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Don Lemon Tonight

Republicans Rushing to Confirm Kavanaugh; Former Kavanaugh's Roommate Agrees with His Accuser; Senator Mitch McConnell Recommending that Brett Kavanaugh's Nomination Go Forward; Brett Kavanaugh's High School and College Years; President Donald Trump Defending Brett Kavanaugh's Nomination; More than 650 Law Professors Have Signed a Petition against Brett Kavanaugh's Nomination. Aired 10-11p ET

Aired October 03, 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)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: At what cost conscience? Several senators will be answering that question in just a couple of days. They're probably hoping the win offsets the ugliness of the process and ignoring something that should matter more than a SCOTUS seat.

Empathize with victims, even alleged victims. How we do that says a lot about us, and that's what this vote should be about. Will it? We'll see.

Let's pick up our coverage with "CNN Tonight" and Don Lemon right now.

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: Yes. Well, here we go, Chris. This is what the past couple weeks have been about, and we're going to know about it on Friday. But I told you how I felt. I'm not -- you said that's where the odds are.

CUOMO: Yes. I think that they have the votes. The dream scenario is that Flake peels away and it's 50-50. And who comes in to seal the deal? The happiest man in the world, Mike Pence, the V.P., breaks the tie, and he delivers America a conservative Supreme Court justice that locks in a generation of jurisprudence and is the best chance for his bid to be president after Trump.

So, this comes down to numbers, but only if Collins, Murkowski, and Flake decide to leave.

LEMON: Yes. Only if. OK. Thank you. We've got a lot to get to, Chris. So I'll let you go now.

We're going to get to the breaking news. As you know you saw the Senate floor. Can we get a shot of the Senate floor right now?

Here is the Senate floor that comes. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has filed cloture on Kavanaugh on that nomination, setting up a Friday procedural vote and a Saturday final vote.

This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon. That's the breaking news. Phil Mattingly joins us now with the very latest on that. Phil, we all watched. They're moving forward with this nomination. Fill us in. PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's exactly right. Look,

the clock starts. There is now a vote scheduled for sometime on Friday, likely Friday morning. That will be the first test of whether or not Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is able to get the 50 or 51 votes he needs to actually move Brett Kavanaugh's nomination forward.

As you noted, Don, a final confirmation vote, if they get the votes on Friday, would then happen on Saturday. Brett Kavanaugh could be elevated to the Supreme Court by the end of the weekend.

Here's the reality right now. Obviously they decided to start the clock even before Senate Republicans and Senate Democrats received the FBI supplemental background investigation. I am told that should arrive on the Hill sometime in the near future. Senators will be able to start reading it tomorrow morning. All 100 senators will have access to that background investigation.

Basically what they're going to do tomorrow morning is go in waves. At 8 a.m., Senate Republicans will be able to start reading it, they'll be able to read it for an hour. Then Senate Democrats will come in for an hour. And then they'll rotate back and forth until everybody has an opportunity to read the report or be briefed on the report by a limited number of staffers who will have access to it.

Look, the bottom line here is the same as it has been for the last couple of weeks. This all comes down to whether five senators, three Republicans and two Democrats who remain undecided on this issue, see what they need to see in that report to either vote yes or vote no.

I know Chris predicted just a little while ago that the votes are there. I can tell you right now that the majority leader does not have commitments from any of those five senators.

Now, a number of them have been leaning yes or have said they want to get to yes. Jeff Flake voted yes in the committee, but I can't overstate enough how important this background investigation will be.

Multiple senators, multiple of those five senators, Don, have said what they see in this investigation will go a long way to deciding whether or not they can get to yes. That makes tomorrow an enormous day, not just for the Senate, not just for background investigations in general, but for Brett Kavanaugh's nomination, Don.

LEMON: So you think it really matters, Phil, what's in that report because most of the senators have made up their minds. If you look at the evidence, there's no corroborating evidence for any of the accusers now. But maybe in that FBI report, there's something. I don't know.

But do you think that any of that matters, and what is to prevent any senator from going to the Senate floor and reading the reports out loud?

MATTINGLY: It would be a surprise and a definite break into quorum. There's no question about it. Look, I think one of the issues that senators have been trying to figure out just to answer your second question first is if this is all to be kept private, if this is all to be kept only to a small group of technically 109 people who would have access to it, how will be ever be able to prove it exonerated Brett Kavanaugh or it proved Christine Blasey Ford correct or any of those things.

The only, the best metric I've been give up to this point is if they get 50-plus votes, then there wasn't anything that was too damning to Brett Kavanaugh.

Now on the second point, look, I think it depends on the individual member. There are senators, Jeff Flake being one of them, Susan Collins to some degree, who have certainly been more leaning towards yes over the course of the last couple of days than perhaps other senators.

The Democrats, I think, are paying close attention to whether or not Republicans can get 50 on their own.

[22:04:56] I think in talking to Republicans who have been involved in this process and been involved in the process before, their expectation is things probably end up muddled. They end up no different than they were when they got sworn statements from various witnesses, no different than they were when they had the hearing, where basically one side feels one way very strongly, the other side feels one way very strongly.

And Republicans, particularly on the leadership level, believe that will be enough to get Brett Kavanaugh over the finish line. Again, we don't know what's actually in this. We know they interviewed probably nine or 10 people, the FBI filing those interview transcripts which should arrive on the Hill shortly.

So anything could be in those reports, but I can tell you from talking to Republicans who as you noted are very supportive of the Kavanaugh nomination, their expectation has long been this checks a box and allows them to move forward. There is no expectation there's going to be anything damning in there. That said, they don't know what's in there yet and they're not going to find out until tomorrow morning.

LEMON: And that gives a lot of folks cover, especially those who are on the fence, Democrats who are in mostly red states, right?

Well, there was an FBI investigation. We gave it a week. And so they may feel more comfortable about their vote.

Listen, I know that your prime sources are those that are in the Congress and in the Senate. And this is maybe an FBI question. But this seemed pretty quick to happen pretty quickly because it was on Friday all this drama went down. They decided to give it a week.

Here it is Wednesday. It's not even a full seven days, a full week. The expectation, I think, was that the report would come back possibly on Friday. Then over the weekend they would look at it. Then we would figure out some sort of vote. Why so fast, Phil? Do you know? MATTINGLY: Well, if you want to take history as precedent, you can go

back to the Anita Hill background investigation, which I think took three, four days. So there's precedent here to some degree.

I think the difficulty right now, and I think a lot of people have had trouble with it, is differentiating what a background investigation is versus what a criminal inquiry or criminal investigation is.

LEMON: Right.

MATTINGLY: This is quite literally the FBI or FBI agents going and interviewing people, then transcribing those interviews, putting them into something called 302s and then sending them up to the United States Senate. They are not reaching conclusions. They are not giving recommendations. They're staying as far away from that as possible.

LEMON: Information.

MATTINGLY: This is purely to give information to the senators so they can perform their advice and consent rule. Now, kind of to your point, that is wholly unsatisfactory to a lot of people who left the hearings or watched the hearings and at the end of hearings, wanted to have some answers, some definitive proof one way or the other.

That's not necessarily what this will ever give, and it's not what it is intended to do. It is intended to give senators information, and they are supposed to be able to make their judgments after that information.

In a situation like this, we have 30-plus years. You have two people who are definitively on opposite sides of what actually happened that night. I think a lot of people expect that it's unlikely there will be any substantive answer here.

I think the question is what will the information provide to those senators? Will it help inform your decisions? And to your point, it's political cover too. It's for senators who weren't quite there yet and are very unsettled by the allegations but perhaps believed Brett Kavanaugh or watched his testimony and were convinced by Brett Kavanaugh.

They recognize that on their own or in isolation they probably couldn't move forward. This now gives them the veneer of we have an investigation. It makes it a better process and therefore we can move forward.

LEMON: Phil Mattingly, thank you with the breaking news. Phil, if we need you, we'll get you back. We appreciate that.

Again, this is very sure, this is just coming off now, the information. We're getting it in the e-mail. Mitch McConnell files cloture on Kavanaugh nomination. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has filed cloture on the Brett Kavanaugh nomination for the Supreme Court, setting up a Friday procedural vote and a Saturday final vote. Stay tuned. We're going to have more on our breaking news. Brett

Kavanaugh's Yale roommate, though, is speaking out, and we need to talk about that. His name is James Roche, and he's telling Anderson Cooper just a little while ago that he believes Deborah Ramirez's accusations that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMIE ROCHE, BRETT KAVANAUGH'S FRESHMAN YALE ROOMMATE: I know this girl, and she didn't lie, and she wouldn't lie, and I can't see any reason why she would. And so it felt to me like somebody had to get up and speak for her.

Now, other people have, and I think that's terrific. But as Brett's roommate, I'm in a singular position, at least to the people who are willing to talk, to say, listen, I saw him do this stuff that he said under oath that he didn't do. I saw him use words in a different way than the way he said they were used.

You know, if a person isn't truthful about these little things, then, you know, we ought to think very seriously about whether we should tell Debbie that she's wrong or crazy and believe him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: As I said, it is a very busy news night here as you can see, beginning with our breaking news. And we've got much more to come on all of this. You're going to hear a lot more from that roommate tonight.

But there is something that we really have to talk about tonight, OK? And it is this. It's the way that this president, the most powerful man in the world, consistently claims to be a victim.

[22:10:00] Honestly, this is a man who was born into tremendous wealth. He was a millionaire when he was eight years old, and I mean, I don't mean his father was a millionaire. His father gave him millions, making him a millionaire by the time he was eight years old.

"The New York Times" reports his father gave him the equivalent of $413 million. He's plastered his name on buildings around the world. He married one beautiful woman after another and divorced and had six children among them, turned his fame into reality TV stardom, and now he lives in the White House.

Only Donald Trump could call himself a victim with a straight face. But he does it again and again and again. He did it today, tweeting that the Times had done a so-called hit piece on him. His attorney threatening to sue the paper. He did it last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I've had many false accusations. I've had it all -- I've had so many. And when I say it didn't happen, nobody believes me. They can say anything they want, and we can't sue them because if you're famous, you can't sue. Figure that one out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: This president has made himself the victim in chief from the early days of his presidency.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Look at the way I've been treated lately, especially by the media. No politician in history -- and I say this with great surety -- has been treated worse or more unfairly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So you know what's unfair? Repeatedly claiming, with absolutely no evidence, that your predecessor was not even born in this country. That's unfair, but I digress. Let's not forget that President Trump's favorite claim -- say it with me. He's a victim of a witch hunt.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: It's a total witch hunt. I've been saying it for a long time. They have this witch hunt. They have this witch hunt. It's a witch hunt.

That's all it is. They have phony witch hunts. It's like a witch hunt. It's like a witch hunt.

The witch hunt continues. The entire thing has been a witch hunt. This is a pure and simple witch hunt.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Donald Trump has been harping on this claim of being a victim his entire life. His ghostwriter, the guy who really wrote the book "The Art of the Deal," Tony Schwartz, told "The Washington Post" that Trump's first move in the face of criticism has always been to assume the role of victim.

Unfair has long been one of his favorite words. He always perceives himself as the victim, so he feels justified in lashing back at his perceived accusers.

Me, me, me, me, me, me. I'm the victim. I'm the victim. I'm the victim of a New York Times hit piece on my taxes. White men like me and like Brett Kavanaugh are the victims of false accusations.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: This is an important time for our country. This is a time when your father, when your husband, when your brother, when your son could do great. Mom, I did great in school. I've worked so hard. Mom, I'm so pleased to tell you I just got a fantastic job with IBM.

Mom, a terrible thing just happened. A person who I've never met said that I did things that were horrible, and they're firing me from my job, mom. I don't know what to do. Mom, what do I do? What do I do, mom? What do I do, mom? It's a damn sad situation, OK?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Boy, that is quite a story. None of it is true. If it could happen to me, it could happen to you. If it could happen to Brett Kavanaugh, it could happen to anybody. And you know who else thinks the whole thing is just so unfair?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, JR., DONALD TRUMP'S SON: Now, I know that in this week in particular, you're not allowed to have a beer if you are a conservative. Now, if you're a liberal, you can do cocaine, and you can be the president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Like father, like son. Victims. Victims. Victims. Poor little rich boys. You know what else you can -- apparently, you can apparently do and be the president? You can brag about sexual assault.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I better use some tic-tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know I'm automatically attracted to beautiful. I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. I just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whatever you want.

TRUMP: Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[22:15:05] LEMON: I'm just saying. But he's a victim. You can insult gold star families.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: If you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She probably -- maybe she wasn't allowed to have anything to say. You tell me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: This is just the truth. I mean, come on. Think about this. You can have a massive $25 million fraud judgment against you. All that, and you can still be president if you're Donald Trump, that is. Can you imagine? Can you imagine?

Honestly, let's think about this. Can you imagine if Barack Obama had one of these things against him? If he had three wives that he cheated on and six children. Never taking responsibility. Never apologizing. Always siding with the accused and not the accuser. Never the accuser. And it's really no surprise. I mean after all, this president has stood behind, again, facts, stood behind accused child molester Roy Moore.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: He totally denies it. He says it didn't happen and, you know, you have to look at him also. He said 40 years ago, this did not happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: He has stood behind accused domestic abuser Rob Porter.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: He also, as you probably know, he says he's innocent, and I think you have to remember that. He said very strongly yesterday that he's innocent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: And now he's standing behind Brett Kavanaugh.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: He's a very well known -- the most highly respected person until the last couple of weeks because they're destroying him and they're destroying his reputation, and we can't let that happen. We can't. Can't let it happen.

(CROWD CHEERING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So come on. Let's be honest. This president is no victim. He was elected to the highest office in this country, to the most powerful position really in the world. Why is he constantly complaining? Is he just trying to rally voters who feel victimized themselves, who feel like the world maybe is just passing them by? The demographics shifting under their feet.

And what about the real victims? You know, I've mentioned this before, but it really bears repeating because it tells you a lot about how this president feels about truth and justice, OK?

So you remember he once spent $85,000 placing full-page ads in New York City newspapers, calling for the death penalty for the Central Park Five. Black and Latino. Black and brown teenager, who were accused and eventually exonerated of raping a white jogger in Central Park. I'm going to talk to two of them tonight, so stay tuned. I want to see what they think about this.

But here's the point. Donald Trump never backed down. He never acknowledged that those teenagers were victimized. Tried and found guilty in the court of public opinion even though they didn't do what they were accused of. You think he'd care about that the same way he cares about this? And he claims, guilty before proven innocent. Wonder why he doesn't care about that. Think about it.

Ron Brownstein, Alice Stewart, April Ryan, they're here. And we've got a lot more to talk about including our breaking news.

The Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell taking a key step, advancing Brett Kavanaugh's nomination tonight. We'll be right back.

[22:20:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: We're back now with our breaking news, and that's Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell taking a key step to advance Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court. A final vote could take place on Saturday. There's a procedural vote on Friday. That final vote could take place on Saturday.

Ron Brownstein is here. He's the senior editor at "The Atlantic." CNN Republican Strategist, Alice Stewart, and April Ryan, the author of "Under Fire: Reporting from the Frontlines of the Trump White House."

Good evening, everyone. Never a dull moment. So we did not have this when we knew you were coming on earlier, but here it is at the last second. So April, let's start with you because Mitch McConnell is moving forward.

APRIL RYAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.

LEMON: Before senators have even read the report. How is that going to play out? How is that going to go down?

RYAN: Well, it's so interesting. It just kind of goes with the conversation I had with Steve Bannon today, the president's former adviser. Some would call him the de facto president. But Steve Bannon basically said that this is about the presidency. It's not about Brett Kavanaugh.

This is like the referendum on the president before the midterms or before even the next election, presidential election. So much is riding on this.

He says that if, indeed, they do not get Brett Kavanaugh, this could spell impeachment for the president because they would definitely lose the House and the Senate. So this is bigger than the issue of Brett Kavanaugh, and Mitch McConnell understands that. He's trying to rush it through to make sure that he can get it done or try to get it done. So it's not necessarily about Brett Kavanaugh. It's about a strategy to make sure that they win.

LEMON: Got it. Alice, I think I told you this last night, that this was too big a thing that they needed a campaign promise that this president wants to keep, and that would probably end up with a Justice Kavanaugh. So, and that's what -- that's what April is saying right now. Do you think he has the votes, though -- Mitch McConnell?

ALICE STEWART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think he does. And, look, it's not just President Trump that campaigned on Scalia-like justices or more conservatives on the Supreme Court. A lot of senators campaigned on that issue and supporting President Trump and throwing their support behind him for that reason, and many social conservatives put their support and their entire groups of followers behind President Trump for this very reason. So the president and many others are relying on this to move forward.

[22:24:59] And, look, people are saying they're rushing this through. This was set to be markup -- for markup and vote last week. And based on the request from the Democrats, we pushed that back. We had more time for testimony. We brought the FBI investigation, and as expected, the FBI's parameter was limited to credible and current testimony that had come up in the Senate judiciary committee.

I was confident they would get it done well before Friday, and they did.

And the senators will have plenty of time to read over this and have the vote and vote as many of them had their mind -- had realized how they were going to vote after the testimony we had last week, and they're going to move forward with that--

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: OK. Ron, let me--

STEWART: -- more than likely Saturday or Sunday.

LEMON: Ron, let me read this. This is from the president. "Wow, such enthusiasm and energy for Judge Brett Kavanaugh. Look at the energy. Look at the polls. Something very big is happening. He is a fine man and great intellect. The country is with him all the way." Is that what the polls reflect about Brett Kavanaugh?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: In fact, the new poll out today on National Public Radio/Marist, 45 percent said they believe Dr. Ford and only about 30 percent said they believe Brett Kavanaugh. A majority said if there was still doubt at the end of the FBI investigation, he should not be confirmed.

There is a lot of support for him in the Republican base, but this is something that is generated, you know, a lot of opposition among the group that is already the biggest single threat, I think, clearly to the Republican majority in the House, which are college-educated, suburban white women. Two-thirds of them in the poll today said they believed Dr. Ford.

And I think the key point here is that whatever happens on Saturday, the odds are that this is not over. I mean Democrats will not view this as a serious investigation of the allegations that he faced, including not only the sexual allegations but all the questions of misleading testimony.

And Jerry Nadler, who would be the chair of the house judiciary committee if Democrats win the House, has already said publicly that they will go back at these issues. And I think you can expect that if Democrats win the House, that in 2019, they will call as witnesses many of the people the FBI apparently has refused -- you know, under limits from the White House, has refused to talk to in these last few days.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: I'm glad--

BROWNSTEIN: So even if they do get the votes, I think, you know, this is not the last inning.

LEMON: I'm glad you mention that.

(CROSSTALK)

STEWART: Don, I do want to say, Don, real quickly, we can look at a lot of these national polls, but what's going to be key and what's going to sway some of these senators are the statewide polls and public opinion strategies has come out with polls.

In West Virginia, Arizona, two key state with key Senate votes, Judge Kavanaugh is up 30 points. People in those states support him 30 points more than they -- they want him to be confirmed over not being confirmed. So those kinds of statewide polls will have much more significance.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: I don't have time but do you want to respond to that, Ron?

BROWNSTEIN: That's right. Look, in the Republican base there's a lot of support for this. If you look at history, I mean there is a history of these -- you know, these handful of Republican kind of resistors of Trump making a lot of noise but giving him their vote in the end. So you would have to bet on that.

But I think we also have to wait and see what's in there. Because at least Murkowski and Collins and Flake -- I don't think they are locked in at this point. You would bet more likely than not they vote, but I think it's going to depend on facts that none of us have seen yet.

LEMON: Our time is short because of the breaking news. So I thank you, all three. I appreciate it. Have a good evening.

Brett Kavanaugh's Yale roommate is speaking out about the accusations against the Supreme Court nominee. So why didn't the FBI talk to him?

[22:30:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:30:01] LEMON: So here's our breaking news tonight. The Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, moving Brett Kavanaugh's nomination forward, and saying the Senate is getting the results of the FBI's investigation tonight. That, as more people are speaking out about Judge Kavanaugh's high school and college years, including his Yale roommate.

Let's discuss now with Jack Quinn and Chris Swecker. Good evening, gentlemen, to both of you. We've got the breaking news. We know they could vote for the procedural vote as early as Friday, and then a full vote on Saturday possibly. That's what they're looking at. So Chris, I want you to listen to what James Roche, this is Brett Kavanaugh's roommate at Yale, said about Kavanaugh's drinking. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMIE ROCHE, BRETT KAVANAUGH'S FRESHMAN YALE ROOMMATE: But there were even within that environment. There were people who were loud drunks, who were sloppy drunks, who were belligerent drunks. But even by those standards, my memory of Brett was that he was on the far edge of this. He was notably heavier in his drinking than other people.

I can tell you that my recollection of my experience with him was that he was drunk frequently, that it wasn't drunk to the point of having trouble getting up every month or two. It was frequently. I would say with some confidence it was at least once, maybe twice on the weekends. It may have even been during the week.

I didn't socialize with Brett. But being in the same room where he slept, I saw him when he arrived at home regularly, and I saw him in the morning. And I can tell you that he would come home and he was incoherent, stumbling. He would sometimes be singing. He occasionally would wear this -- I think it was an old leather football helmet. And he would throw up.

And then in the morning would have a lot of trouble getting out of bed. You know I wasn't an angel back then either. There were times when I did the exact same thing. So we commiserated on this issue. And so the answer to your question is yes. I saw him both what I would consider blackout drunk, and also dealing with the repercussions of that in the morning.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: All right. Chris, so you heard him -- Chris and both of you heard him, well, Chris, he says he hasn't been contacted by the FBI. Why do you think that is?

CHRIS SWECKER, FORMER FBI ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIVE DIVISION: Well, based on what I just heard, I heard someone who wants his 15 minutes of fame, but doesn't have any information about the core allegations that they're supposed to be following up on, and that's a sexual assault or two sexual assaults, maybe even three.

So he's talking about a matter of degree, a perception on his part versus Judge Kavanaugh's perception. And you know what does it mean? He drank too many beers, he said. So what's the real difference there?

LEMON: Interesting. OK, so Jack, CNN has gotten reports from other classmates of Kavanaugh who is saying that he had trouble getting in touch with the -- they've had trouble getting in touch with the FBI. Why do you think that's happening?

JACK QUINN, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL TO PRESIDENT CLINTON: I can't speak to why the FBI is not reaching out to these people or not responding. LEMON: Maybe they deem them not credible, but go on.

[22:34:58] QUINN: No, I don't think they -- no. I think they don't have any basis to deem them not credible. The question I have here is what was the mission of the FBI? What was the FBI told to do? What restrictions were put on its activities? Why was it only given six days to do this? Why the rush? I mean is this a search for 51 votes, or is this a search for the truth.

Now, you've not only had -- and you know, Senator McConnell is being very clever trying to cabin this whole debate into this FBI report. In the meanwhile and since he set that FBI report in motion, the supplemental inquiry by the bureau, since that happened, we've had literally a laundry list of damning evidence concerning Brett Kavanaugh's behavior in high school and college.

More importantly, it's not just how he behaved back then. His credibility has been ripped asunder. I mean you've had so many reports that basically make as clear as a bell that his testimony before that Senate committee was, to put it generously, dramatically misleading, and to put it honestly was in many respects perjurious and untruthful.

LEMON: So you're saying that precludes him from being confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice or should?

QUINN: Oh, listen. Brett Kavanaugh's behavior in high school is one thing. And believe me, I am not belittling it. That's critically important. But to confirm him to be a Justice on the Supreme Court when substantial doubt has been raised about his truthfulness, his credibility, the reliability of things he swore under oath to in front of the United States Senate that is...

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: And the American people.

QUINN: And the American people. That's a big, big deal.

LEMON: Yeah. Chris, I am going to give you the last word here. You can follow up on what Jack just said. And also why haven't Kavanaugh and Ford been investigated? Is it a fair investigation if they haven't been spoken to in the end, questioned?

SWECKER: Yeah. I'd be disappointed if they didn't at least go back and talk to Ford. But commenting on what was just said, it goes back to the difference between a fully predicated criminal investigation and a background check. One is governed by the attorney general's guidelines. It's very specific what you can do and how you do it. Background checks are authorized by executive order.

They're not designed to be a wide-ranging, deep criminal investigation. So if you want a criminal investigation, you got to have predication to do that. But as far as perjury goes, good luck with that because I have been in the business for 40 years. And I don't think you're going to get a perjury charge based on one person's perception over another's.

LEMON: Yeah.

SWECKER: But the Senate's vote is to determine -- the Senate is voting whether or not he should be an Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court. They're not limited by what Senator McConnell says is important or by what the President says is important.

LEMON: Yeah.

SWECKER: They have to decide whether he should be on the Supreme Court.

LEMON: Thank you, gentlemen. That's got to be the last word. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:40:00] LEMON: So President Trump has defended Brett Kavanaugh by saying that his whole life he has believed that you're innocent until proven guilty.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's a very scary situation where you're guilty until proven innocent. My whole life, my whole life I have heard you're innocent until proven guilty. But now, you're guilty until proven innocent. That is a very, very difficult standard.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: He didn't abide by that standard when it came to the Central Park Five. Black and Latino teenagers wrongfully convicted of raping a white jogger in Central Park in the 1980s. Before they were even tried, Trump purchased full page ads that ran several New York City newspapers, reading bring back the death penalty. Bring back our police. And he defended it right here on CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Were you pre-judging those arrested?

TRUMP: No. I am not pre-judging at all. I am not in this particular case. I am saying if they're found guilty, if the woman died, which she hopefully will not be dying. But if the woman died, I think they should be executed. I think you should have the death penalty. I think most people agree with me on that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Those five men were not guilty. They were exonerated in 2002 when another man confessed to the crime and DNA evidence backed that up. So joining me now, two of the Central Park Five, Yusef Salaam and Raymond Santana.

Gentlemen, good evening.

YUSEF SALAAM, EXONERATED IN CENTRAL PARK JOGGER CASE: Good evening.

LEMON: Have things been different the way that, you know, Donald Trump said in that ad, you might not be sitting here in front of me. You'd be behind bars. Yusef, innocent until proven guilty when it was you, did he feel that way?

SALAAM: You know the worst part about not only our case, but our case is a glaring example that if you have skin darker in hue, you're automatically seen as guilty. And this is something that has to be clearly understood. There are definitely two Americas that we live in, you know, similar to the current report that was written 50 years ago.

Yet, here we are coming full circle, and we're trying to really grasp at straws of justice. And every time we grasp at it, things like this happen. We clearly see that we are divided. There's no avenue for us to be able to be equal. And therefore, we are always looked at as being guilty.

[22:44:55] LEMON: You think he saw you specifically as being guilty? Obviously, he wouldn't have put that ad?

SALAAM: Absolutely, absolutely. You know they -- first of all, when you look at the ad and the timing of the ad, this ad came out two weeks after we were accused. It wasn't like two weeks after we were on trial. This was two weeks after we were accused. We hadn't even started trial yet. So he takes his money, pays for ad space to run in New York City's newspapers that caused people who were reading this to say you know what?

Maybe we should do something about this. Maybe we should treat the Central Park Five like we treated Emmett Till. Let's go into their homes, drag them from their beds, and hang them from trees in Central Park. This is the type of mob justice they were looking for.

LEMON: Raymond, what do you think? Do you think this President only believes someone is innocent until proven guilty when it's someone who agrees with him or maybe looks like him like Brett Kavanaugh?

RAYMOND SANTANA, EXONERATED IN CENTRAL PARK JOGGER CASE: Yeah. I think that it just -- it plays to the fact that he does what he wants to do, and he feels how he feels. And he doesn't mind displaying how he feels at the end of the day. You can't tell him anything. You can't change his mind. He doesn't apologize. So what are we dealing with here?

A man who just feels that he can just do and say whatever he wants, and everybody is supposed to just fall in line and follow his lead, like he's this great leader or this great dictator. You know -- and it just -- it just -- it makes this country look bad, like he's the person who represents. He's the person at the forefront, and we have become the laughingstock of the world.

LEMON: What do you think because even after you were exonerated, right, he said the settlement that you got from the city was a disgrace. He hasn't apologized. You have said that you've given up, you know, on wanting an apology. But I mean how does this all make you feel when you sit here and watch the whole -- many people in the country react to a person that you know not to be the person that he presents himself to be to the public?

SANTANA: I mean it becomes frustrating. You know, back in 1989, 1990, when he took those ads out, and then to see our famous sports figures and entertainers embracing him and putting him in their videos and their shows. And we're sitting there since 1989, telling you that this man is no good. And nobody believes us because everybody assumes that we're guilty. We were considered the most hated people on the planet Earth.

LEMON: Yes, indeed.

SANTANA: So nobody listened to us. And even after the exoneration, this man comes out and he says that this is the biggest heist in New York City history. You know, doesn't even look at DNA evidence, doesn't even look at the report that's issued, a 52-page report that's issued by the district attorney's office, Robert Morgenthau, on why we're innocent.

He doesn't even take a look at that. In his mind, it's like they're guilty and that's it. There's no more to talk about.

LEMON: Yeah. Well, as you can see, I have got to run, gentleman. But facts don't matter when it comes to this particular President.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: I am glad to see you're doing well down in hotlanta. You guys keep on keeping on. Thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: We wish you the best.

SALAAM: Thank you so much. We appreciate it.

LEMON: Two former classmates of Judge Kavanaugh withdrawing their support for his nomination to the Supreme Court. I am going to speak with one of them next, and he's going to tell you why Kavanaugh's testimony has him worried.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:50:00] LEMON: More than 650 law professors, 650, have signed a letter printed in the New York Times, saying that Brett Kavanaugh's temperament in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week should disqualify him from a seat on the Supreme Court. The letter will be presented to the Senate tomorrow. When Kavanaugh was first nominated, law professor Mark Osler endorsed him along with 23 of Kavanaugh's Yale classmates.

But after Kavanaugh's testimony last week, Osler and another classmate withdrew their support. And Mark Osler joins me now.

Mark, thank you so much. I appreciate you joining us. You've gone from supporting Kavanaugh to supporting an FBI investigation to now totally withdrawing your support for Kavanaugh. What brought you to this point?

MARK OSLER, PROFESSOR OF LAW, UNIVERSITY OF ST. THOMAS: It was the hearings last Thursday. It was the demeanor on the bench, and it was the way he treated a coequal branch of government with disrespect. It was just very hard to watch. Another thing, too, that the other classmate who signed the letter with me, Mike Proctor, and I are both criminal attorneys.

I was a federal prosecutor. He was a federal defender in Los Angeles. And we know that when poor people are in court, that even if they are innocent, and sometimes they are, if they show demeanor like that, there are consequences that are far greater than not getting a job that you want. It's a loss of freedom. In a place like Texas, it can be worse than that.

LEMON: Yeah. In fact, you wrote a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee with another law school classmate, explaining the reason for our withdrawal is not the truth or falsity of Dr. Ford's allegations, which are still investigated, but rather was the nature of Judge Kavanaugh's testimony. In our view, that testimony was partisan and not judicious and inconsistent with what we expect from a Justice of the Supreme Court.

Basically, you're saying he doesn't have what it takes. He doesn't have the right temperament. Is that correct?

OSLER: Well, from what we saw on Thursday, it was something very different than you've seen in a hearing like that in the past. And it's frankly different than what we've seen from Judge Kavanaugh and what I have heard about Judge Kavanaugh up to that point. But it is what we saw on Thursday. And if that is the person that's looking to be on the bench, it was really troubling.

LEMON: You wrote about what you're expecting. And here's what you said. You said that you're expecting a fresh round of hate mail after sending out this new letter. Have you been discouraged by the tone of this nomination battle that it's taken?

[22:55:09] OSLER: You know I have been discouraged by the public tone that it's taken, and in part some of the questioning of both sides, and in part, you know, by the reaction by Judge Kavanaugh. But I will say that the discussion amongst my Yale Law School classmates on both sides has been remarkably civil, that there have been people who have not withdrawn from the letter, who stayed positions that I respect.

There are a lot of people who, you know, never supported him in the first place, who have staked out positions that I respect. And we've had actually a level of discourse that's made many of us miss law school in a way. I wish that the public discussion was more like that. LEMON: Yeah. Mark Osler, thank you. I appreciate your time.

OSLER: Thank you.

LEMON: Judge Kavanaugh's college roommate also speaking out to CNN TONIGHT and he says Kavanaugh is lying.

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