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President Trump Doesn't Have Tapes of His Chats with James Comey; Ironworker Wants Paul Ryan's Job; House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi Blamed for Disarray in the Democratic Party; Bill Cosby Planning Series of Town Halls to on Sexual Assault Education; 13-Month Old Conjoined Twins Successfully Separated. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired June 22, 2017 - 23:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:00:23] DON LEMON, CNN HOST: Trump's tale of the tapes.

This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon.

Is anybody out there surprised to hear President Trump doesn't actually have tapes of his chats with James Comey? Anybody? Anybody? Mueller? I don't think so. But was this a much bigger mistake than the President realizes.

Plus, the man they're calling a human Bruce Springsteen. Iron stash is running against Paul Ryan. Does he have a shot?

And you think Bill Cosby would keep quiet after he dashed a bullet in his indecent assault trial. But just wait until you hear what he wants to do now.

So let's get started right to the tale of the tapes.

Here to discuss CNN presidential historians, plural. Timothy Naftali and Douglas Brinkley. He is the author of "Rightful Heritage, Franklin D. Roosevelt in the land of America" and CNN senior political analyst, David Gergen and political commentator David Swerdlick.

Good evening, gentlemen. Thank you so much for coming on.

David Gergen, you first. The President was on FOX News tonight. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Robert Mueller, do you think he should recuse himself because he is good friends with James Comey. He has hired some attorneys that were part of Hillary Clinton's foundation and given money to President Obama and Hillary Clinton's campaign. Should he recuse himself?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, he is very, very good friends with Comey, which is very bothersome but he is also - we are going to have to see. I mean, we are going to have to see in terms -- look, there has been no obstruction. There has been no collusion. There has been leaking by Comey. But there has been no collusion, no obstruction and virtually everybody agrees to that. So we will have to see. I can say that the people that have been hired all Hillary Clinton supporters.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So David Gergen, he has declared himself innocent. Should the special counsel be stop now?

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: No. But I do think you can tell he is ramping up that way to, you know, he is trying to discredit Mueller so that if in fact the Mueller and special counsel finds or has been obstruction or finds there has been collusion, the President's going to declare that fake news. Fake findings. Done by a bunch of Democrats.

He is muddying the water in such a way that is either way he wins. If he exonerate him then he wins, if they find him, you know, that he is -- there are issues that ought to be taken to the Congress regarding to the President, he is going to call it all fake. And you know, a lot of his supporters, based on the past, are going to agree with him.

LEMON: David Swerdlick, I have to ask you. What is he laying the groundwork for? Is he hinting at something that maybe Mueller might be out of a job soon?

DAVID SWERDLICK, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. He wants to sort of bloody Mueller up and he is doing it in a way that he probably thinks is subtle there.

The problem for the President, Don, is that when Mueller was first appointed as special counsel, most prominent Republicans praised him. The problem is also that he was appointed by President Trump's own justice department. And director Mueller, former director Mueller has a stellar reputation having served as 12 years as the FBI director. So the idea that now the President is going to sort of come in here and suggest that, well, hey, he is in the pocket of Democrats, even though as others have pointed out, President Trump himself has on many occasions contributed money to the Democrats over the course of his career. It just - it doesn't seem like it's going to wash.

LEMON: I want to move on. So quickly, to you guys. Does this bother you him saying that? Is this concerning to you?

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Very concerning. It means he is going to, you know, gut Mueller in the end. The question is will Republican senators go along with that? Will Corker and Flake and - you know, allow him to beat up on Mueller like that.

TIMOTHY NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: It would be disaster if he fired Mueller or tried to through the justice department.

LEMON: Let's turn now to the tapes of the other news of the day. So here is how this all gone down. First, there was this tweet for the President. This was on May 12th and he says here on (INAUDIBLE) Comey better hope there are no tapes of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press. Then there was this moment from the Comey that Comey hearing and that was June 8th. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES COMEY, FORMER FBI DIRECTOR: I very carefully chose the words. Look, I have seen the tweet about tapes. Lord, I hope there are tapes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: And this today the President tweeting with all of the recently reported electronic surveillance intercepts unmasking or legal leaking of information, I have no idea whether there are tapes or recordings of my conversations with James Comey. But I did not make and do not have any such recordings.

We have lost, Doug, 40 days, right? And 40 days that have damaged the Trump presidency and cast doubt on his personal credibility as well.

[23:50:05] BRINKLEY: It is -- makes me ill. We have soldiers fighting abroad right now. You have a President jerking the American people around like this on the idea of dangling these tapes that didn't exist in front of us. It's a move of a scoundrel, I think. And the President's behavior has to be -- and we know Republicans don't like it either. This is not any way to run a country. The world is just got to be scratching their heads and laughing at us.

LEMON: Would you describe these last 40 days as self-sabotage?

NAFTALI: Of course. If it hadn't been for his tweet, it is unlikely that James Comey would have leaked his memos.

But I want to add one more thing which is the importance of credibility. We are still the only superpower in the world. We have the most powerful nuclear arsenal. And we have a President of the United States who doesn't care if he makes things up. That undermines our ability to send signals to our adversaries and our friends alike. This is real business. This is serious business. And our President, in the way in which he dealt with this tapes matter for 40 days wasn't taking his job seriously, period.

LEMON: I want to hear from David Gergen because it has been said, one Republican said the President has been amused by this and all that's been made of it. What do you think?

GERGEN: Well, I agree with much of what has been said. I have reached the stage of feeling like you know, yes, there has been a lot of self-sabotage. But you know, there have been four special elections in the last 40 days too. And all these assaults on the President. And the Democrats have gone zero for four, which means all this conversation hasn't really moved a lot of the voters who were with him to start with. And I think the question becomes how do we have a conversation on television in which we can listen to each other and I think in some ways persuade the Trump supporters that those of us often critical of the President are not doing it because we want to bring him down. That's not the point. It just - he is failing to meet the standards so often that we set for presidents and that's disappointing and concerning and can be dangerous. But I don't know how we get to a place where every night we throw stones at the President and think that's solving the country's problem.

BRINKLEY: We will see what - we have to see what the Mueller reports says. I think that's going to be the big moment for our country.

LEMON: But don't you think it is incumbent upon the President of the United States to start to the top? Because the President is the one who is - he starts by saying, you know, the media is fake. They are terrible people. They are liars. Don't believe anything they say and on and on and on. And then, you know, then he discredits the intelligence agencies and he discredit the former FBI director and anyone who says that this should be investigated. Anyone who says there was actually tampering with the election, that Russia temped with the election. Even though most of the intelligence agencies said they did, he says it is fake news. Shouldn't that start with the President of the United States?

NAFTALI: Yes, but you're expecting him to understand the rules of public administration. This man has never worked for a public organization. He has never been held to that standard. He has never had to be in a transparent situation. He has no desire to learn how to do it. And he has shown us he is not interested of playing by those rules. The question is whether the other people in government in the other branches of government are going to continue to allow break those rules.

LEMON: And if he is interested, man, you said by not playing by the rules, I mean, let's be honest, he is interested - also interested in not telling the truth because much of what he says about the investigation even beyond, even in creating jobs were just a fact- check is, David Swerdlick, it is simply not the truth.

So you know, to David Gergen's point, so you know, instead of television, how do we reach the Trump voter? I don't know. I mean, unless you want to start not telling the truth or giving the reality 068 what's actually happening.

SWERDLICK: Yes. If you take something that is very specific like these tweets about the supposed tapes, I think it is incumbent upon us as journalists to, you know, call out where the President is either, you know, wasting time, as Douglas said or dithering with the American people, you know. You have a situation where unless there is some strategy that is later revealed about why the President tweeted about these tapes, what you are left with is it's a sense that it is just a little bit of nonsense, right.

Nothing about James Comey says that he can either be bluff -- whether you like him or not, that he can be bluffed or pushed off his stance. So why the President thought that he could do that to director Comey is baffling. If you expand it out the whole open and think about what David Gergen said a moment ago, I agree. The President's approval ratings have never gone lower than 35, never gone higher than 45 since inauguration day which suggest to me that on the one hand he's not losing a lot of support and he is also not gaining a lot of support. And that, you know, we are sort of hardening it to camps in this country and we have got to find a way to have a little bit better dialogue.

[23:10:11] LEMON: David Gergen, I will give you the last point since we are discussing what you were saying.

GERGEN: Well, I just want to say is that at the same time I think we have got to hold him accountable when he has big issues before it that are really important to people's lives like this health care bill. I must say that of all the things that have been happening in the last 24 hours, the idea that the United States might actually take money away from poor people, take away their health care and turn it into dollars and give it to the richest people in the country in a country that already has terrible inequality, I just find that stunning. You know, Don, we are at point we don't know whether to talk about the President and all his tweets and all his craziness or to talk about the substance and how it may really effect the very people who voted for him.

LEMON: Yes. I get your point and I think a lot of this is a distraction. We have to discuss it. It's the President of the United States. And the tapes are important especially if you look the history of tapes and Watergate. But you are right. This healthcare bill is just as important. And this may be a distraction to get people not to talk about it so that they can sneak it through under the cover of darkness.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

When we come back the union ironworker who wants Paul Ryan's job.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it is time. Let's trade places. Paul Ryan you can come work the iron and I'll go to D.C.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: He will join me live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:15:02] LEMON: Some call him a walking, talking Bruce Springsteen song. Some call him iron stash. He is Randy Bryce and he is running for Congress against Paul Ryan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RANDY BRYCE (D), IRONWORKER RUNNING FOR CONGRESS AGAINST PAUL RYAN: I decided to run for office because not everybody's seated at the table and it's time to make a bigger table. I'm the best person to represent this district because I'm a working person. If somebody falls behind, we are so much stronger if we carry them with us.

That's the way I was raised. You look out for each other. I think it's time. Let's trade places. Paul Ryan, you can come work the iron and I'll go to D.C.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Joining me is Iron Stash himself, Randy Bryce. Welcome to the program.

BRYCE: Thank you, Don. Great to be here.

LEMON: OK. So listen. You are a father. You are an army veteran. You are an iron worker. You are cancer survivor. Why do you want Paul Ryan's job? Why do you want to challenge him?

BRYCE: Because Paul Ryan's been in about 18 years. I have been working iron for like 20 years. And I just compare what's going on. I can drive around our district and I can point to things that I literally built. I literally built our community with my hands. And I look at what Paul Ryan has brought to the community and I see jobs leaving. We have a plant being taken away, good paying auto making jobs. UAW plant down in (INAUDIBLE). That is being torn down. There's an abandon, a huge facility in Jamesville that just sitting there and just recently some of the best paying jobs are headed towards Canada.

LEMON: So my question, are you really serious about this, Randy?

BRYCE: Absolutely. I'm dead serious. It's been over 600 days since Paul Ryan has been seen in the district. You know, when he has seen there is breaking news alerts. And the people have had enough. We want to be heard, you know. Our concerns, what problems we are facing trying to raise families. It's ridiculous that Paul Ryan hasn't been in the area. We had to borrow representative (INAUDIBLE) to come from a neighboring district to tell us how this health care bill that are trying to push through is going to affect us.

LEMON: I want to watch part of your campaign ad. And this is particularly pointed today. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PAUL RYAN (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: This is repealing and replacing Obamacare. Everybody doesn't get what they want.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a very painful condition. It's like hot knives going through and you can't talk, you can't swallow. It's terrible. I'm going to cry. I'm on 20 drugs and if I don't take one that costs thousands of dollars, I don't know what would happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So Randy, tell us about your mom.

BRYCE: She is lucky. She is one of the lucky ones. Even having MS that can be debilitating at times, she is one of the lucky ones. Because she has insurance, because she is lucky that my dad had insurance. And my dad, by the way has Alzheimer's. He is an assisted living. And without the independence that the insurance brings, she can take her medications, she can visit him daily. It's horrible. It's a horrible medical condition that she has. But

she's a hero to me and I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for her and she's given me the strength. She has raised me to make sure we look after each other. And I can't say enough good things about her. But like I said she's lucky. She's lucky.

LEMON: We certainly wish her well. But you know, this -- everything is politicized, especially the health care bill. What do politicians in Washington -- what don't they understand?

BRYCE: Well, for one, I would say Paul Ryan doesn't understand the first thing about what people in the first district need. They don't understand that we are working harder and we are getting less. And I mean this last health care bill that Paul Ryan tried pushing, it didn't even look. When you are looking at it, it didn't even really have the feel of any health. It is not providing. It's not helping anybody. It's a tax break bill that was disguised as something deal that they want to portray as having to do with health.

LEMON: What is your next step? Because you announced your candidacy on Sunday and then five days later, here you are. I mean, you have won and lost in state and local races before.

BRYCE: Right. And I think you are going to see why the losses took place when you see the new districts that there redrawn due to the gerrymandering case. It is about to go on from the Supreme Court.

LEMON: I wonder - we have --.

BRYCE: That's given me --

LEMON: Go on.

BRYCE: I'm sorry. I was going to say that those races have given me lot of experience. And I think that what I have learned has been shown by the way that our campaign has taken off.

[23:20:04] LEMON: So, you know, we have you under -- it says iron stache. I'm wondering if you like Bruce Springsteen because here is what writer (INAUDIBLE) says that you have been genetically engineered from one of the boss's songs. He says Randy Bryce is running against speaker Ryan in 2018. He was genetically engineered from Bruce Springsteen's songs. I mean, could your twitter handle, Iron Stache, be his next hit, do you think?

BRYCE: What American worker doesn't love Bruce Springsteen. The boss rocks.

LEMON: Yes. That's a nice Stache. So tell us your secret? What happens?

BRYCE: It's a -- I don't want to give away the secret. Maybe come election time as part of the celebration I'll be happy to share the secret. So I would invite everybody to come and watch the election results in November of 2018.

LEMON: All right. Thank you for joining us. I appreciate it. And best of luck to your mother. Give her our regards.

BRYCE: Thanks for having me.

LEMON: Thank you.

BRYCE: Thank you very much, sir.

LEMON: When we come back, is the Democratic Party in crisis? Why some are calling for Nancy Pelosi to step down?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:25:08] LEMON: House minority leader Nancy Pelosi has a popularity problem. But is she really to blame for the disarray in the Democratic Party or is she a scapegoat?

Let's discuss now. CNN political commentators Bakari Sellers, Van Jones and Nina Turner.

Hello, good evening to all of you.

Bakari, you first. I'm sure you guys saw this. Look at it. Good evening, brother. I love that. Last night I had Representative Tim Ryan on and this is what he told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: You think Nancy Pelosi is more toxic than Donald Trump?

RE. TIM RYAN (D), OHIO: You know what the honest answer is in some areas of the country yes, she is. That's the honest answer.

LEMON: Why so?

RYAN: I just think first as unfair as it is there have been a lot of people that have spent a lot of money running negative ads against her. And I think that in certain areas like in some of these special election districts, it doesn't benefit our candidates to be tied to her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Bakari, is that accurate?

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: No, I don't think it's accurate. And I don't think Tim Ryan is the answer by any stretch.

LEMON: You think he is a hater a little bit?

SELLERS: I mean, regardless of whether or not he is a hater. I just - I think that it's very difficult to blame Nancy Pelosi for losses the Democrats had in Kansas, Montana, South Carolina and Georgia.

The fact is that we need to win 24 seats to take back the House and there are 71 seats that are bluer than is in Georgia's sixth. And even in South Carolina, we made up a lot of ground, Don. So I do believe that we are - I don't want throw the baby out with the bath water. However, I think the answer is nuance because I do think that we have a leadership crisis, that we have messaging crisis in the Democratic Party and that our leadership, frankly is steal.

Whether or not you are talking about Nancy Pelosi or Bernie Sanders, whether or not you are talking about Joe Biden or Chuck Schumer, I think we need to revamp our leadership because it's very hard to be a party for change when you don't have change at the top, when it looks like the status quo. And that is my concern.

LEMON: But listen. Aren't you guys saying the same thing?

SELLERS: I don't believe we are saying the same thing because I think he is castigating and throwing blame. I mean, people forget about all the victories that Nancy Pelosi has and they want to back the bus up over Nancy Pelosi and I refuse to let that happen.

LEMON: I have to say I saw Nancy. I just happened to run into her in an event here in New York City tonight. And just for a second she said -- sort of said the same thing to me that people forget all of -- .

SELLERS: You would not have the affordable care act right now without the strength of Nancy and many others, but particularly without the strength of Nancy Pelosi.

LEMON: Nina, what do you think of that?

NINA TURNER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I mean, Don, look. NBA draft was tonight and we should take a message from that. The teams that were losing wanted to draft players to help them win and it is just as simple as that. And if the NBA can do that every year, they don't wait every four years, they don't wait every decade, they assess every year. And getting new players on the field doesn't take away from what players have done in the past or legacy players. But what it does say that the NBA can do that just to win a trophy.

We as Democrats have to do a real assessment, a real autopsy and to determine whether or not we are going to start to win so that we can push policies that really help the American people. I mean, we got lot more than trophies on the line here. We got Medicare for all, social justice, environment justice, whole bunch of stuff is on the line for every day working Americans in this country. So we got to do something different and we got to do better and not having the willingness to assess that and have an honest conversation about that and then to do something differently that gets us that. Einstein defined it, it's called insanity.

LEMON: OK. I have to ask you, Van. You worked in the Obama administration. So my question to you is because now people are saying that the Republican Party is the Trump party. There is probably lots of blame to go around. But did -- the Obama coalition that was built was built around President Obama and not necessarily around Democrats. Was there a false sense of security among Democrats and did the Obama folks leave any oxygen in the room for anybody else? VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, that's a complicated

answer -- question. I mean to say couple of things. First of all, with regard to Nancy Pelosi, we have a broken Democratic Party but one of the few things in the party that works well is Nancy Pelosi. Her job is to raise money and keep the Democrats together in the House and she has been doing that. I don't think she is the problem with the party. There is about a thousand problems, I wouldn't put her even on the list.

LEMON: So what's the problem?

JONES: Everything that Bakari just talked about is price of the messaging and leadership is not just about one person. She is actually - she is actually doing - listen, technically on the books, you heard by Nina, she's actually doing her job well. But there are a bunch of other jobs that not being done well. And I think there's actually a consultant class of people who are incompetent, who are tone deaf who make a ton of money, who are in the way.

And so then as long as they are there, as long as you have this blanket or with the party sucking up money, giving bad ideas and data dummies that, you know, put up huge operations around computing and that kind of stuff and still can't tell you where to go and what to do, that's a much bigger problem. And so, with regard to your question around the Obama years, I think that the party got very happy and very lazy having such an extraordinary figure at the top and did not pay attention to the thousand plus people who lost their positions throughout the country and that is a problem. We have to turn our attention to now. But to me it is bazar that out of all people in the party is pick on Nancy Pelosi when she has threaten the one person doing her job.

[23:30:47] LEMON: Go ahead, Bakari.

SELLERS: No. And this Nancy Pelosi discussion is phenomenal because I don't think it's not a question about the individual and whether she does her job well. I think we have to change the face of the Democratic Party because due to this - let's look at this Barack Obama conversation.

Democrats do well when we have the JFK's and we have the Bill Clintons, and when we have the Barack Obamas.

(CROSSTALK)

SELLERS: The historic figures.

But even more importantly, I don't want to mince any words. This is still Barack Obama's party. I mean, we can talk about Joe Biden, we can talk about Elizabeth Warren, we can have a people's march and talk about Bernie Sanders. But this is Barack Obama's party. And the coalition that Barack Obama has been the core of the Democratic Party for a very long period of time. That core is African American women. That is how we win.

We lost this election in 2016 because African-American voters -- the turnout of African-American voters compared to 2008 and 2012, went down in every single swing state. In Georgia six African-American voters didn't turn out. In South Carolina five, African-American voters did not turn out. And so we need to make sure that not only are we getting more progressive, not only are we quoting white working class voters. But we also need to make sure we are not taking the backbone of our party for granted and giving them a full --.

LEMON: So to that, Van, you say -- if it's the Obama coalition - Nina, I'm going to let you get in. Van, so that Obama coalition didn't turn out. And the other side ran against Nancy Pelosi. They didn't run against President Obama -- Nina.

TURNER: And that doesn't mean -- I don't think there's a disagreement among the three of us. I don't personally believe that leader Pelosi should be thrown under the bus. What I'm saying about the NBA analogy is this, is that fresh doesn't always mean young but it just means at a certain point, a certain time people have to make a different play and that is what we are facing. That's what the Democratic Party is facing.

And the point about African-American women being the backbone of the Democratic Party, you dog right African-American women although what have African-American women gotten for themselves and for their families? I mean, hey, in this country, there has never been an African-American woman serve as governor in the history of this country and Democrats should be the first ones doing that. So when you have people like leader Stacey Abrams of Georgia pushing it, you know, trying to be that, not just the nominee but to win that.

You know, when is the Democratic Party actually going to do something for this loyalist part of the base? They haven't done a dog gone thing for African-American women. People have to come out to vote and I think sometimes we talk about this as if the voters owe the elected officials something. And it is the other way around. People have to earn that vote every single time.

LEMON: I have got to run. Thank you. I appreciate it.

When we come back, how Bill Cosby plans to educate young people about sexual assault just one week after he dodged assault charges himself.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:37:15] LEMON: This is the last thing you would expect from Bill Cosby. Just days after his trial on aggravated indecent assault charges ended in a hung jury, Cosby is planning a series of town halls to educate young people about sexual assault. Really? Listen to his (INAUDIBLE).

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDREW WYATT, BILL COSBY'S SPOKESMAN: We are now planning town halls (INAUDIBLE) to the city sometime in July.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Like a town hall just to talk with people. WYATT: We are going to talk to young people because this is bigger

than Bill Cosby, you know. This issue can affect any young person, especially young athletes of today. And they need to know what they are facing when they are hanging out and partying, when they are doing certain things they shouldn't be doing. And it also effects, you know, married men.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Here to discuss now, attorney Gloria Allred and CNN legal analyst Mark Geragos. Because we are having a technical issue, Mark is going to join us by phone.

Thank you both for joining us.

Gloria, you first. I know you have strong feelings about this town hall idea. Please explain.

GLORIA ALLRED, ATTORNEY: I do. This idea of a town hall or work shop that I read was to talk about potentially false allegations against men, false allegations of rape or sexual assault helps them to be educated about this. I think it's just a transparent and slick effort to try to have an impact on the potential jury pool for his second criminal trial.

The prosecutor, Don, has announced that he is going to retry Bill Cosby on the three felony counts against an aggravated indecent assault. So perhaps what he is trying to do is create a climate of opinion to potentially contaminate that jury pool or to influence them depending on your point of view so that if they are selected, they will decide that somehow the charges against him are false allegations and I'm sure the prosecutor would not file allegations unless he believes it was probable cause to believe it was true.

LEMON: Well, I want to bring in mark Geragos.

To Gloria's point, because the Montgomery county district attorney has already announced, Mark, that he is refiling those charges against, which means another trial. So from a defense attorney's perspective is that a smart idea what his spokesperson announced?

MARK GERAGOS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST (on the phone): Well, is it something I would recommend? Never. Not at this point. Not on a day when one of the jurors is reportedly saying the split was five to seven or seven to five on the count. But more importantly there's two other things going on here and what they are fighting against. You have to understand. Gloria is there. They are some advocate for people who are accusing Cosby. She has been out there. She has been doing all kinds of media. And so there is an argument that she and the others have been polluting the jury pool. That by them doing press conferences and ratcheting up the media, that has a negative effect on them.

And number two, when the prosecutor comes out, the prosecutor says before he can talk to the jurors, before the prosecutor even knew what the split was because until today it had been variously reported at 10-2 versus 5-7 or 7-5. The prosecutor's got a duty to investigate and decide and there are harken back to what Gloria just said. They got a duty to not just believe that there's probable cause but they are supposed to ethically feel that they can get a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt.

If they had not done any investigation as to what the jurors thought or what they were fighting over or whether or not they believed, then you know, technically there is some ethical challenges on behalf of the prosecutor. And by the way, there is not necessarily that this is going to go to a retrial, the judge still has to make that decision. They can do a motion to dismiss in the interest of justice and the judge ultimately is the one who would make that decision.

[23:41:23] LEMON: Well, let's --

ALLRED: Wait a minute.

LEMON: Go ahead, Gloria.

ALLRED: Mark, first of all, the judge, and I was there at the trial, indicated to the jurors in that first criminal trial that they were not to discuss deliberations or how others voted after they were released from their jury -- wait a second.

LEMON: No, no, no. I'm going to play the juror's sound bite for you and I'm going to let you respond.

ALLRED: Let me finish.

LEMON: Gloria, I want you to finish.

ALLRED: No. Don't talk over me. I want to address your point.

LEMON: OK, can we play the sound bite please. Gloria, I'm playing the sound bite to help you make your point.

ALLRED: Oh, OK.

LEMON: He is the juror.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was hopeless. It was from the first time on, the statute of limitations were running out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did that really bother you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, it does. I think it created this whole thing, a case that was settled in 2005 and we had to bring it up again in 2017.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Gloria, the reason I interrupted you I wanted to play that before we ran out of time because you were talking about the juror. So go on. ALLRED: OK, yes. I'm sorry, Don. I thought it was Mark. You can

interrupt me anytime you want. But let me just say I think the juror is a bit confused because the allegation was the subject of a civil lawsuit. It was settled. But there was no criminal prosecution until now. But the law allows -- in other words the statute of limitations does allow a prosecution anytime within that 12-year period in Pennsylvania. And the fact that there may be a civil settlement does not mean that there cannot be a criminal case as well. I have been involved in many cases in which there have been both.

LEMON: OK. So now we are out of time. That's why I want to get that in.

Mark, that's going to have to be the last word. I'm sorry.

Thank you both. I appreciate it.

When we come back the story of these twins, look at them, joined at the head at birth. The extraordinary surgeons who separated them join me next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:47:53] LEMON: Tomorrow night CNN has a dramatic story of 13-month old conjoined twins, Jadon and Anais McDonald, and the two world class surgeons who separated them.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Just seven hours after the first incision, we check in with the family. It's 5:00 p.m.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Really?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What's waiting in my stomach is for that phone call. OK, we are into. I call it the land of the unknown. We are into that area that we just don't know are we going to be separated today or are we not?

GUPTA: Around 10:00 p.m., 12 hours since the operation started, doctors hit that land of the unknown.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So I was at a point I was wondering whether we were going to lose both kids.

GUPTA: Goodrich has to stop.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, don't do that. The reason why. You will tear these guys.

GUPTA: The dream of separating these boys is about to end.

(END VIDEO CLIP) LEMON: Joining me now is Dr. James Goodrich, the director of the division of pediatric neural surgery at Children's hospital at (INAUDIBLE) and Dr. Oren Tepper, director of cranial facial and aesthetic surgery at (INAUDIBLE).

Thank you, doctors, for joining us.

At that point, Dr. Goodrich, you had to stop. To have to stop at such a critical point must have been frustrating and were you nervous, rattle? What were you thinking?

DR. JAMES GOODRICH, DIRECTOR OF THE DIVISION OF PEDIATRIC NEURAL SURGERY AT CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL: We were rattled. It was a situation where as the procedure had gone forward, we were changing the blood supply and the direction and it clearly became more complicated. We had to sit back and reassess and work with the radio neurology department.

LEMON: And this was the first surgery. There were several surgeries before this one?

GOODRICH: Yes.

LEMON: But this was the critical one?

GOODRICH: Yes.

LEMON: OK. Dr. Tepper, you are cranial facial surgeon, right. You specialize in skull reconstruction and we have models for that, you guys brought. You had to basically -- and let me show the viewer what it is. So is their -- you can see the faces here and this is how they were connected. There was one face here and on the other side there's another face and they were connected here and there's the brain connected together.

So show us what did you have to do? Because you had to make sure that they had two complete skulls, two holes skull, once it was complete, correct?

[23:50:08] DR. OREN TEPPER, DIRECTOR, CRANIAL FACIAL AND AESTHETIC SURGERY: Yes. And these models became very helpful in the planning, as well. So we have this throughout all the stages. But when Dr. Goodrich eventually was able to make this separation final, the job as the plastic surgeon, the cranial facial surgeon, is to get things covered. And in the case of both these boys, we need to cover their bone as well as their scalp.

So if you look at the model there, what we are able to use, is the bone we had to go through to access the areas of division. But we have some techniques to be able to split that, such as to divide that and create enough bone that I could use for both children.

LEMON: Right.

TEPPER: And for scalp, it's very dangerous to leave obviously brain exposed as we see here. So it is over the course of the previous surgeries, we inserted some tissue expanders or balloons that we slowly ballooned up. And that essentially gave us enough scalp to be able cover the children.

LEMON: So you have to make sure that everything -- the tissue, there is everything connected own worked after surgery, right? But we understand that one of the twins had a problem with his right arm? Correct?

GOODRICH: Actually, both did when they woke up. Because this area where they were conjoined as you see here. We had to - actually had to split through the brain. So one child had a hemiplegia on one side. The other child had it on the opposite side. Interestingly know, nine months later, both kids are moving both arms very well.

LEMON: So Anais and jade, both of them had. Let's look at the video. There is new video of them -- of him, you can see. I think this is Anais using - there it is, using his arm. And you said they are both doing OK now. They are both using their arms?

GOODRICH: Correct.

LEMON: Everything is working?

GOODRICH: Everything is working. Pretty amazing.

LEMON: How do you feel?

TEPPER: It was an incredible experience, to be part of this. And fortunately these two boys survived. And the parents have two healthy children who should live a normal life.

LEMON: I mean, this is a pretty technical. Is this the biggest or one of the biggest surgeries you had to perform?

TEPPER: Certainly in my career.

GOODRICH: Well, we have been through seven sets that we separated, 28 operations. And all of them are fairly unique. What was difficult for them was the amount of conjoined brain and the vascularity, the (INAUDIBLE) that we have to get apart. But in the end, they worked.

LEMON: I want to play this another clip from the document. Mom's name is Nicole, right. The first time she held them after the surgery. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GUPTA: Meanwhile, four days after the operation, Jadon wakes up. He is ready for something his parents had only dreamed of. He can be picked up and cuddled for the first time. It's as if Nicole see him for the first time.

NICOLE MACDONALD, MOTHER: As a mother, you know when you hold your child, you know every bit of their face. Well, his face, also encompassed Anias'. So as my first moment of relearning his face. And he looked up at me for the first time in that way. And I got to see that he was reassured and he was comforted in my arms, which was something I was scared of. I was scared he didn't want to be held because they had never been held and he melted in. And it was wonderful.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: What did you think? What was that like?

TEPPER: Well, we saw the parents so many times before surgery. And it's one of those things you take for granted. But the family, they had a system of bringing both boys in and putting them on the exam table and turning and twisting, et cetera. But it seems so trivial to everyone else, to be able to hold your child individually. And for mom to bring Jadon over and hand him over, it was incredibly powerful.

LEMON: What about you, Dr. Goodrich?

GOODRICH: Well, been through this a number of times. And I can tell you, it's the moment, without exception. That opportunity to be able to pick up and hold them as two separate kids is -- it's an emotional moment.

LEMON: Yes. Does everyone get a little misty?

GOODRICH: I think so, yes.

JONES: Yes. Including the doctors?

GOODRICH: Including the doctors.

LEMON: Thank you.

GOODRICH: Thanks for having us.

LEMON: It's a pleasure. And thank you for what you do. We appreciate it.

GOODRICH: Lessons will work out.

LEMON: Yes. Thank you. We have been talking about, we are going to go surfing together. A perfect person to have with me. Thank you. I really appreciate you guys coming on.

CNN Special Report, "separated, saving the twins," airs tomorrow night at 10:00. Make sure you tune in.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:58:54] LEMON: Question for you, where do you work? That's often the first question that people ask. But many adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities have trouble answering because nearly 70 percent of them do not have jobs.

Amy Wright, the mother of two children with down syndrome set out to change that. And it is why she is this week's CNN hero.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: People with minorities are the largest minority in the world. So many of them are used to being in the shadows.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you are first latte of the day.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Our 40 employees are proud to be employed by (INAUDIBLE) coffee. And they will shout it from the rooftops. It's given them a sense of being valued and respected in ways that we take for granted.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Curious to find out how Amy is making this happen? Go to CNNheroes.com. And while you're there, nominate someone who is changing the world to be a 2017 CNN hero.

That's it for us tonight. Thanks for watching.