us witnesses is going to be Sally Yates, the former deputy attorney general who did not defend the executive order, got fired by Trump. She probably knew that was going to happen. And we later learned at least from news reports that she did notify the White House of their concerns based on surveillance that Flynn, the former national security adviser might be compromised by Russia. That was information, if you remember, that the White House that Trump himself knew for several weeks, did not disclose to Mike Pence, the vice President, or did not appear to do anything against Mike Flynn and that only happened after that news and the information became public.

So I think getting her chronology will be very interesting for why -- this is the piece that always makes me very curious. I'm not conspiratorial. I just think the whole Flynn issue, the White House knowing about him, knowing about the chances he was compromised and doing nothing for several weeks, I cannot figure out a benign explanation for that. And I -- you know, I want -- you know, I don't want to be conspiratorial, but at some stage there's enough smoke that you have to believe that there's some sort of fire. It may be all lawful, but until we get a good explanation, the fires keep popping up everyday "The New York Times" and Washington Post.

LEMON: All right. Panel, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

When we come right back, what's in the GOP's Obamacare replacement bill, what's out and what will it all cost?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:18:35] LEMON: President Trump saying today that he is proud to support the Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare. But a lot of conservatives on Capitol Hill say the bill doesn't go far enough. They mockingly refer to it as Obamacare light. So what's in and what's out?

CNN's Tom Foreman has that for us - Tom.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Don. The Trump plan keeps several of the most popular parts of Obamacare. You can still keep your kids under your coverage until the age of 26. You can't be denied insurance because of preexisting conditions and there are no annual or life-time limits on insurance benefits.

But it also drops some key components of Obamacare. The individual mandate which says everyone has to be insured or pay a penalty would be gone so would the employer mandate which force business this 50 or more employees to provide that insurance. And government subsidies to help cover the out of pocket expenses for people would be replaced by refundable tax credits for those folks.

And, there is this huge change. Medicaid, which covers care for poor and low income people has always been funded in a fungible way. Meaning if the costs go up, the number of people change in a state, the federal money to help changes too. Not anymore.

Under the Trump plan each state would receive a set amount of money each year and there would be plan caps for federal funding for all of this over time. So they have to work it out as best they can. As much as anything else, this provision is where critics think a lot of people could fall through the cracks and wind up uninsured again.

So what's going to keep people in the system? If you let your insurance policy lapse under the Trump plan, the new plan would allow insurers to sock you with a 30 percent surcharge. And one last thing and a nod to social conservatives who oppose abortion rights, Trump plan includes a provision to cut all federal funding to Planned Parenthood - Don.

[23:20:35] LEMON: Thank you, Tom Foreman.

President Trump campaigned on repealing and replacing Obamacare, so did many Republicans in Congress, but a lot of GOP lawmakers were confronted last month at town halls all over the country, including right here on CNN and by Americans concerned they might lose their health insurance.

I wanted to bring in Jeff Jeans. He is a cancer survivor who says Obamacare saved his life and Kati McFarland, an Obamacare supporter who attended a town hall to tell her story. She joins us via Skype.

Thank you both for coming on again. How are you both doing, OK?

JEFF JEANS, CANCER SURVIVOR: Just fine, thanks for having us on, don. Hey, as kind of a --

KATI MCFARLAND, OBAMACARE SUPPORTER: I'm doing great, thank you.

LEMON: Great. Thank you.

You were saying, Jeff, go on.

JEANS: Hey, Don, Don, just as a little side note just to show how small of a world this really is, Katie and I graduated from the same high school in Missouri.

LEMON: Wow. It is a small world. And now you are on international TV together. So again, thank you, guys, so much for joining us.

So Jeff, I'm going to start with you. The night of CNN's town hall, you confronted speaker Ryan with your story. I want you to listen and then we will talk about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEANS: I was a Republican and I worked for the Reagan and Bush campaigns. Just like you, I was opposed to the affordable care act. When it was passed, I told my wife we would close our business before I complied with this law. Then, at 49, I was given six weeks to live with a very curable type of cancer. We offered three times the cost of my treatments, which was rejected. They required an insurance card. Thanks to the affordable care act I'm standing here today alive.

Being both a small business person and someone with preexisting conditions, I rely on the affordable care act to be able to purchase my own insurance. Why would you repeal the affordable care act without a replacement?

REP. PAUL RYAN (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: We wouldn't do that. We want to replace it with something better.

(END VIDEO CLIP) LEMON: OK. So, Jeff, you gave me the cursory that you are doing OK and we hope that you didn't just mean it in the cursory way, that you are doing OK. But I want to ask you -- we now have speaker Ryan's plan. Is it clear to you whether you would still be able to get treatment for cancer at this point?

JEANS: Well, it's all kind of up in the air. The interpretations, you know, it's kind of a fresh piece of legislation. I guess as long as you can afford to pay the premiums, I guess I could still get treated for cancer. I turn 55 next month -- or this year, excuse me, not next month, thank God yet. But one of the provisions of the new law is that they can charge up to five times the amount that they charge younger people for a policy. Right now, under the patient protection and affordable care act, it's three times. So, I equate that to almost two thirds, you know, jump in my premiums.

LEMON: So, similar question, Kati, because you suffer from a rare condition that's called Elsers Danlap syndrome. I hope I have that correct.

MCFARLAND: Correct.

LEMON: You confronted a Senator Tom Cotton at a town hall a few weeks ago. Let's listen to that first.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCFARLAND: Without the coverage for preexisting conditions, I will die. That is not hyperbole. I will die. Without the protections against life time coverage caps, I will die. So, my question is, will you commit today to replacement protections for those Arkansans like me who will die or lose their quality of life or otherwise be unable to be participating citizens trying to get their part of the American dream, will you commit to replacements in the same way that you have committed to the repeal?

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

SEN. TOM COTTON (R), ARKANSAS: Thank you, Kati.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So I'm sure you haven't had a chance to read the entire thing, Kati, but do you know how the new Republican bill will affect you?

MCFARLAND: I do. And I am very concerned about one thing in particular, which is I may be an error in this. But I read there will be a 30 percent surcharge on people with preexisting conditions if they have a coverage gap of 63 days. And that might not seem like a big deal for people with preexisting conditions that don't have on going treatment, but for people like me with ongoing needs, people who even with the ACA protections have unmanageable out of pocket expenses. You know, for example I'm having to raise over $61,000 in out of pocket expenses this year alone. I'm having to crowd fund on my site. Y-o-u-c-a-r-i-n-g.com and that just to afford a fraction of my bills. And people like me, we have to go around and slop links like that on national television unfortunately like begging in the street. And we are reduced to crowd funding for our basic needs. And these coverage gaps can happen in so many different ways that I'm afraid that it's going to cause even more people to fall through the cracks because you can lose your employment, you can lose -- you know, you can turn 26 and not have something immediately lined up through the exchange and they haven't really made clear what they're going to do about the exchange.

[23:26:14] LEMON: So you are part -- you are right in part of. And this is, as I understand it from the, you (INAUDIBLE) as much as we understand now. That's anyone who allows their healthcare to -- allows a gap there, who has a gap there for 63 days that they will have to face a penalty. So --

MCFARLAND: Yes.

LEMON: So what are your biggest concerns then with the Republican approach?

MCFARLAND: My biggest concerns is that it just -- it's so hard to put into words. It's just -- it seems like punishment for the marginalized among us. You know, when we are already reduced to extremely high premiums, we are reduced to crowd funding, the surcharge, that penalty, it's -- it tells Americans that are lawmakers don't care about the marginalized among us. It tells us that they don't care if we live or die because it is going to make that much of a financial and psychological burden in being poor and anxious. It is that enough when you are healthy. But when you are practically ill, it is worse. And just -- sorry. It's been --

LEMON: That's OK.

MCFARLAND: I'm just really -- I'm scared honestly because my insurance right now is up in the air myself. And I'm just afraid people like me who, you know -- I just turned 26 and my insurance can't tell me with whether or not I will be able to continue my coverage as a disabled child or as turning 26 is a qualifying event. And I'm just afraid that in situations like mine it's going to happen a lot more than people think and we're going to fall through the cracks. And it's -- as bad as our system is, as flawed as it is, this plan is more flawed. It's insulting and it's going to kill people.

LEMON: Well, that's one of the reasons we have you on is to explain to the American people -- I'm sure there's many people out there who empathize with you. And just to get -- we have you on so that people can hear your story and that they will try to seek more information. And if this bill is indeed repealed and replaced, that is a much better bill or it works for the bulk of Americans rather than just a few.

So, I want to play this for you. This is speaker Paul Ryan today about the bill. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RYAN: Let's not forget Obamacare is collapsing. Obamacare isn't staying. If we did nothing, the law would collapse and leave everybody without affordable health care. We are doing an act of mercy by repealing this law and replacing it with patient-centered health care reforms that we as conservatives have been arguing for and fighting for years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Jeff, he says it is an act of mercy to repeal it and replace it with this plan. I imagine you have some thoughts on that.

JEANS: Yes. I'm really disappointed that the new law talks more about profits and tax cuts more than it does about patient protections and expanding healthcare coverage for every American, for every American.

You know, I feel really disheartened for the poor and the middle class of this country that are living paycheck to paycheck. And, you know, they budget for health care and by taking away the subsidies and replacing it with a year-end tax credit, you know, so many millions of people are going to lose coverage. You know, I had the privilege of speaking with speaker Ryan's health care staff little over a week ago. And I gave them some very creative ideas that expanded health care, guaranteed health care for every person. And unfortunately I didn't hear any of my points come out in the new plan that they have proposed.

[23:30:22] LEMON: Yes. Jeff, Kati, thank you so much. Best of luck. Keep us updated, OK?

JEANS: Thank you for having us, Don.

LEMON: Thank you.

MCFARLAND: Thank you. Have a good one.

LEMON: You, too.

Just ahead, the White House wants to pay for the expensive border wall with deep cuts to agencies that protect Americans. Wasn't Mexico going to pay for that wall? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:34:25] LEMON: So you heard my last guests, Jeff Jeans and Katie McFarland talking about how the GOP healthcare plan would affect them.

Let's discuss now with CNN political commentators Alice Stewart, Peter Beinart are here, CNN political contributor Hilary Rosen is here as well, and CNN political commentator Paris Dennard here with me -- or here on the panel.

So, before we get started, I want to get your reaction to what you just heard from our last guests. Alice, you first?

ALICE STEWART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: First, certainly your hearts go out to them and their medical conditions and that's the key focus of what this health care is about. And we heard Tom Price today stress the fact that they want this to be patient centered.

Kati had mentioned her concerns about the new health care law and it excluding people with pre-existing conditions. And I want to make sure that she and others understand that is one of the key components of the new proposal out there, people with preexisting conditions will be covered under this new plan. And I that's critical to point out. And especially for someone like her, that's a big concern. But that is a big factor.

And as Tom Price mentioned today with Obamacare, we had outrageous costs. We had fewer choices which were the two main promises we had from Obama. These are lot of people were standing around with a card but no care. And that is not going to be the case with this new plan.

[23:35:40] LEMON: Hilary?

HILLARY ROSEN, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Well, first to put some facts on what Alice just said, there is an ability for insurance companies to charge up to 30 percent surcharge on their existing premiums if they have a preexisting condition. They could lose and so, yes, there is a protection there, but it will cost you a lot more money. Couple that with the fact that they're taking away the subsidies for poor and middle income people to afford these policies. They are saying, if you make enough money to pay taxes, we will give you a tax credit against the cost that you have to shell out to pay for health care.

So, there is a real fear among people, a legitimate fear that they are going to lose coverage because they can't afford to pay their premiums and then those with preexisting conditions get a double hit because if they let their insurance lapse because they lose a job or because they can't pay a premium, then they have to pay even more money than others to get it back.

LEMON: Paris, I mean, this just shows you - I mean, when you listen to their stories, this is not an easy thing for either -- for anyone in power, any political party to do, health care.

PARIS DENNARD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No, Don. You are absolutely right. I don't think anybody, Republican or Democrat, listening to those two stories and didn't have their hearts go out to those people. Because at the end of the day, there are Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, who have preexisting conditions. There are young people on their parents plan in great measure because they can't find a food paying job to give them good health care.

So what I think the difference with this plan is going to be is that that is not going to be rushed through. It's not going to be just rammed down the throats. This is going to be a plan that's going to be read, it's a lot shorter. The American people can read it. I hope all the members of Congress can read it and have the debate. They can have somebody at the executive branch, the President of the United States Donald Trump who I believe is going to work together on both sides of the aisle to negotiate and to work with the Congress to get a good deal not for the insurance companies but for the American people. And I believe that is the goal of the Republicans in charge right now to make sure that we have a better plan for the people.

LEMON: So, speaking of Republicans, Peter, there are Republicans who are on the hill in Washington who are saying if it goes in its current form, this is dead on arrival.

PETER BEINART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Right. And I think this is going to be really difficult for the Republicans to get through. You know, one of the best ways of understanding what's happening in the mind of the people closest to Donald Trump is to read Breitbart, which is essentially the kind of prove da of this administration. And it's very interesting how negative Breitbart was in its response to this rollout along with a lot of other conservatives.

I think that the -- it turns out that, you know, being against Obamacare was pretty good politics for Republicans, but trying to replace it is going to -- is creating huge fishers (ph) within the Republican base and it is also going to create huge animosity among all these people who are going to lose their healthcare.

Big expansion in the number of people who got health insurance under Barack Obama. Medicaid expansion alone 10 million people. You start to roll that back you can have a lot of angry people. I think this could be the equivalent for Republicans of the Clinton administration's health care fiasco.

LEMON: Especially if you look at the polling, I don't know if we have the polling from we had it in the last hour, the polling for Obamacare which is the affordable care act. How many people last year at the end of the year were for it, right, who supported it and then how many people -- it has gone up, like almost 20 points, I believe, somewhere in that range. I mean, it says a lot of about what they are facing.

STEWART: I think one of the critical components is, as we all know, this was the first draft. This was the first proposal for this. And they knew from the very beginning it was going to be a complicated issue. And this is something --

LEMON: Those are numbers by the way. That's 44 percent. That was back in August and now 60 percent people approve of it. That's going to be tough.

STEWART: Sure. But to Peter's point, everyone knew this would be a difficult issue to tackle and we have people that are opposing it, people that strongly support it. But the good thing here is we have a proposal on the table. Both sides are going to be able to weigh in on it. People are going to be able to go out to the members of Congress and say I support this.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: My question is why is this so politicized? If like Paris said, like you know, Republicans have preexisting conditions, Democrats have preexisting conditions. Everybody wants health care to be improved. Why is this so politicized? Because if you look at numbers, right, the same people saying, my God, I hate this. I hate this are now saying they like it. Maybe some of those people realize that Obamacare is actually the affordable care act. Maybe they didn't like it because of the name on it?

[23:40:10] PETER BEINART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Fundamentally -- .

ROSEN: Can we get some facts out. It costs money to give people health care, right? And so somebody has to pay. And if the government doesn't pay, insurance companies are going to pay or consumers are going to pay. So the point that Alice and Paris are making, well, you know, this is just a first draft, give people time, et cetera, isn't going to wash when the problem for conservatives, the reason that the conservatives are opposed to this is because too much money, the little amount of money that they are already committed in this bill to spend is too much money for conservatives to spend. So this is not going to head in the direction of helping patients more. This is going to head in the opposite direction.

LEMON: I have to get to the break. I'm sorry. I got to get to the break. We will be right back and we are going to discuss that and we are going to talk about Arnold Schwarzenegger, he is out speaking. Why does the President talk about him so much? He is an interesting response to that. We will discuss that coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:24:15] LEMON: Guess what, we have some good news. Lady liberty is not mad at us or the travel ban or any of that stuff because the lights are back on at the statue of Liberty. Earlier the statue was suddenly plunged into darkness. No word yet on whether or not it was a power failure, but lady Liberty back in the spotlight, just like we like her. Right?

Everybody agree with that, panel?

STEWART: I think they had so many televisions on the Don Lemon show it cut out power.

LEMON: I know.

BEINART: It's fitting at a time when refugees are literally fleeing to Canada.

LEMON: There we go.

BEINART: Actually people's lives are on the line here.

LEMON: Send your tweets and comments to Peter, everyone. Back now with me Alice with Peter Beinart.

ROSEN: She is waving good-bye. Good-bye. Good-bye.

LEMON: The world as we knew it is now over.

So Hillary, listen. In the middle of the President's tweet tirade on Saturday morning about President Obama wiretapping his phones, he also took the time to tweet about Arnold Schwarzenegger and "the Apprentice." And he said Arnold Schwarzenegger isn't voluntarily leaving "the Apprentice." He was fired by his bad, pathetic ratings, not by me. Sad end to great show. What do you think?

ROSEN: I think that Donald Trump is in love with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: You stole it --

ROSEN: That's what Arnold Schwarzenegger thinks and I agree.

LEMON: OK. So you spoke with - so Schwarzenegger spoke with Michael Smerconish's radio show. Here is what he said. She gave it away.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN HOST, MICHAEL SMERCONISH SHOW: Final question, unrelated subject but I would be derelict if I didn't ask. Why do you think the President is fixated on you? Why does he keep talking about you through his twitter feed?

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, ACTOR: I think he's in love with me.

SMERCONISH: Is that what it is?

SCHWARZENEGGER: Yes, I think so.

SMERCONISH: You had a long relationship.

SCHWARZENEGGER: Yes.

SMERCONISH: That's all you're saying on that. Thank you, governor.

SCHWARZENEGGER: Absolutely.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROSEN: He also talks a lot about, Don.

LEMON: Not that there's anything wrong with that but go on.

ROSEN: Arnold Schwarzenegger is the only guy who has a better chest than Vladimir Putin.

STEWART: He talks a lot about you, Don. So maybe he is in love with you as well.

LEMON: I always thought that. I think that he really likes me. That's why he talks about me so much.

DENNARD: I think the President is in love with success and he said that the show wasn't going to be successful and he turned out to be correct and so he likes to talk about things that he is in love with.

LEMON: He's in love with Schwarzenegger who by anyone's imagine -- standard is a huge success, was a governor, anyway. Go on. BEINART: Right. Like you know we have now become lulled into this

completely parallel universe of Donald Trump in which we all of a sudden -- this is just kind of normal. You know, George W. Bush when he ran for president in 2006 said he was running to restore the dignity and honor of the office after Bill Clinton, right.

There was a time when Republicans actually cared about that. Now we have a President of the United States who just randomly insults b-rate movie actors and we think, well, you know, it's kind of cute, right? This is crazy. It's just totally crazy. We have just gotten used to it.

LEMON: No, no, we haven't gotten used it to it.

ROSEN: We haven't gotten used to it.

LEMON: I mean, as I said, I did my take last night on the beginning of this show. I mean, it's hard to sit here and have these conversations night after night after night and pretend that this is normal. This isn't normal by any other standards.

DENNARD: It's the new normal.

LEMON: No, it's not. It's new, Paris, but it's not normal. So, I mean, don't even try to characterize. Anyone who has unsubstantiated claims about a former President -- even if it were true, he should present the evidence. That's not normal, nor is it nice nor does it rise to the dignity of the oval office.

ROSEN: Well, and frankly the idea that you would kind of put the entire world on edge with a tweet about wiretapping relevant to foreign agents and then in the same --

LEMON: Arnold Schwarzenegger ratings suck.

ROSEN: What does the President think really matters in this country? So that is not normal and it's not something we ought to get used to.

STEWART: Well, here is an --

DENNARD: When I said it's the new normal, look, the American people knew this about the President, the then candidate. They knew that he liked to tweet. They knew that he liked to talk about things that most politicians, long-time politicians don't talk about. And yet still they voted for him to be President of the United States. And he's continuing to do that. So --

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: Paris, are you OK with all the things he says?

DENNARD: Would I tweet them or would I do that? No. That's what he like to do.

LEMON: That wasn't my -- are you OK with it? DENNARD: I'm OK with it because it doesn't bother me. I don't think

what a person tweets around does not affect his ability to lead this country or his or her ability to be an effective CEO.

(CROSSTALK)

BEINART: Twitter is a form of communication. How can you say what the President says doesn't have bear on his ability to lead the country.

[23:50:05] DENNARD: I don't think anybody is sitting at the table right now watching Don Lemon every night saying oh, my God, I can't get a job. How are you going to pay the bills because Donald Trump, the new President, has talked about it?

LEMON: No. But I think they think the president is crazy and that's very important.

ROSEN: That's a terrible trivialization. I though Juliette Kayyem on an earlier segment tonight, Don, made a really great point. How do you know that Donald Trump when we have a real crisis in this country, when something serious actually does happen, how do we know and trust that and how do our allies trust it.

LEMON: Can we -- instead of doing what we did before, can we continue this conversation in the next block for this? Yes.

OK. So don't go away. We will continue. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:54:40] LEMON: OK. I'm back with my panel. Just put the panel up on the screen as we start talking about this.

So the wiretapping thing for the president, no evidence on that. The fake birth certificate about the former president, that is false. Thousands of New Jersey Muslims who were on TV celebrating 9/11, false. Ted Cruz's father have something to do with Lee Harvey Oswald's death, false. The inaugural crowd size, three to five million, false. Illegal voters, no evidence of that, false. And so, this is supposed to be normal? Is this what supposed to be normal?

[23:55:09] BEINART: But I think it was Ted Cruz who called Donald Trump a pathological liar, right. He is a pathological liar. The question is why so many Republicans who were willing to call him a pathological liar before he became the party nominee as president are now cold as a water.

STEWART: Well, look. I agree that a lot of the things that Donald Trump has said throughout the campaign were insulting. They were devoid of fact. But I support his policies. People knew how he was during the campaign, but they supported his policies. They trusted that he was going to secure the border. He was going to keep our nation. He was repeal and replace Obamacare and he is keeping the promises that he made to American people on why they voted for him, not --. LEMON: Alice, hold on. No President of the United States wants to

make the country or people unsafe.

STEWART: Right.

LEMON: So how does a Trump supporter explain to their daughters or their sons that someone can say I want to grope you and have free reign? How do you explain because you want to pay a little bit less taxes? So you have to wake up and tell your daughter or by voting for him that you are saying it's OK that someone can grab you when you are a child or if you a boy that you can do it? How do you reconcile that as I can't reconcile that in my head? I could never explain to my nieces or my nephews that that is OK or normal.

STEWART: You can't. Those comments were disgusting and despicable. And there is no different --.

LEMON: I would rather buy them a few less gifts and telephones and pay a little bit more for things than to normalize that behavior. Do you understand that? That's what most Americans think.

STEWART: Absolutely. And I agree many of his comments were disgusting and insulting. But that being said, more people looked at the fact that what his policies were and what he promised the American people he would do. And that is why he got elected to be president of the United States.

ROSEN: But I think you need to look at something else, though, because he is a salesman. And he himself admits that he doesn't tell the truth. He did it in his earlier books. He is a salesman.

BEINART: He is a conman.

ROSEN: The problem now is what do we do now with what he is selling is not the truth? How do we get that?

We will continue to discuss. Sorry, I got to go. We are way over.

Good night everyone. Thanks for watching.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)