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Don Lemon Tonight
President Trump Does Not Believe in Climate Change; John Bolton Hasn't Listened to the Tape that Captured Part of the Murder of Jamal Khashoggi; Cindy Hyde-Smith Wins Senate Race in Mississippi; Jerome Corsi Sent an E-mail to Roger Stone, Anticipating the Document Dump; CNN Heroes. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired November 27, 2018 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[22:00:00] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: And the concentration of all those emotions get worse, we need people that we can count on to tell the truth. And I hope that that happens for this country.
That's all for us tonight. Thanks for watching. CNN with Don Lemon, "CNN TONIGHT" starts right now.
DON LEMON, CNN HOST: Thank you, sir. A lot to get to, so I'm going to move it along. I'll see you tomorrow.
All right. This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon.
Here's our breaking news. Early results coming in right now in the U.S. Senate runoff in Mississippi. Republican Senator Cindy Hyde- Smith, well, she has the lead over the Democrat there, who is Mike Espy. But there are still a lot of votes to be counted.
You might be wondering why all eyes are on this Mississippi race tonight a full three weeks after election day. Well, the answer -- three words. The blue wave. The blue wave that swept Democrats into power in the House, and it stands right now -- as it stands right now, Democrats have picked up 39 seats in the House of Representatives. That is the biggest gain in the House seats -- in the House seats by Democrats since Watergate.
But even that fact doesn't really capture what happened in these midterms. The Cook Political Report has been keeping a tally of the votes cast for either party in House races across the country. And according to their latest count, Democratic house candidates got over nine million more votes than Republican candidates. That is the largest margin in the history of midterm elections.
Democrats lead Republicans by 8.1 percentage points. That's a bigger lead than Republicans had in wave elections in 1994 and in 2010. And beyond the House, Democrats picked up seven governorships, even winning in Kansas, a state the president carried by almost 21 points and unseating Republican Scott Walker in Wisconsin.
They picked up 332 state legislative seats across this country, and that could still grow. Since his press conference on November 7th, the president has insisted
without evidence that he and the Republicans had a good election night. Make no mistake, there was a blue wave in America.
Plenty to discuss now. Mr. John king is here. John, good evening to you. Give us the latest.
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Big blue wave in America, but perhaps not in Mississippi tonight in the final contest of the 2018 midterms.
Let's just look, Don. We're at 55 percent. The incumbent Republican, she was an appointed senator, but she's the incumbent now. Cindy Hyde- Smith with 55 percent. You see it here. Mike Espy, the Democrat, former congressman, former Clinton -- Bill Clinton cabinet member, just shy of 45 percent.
So, 51, almost 52,000 vote margins for Cindy Hyde-Smith as you look at the map, and it's filling in. Here's one safe bet. This will get at least a little bit closer. Why? This is Mike Espy's old congressional district out here in the western part of the state. You see all the blue. This is the most Democratic part of the state, a heavy African- American population.
The problem for Mike Espy is he needs to not only run up margins here, it will show you, they're pretty good, right, at 72 percent in this county, with 84 percent in. Sixty-seven percent here with half of the vote in. He needs to not only run up those margins, he needs to turn out. He needs African-Americans to come out in overwhelming numbers.
One other thing, if you look at the Espy campaign, they're saying we'll get closer here because Hinds County, we're only at 47 percent of the vote, so half, a little more than half still to be counted. And you see the big margin.
This is Jackson, just around Jackson that Mike Espy is running up there. So, if you're in the Espy headquarters, you're saying, OK, that's not great. It's going to get a little bit closer. The question is can you get it close enough? Is the Democratic turnout mostly in the western part of the state going to be enough and that's a big challenge?
Because you start looking. Number one, let's look in the Jackson suburbs. This is a pretty respectable showing in Madison County. For Mike Espy 46 percent of the vote we're at 44 percent. Down here closer to Jackson, you have affluent suburbs we saw in the Alabama win last year for the Democrats in the south. We saw throughout this blue wave year in House races.
The president struggles with Republican voters, especially moderate women, in the suburbs. So that's a respectable showing. Is it enough to get Mike Espy over the finish line? That's how we'll count them up as we get closer.
You move over here and see a much bigger win in the eastern Jackson suburbs. It's more conservative territory, Cindy Hyde-Smith doing what she needs to do there.
One more quick point about Mississippi, Don. Now we can do whatever you want here. I just want to look. This is one of the places the president visited, Cindy Hyde-Smith running up pretty good numbers here. Why do we say that? let's do a little comparison.
This is three weeks ago. We're here tonight because there were four candidates three weeks ago. So, 48 percent, 20 percent, 68 percent, right? The Republican vote in this area three weeks ago.
Let's come back. Remember, 68 percent. She's getting just shy of that now. So, did the president help? Well, a lot of those Chris McDaniel voters not fans of Cindy Hyde-Smith. So at least the president will be able to make the argument he got those tea party voters who might not love her to realize you got to come vote today.
Again, we're going to be counting for a little while. We're up to 59 percent now though. Fifty-nine percent as the map fills in this very red state. For Mike Espy to pull off a miracle when these counties come in, not only the margins, the turnout has to be huge. Possible? Yes. Bet on it? I wouldn't.
[22:05:00] LEMON: Yes. So, you showed us where Espy needs to run up the total if he stands a chance. But I got to ask you, we're looking at usually a ruby red state. To have these sorts of numbers, what does it say about what's going on, John?
KING: Look, this is not just the president. She's not a great candidate. As you've talked about for the last couple of weeks, she said some pretty horrible things, at least from a national perspective. We're going to see tonight how the verdict goes on some of these racially charged comments in Mississippi.
She has a state that's Republican Party has become more tea party. She's more establishment. So, it's not just President Trump. Not just President Trump. But if you have a 10-point race, let's assume it gets a little bit closer. Republicans will celebrate that. That means they will have 53 seats in the United States Senate next year.
Easier for the president to get a new attorney general. Easier for the president to get other nominees confirmed. However, in Mississippi, she's on the ballot again in two years if she wins tonight. This is to fill the remaining term for Senator Cochran.
If you look at this you are going to be thinking, yes, the Democrats might not have a great candidate. This is not an over joyous night if this is the margin that holds up in the state of Mississippi. A win is a win, don't mistake that. A win is a win. But it's another sign even in Mississippi, you just talked about the big blue wave. The Republican Party has problems just about everywhere.
LEMON: Let me ask you this, then. You said the Republicans, they have problems just about everywhere. Let's talk about overall because not a lot has gone well for Republicans in terms of the House since election day. So, catch us up on where we stand right now. KING: Sure. Let me come out of here, and let me close this out. I got
to fix this for you. This is our House map. This is the big House map if you look at it right now. These are the called races. There's one left out in California where the Democrat has actually pulled ahead. We're not ready to call that tonight. The Democrat has pulled ahead in recent days in another Republican district.
Right now, 234 to 200. Four hundred thirty-five seats so there's one left. That's 42 pickups minus three. A net gain at the moment of 39, 39 for the Democrats. That's a blue wave. That is a blue wave, and it could get to 40.
So, what do we do when we look at this? Number one, the Democrats are winning everywhere, not just wiping out the Republicans in New England but picking up a seat in Oklahoma, but picking up seats out -- a seat here in Kansas. That's one way to look at it.
Let me show you something else, Don as we go through this. Republicans, the reason Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, then George Bush, the Republican Party of those days was anchored in the suburbs, including suburban women who cared about low taxes, schools, crime.
Let me show you something about what happened in this election. Let's bring this out and take a look. Number one, let's look at the big 2016 to 2018 flips. These are the Republican held seats or the Democrat held seats if it's red. These are seats that flipped from one party to another.
Now let me bring that back out and show you this. Let's just collate in now the top suburban districts. Of the 39 the Democrats have tonight, maybe 40 when that California race is done, the pickup, right? Look at this, Democratic pickups in suburban, more than half, more than half of what the Democrats are getting are these suburban districts and they go coast to coast.
Coast to coast the Democrats have taken away the suburbs, which are fast growing in the United States, which are where most competitive statewide elections are won.
And just one quick point, to stretch out California, you don't need to be little bit smart here. But Orange is literally the new blue, as in Orange County, which used to be Ronald Reagan rock red Republican. The California Republican Party, we talked about the National Republican Party. This Republican Party in this state has been in trouble for a long time. It is just on life support after this cycle.
LEMON: Orange County traditionally very conservative. Thank you -- thank you, John. I appreciate it. We'll get back. We're going to keep following.
Listen, it's not over yet. It is not over, as we say, till it's over. So, let's bring in Harry Enten, Mark Preston, Nia-Malika Henderson. Listen, the numbers are what they are right now. But again, until it's called, it's not over yet. Mark, give us your impressions, your thoughts on how things are looking in Mississippi. MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, a couple things.
One, we shouldn't be surprised by what we're seeing as the outcome right now. We know Mississippi is a rock-solid red Republican state.
Having said that, though, there are major red flags being put up. Now John just discussed those and talked about how Democrats are winning across the country.
Let me just put this in perspective when we talk about changing demographics and how things can change in the country. If you look in the south right now and you look in Georgia, you look in Texas, you look in Florida, you saw three states where Democrats almost won major seats, whether it be a Senate seat or a governorship.
What did all those candidates have in common? They were absolute long shots to even be in contention for those seats, and they were all minorities. You add Mike Espy to that list as well. You now have four candidates. Let assume Espy does lose, who were very, very close. Why is this a problem for Republicans? It all comes down to math, right?
You need 270 electoral votes, Don, to become president of the United States. Let's just say in a decade these demographics change a little bit, and we see that Georgia, Texas, and Florida flip and they become Democratic states. All you have to do is add in California, which we know is very liberal, New York, which we know is very liberal, and you are only 103 electoral vote as way from being the president of the United States. That's with only a handful of states.
[22:10:04] LEMON: Very interesting. Let's continue to talk about Mississippi. I want to bring Harry in. Does Espy have a path to victory right now?
HARRY ENTEN, CNN POLITICS SENIOR WRITER AND ANALYST: I don't see it. I mean, obviously, I don't project races for this network. But I don't see it based upon everything that I'm seeing. And that shouldn't be a huge surprise, right?
The polling average heading into this runoff had Hyde-Smith leading by mid-single digits. Based upon the votes left out, we should see Espy close the gap which is above 10 points now. So, we'll head right towards that polling average. But more than that look at the results that occurred earlier this month.
And then you try and predict them based upon the past presidential vote whether or not the incumbent is running. That would have predicted Hyde-Smith would win by seven percentage points and that's looking like what we'll probably end up at this point.
LEMON: Listen, you are the forecaster, the political forecaster but, I mean, just to me as a person who sits here and, you know, sort of as a moderator of the political debates, to see this -- these sorts of numbers in Mississippi, as I said to John, I mean, it's surprising to me.
ENTEN: I think it is somewhat surprising insofar as this is a state where a Democratic Senate candidate hasn't won since 1982. A Democratic gubernatorial candidate has not received a majority of the votes since 1987. And you have to go all the way back to the '50s for a Democratic presidential candidate to receive a majority of the vote.
So, the fact that Espy at least was somewhat closer, closer than you might have expected given the first rounding of voting when the Democrats only added up to 42 percent of the vote does indicate to me that some of Hyde-Smith's comments might have hurt her but not to the extent whereby it was enough for Espy to close.
LEMON: Let's dig in a little more about that. Because, Nia, listen, if she does win, a win is a win. Cindy Hyde-Smith, her comments about attending a public hanging, the president asking whether Espy fit in in Mississippi. Do you think these dog whistles had an impact?
NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Marginally. Probably. I think the major way they had an impact was it drew the national spotlight to this campaign in Mississippi that probably wasn't going to get much national attention.
It also allowed Mike Espy to make a closing argument about why people should vote for him, which is to say that essentially Cindy Hyde-Smith wouldn't be good for Mississippi's reputation. Obviously, it's a deep south state and has struggled to embrace sort of this new south reputation.
So, I think that in some ways was a good thing for his candidacy. But I think in the end, we're going to see a state do what a state like Mississippi would do, which is to say we're going to see a very racially polarized electorate, likely 80 percent of white voters in Mississippi are going to pull the lever for Cindy Hyde-Smith, and over 80 percent of black voters will vote for Mike Espy. That's just how Mississippi is.
Everything in that race in terms of politics, everything in that state in terms of politics has often been about race, right? I mean, white people fled the Democratic Party and became Republicans over the issue of race. So, if you're a Mississippian, you're sort of used to this language around race and dog whistling and signaling around race.
But in the end, it will l be the same outcome here. But certainly, some warning signs, I think, for Republicans in this state, and certainly, I think probably some regrets that they did put forth Cindy Hyde-Smith, who is a weak candidate and likely ended up in this position because Mississippi is a state that has never had a woman before Cindy Hyde-Smith represent them in Congress, either in the Senate or in the House of Representatives. So, if she wins tonight, she's going to make some history tonight.
LEMON: Mark, a win by Smith would mean that we're looking at a 53-47 Republican majority in the Senate, and the president went down there, campaigned hard for her as he did for many red-state senators. Is this Senate his red wall?
PRESTON: Well, it certainly -- I mean, he's going to need the Senate. He's going to need Mitch McConnell to have as much breathing room as possible to try to get some things done. But, look, nothing is going to get done unless House Democrats and Senate Republicans can actually come together on some issues. It doesn't appear that they can. But you can never say never.
So, operationally, this win is more important for someone like Mitch McConnell because he needed that extra Republican senator. Now, we all know that President Trump is going to be tweeting and talking about how he delivered this race to Cindy Hyde-Smith. What's interesting about her is that she entirely embraced Trump. I mean, she might as well have been like Trump woman, right? I mean, that was her whole campaign. So--
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: Wasn't her bus something like the MAGA bus or something--
PRESTON: Right. Right.
LEMON: -- that she drove around in?
PRESTON: She went hard. What he'll do is he'll look at that and say, look, she embraced me. She won. Mia Love didn't embrace me. She lost. Doesn't make sense. It doesn't make it true. But that's the reality of what he's going to say.
LEMON: All right. Thank you. I want you all to stick around and I want everybody to stick with us for the latest results on the Senate runoff in Mississippi.
As it says, as we've been saying, the votes are -- the vote counting is underway, and all of this is happening as the president is doubling down on his assault on the truth tonight. Wait until you hear what he is saying now about his own administration's climate change report.
[22:15:01] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: The Trump White House tonight continuing its assault on the truth. Its strategy of just refusing to accept the facts when they don't fit with the president's world view. Of refusing to accept what the members of his own administration tell him.
Trump sitting down for an interview with "The Washington Post" today. Summing up his feelings about his own administration's climate report. One thousand six hundred fifty-six pages of facts, science, and really frightening predictions about what could happen as temperatures continue to rise.
The president saying, quote, "One of the problems that a lot of people like myself, we have very high levels of intelligence, but we're not necessarily such believers. You look at our air and our water, and it's right now at a record clean."
[22:19:55] So, a report by 13 federal agencies, written by 1,000 people, including 300 leading scientists, one that lays out the real danger to Americans and our economy if global warming continues -- this president just doesn't believe it. Listen to what Sarah Sanders said today. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SARAH HUCKABEE-SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: It's not based on facts. It's based on -- it's not data-driven. We'd like to see something that is more data-driven, that's based on modeling, which is extremely hard to do when you're talking about the climate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: This president and his White House, they think that they can just dismiss the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community that climate change is caused by human activity, and their assault on the facts continues.
This is the National Security Adviser John Bolton's answer. You have to listen to this if you didn't see it live today. His question on whether he has even listened to the tape that captured part of the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN BOLTON, UNITED STATES NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: No, I haven't listened to it, and I guess I should ask you why do you think I should? What do you think I'll learn from it?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, you're the national security adviser. You might have access to that sort of intelligence.
BOLTON: How many in this room speak Arabic? Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You don't have access to an interpreter?
BOLTON: Well, you want me to listen to it? What am I going to learn from -- I mean if they were speaking Korean, I wouldn't learn anything more from it either.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: An interpreter would be able to tell you what is going on.
BOLTON: Well, then I could read a transcript too.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, you don't think it's important to hear that as the national security adviser?
BOLTON: I'm just trying to make the point that everybody who says why don't you listen to the tape, unless you speak Arabic, what are you going to get from it?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: No one in that room is the national security adviser but him. Isn't that kind of his job to listen to that? I suppose that it is no surprise that John Bolton doesn't want to listen to that tape. It might reveal the horror of what this White House is willing to tolerate from the Saudis. Neither does his boss.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have the tape. I don't want to hear the tape. No reason for me to hear the tape.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: The president continues to make excuses for Mohammed bin Salman even though his own CIA has concluded the Saudi crown prince personally ordered Khashoggi's murder. And Sarah Sanders falsely claims to CNN's Jim Acosta that the intelligence community hasn't given them enough information.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: On Khashoggi, you said that was not true, that he doesn't believe the CIA. He said the other day maybe MBS did, maybe he didn't, the crown prince.
SANDERS: And we haven't seen definitive evidence come from our intelligence community that ties him directly to that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: But in the face of all that, the White House press secretary insists this president has faith in his own intelligence community, even though he regularly ignores and contradicts them.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SANDERS: The president has a great deal of faith in the intelligence community, and certainly in the team that he has assembled around him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: This is the very same president who stood next to Vladimir Putin in Helsinki and said he didn't see any reason Russia would interfere in our election, taking the Russian president's word over his own intelligence chief.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: My people came to me, Dan Coats came to me and some others. They said they think it's Russia. I have President Putin. He just said it's not Russia. I will say this. I don't see any reason why it would be.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Fact. It's Russia. And then there's the Russia investigation. The president on his favorite rant tonight, falsely claiming the investigation is a witch hunt, which is not true no matter how many times he says it. The numbers prove it.
Three people have been sentenced to prison. Six have pleaded guilty. Thirty-five people and entities have been charged with a total of 191 crimes.
But it's not surprising the president is on that rant again tonight, or ever. In the wake of a report in The Guardian today that former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort had secretly met several times with Julian Assange inside Ecuador's embassy in London, including around the time he took the top spot with the campaign.
Manafort has strongly denied ever meeting with Assange, calling the report, quote, "totally false and deliberately libelous." And well, we'll have a lot more on that in a moment to tell you about.
But it comes after Special Counsel Robert Mueller accused Manafort of repeatedly lying to his team and to the FBI. The president's attorney, Rudy Giuliani, tells CNN that Trump has been upset for weeks about the treatment of Manafort.
[22:25:00] Giuliani suggesting that Manafort is being punished by being put in solitary confinement.
The president himself was blunt in his tweet just a few months back, attempting to defend Manafort by comparing his treatment to Al Capone or, as he said, Alfonse Capone.
But the fact is -- again facts. Manafort is in solitary for his own protection, and facts matter. Truth matters despite this president's continuing assault on the truth.
A lot to dig into. David Axelrod, Ryan Lizza, and April Ryan are all here. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:30:05] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN breaking news.
LEMON: Here's our breaking news, and it's a projection. CNN projects Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith is the winner over Democrat Mike Espy in the runoff Senate race in Mississippi. Mr. John King is here. This is the final Senate race of the midterms, and it goes to Cindy Hyde- Smith.
KING: It goes to Cindy Hyde-Smith, Don, in a state President Trump carried by 18 points two years ago, Cindy Hyde-Smith at the moment a little over 10-point margin there. So Republicans will say a win is a win. Democrats will say they made a pretty good run here. Now, we're calling this race because we've gone through this, and there is no way.
Cindy Hyde-Smith will win this race. I will say it's possible the margin will get a little bit closer as the final votes come in. Why do I say that? You see a lot of gray here in the western part of the state. There's blue all around it. This is where Mike Espy's old congressional district was out here, Democratic areas that have yet to report. But they're pretty small.
You look down here, Jefferson County, less than one percent of the state population, Adams County, just over one percent of the state population. And so on as you look out here at these Democratic counties out here. So Mike Espy could a make a little closer. But Cindy Hyde-Smith by running it up pretty good in these red areas here, 60 percent down here, Harrison County.
This is Biloxi, where President Trump was on the eve of the runoff, neighboring counties here 60 percent. So in places where the President visited, he was also in Tupelo last night. Let's come up here. Nearly 70 percent, more than two-thirds of the vote there, and only half in, so Cindy Hyde-Smith could get some more votes here as well. So it is a double-digit margin right now.
In the end, we know it will be a win for the Republicans. There will be a lot of talk about whether that's a weak win. That will be the conversation. Cindy Hyde-Smith will have to run for re-election in two years. She's finishing an uncompleted Senate term, so she'll be back on the ballot. But Don, this is the big picture as we have one house race still to count.
We now Democrats have a net gain of 39. Republicans will find this as their only solace in this big year of a blue wave, 53 Republican seats come January. There are currently 51. So they will have a net plus two. Now, six to eight weeks ago, some Republicans thought they could get plus four, even plus five, some said. They didn't get that. But they will get a plus two.
So President Trump, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, will have some more space, if you will, to deal with in the Republican family as the President nominates a new attorney general, perhaps as more cabinet shake up, as judicial nominations come through. So the Trump agenda will have an easier path in the Senate. The irony is, of course, when we look at that House blue wave, the Trump agenda will face a dead end, roadblock, full stop in a Democratic House come January.
LEMON: John King, thank you very much, John. You can get a little rest now, I think. As we said, this is the last one to be called. But there's still more to do. John, thank you. I'll see you on inside politics tomorrow. Thank you, my friend. So listen, a big week for the Mueller investigation also in the wake of this stunning climate report at the White House tonight.
President Trump also giving an extraordinary interview to the Washington Post full of false claims, including doubling down on that climate change -- on his climate change denial. Let's bring in now David Axelrod, also Ryan Lizza, and April Ryan. April is the author of "Under Fire: Reporting from the Front Lines of the Trump White House." Good evening to all of you.
There will be lots of analysis to come on the race down in Mississippi. But I want to talk about this Washington Post. Let's start with this. David, the President is telling the Post, I have a gut and my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else's brain can ever tell me, OK? So he was talking about his annoyance with the Fed, and then on climate change.
And he says that he has a very high level of intelligence though he's not a believer. You're calling that absolutely ludicrous, right? DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah. Well, it is
absolutely ludicrous. And if you go on to read his quotes on this, they're completely incomprehensible about, you know, garbage in the ocean and then a whole variety of things that have nothing to do with climate change. Look, I have a pretty substantial gut myself, but I know that on issues like this, scientists are almost unanimous, virtually unanimous on the situation.
And his scientists are unanimous on this issue. The Fed was set up to be an independent body, and his nominee was acting, as far as I can see, responsibly in how he was handling his role. And the President is trying to shift blame because of what GM did yesterday. Now, the truth of the matter is that his trade policies had as much to do with what GM did as anything else.
You know their costs have gone up a billion dollars because of the tariffs that he's placed on the materials they need to build their cars. But basically, they made a long-term bet. I -- my question is what is the business community thinking tonight, some of whom have been very supportive of him as he talks about meddling with the Fed, as he condemns GM for their business decision?
[22:35:08] You know now I think what he thinks is that his base wants him to hit somebody. They don't want him to take any responsibility. They don't want him to say that there were reasons that this happened, and so he's chosen the Fed to blame.
LEMON: Yeah. It's interesting what you said, because when you read his quotes, you wonder does he actually know what climate change is. And there's a difference between climate change and the environment and the ocean. Both are very important. But it seems like he's muddling the two and he's getting it confused. And it's all jumbled up and he's not exactly sure what he's talking about. But I digress.
Ryan, let me ask you this. It is no secret that President Trump thinks that he knows best about just about everything. Take a listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When you look at the trade deals and nobody knows it better than me. Nobody knows more about construction than I do. Nobody knows the politicians better than I do. Believe me. Nobody knows more about environmental impact statements than me. So a general gets on, sent obviously by Obama. And he said Mr. Trump doesn't understand. He knows nothing about defense.
I know more about offense and defense than they will ever understand. Believe me. I know more about ISIS than the generals do. Believe me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Believe me. Listen, that same sentiment comes through in the Washington Post interview when he's talking about his, quote, high levels of intelligence, Ryan. RYAN LIZZA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah. He -- look, he's spent his
whole career with that kind of bluster, right? I mean that's always what -- I grew up in New York in the 80s and, you know, Donald Trump was on the front pages of the tabloids all the time. So I remember this from my youth, this kind of, you know, ridiculous bluster, didn't expect it to be in a President, especially with Trump.
But look, just to get back to the main theme of this segment about the lying. I mean we talk about Trump lying everyday. And we've all noticed that in the last six to eight months, his amount of lying has increased, right? He's got, you know, full-time fact checkers working in overdrive everyday. And why is that? Why does he lie more than he ever has? Why is the lying getting worse?
I think the obvious answer is because he gets away with it, right? That -- you know you have Democrats calling him out. You have the press calling him out. But his own party explains it away, and frankly doesn't really care all that much. And until that cracks, until people in his own party consistently care that the President of the United States is a liar and lies every single day to the American public.
Until they step up and on a daily basis put some pressure on him not to do it, there's no reason for him not to be who he is because he believes he has succeeded with that strategy.
LEMON: This is a whole other show but I can't -- mark my words. We'll be sitting here maybe two, three years, maybe a little bit longer, who knows. A Democrat may be doing the same thing, God forbid. And you'll watch these same Republicans, many of the people who are in the Briefing Room, many of the people who we see on television.
You're going to watch their heads blow off when a Democrat does the same thing. I am telling you, karma is a, you know what, because it will happen. Mark my words. April, speaking of the Briefing Room, jaw-dropping moment a couple of times in the briefing room, one was with John Bolton, but Sarah Sanders dismissed this climate change report.
Bolton got testy over the Khashoggi murder tape, the White House's assault on the truth on full display.
APRIL RYAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah, Don, today was -- we hadn't had a briefing in about a month, and today was very astonishing on several levels. And I just want to go to the Khashoggi statement from Bolton. For many who are in the intelligence community, that was a very thin statement. Because, one, if you are the National Security Adviser, you're advising the President of issues like this, world issues like this that have far-reaching ramifications.
And we have seen video and pictures of presidents looking at horrific incidents in real-time. We, as Americans, have -- remember those videos a couple of years ago, those horrible videos, the decapitations. And many people in the national security community watched these things to be able to inform the President of the United States so he can make a well-informed decision, not a knee-jerk decision.
[22:39:55] And if you really want to dig deep in this, I think about an analogy someone gave me today. They said, you know, if he wanted to get a transcript, you know, that's fine. But, you know, to make the point that a person needs to see or be there to get the understanding of it. Think about this. If President Trump decides to go to a rally, let's say Mississippi. The Mississippi rallies he attended.
He could have just sent a transcript, but we wouldn't have gotten the full essence of what it was if he sent a transcript versus being there. So to watch this, to give the President an understanding to make an informed decision, that's missing because it was done in Arabic. It's very thin for people in the national intelligence community.
LEMON: Yeah. I -- the looks on the faces of the reporters in the room, I mean I am sure it matched the people who were watching around the country if not around the world. I just -- my jaw dropped when I heard it. Thank you, all. I wish we had more time, but we have the breaking with Mississippi. Thank you so much. We've got the latest on former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort to talk about, denying the bombshell report that he met with Julian Assange right around the time he joined the Trump campaign. That's next.
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[22:45:00] LEMON: So we have some major developments to tell you about tonight in the Russia investigation. CNN is learning that two months before Wikileaks released stolen e-mails from the Clinton campaign. Right wing conspiracy theorist, Jerome Corsi, sent an e- mail to former Trump Campaign Adviser Roger Stone, anticipating the document dump. And according to the documents he wrote on August 2nd, 2016, this is what he wrote.
Word is friend in embassy plans two more dumps. One shortly after I am back, second in October. Impact planned to be very damaging. Wikileaks released John Podesta's e-mails in October, just a coincidence? Also tonight, new information that Paul Manafort was keeping the President's legal team updated with developments with the Special Counsel?
Evan Perez here to break it all down for us, Evan, wow, this is a lot. So -- good evening to you, how unusual is it that a witness cooperating with the Special Counsel investigation be allowed to go back, talk to the lawyers of a key player, in this case the President? Is that basically like having an inside track on the investigation? Something's wrong here.
EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, it kind of is. But I think in this case, the Trump -- the Mueller team certainly, I think, Don, was aware that some of this was happening, because Rudy Giuliani can't help himself and has certainly been talking to journalists, and had made it clear that he was getting information from the Manafort team.
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: So they knew this, then? If they were watching the news, they knew it.
PEREZ: I do believe that they would have known this. And by the way, I mean in some of the other plea agreements that they've had, they have explicitly put gag orders into these documents. In this case, they did not do that. So it seems to me at least that the Mueller team was aware of this. I think what might have upset them, however, was that Giuliani has been going on television, has been going in the media, saying that Manafort was not giving up anything on the President.
That he was essentially not cooperating fully. And so that, I think, might have upset the Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
LEMON: Evan, I want to talk to you about your new reporting tonight about a blowup between the President's legal team and the Special Counsel.
PEREZ: Well, yeah, right. It has to do with those e-mails that you were just talking about, Jerome Corsi. So part of what happened here was the President's legal team learned about this potential plea deal with Jerome Corsi with the Special Counsel. And they learned that some of these documents that Jerome Corsi was going to essentially sign, Don, really had a reference to the President, in which they said that someone was in touch with the President.
And just the fact that it mentioned the President by name when no one else was mentioned in the document really upset the President and his legal team. Keep in mind. They were working on this take-home test. Remember the answers, the written answers to the Mueller questions that they were getting ready to respond to. This is just before thanksgiving.
So they learned about this Jerome Corsi documents that Sara Murray got her hands on today. And so they put a stop to it. They said look. We are not going to respond. We are not going to send back the written questions to the Mueller team until we get a hold of what exactly is happening here. And I think this is what happened behind the scenes.
There were these conversations with the Mueller team to try to understand whether or not there was something else at work here. And really what it shows us is that they're getting all this information just as you talked about. They're getting this information from other sources, and it was affecting their own negotiations with the Mueller team behind the scenes, Don.
LEMON: Interesting. Evan, thank you. I appreciate your reporting.
PEREZ: Sure.
LEMON: I want to bring in now John Dean and Phil Mudd. Good evening, gentlemen. So let's get your reaction, John first, your reaction to Paul Manafort updating the President's legal team on his contact with Mueller, an attorney for Paul Manafort obviously.
JOHN DEAN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes. "The New York Times" reported this earlier, and it's Kevin Downing. That's the lawyer who was involved in this. And he's playing a very dangerous game. During Watergate, the most experienced criminal defense lawyer represented E. Howard Hunt. He ended up -- because of doing just what this -- a very similar action, an unindicted co-conspirator and got himself in a whole heap of trouble.
[22:50:01] Came within a hair's breath of getting himself in (Inaudible) co-conspirator. So there's a line here, Don. And generally, when you have a joint defense agreement, once your client is cooperating, you no longer are part of that agreement.
LEMON: Does this mean, Phil that Manafort was essentially informing the President about what Mueller knows while he was claiming to be cooperating but actually lying?
PHILIP MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: I think so. But we're still missing just a quarter piece of the puzzle, Don. I look at this. I look at the cooperation among attorneys, between Manafort and the White House. That doesn't surprise me. The question I still have, mostly in terms of that cooperation between the White House and the Manafort team, centers on one key issue.
We know the Russians were involved in interfering with the election. We know that partly as a result of the Mueller investigation. We had the Russian military intelligence indicted. We know that Wikileaks was the party that revealed the information. The step we had was who was interacting with Wikileaks. Now we know it is Roger Stone. But we also know that there are conversations maybe with the Ecuadorian President.
We still are a quarter step away. Does Manafort or someone affiliated with him know that information of value was passed? Did Wikileaks tell Manafort or of course, you're somebody else. This is when we're going to release it. This is the states where going to release it in. And was there coordination between the parties. We're still missing that, Don.
LEMON: So, you know, Evan called it the take-home test, John. We know the President sent his written answers to Mueller last week. Do you think Mueller was waiting to reveal Manafort was lying until after Trump submitted his answers?
DEAN: Well, given the fact we know this happened in mid-November that they came up short and were not going to play anymore because of Manafort's behavior and his disassembling. It looks like that's exactly what they did. They asked for a 10-day delay. And during that 10 days, of course, is when the (Inaudible) completed his answers.
And I guess they just didn't want to shake the tree or have anything come out that would scare the President and result in not getting those answers. They wanted him on record, it appears. LEMON: Yeah. Let's dig in a little more here on something, Phil.
Because about this Guardian report that Paul Manafort met with Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange multiple times during the 2016 campaign. Manafort strongly is denying that. If this is true, OK, if it's true, how big of a deal is that?
MUDD: I think it's huge. Look, I am suspicious of this. If Manafort is lying, he's looking at the Special Counsel, knowing the Special Counsel has information like what is Manafort's travel schedule like. Did we ever talk to the British? Did U.S. authorities talk to the British and ask them about whether anybody named Manafort ever walked into the U.K. at that time?
Did other people who were interviewed talk about a Manafort travel or a series of visits to the U.K. to talk about Assange? I am suspicious of the report. But Don, if it's true, I mentioned earlier we're half a step away from determining that somebody involved with the campaign was getting information from Wikileaks.
If it's true, you'd have to persuade me with a lot of money that Manafort didn't walk in there and conduct some kind of negotiation about getting information from Wikileaks. Why did he travel to London unless there was a deal? That said, let me be clear. I am suspicious of this report. Show me the money. I don't see it yet, Don. I've got to see more.
LEMON: Thank you, gentlemen, thank you, Phil, thank you, John. We'll be right back.
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LEMON: Thanks, Anderson. And all of our top 10 CNN Heroes will be honored at the 12th Annual CNN Heroes all-star tribute hosted by Anderson with special guest Kelly Ripa. It's live Sunday, December 9th. And here is our breaking news to tell you about here. Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith wins the Senate runoff in Mississippi, that, and the latest on the Mueller investigation. That's next.
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