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Don Lemon Tonight
Judge Jails Paul Manafort, Trump's Former Campaign Chair; From Firing Friday to Lyin' Friday; Immigration Policy Separates Children from Parents; President Trump Heaps On More Praise on Kim Jong-Un; President Trump Announces Tariffs On $50 Billion Worth Of Chinese Goods. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired June 15, 2018 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00] (JOINED IN PROGRESS)
DON LEMON, CNN HOST: I just think he was trying to distract. He knew it was going to come out with Paul Manafort that it could be bad, he knew something is going to come out, you know, with Michael Cohen and on and on. He knew some things were going to come out. So I think he was trying to change the news cycle. So that's just my--
(CROSSTALK)
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: Don Lemon, it is rare that someone is gifted with both the looks that you have and such a keen insight. But look, we know he did, and you know what, all the signature traits, impromptu, he scattered it around with a lot of different topics that were provocative in a lot of different ways and teamed up with Rudy. You think that that was an accident?
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: On a Friday morning Rudy comes out of nowhere and just calls Joe Biden whatever he called him. Joe Biden, how'd he enter the discussion? You know why, because he know we'd pick up on it.
LEMON: Absolutely. And we're going to be talking about your interview as well. I'm going to see you on Sunday. Hopefully it's better than our last fishing trip.
CUOMO: The fishing, yes, you know. You're right. I know.
LEMON: That we catch a fishing you don't break your motor.
CUOMO: I know.
LEMON: All right.
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: Thanks for reminding me.
LEMON: See you Sunday, have a good one.
This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon. It is Friday. So pick your own superlatives for the week. Remarkable,
incredible maybe, how about gobsmaking. Fridays in D.C., well, this is usually something we call firing Friday but I'd like to christen Friday lyin' Friday, as in Lying. Lyin' Friday. Ted Cruz, hope you don't mind that we borrow your Trump-given nickname.
First thing this morning, President Trump walked across the North Lawn of the White House to speak to his good friends at Fox News. So let's start with the Justice Department's blockbuster internal watchdog review. Here's the president's take away.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think that the report yesterday may be more importantly than anything, it totally exonerates me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: No, that's what you'd call a lie. It has nothing to do with you. The report chastised former FBI director James Comey's handling of the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation. And it concluded that Comey was not motivated by political bias. But apparently you didn't read that page.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: You look at what happened they were plotting against my election.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: That would be something else you'd call a lie. Just read the report, sir. And when your friends from Fox News foolishly asked if they think James Comey's actions should result in jail time, you said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Certainly he -- they just seem like very criminal acts to me, what he did was criminal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Another whopper, that's a lie. The report doesn't level any criminal charges against Comey but you followed it up with this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I think Comey was the ring leader of this whole, you know, den of thieves. It was a den of thieves.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: That is a lie too. Comey was held in very high regard by his top staff and by FBI employees. And this lie is also something else, an insult to the tens of thousands of people who work at the FBI, which is considered the premiere law enforcement agency in the world.
You also regularly trashed Robert Mueller's investigation, today you said it's totally discredited, which is not. You regularly trashed his team ad you don't pass up an opportunity to do so again, today. You didn't. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Thirteen angry Democrats. The 13, I call them, 13 angry Democrats, and others worked for Obama for eight years. I mean, they have no Republicans.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Another guess what, lie. Mueller himself is a Republican as is Rod Rosenstein, who is overseeing Mueller's investigation. So, what about your Singapore summit this week with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I signed an agreement where we get everything, everything. But they say Trump lost because he agreed to meet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Well, no that is a lie on a number of fronts. A lot of people including your opponents think that reaching out to Kim Jong-un was a positive move. Talking versus threatening, that's good. But many remain concern that you're ready to give away the store to a murderous dictator. And when you say we get everything - that is utter nonsense.
All you got was a broad statement of intent to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. North Korea has agreed to that before and never followed through since the 1990s. But you gave North Korea something it wanted, suspension of military exercises with South Korea. A surprise to our friends in both South Korea and Japan, and a shock to the Pentagon. Then there's your immigration policy at the border.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: If you notice when I came over they were all saying about separating the families, and that's a Democrat bill. That's Democrats wanting to do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: That is another lie. It's your Attorney General Jeff Sessions who implemented a zero tolerance policy and is aggressively prosecuting and separating parents and children if they enter the country illegally.
[22:05:05] You say you hate this, and you hate that it is happening, and it is just the Democrats' fault but you can stop the practice any time you want. Only you can stop the practice right now as quickly as it can be stopped, you can do that. So, what about Paul Manafort, your former campaign chairman who is in
jail tonight after his bail was revoked.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Manafort has nothing to do with our campaign. He worked for us what, 49 days or something. A very short period of time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: So that's another lie. Manafort was your chain chairman and chief strategist and he worked for you for 49 days, that's another lie. We did the math. He worked for your campaign for 144 days.
And that's not even all of today's lies, but we only have two hours, for me at least and we have to start somewhere. So let's begin now tonight with CNN Legal Analyst, Jennifer Rodgers, CNN Political Analyst, April Ryan, White House Correspondent for American Radio Networks, CNN Political Commentator, Matt Lewis, and Rick Wilson, Republican strategist.
Good evening, welcome to the program. This is all about the truth.
RICK WILSON, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Hi, Don.
APRIL RYAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Good evening.
LEMON: Right? That's all we do here. That's all the truth. So, Rick, seriously, lie after lie, so many of them if I put in there I would be going all night. Why does this president have such a fraught relationship with the truth? And why is he getting away with it? Why don't Republicans call him out?
WILSON: Look, President Von Munchausen has no relationship with the truth, Don. He has never been caught up in it, he has never been held to account, no one ever basically has thrown the microphone down and said, screw this, I'm out, you're just talking crap.
No one in Congress ever says, Mr. President, stop lying, stop lying like a cheap rug. This is a guy who gets away with it because people let him get away with it. I mean, your intro tonight was an incredible valuable moment, Don. Because it basically went right out and said lie after lie after lie after lie and lie.
And you know, today the president, he was out there free range crazy on the White House lawn and basically, you know, bouncing from one explosion of B.S. to another, and hoping that he was going to get away with it.
I mean, this -- I think the guy was pretty unhinged today. I mean, there may be some method to the madness because he didn't want people to talk about Manafort. But, you know, this is a guy who -- he's stretching the truth over and over again to the breaking point. So it's like Americans are kind of exhausted by it. And at some point, you know, it catches up with somebody at some point. LEMON: April, I don't know, I mean, April, you're there almost every
day. And today he falsely claimed that the I.G. report exonerates him. But the I.G. report had nothing to do with the Russia investigation.
RYAN: Right.
LEMON: Nothing about obstruction. It was about the handling of the Clinton e-mail investigation. If anything--
(CROSSTALK)
RYAN: The e-mail, yes.
LEMON: -- it said that we had no reason to prosecuted, doubled down, no reason to prosecute Hillary Clinton, that James Comey, although they thought it was inappropriate, that it wasn't political in the findings and they didn't think that anything struck or anybody else said whether they should be doing it or not, they should not have been texting each other. But they don't think it had any effect on the outcome of this investigation.
RYAN: Well, I'm going to say this. This president is always going to be right in his eyes and within his administration. He wants to operate from a stance of strength and he wants to show that he's won and he was right in firing Comey, no matter what the 500 pages found.
This president has a contingent, a constituency that believes him no matter what. You could see that its blue outside and the president will say it's orange. The people will say, see it's really orange. It's like that dress, that white versus, what is it, yellow or blue? Remember that dress? And that's what it's like this president. People believe anything he says without really taking a look.
And today you were absolutely right, it was about diversion, it was about taking the news cycle himself. I don't think the president was unhinged today, he was being himself. And this is -- he wants people to believe what he believes. I believe he believes this. He doesn't realize that the truth is something out there, it's foreign to his nature. I believe he just believes he take it in and he crafts it in his way.
But I believe, Don, that this president wants to make sure that his constituency and the world hears what he says and he's going to keep throwing it until it sticks. Even though we are saying and we see those 500 pages said something different.
LEMON: I just wonder is it worse if he knows he's lying or if he doesn't know? I mean, we'll stew on that for a minute. So, because I have to get this in. Jennifer--
(CROSSTALK)
MATT LEWIS, CNN COMMENTATOR: It's not a lie if you believe it's true.
LEMON: Yes. But then what does it say about you if you believe it's true? LEWIS: I think that was George Costanza. But still, Donald Trump, it
wasn't good.
LEMON: Yes. Well, that was comedy.
(CROSSTALK)
RYAN: It's a lot.
[22:10:00] LEMON: So this could be a comedy of errors, this one. So, listen, or a comedy of lies.
So, a judge revoked Paul Manafort's bail and sent him to jail over allegations that he was witness tampering. His defense says he didn't know who would be witnesses. Jennifer, is that believable, do you think?
JENNIFER RODGERS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: No, not at all. Not when you look at the actual messages.
LEMON: Yes.
RODGERS: That it was sending it clear. He was reaching out to people--
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: I have them right here, yes.
RODGERS: -- who he knew who were going to be testifying about the purpose of the lobbying efforts were and where they were directed. So it was very specific, it was very pointed. And the judge, you know, she was very measured, she said she struggled with the decision, she seemed like she really actually didn't want to send him to jail.
She had to because he was violating his bail so flagrantly in a way that undermines the entire justice system and he was already being electronically monitored so there's not much else you can do other than to put him in and that's what she had to do.
LEMON: Yes, which I think she said something like this. This is like a high school I just can't take a cell phone away, but I mean, it's February 28. Manafort text d-one using WhatsApp encrypted, message, this is Paul. And then he attempts to call on February 25th, he attempts to call d-one using phone, not encrypted with phone call, does not connect. And then it just goes on and on and shoes he was trying to contact--
(CROSSTALK)
RODGERS: And he's trying to attempt, he's saying, you know, we all need to talk about the fact that we were not working in the U.S., we were only working in Europe. I mean, he's actually putting the substance in as well, so it's pretty, pretty obvious.
LEMON: It's weird, he thought he was slick because he did this thing -- Matt, I'm going to get to you but I just want to say this -- he did this thing called foldering where he opened up an e-mail account, gave a number of different people the password to the e-mail account. Wrote the e-mails in draft form but never sent them but everyone else had access to them. And then the investigators were like, you're not slick buddy. He already had two, he's already wearing two ankle bracelets, this is really stupid.
RODGERS: Right. I mean, the idea if you didn't send it through the server then, you know, they can't capture it later. But this is the technique that actually is used fairly widely to our law enforcement was on to it.
LEMON: Yes. And everyone using those encrypted apps who think that they can't be tracked. I mean, they're probably in for a surprise today as well.
So, Matt, Rudy Giuliani had this to say about the Russia investigation while Manafort going to jail. He said, quote, "When the whole thing is over things might get cleared up with some presidential pardons."
So, you saw Chris last hour he asked him about that earlier tonight. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: My advice to the president of the United States as his lawyer, not as a government lawyer is no pardons. It would completely change the momentum that we have right now, because it's very strong right now. You can see the polls moving in the president's favor and against Mueller.
CUOMO: Then why you suggest it?
GIULIANI: I didn't suggest it. I said he shouldn't pardon anybody. And the president said to me, you shouldn't pardon anybody. What I said was after the investigation is over then it has to be considered as a governmental matter, not by me.
And what the history has been is, these things get cleaned up, Ford did it, Reagan did it, Carter did it, Clinton did it and Bush did it in political investigation.
CUOMO: So, you're saying after the probe is over it may be cleaned up with any pardons?
GIULIANI: If people were unfairly prosecuted.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Matt, does that make sense to you?
LEWIS: Well, Rudy is very, I mean, look--
LEMON: Well--
LEWIS: If Rudy is devious is what he is, and he's incredibly smart, he's a weird dude clearly, but he's very smart. And I think, he's you know, there's like the dog whistle thing happening, right. So on one level Rudy is actually telling a true story, right, which is he is currently advising against pardons because things are going well now, it's a plausible story at least.
But later on, you know, once everything is cleared up, it may be that president's, you know, end up doing -- that's a plausible story. But what is he actually signaling to people like Paul Manafort? That's really what he's up to here, of course is putting in their minds, hey guys, don't talk -- you know, don't tell anybody anything that happened. If you know anything, keep it to yourself because Donald Trump -- if you do that Donald Trump will pardon you at the end of the day. Right? So that's incredibly slick and, you know, devious.
LEMON: Well, he probably should send a dog whistle about legal fees in because they rocking them up.
(CROSSTALK)
WILSON: It's easy when you're not inside.
LEMON: What did you say, what did you say, Rick?
WILSON: It's easy when you're not in the big house. I mean, Paul Manafort is laying there in an orange jump suit sweating his ass off right now thinking, God, they're going to leave me here. And they are.
LEMON: You just made my point, he's not talking about legal fees, someone has got to bail him out, it's costing people thousands and thousands of dollars, so far. I don't know. I haven't heard of him paying any of Michael Cohen's legal fees. And I know Michael is going to be in for a lot of--
WILSON: Yes.
LEMON: -- so this is all over.
OK. Stick around, we'll talk about that. I have one, I want to play more a little bit more of the Giuliani interview and also talk about the president saying in an impromptu TV appearance that he hates to see the children taken away from their parents at the border.
[22:15:01] We're going to break down this and some of the other things he said which were patently false. They were lies, as I said. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: So, the president claims he hates to see undocumented families being separated at the border, he has the power to end it but he has not.
Back with me now Jennifer Rodgers, April Ryan, Matt Lewis, and Rick Wilson.
I just want to continue on quickly with the conversation we were having before and then I want to get to the immigration things.
But Chris, Jennifer this is for you, Chris kept trying to press Giuliani on the pardon issue. Let's watch and then we'll talk.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GIULIANI: He's not going to pardon anybody in this investigation, but he's not obviously going to give up his right to pardon if a miscarried of justice is presented to him--
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: But it does not wind up that he could that he might?
GIULIANI: Well of course he could. Of course he could.
CUOMO: And that he might?
GIULIANI: Of course he might.
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: Because you're saying that he won't say I won't because it would look too bad because it's absolutely too close to--
GIULIANI: No. How about he's not saying -- he absolutely definitively will not because he might as well give up being president if he says that.
CUOMO: No, he could say I'm recusing myself from this aspect of--
(CROSSTALK)
GIULIANI: How he should recuse himself from being president? He's not Jeff Sessions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: What's your interpretation of what he's saying?
RODGERS: Well, look, it's really hard to listen to Rudy Giuliani right now with anything approaching kind of accepting what he says. He's been all over the map on all sorts of issues so I'm not sure I believe him when he says the president won't pardon anyone before the investigation is over.
You know, look, it's kind of like Watergate in a way, you know, Nixon is tied in all of this but even at the end of his term, you know, he's not pardoning anything. He wait for Ford to do it.
[22:20:01] So, I mean, I agree, the president should not pardon these people, this is all tied up with him. He shouldn't be involved in this at all. If there's pardons to be had they should wait for someone else to do it down the road.
But you know, again, what Giuliani says at this point I just don't think we can even believe.
LEMON: Do you really believe he's not going to pardon people. He pardons Joe Arpaio and Scooter Libby for what. So--
(CROSSTALK)
RODGERS: He will probably wait till the convictions though.
LEMON: Yes.
RODGERS: If he seem to have pardon it gets you into trouble with potential state charges so I think he waits.
LEMON: So, Matt, "The Washington Post" is reporting now that Trump sees continuing his administration's policy on separating kids from their parents and blaming Democrats for it as a way to force negotiations and deter more crossings. Children and families as pawns, is that what's happening here?
LEWIS: Yes, that's pretty much it, Don. Collateral damage and I think it's horrible. Look, I think you can be if you want to be you can be tough on border, you can be, you know, an immigration hawk, you can want to build a wall, that's different than being inhumane and not having compassion.
And so, I think what they're doing, I'm guessing this is more of a -- this is, you know, Jeff Sessions is an interesting dude too, right, this is a guy who allows himself to be publicly humiliated so that he gets to keep the job where he gets to separate immigrant parents from their children. That's the pay off for him, it's really bizarre. I think this is absolutely bad and Donald Trump of course is lying.
LEMON: But that is, but the president he said the opposite. This is him this morning. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The children -- the children can be taken care of quickly, beautifully and immediately. The Democrats forced that law upon our nation, I hate it. I hate to see separation of parents and children.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: OK, so that has been debunked by just about everyone. So, Rick, again he is blaming Democrats. If he wanted to change his administration policy, he could.
WILSON: Don, this is a president who will do an executive order to get more tartar sauce on his filet of fish. This is a guy whose essentially--
RYAN: My God.
WILSON: -- defined his administration by executive orders only. And so, this, they could easily do this, this is a policy decision. No one can cite a law, Sarah Sanders couldn't do. You know, they fall back on biblical quotation to cite the law for this. I'm sorry, let me just refresh you guys. The U.S. Code is not the older or New Testament or the apocrypha.
You know, this, so they could easily do this. They can change this in a hot minute. And they're nervous about it, that's why they're sending out folks from ICE and from FHS today to talk to the press because they understand the pictures are awful. The behavior is awful. The politics and the optics suck.
And so they need to fix it. But Donald Trump wants to pretend he's going to get his wall by making the Democrats do this. But look, his whole branding is the Democrats are soft, they want to let the brown people to come in and take your jobs and rape your children. And so now he's trying to say I'm the compassionate when it doesn't work. You can't sell that dog food because dogs don't buy it.
LEMON: Just for the facts here, it has been debunked repeatedly including "The Washington Post." There is no -- there is no -- there is Democrats law. A necessities separating children -- necessity, I should say, separating children from their parents as people from there with the rule regarding the handling of young people at the border made clear in interviews on Friday.
The separation policy is a function of decisions made by Trump and his team. Once more the administration specifically implemented the policy to serve as a deterrent for those thinking about seeking entry into the United States.
Again, not the democrats' law. So, listen, April, I want you to take a look. This is a cover from the New York Daily news. This is a frighten and upset child with the headline "callous, soulless, craven Trump."
He knows how to spin a story, but I mean, this isn't working for him. Do you think it's working?
RYAN: Well, no, it's not working. We finally have heard from religious leaders, to include Franklin Graham who said this is about family. You know, Jeff Sessions wants to quote the bible, he wants to get very biblical now and talking about Romans and how government is ordained, that may be true.
But the first ministry is your family. And Franklin Graham has said look, this is about the family. You heard on Twitter from former Attorney General Eric Holder saying this is cruel and inhumane. I mean, at the very least, you know, many Americans have family and when you think about your child being taken away from you, even as people are saying, if you cross our border it's illegal no matter what.
This is not boding well for this president, because for him to come out today and say that it's not going to happen and he doesn't want it to happen this way and he hasn't done it, he is trying to appease a certain group. He's still trying to keep his base saying I'm still hard on immigration. But he can't just say that, he's got to do it, just like your other guests have said, he's got to show something about it. [22:29:59] And not only that, and I'm going to go back in history. When you separate families, I'm thinking about slavery and I'm thinking about how, you know, mothers and fathers were pulled away from each other and the children were pulled away, all in efforts to breed.
I'm thinking about how religion was use in that, to say in that dynamic and slavery, to say, the slave masters who were Christian wanted the slaves to learn how to read so they could read the bible.
So you can manipulate religion all you want in any kind of way to justify something cruel and inhumane. So this is, if we go down that line it's an ugly line and this administration has to really step up to show that they are not trying to do things that are cruel and inhumane by te face of it or be it by paper, what have you. This does not look good, so this is not a good look.
LEMON: All right.
RYAN: This is not a winning picture for this president.
LEMON: Thank you all. I appreciate it.
When we come back, President Trump's former campaign chairman is behind bars tonight. What Paul Manafort did which landed him there and why the judge think he's at risk to commit future or further crimes. We'll talk about that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:05:02] LEMON: Former Trump Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort is in jail tonight.
CNN's Mary Kate Maloney and team obtained this exclusive video of this white van bringing him to a facility that is in Virginia, 90 mile south of Washington, just a few hours ago.
This after a federal judge revoked his bail ending his house arrest believing she had no choice after prosecutors presented evidence Manafort was contacting witnesses. I want to bring in now CNN Legal Analyst, Michael Zeldin. He is a former special assistant to Robert Mueller at the Department of Justice, and CNN Legal Analyst, Renato Mariotti, former federal prosecutor.
Gentlemen, good evening. Wow. So much for a slow Friday. It's going to be this war for a long time. Renato, starting with you. Paul Manafort was out on bail for federal conspiracy, money laundering. He was wearing two ankle bracelets to monitor him.
But the judge warned him that he was on thin ice for ghost riding an op-ed defending himself. Even after that, this guy tries to contact potential witnesses in the upcoming -- allegedly, according to the judge, in an upcoming trial. Was he just -- was he pushing his luck? I mean, what the hell was he thinking?
RENATO MARIOTTI, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Obviously very bad judgment. That's really, I think, bad judgment is Paul Manafort's middle name, you know, really throughout the entire course of his conduct in this suit.
Very aggressive tactics, and here, it appears that he committed a federal crime while he was on release, at the very least that's what the grand jury found by probable cause, and adding that charge in the indictment. And the judge relied on that finding today, they will him in jail for the dependency of this motion, or for the -- excuse me, for the dependency of this trial.
It's a very bad development for Manafort. And I think, you know, in my experience, whenever defendants go into custody, they are more likely to plead guilty, they are more likely to flip because, frankly, they can't put this out of their minds. They can't compartmentalize, and forget about the prosecution, they are living the effect of it every single day.
LEMON: Yes, I mean, especially the way that he's used to living, you know, he had an apartment at Trump Tower, he had apartments, you know, at certain parts of the country, expensive suits, and on, and on. He's a wealthy man. He lived a certain lifestyle. And now he's in a cell. I mean, man, that's got to be harsh.
Michael, I want to know about all these, you know, encrypted apps that everyone think, you know, no one is going to get me, and no one's going to be able to read them, but then, I don't know, it appears that they somehow got this information in this case, and also apparently in the Michael Cohen case, as well.
They were able to get his WhatsApp or whatever encrypted apps that he had. So besides those apps, they say that Manafort use a method, this method is called foldering. So what happens with foldering, you make an e-mail account, you share the password, then you write, and you save messages as drafts, right, and you don't send them.
Then others open that draft, they read it, and then they delete it. Does this, and a use of these messaging apps attract investigators' attention here, and how were they able to get this information?
MICHAEL ZELDIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Certainly, it attracted the attention of Mueller's legal team. They thought that method implied some, you know, deceit in respect of the communications. That if they wanted to just speak openly about something which wasn't subordening perjury, then why not just send an e-mail.
So they interpret it that way, and they have the means available to them to receive all of those cell phones, and other computer devices, and they can retrieve that. The notion that the encryption on these WhatsApp and other types of things are such they can be, you know, denied, they prosecuted the opportunity to view them is just mistaken. And so Paul Manafort found that out.
LEMON: So these (Inaudible) are confide or whatever -- it disappears once the message is sent, does it not really disappear? I mean --
ZELDIN: Well, most of it -- most of it will go into the cloud or other places where it's retrievable. It's very little that it's not retrievable these days. Paul Manafort, you know, learned that lesson. I'm a bit surprised that he didn't know that, or his lawyers didn't advise him of that.
And now he's found himself in this terrible situation of being held pending trial. And I wanted to just add on this, you know, I get what Renato said that he committed -- you know, he was accused of committing a crime while out on release, and that under the Bail Reform Act of 1990 that's a basis for holding him as Amy Berman Jackson did.
But in a case like this where there's FISA issues, and documents that need to be looked at in secure facilities, being in jail makes it so burdensome for the defense to actually defend itself. I'm a little bit surprised that Amy Jackson, who I've known for a very long time, I think is a terrific judge, couldn't find conditions of confinement at home that will allow him to more readily defend himself.
[22:35:04] LEMON: Well, didn't she -- I mean, she tried.
ZELDIN: No, I understand --
LEMON: And she admonished him for writing this op-ed, and then she -- I mean, he had two ankle bracelets. And she -- well, his lawyer said, we'll take his cell phone. I mean, how do they know, how did she know? The only way who doesn't have access to a cell phone is in jail.
ZELDIN: That's right. That's what she said, and that's -- what was determinative of her decision, and that's why it may likely be upheld on appeal. I just think that the system of justice works best when each side has equal access to, you know, their lawyers, and the protections that the constitution --
LEMON: So you don't think he has access to lawyers, and he can't see his lawyers when --
ZELDIN: No, no, he can, but he's several hours south of --
LEMON: OK.
ZELDIN: -- of where he lives, and where his lawyers practice, and they don't have a secure facility, and they have visiting hours, and that makes it much difficult.
LEMON: I got -- I want to hear what Renato has to say. What do you say, Renato? What do you think of what he said?
MARIOTTI: I -- you know, I think, the system of justice works best when defendants aren't trying to tamper with witnesses. You know, frankly, I think the judge -- I read her opinion that she put out this evening, I thought it was very persuasive.
And I think her point was you have a pattern of behavior here that shows that Mr. Manafort didn't have any respect for the law. And so it's very difficult to track conditions of release when you know that the man on the other side of those keep signing those conditions, and agreeing to them, doesn't respect them, and is trying to find ways around them. So I think, you know, from her perspective this was the final straw.
LEMON: All right. Great conversation. Thank you, Michael. Thank you, Renato. I appreciate it.
ZELDIN: Thank you.
LEMON: When we come back the President makes a joke about how North Koreans sit up at attention when Kim Jong-un speaks. But given Kim's murderous record, is that really something to joke about?
[22:40:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: So, President Trump believing one good summit deserves another. During his impromptu meeting with reporter on the White House lawn, today, the President said, plans are underway for a one- on-one with Vladimir Putin. Following the some step of what he thinks is a success of his Singapore summit with North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un, and he took the opportunity to praise Kim, again.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He is the strong head. Don't let anyone think anything different. He speaks and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same. You don't understand, sorry.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: I want to bring in now CNN Global Affairs Analyst, Max Boot, author of "The Road Not Taken," and CNN Counterterrorism Analyst, Philip Mudd.
Gentlemen, good evening. When I saw this, I thought it was a joke, but then I said the first rule of, you know, comedy is that it has to be funny. Do you think he was joking?
MAX BOOT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, it's reminiscing, Don, of his supposed joke last year about how Xi Jinping was making himself president for life, and he said, hey, we should try that on the United States. And people called him on, and he said it's a joke, well, I would suggest to you that there is truth and whit, as well as whine.
And so when the President makes these quote/unquote of ha-ha jokes which aren't really remotely funny, he's actually revealing his inner most desires, which is that he admire dictators. He wants to be a dictator.
I mean, this is a consistent theme in his life going back to the 1980s when he was praising the butchers of Tiananmen Square for showing strength. He never ever, ever praises any leader for showing strength, for respecting the rule of law, for respecting human rights.
He often praises dictators for being tough, and showing strength. He does that with Putin, or Duterte, and now with Kim Jong-un, this is a consistent theme. And he can pretend it's a joke, but it's no laughing matter.
LEMON: He should probably read Power Versus Force. I would say a lot of people should because then you'll see the difference between what actual power is, and what force is. And real power, you don't have to use power, you don't have to be a dictator if you're actually a powerful person. You don't need --
BOOT: Oh, he's -- I mean, Trump has dictator envy I think because --
LEMON: Yes, because he said he was a very powerful man.
BOOT: And loves to be able to deal with critics the way somebody like Kim Jong-un does.
LEMON: Yes. So, Phil, when we have seen Trump's affinity for strong men as Max as says, since this summit, he has been flattering, and praising Kim nonstop. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: He is a very talented man. Well, he is a very talented. He's got a great personality. He's a, you know, funny guy. He's a very smart guy. He's a great negotiator. He loves his people, not that I'm surprised by that. He's a great negotiator. His country does love him.
His people, you see the fervor. They have a great fervor. He gave us a lot. You haven't had a missile test in seven months. You haven't had a firing. You haven't had a nuclear test in 8 1/2 months. You haven't had missiles flying over Japan. He gave us remains of our great heroes. I got along with him great. He is great. We have great chemistry together.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: We have a short time here, Phil, but that's like a -- that's like a two-hour town hall just on that one statement right there. I mean, he has made almost no mention of Kim's butchery by talking this way. I mean, what kind of message is Trump sending to the rest of the world here? Does he even understand the atrocities committed under Kim Jong-un?
PHILIP MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: I think the message he's sending, and I'd like to pick up on what Mr. Boot said, I paid full price for his last book so this is a serious conversation. But I think the message he's sending is clear.
I mean, you look at what the President has said, and this is on the record, the President has talked about how brilliant he is, and he's talked about his educational background. He's talked about how incredible his memory is.
He's denigrated the courts, he's denigrated the media obviously, including us, he's denigrated his political foes, everybody including Democrats and Republicans gets a little name, even Ted Cruz gets a name.
So my point is, when you look at how he characterizes people who don't have to deal with the opposition he has to deal with, he's characterizing them in a way to say, look, if you have -- if you're a genius, and you face opposition, that opposition is not at the same level you are.
[22:45:05] That opposition in terms of the media, in terms of the Congress, in terms of the Democratic Party, doesn't understand the genius you have.
I think what he's saying in some ways is sort of a picture of his psychology, dictators overseas who lead countries without opposition are at his level. They don't have to face his opposition, they're at the same level of genius he has, and he's told us that repeatedly, Don, in the ways he's talked about himself, and in the ways he's talked about his opposition.
LEMON: Yes, then there's the whole thing, Max, today with G-7 versus G-8, and Russia, and I'm not sure you understand that Russia was kicked out of the G-8.
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: And he said Obama -- I don't think he got that. But now he's pushing for a summit with Vladimir Putin in summer because he's going to be in Europe at a NATO alliance meeting. What is the rush to do this with Putin?
BOOT: I mean, he just admires Putin, he has for years, we know that. And it's really striking the way he treats Democrats versus dictators. There was just a report in The Wall Street Journal that at G-7, he referred to Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of European Commission as a brutal killer.
He calls Jean-Claude Juncker, this former prime minister of an Oculus Luxembourg, a brutal killer, he never calls Vladimir Putin a brutal killer, he doesn't call Kim Jong-un a brutal killer. I mean it's a like parody.
I mean, Trump seems to think that the way to get great deals out of these dictators is to kiss up to them, to shower them with flattery. This happened before. I mean, when Richard Nixon went to China in 1972, he did not praise Mao for the Cultural Revolution.
When FDR went to Yalta in 1945, he did praise Stalin for the show trials. And you know, even Neville Chamberlain in 1938 in Munich, he wasn't saluting Nazi generals. I mean, this is not the way that normal Democratic states behave with dictators.
LEMON: Yes. We're going to talk more about what the President said on the lawn today, including the I.G. report, supposedly it exonerates him, and then what he said about James Comey as well, and other stuff. We'll be right back.
[22:50:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK) LEMON: So President Trump tried to take some attention away from Paul Manafort today by holding an impromptu question, and answer session with reporters on the White House lawn. He made a series of false statements, and questionable claims, including some attacks on the FBI.
Back with me now, Max Boot and Phil Mudd. So in any other Friday, this would be big news. And I just want to ask you about the decision today to ratchet up the trade war with China. Impose $50 billion of tariffs on Chinese goods. Is this a blunder now? This is for you, Max.
BOOT: Well, I think the timing is certainly questionable. I mean, you can certainly make the case that China is guilty of trade infractions, they do steal U.S. intellectual property. But what doesn't make sense here is that if we're going to confront these Chinese abuses, we need our allies behind us.
But before imposing these tariffs on China, Donald Trump imposed tariffs on all of our closest allies. And so now our allies are divided from us. And it will be easy for China to pick them of. So in terms of strategy, this makes zero sense.
LEMON: OK. That would be -- probably be our lead story, we'd be talking about it all night. So, Phil, I have to play one of the things the President said today about the FBI and James Comey. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE DOOCY, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Should James Comey be locked up?
TRUMP: Well, look, I would never want to get involved with that. Certainly, he -- they just seem like very criminal acts to me. What he did was criminal. I think Comey was the ringleader of this whole, you know, den of thieves. It was a den of thieves.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: So you work with among FBI, and among FBI senior officials, and rank and file. How do you react to that?
MUDD: You know, look, the President's campaign manager lock him up, is going to jail. Meanwhile, if you look at the Republicans who are behind the investigation into the White House, and the President's activities regarding the campaign including the Russians, that is a Republican head of the investigation, or a Republican FBI Director who gave what I thought was a brilliant speech at the FBI yesterday.
The deputy attorney general, the attorney general, the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the chairman of -- pardon me, the Spokesman Paul Ryan in the House, all of whom are Republicans saying I think this investigation is legitimate.
The President keeps trying to portray the investigation as a Democratic witch hunt, and Republican after Republican who have looked at the evidence, I haven't seen it, but all of whom are looking at top secret information are saying, actually I think the investigation is legitimate.
What do you want me to say, Don? What do you want me to say? The President has lied to us repeatedly. Starting with saying President Obama was born overseas.
LEMON: Yes.
MUDD: And ending with the first day of office saying, you know, millions of people showed up at my inauguration.
LEMON: And the greatest crowd.
(CROSSTALK)
MUDD: What do you want me to say?
LEMON: But I have to -- this is what I thought, when I got the alert about Paul Manafort today, I said, can you imagine if the chairman of Hillary Clinton's campaign went to jail the day after her foundation was cited by the New York attorney general for being a slush fund. Can you imagine what would happen, what Republicans would do?
BOOT: Yes, it's -- I mean, it's -- I mean, it's just a reminder of how much bizarre, and outlandish behavior we have come to accept as a routine from the Trump administration, where any one of these things alone would have been a massive, massive scandal in previous administration.
Of course, Republicans would have been going nuts, and rightly so, and now they're basically giving him a pass even as he tries to deflect attention away from the case against him by assaulting the very foundations of the rule of law, the Department of Justice, the FBI, the judiciary.
I mean this is just, you know, right out of the play book of these dictators that he admires so much, where they try to destroy any institution that can impose any accountability on them.
LEMON: Phil, he also said the I.G. report exonerated him from colluding with Russia, and obstruction, it wasn't about that.
[22:55:01] It was about Hillary Clinton's e-mail investigation. It had nothing to do with Mueller's investigation.
MUDD: It also exonerated me, the Pope, Mother Theresa, I mean -- and Abraham Lincoln. I mean, look at this, the inspector general at the Pentagon investigates the Pentagon. The inspector general at the Department of Justice investigates the Department of Justice and the FBI. The inspector general at the Department of State investigates the Department of State.
Of course it exonerated him, because any investigation by the inspector general at the Department of Justice does not investigate the office of the president of the United States. I mean, this is not that complicated, Don. He wasn't part of the investigation. Therefore, the investigation does not rule that he's guilty. How hard is this? It's not very complicated.
LEMON: All right, gentlemen, thank you. Have a good weekend. I appreciate you joining us. When we come back, a judge denying Michael Cohen's request for a restraining order against Stormy Daniels. Attorney Cohen wants Michael Avenatti to stop speaking about him publicly, but since he is still can, Avenatti is going to join me next with his response.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
