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Don Lemon Tonight

Trump Rattled by Cohen's Guilty Plea; Michael Cohen Saves his Sinking Image; Saudi Crown Prince and Vladimir Putin High Five at G20 Summit; Robert Mueller Looking Into Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr's Involvement in Trump Tower Moscow; Ryan Zinke Responds to Raul Grijalva Calls for him to Resign. Aired 10-11p ET

Aired November 30, 2018 - 22:00   ET

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

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: Chris, thank you very much. Safe travel home, my friend. Have a great weekend.

This is CNN Tonight. I'm Don Lemon.

Here's our breaking news on the Mueller investigation. Sources telling CNN that Michael Cohen, the president's former fixer, believed President Trump would pardon him if he stayed on message in his discussions with federal prosecutors.

Another source says that after the FBI raid on Cohen's home and office, people close to the president assured Cohen that Trump would take care of him. We all know how that worked out, right? More on that in just a moment.

And here's a picture that says it all. These are the world's leaders, the ones that our president is cozying up to. Take a look at your screen right now. There's the crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman. And there's also President Vladimir Putin there. They sure look happy, don't they? Just chumming it up, shaking hands, how you doing, buddy? Why not?

The president of the United States, the leader of the free world, the only man who could stand in their way is weak, weak, weak. Appears to be afraid to cross them. Weak. Afraid to cross two brutal and repressive leaders who oppose everything this country stands for.

The crown prince of Saudi Arabia is the man behind the vicious murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Our own CIA has assessed that with high confidence, but our president, well, he refuses to accept that and he sides with the Saudis again and again and again.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I spoke with the crown prince yesterday, and he strongly said that he had nothing to do with this.

He's got many people now that say he had no knowledge. He told me that he had nothing to do with it.

Saudi Arabia, if we broke with them, I think your oil prices would go through the roof.

We have a very strong ally in Saudi Arabia. We have an ally that said they did not commit at the top level, the crown prince, the king -- they did not commit this atrocity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So, the question is why is this president so eager to take the Saudis' word over his own CIA, really our own CIA? It's very simple. He told you himself. It's all about money. And then there's Vladimir Putin, whose forces rammed and fired on Ukrainian vessels off the coast of Crimea this week and seized 24 Ukraine service members who the U.K. now believes personally approved the deadly poison attack on a former spy in Britain.

Sources tell CNN that attack with a perfume bottle full of a never -- never agent could have -- nerve agent, excuse me, nerve agent, could never kill thousands and thousands of people. So, let me, I just want to remind you of something as if, you know, if you can forget this. What our president has said about his BFF -- that's Vladimir Putin. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Putin called me brilliant. I like it. So now I like Putin. Now, Putin called me a genius by the way. He said Donald Trump is a genius, and he's the absolute leader over there, and he's the smartest person.

I think Putin's been a very strong leader for Russia. He's been a lot stronger than our leader, that I can tell you.

Wouldn't it be great if we actually got along with Russia? Wouldn't it be great? Is there anything wrong with that?

Putin is fine. He's fine. We're all fine with people.

I got along great with Putin, and everybody said, wow, that was great.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So, President Trump has the perfect opportunity to call them both to account at the G20 face-to-face. He could. But he seems to be doing everything he can to avoid that. He canceled his planned meeting with Putin before Air Force One even landed in Argentina, claiming it was because of Russia's actions in Ukraine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[22:04:59] TRUMP: We're not happy about it. Nobody is. Hopefully they'll be able to settle it out soon because we look forward to meeting with President Putin.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: But you know, we -- everybody knows, we all know it's no coincidence that meeting was canceled just hours after Michael Cohen's blockbuster admission that he lied to protect the president when he told Congress that negotiations to put a Trump tower in Moscow ended before the Iowa caucuses. An admission that means Trump was trying to do business with Russia in the middle of a campaign that Russia interfered in to help elect him.

So, it's no wonder the president decided to pass on the opportunity to sit down with Putin. Press Secretary Sarah Sanders in a statement today using the president's mantra, witch hunt, hoax, witch hunt, hoax, said the Russia investigation, quote, "probably does undermine our relationship with Russia." Yes. That is what this president cares about. That's what's on his mind.

Here's what he tweeted, of course, tweeted just before 5 this morning, OK "I get it. I am a very good developer, happily living my life. When I see our country going in the wrong direction to put it mildly. Against all odds, I decide to run for president and continue to run my business. Very legal, very cool. I talked about it on the campaign trail."

Very legal, very cool. There's another way to look at it, you know. Hat tip to the Atlantic's David Frum, who reminds us of this moment from Richard Nixon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD NIXON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I welcome this kind of examination because people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: I'm not a crook. Very legal and very cool. The president seems to care more about covering his tracks with the Mueller investigation closing in than standing up for American values.

Senator Bob Menendez nailed it with this tweet. Here it is. Quote, "That feeling when you own the president of the United States and can do whatever you want." Take a look at that. Whatever happened to America first?

Let's bring in now Shimon Prokupecz, CNN's Shimon Prokupecz with our very latest on our breaking news. Shimon, good evening to you. Good to have you on. So, let's talk now. President Trump's former attorney, Michael Cohen, believed that the president -- that he would pardon him if he stayed on message. So, what happened? What do you know?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Yes. So this appears to be all in connection obviously with the Stormy Daniels payment when that investigation was starting to heat up, people close to the president left Michael Cohen with the impression that if Michael Cohen stayed on message, that is, protected the president from any legal or criminal jeopardy and sort of just kept with the same story that he's been going and protect the president, that he likely would have gotten a pardon from the president. But like you said, something along the way went wrong, and clearly that is now not happening.

LEMON: So, we don't know what that something was. Was it just Michael Cohen getting religion? We don't know what the impetus of that change was?

PROKUPECZ: Well, so here's how things sort of worked out from what, you know, we're told here at CNN, is that in March of 2018, Michael Cohen goes to Mar-a-Lago. He's there while the president is there. It's not clear if they had discussed anything, what the discussions were. But just a month after that visit, the FBI raids Michael Cohen, right?

So, they go to his house, his office, and they get this treasure trove of information pursuant to search warrants. It is within weeks after that raid that the president starts to distance himself from Michael Cohen. He goes on Fox and Friends, says that Michael Cohen did tiny little bit, a tiny amount of work for him, legal work for him.

And then Michael Cohen, we're told, realizes what's going on here, and that is that the president is starting to distance himself from Michael Cohen. And then he's seeing what's going on here, and then it seems all of that is what started making him believe that he had to look out for himself here and try and protect himself.

And really what Michael Cohen has wanted, we're told, all along here is to protect his family, you know, his wife, his children, hoping to keep them out of this, protect them, keep them safe so that hopefully none of this affects them.

LEMON: Well, those are all good reasons. Thank you very much, Shimon. I appreciate that.

PROKUPECZ: Sure.

LEMON: You know, it's been a huge week in the Mueller investigation, and we've got a lot to talk about. John Dean is here, Susan Glasser, and Garrett Graff. We're going to dig into it next.

[22:10:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Here's our breaking news tonight. Sources telling CNN that Michael Cohen believed President Trump would give him a pardon in exchange for staying on message in support of the president in his discussions with federal prosecutors. Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, saying tonight that the president never indicated any such offer.

So, I want to bring in now John Dean, Susan Glasser, Garrett Graff. Garrett is the author of "The Threat Matrix: Inside Robert Mueller's FBI and the War on Global Terror."

Happy Friday, everyone. Good evening. Good to see you. John, I'm going to start with you. Let's talk about this breaking news about Michael Cohen. Under the impression, which I think people sort of knew back then that that was a possibility -- but under the impression that Trump would pardon him, if Trump promised a pardon to Cohen for staying loyal, is that an impeachable offense? John? JOHN DEAN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I'm sorry. Absolutely.

LEMON: I know you were so intrigued by my question.

DEAN: Actually, I'm thinking of your laughter last night still.

LEMON: Well, that's what I did last night, and that's what then -- that's what, then that's it.

DEAN: There's no question it's an impeachable offense. It was in the bill of impeachment, in the articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon.

[22:14:58] He dangled several pardons, and he, as I say, was charged accordingly because that's clearly an obstruction of justice if he was prosecutable. But when you don't prosecute a president, it is impeachable.

LEMON: But you've got that, and then you have his attorneys and they're, you know, going behind the scenes, and they're feeding information to the White House. But some say it's not illegal, but it's definitely unusual.

DEAN: They're opening themselves up for conspiracy to obstruct justice.

LEMON: Yes.

DEAN: They clearly are, and that was part of the charges that were included in the overall conspiracy in the cover-up trial.

LEMON: Even if it wasn't the president who was dangling the pardon but someone else, could they be in legal jeopardy?

DEAN: Well, only the president has the power to do that, but they can take the message from the president.

LEMON: Got it.

DEAN: I know from the tapes today that he was, ask Ehrlichman offered me a pardon, but Ehrlichman was smart enough not to do it.

LEMON: Got it. So, Garrett, listen, in the 70-plus hours that Cohen has talked to Mueller, do you think this came up?

GARRETT GRAFF, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: It seems likely. And remember also that Mueller's team and the federal prosecutors seized, you know, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of documents, something like a dozen different physical telephones in the course of the raid on Michael Cohen's office in April.

So, that's 70 hours Michael Cohen spent, I would imagine, sort of providing a road map to what all of those documents, what all of those conversations were. Remember, Michael Cohen has only been charged so far and pleaded guilty to two instances dealing with 2016 itself. Michael Cohen was the fixer for Donald Trump for a decade. You have to

imagine that he got some sketchy messes cleaned up for Donald Trump in order to earn the name fixer as part of his role in shorthand for what he was doing for the Trump organization.

LEMON: Yes. So, he sort of, what's the guy that had all the puzzle pieces, and they bring him in since he's so intimate with the Trump business and Donald Trump -- this is before he's president. That's why I'm saying Donald Trump. So, he can say this is what this puzzle piece means. This is where this goes. This is where this goes. Am I correct in that, Garrett?

GRAFF: Yes. And remember that we know that Michael Cohen was doing recordings.

LEMON: Right.

GRAFF: Of President Trump. I mean, we've seen Michael Cohen leak to the media his own recordings of helping to arrange the hush money payments to Stormy Daniels and others. And that was a conversation that we have all heard. You have to presume that there are others like that, and that was a conversation of two people who were very familiar and comfortable with what they were doing. It wasn't Donald Trump being like, wait, we're paying hush money to who? What do we need to do? It was the sort of talking in a shorthand code that made clear that they had done these many times before.

LEMON: Yes. So, Susan, I'm sure Congress believes the answer to this question is yes, but do you think it's something Congress should look into, this whole idea of speaking to him about a pardon and sort of going through a back channel, letting him know that maybe, you know, a pardon is on the table if you just stick with this message?

SUSAN GLASSER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, look, there's no question that Congress is about to reopen its investigation on the House side when the Democrats take control of Congress in January. And they have signaled, I think, that they're going to be very aggressive.

I don't know what they'll determine to be kind of part of the obstruction potential investigation, which as I understand it, they would leave more to Mueller and his team to investigate. So, they may be looking at some of the more underlying issues, for example.

But, you know, this is the first case in which Mueller has charged someone with lying to Congress, and it would seem to me that the urgent question then becomes, as people are combing through these transcripts already, they had agreed to release the transcripts, by the way, of the House intelligence investigation, and yet not done so, so far.

So, that's going to be the first order of business if the Republicans continue to block them.

When I did an interview with Congressman Schiff, who will become the chairman of the House intelligence committee, recently, he pointed out that he thinks others are in significant jeopardy of being charged with perjury, including Roger Stone, for example.

LEMON: Yes. You know what's interesting when Susan just said that, John, she reminded me when this was going on, when people were speaking to Congress, right, and some of them were refusing to go and some of them were saying, I'm not going to answer that and what have you, and then the whole thing was just buried.

This gives credence and, I think, more heft to Congress. People know now don't lie to them. If you lie to them in your testimony, you could be in trouble because I think some of the people who testified may have just been blowing it off saying, well, the Congress part doesn't matter. That's not going to affect me legally. It's not going to affect me in any way. Mueller is the person I have to be concerned about. And so, I don't to speak to him. I'll just lie to Congress and move on.

[22:20:03] DEAN: It was very short-term thinking if that's what they did. And according to several people with the intelligence committee, several people with the judiciary committee on the Democratic side and actually a couple of Republicans have alluded to, there's a lot of perjury that's been going on. They'll probably charge them with false statements. It's an unusual arrangement to start prosecuting before hearings, but given the national security implications of the Russia investigation I wouldn't be surprise if the special counsel does it.

LEMON: Garrett, you know, for so long, we hadn't heard a thing from Mueller. That appears to be over now. Do you think we're seeing what's up is legal. I'm not sure I had this conversation last night, a similar conversation. I'm sure it was you, because of bad (Ph) panels every night.

But do you think this is just the beginning? I've heard that this is just the beginning. Everyone has been saying, no, he's wrapping up. But people believe, no, it's not wrapping up. He's just starting.

GRAFF: Well, I do think that we are entering the beginning of the end, that what we now know -- and a lot of what we're learning about this investigation, we are only learning in hindsight sort of as we're able to process what we're seeing happen.

And it seems like Mueller was quite quiet for the four months that he was waiting for these answers, these written answers from President Trump. He got them over the Thanksgiving weekend. Every single day since then has brought new, you know, revelations, some bombshells even from the Mueller investigation.

So, it's clear that Mueller was busy at work during that time and has sort of lined up a strategy of how to march forward from here, perhaps even rather rapidly.

We saw in Paul Manafort's -- in a court hearing today with Paul Manafort that they're going to be filing a sentencing submission by next Friday to discuss what lies and crimes -- that's their phrase -- lies and crimes Paul Manafort has committed during the portion of time when he is supposed to have been cooperating with the special counsel. LEMON: My gosh. You got Manafort. You got Cohen. Don't forget we've

got Flynn. There's so much here. All right. Stick around. We're going to talk more.

There is what Donald Trump said during the campaign and what was going on behind the scenes. We're going to take a look at what Trump said about Vladimir Putin while his company worked for a deal in Moscow.

[22:25:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: So, Russia seems to be putting the squeeze on President Trump, trying to get him to reverse his decision, canceling a meeting with Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin saying Putin still wants to talk, but if Trump doesn't agree, it will only lead to more tensions between the two countries.

Back with me now, John Dean, Susan Glasser, and Garrett Graff. How interesting this scenario is turning out to be, Susan. So, I just want you to listen to this sound. It's from 2016, the 2016 campaign. President Trump refused to speak out against Putin. In fact, he said nice things. And then after that, you'll hear what Hillary Clinton and the GOP candidates were saying about Putin and Russia during that same time. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I think Putin's been a very strong leader for Russia. He's been a lot stronger than our leader.

You know, it wouldn't be bad to get along with Russia, right? It wouldn't be bad.

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: I think it's important too that the United States make it very clear to Putin that it's not acceptable for him to be in Syria.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO, (R) FLORIDA: Vladimir Putin is not some strong heroic. He is a thug.

FORMER GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE, (R) NEW JERSEY: He's a dictator, and he wants to maintain his power.

SEN. TED CRUZ, (R) TEXAS: Putin is essentially a KGB thug.

GOV. JOHN KASICH, (R) OHIO: Frankly it's time we punch the Russians in the nose. They've gotten away with too much in this world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Wow, that time machine blast right there. It's quite the contrast, Susan. And it leaves you wondering even though he was answering questions about U.S.-Russia relations, was he speaking nicely about Putin purely out of his own self-interest to make a deal?

GLASSER: Well, look, Don, you know, the other thing that of course has emerged this weekend in the context of the Cohen plea deal is to me something that's very significant, which is that Michael Cohen, President Trump's lawyer and fixer, was reaching out to Vladimir Putin's office in the middle of the 2016 campaign on behalf of a presidential candidate of another country and asking for help in a business deal.

The way that kompromat works, the way that the weaponization of information works in the Russian system, this is like being a walk-in to an intelligence office and offering them something that they can use over you.

It is an extraordinary situation regardless of any issues surrounding the legality of it. It is just something that has no known precedent in American politics or history, and I just -- I can't underscore that enough, that regardless of the significant legal issues and questions surrounding what's going to happen in this investigation, what we've already learned here is astonishing.

And that the presidential candidate sought to cover it up. Why did President Trump seek to cover it up if, as he said today in his tweet, no big deal.

LEMON: Right.

GLASSER: I was just looking into a business deal somewhere in Russia.

LEMON: Yes.

GLASSER: If it was such a big deal, then why did he lie about it.

LEMON: And why did he keep saying I have no business, I have no deals. I have no pending. I have no nothing.

GLASSER: Yes.

LEMON: He kept saying that. So, this information was withheld from the public who is voting, right? It was withheld from the other candidates who were running against him, and that means both Republicans and Democrats. So, if any of the other candidates, Garrett, had known this, they might have hammered Trump on it. It's also key information the American people didn't know when they were choosing their nominee and when they were choosing a president.

GRAFF: Yes. Just to put a very sort of sharp point on this, Bob Mueller and the federal prosecutors have uncovered that there were two separate criminal conspiracies that aided Donald Trump's election in 2016. One was run by the Russian government involving information, operations, and cyberattacks on the United States.

[22:30:06] And the other was a series of campaign finance violations masterminded by Donald Trump and Michael Cohen himself. What this plea agreement says this week now is that the central figure of one of those criminal conspiracies, Michael Cohen, was in the midst of this presidential campaign trying to contact and gain assistance from the central figure of the other criminal conspiracy. I mean that is absolutely stunning and astounding. LEMON: Yeah. I showed the president tweet -- the president's tweet this morning, John, where he talks about how he only, quote, "lightly looked into doing a building in Russia." David Frum called it his "I'm not a crook" tweet. What's your reaction to that?

JOHN DEAN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: It's not quite as dramatic as Nixon's "I'm not a crook." I think we'll get there with Trump, and it will get more blatant. But he's clearly -- you know, there's a clear pattern here. He denies at first that anything's amiss, and when it's revealed that he's done something amiss, then of course it's nothing illegal about it. It's standard operating procedure. So he knows his guilt. He's not willing to accept it at this point.

LEMON: Yeah. Susan, can I show this to you? All of you guys look at it. Look at this enthusiastic bro shake, right, between the Saudi crown prince and Russia's president. It's seen around the world. What else can you read into it? Look at them. What kind of message is that sending to the world and to the president?

SUSAN GLASSER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, the message is received by all of us crystal clear, you know. The answer is somebody tweeted -- and I think it's impunity. These are two of the worst bad actors on the world stage today. They appear to be openly congratulating each other for literally getting away with murder. In Putin's case, a blatant assassination attempt in using a banned nerve gas substance in Great Britain just this year, not to mention many other actual successful assassinations carried out at apparently his orders. And then, of course, the Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman being basically embraced, by the way, by the president of the United States.

Let's not forget that. This week has been a busy week in the Mueller investigation, but it still bears noting that Donald Trump has continued essentially to act as the lawyer for Mohammad bin Salman in the carrying out of this horrific crime, essentially saying, "I'm disregarding the evidence turned up by my own intelligence community," once again as he did in the Russia investigation. And I think that's another through line there.

LEMON: Yeah. Danny, do we have that -- can we roll that video again? I just want you -- let's look at that one more time. I mean John and Garrett, I mean come on.

DEAN: I've never seen Putin so happy.

GRAFF: Yeah. And I think it's --

DEAN: I just have never noticed Putin so happy, yes.

GRAFF: I think it's worth noting --

LEMON: Go ahead, Garrett.

GRAFF: Sorry. I think it's worth noting that the two countries in the world where the president is most at odds with the civil service and intelligence community, sort of the rest of the U.S. government, are Saudi Arabia and Russia, the two countries where we know that Donald Trump has the most personal business interest.

LEMON: Yeah.

GRAFF: And Susan was there in Helsinki when he stood next to Putin and onstage made some of the most astounding comments that we have ever seen a U.S. president make, turning his back on the men and women of the U.S. intelligence community and firmly embracing Vladimir Putin's world view.

LEMON: John, you said you've never seen Putin so happy.

DEAN: Never seen a shot of him this happy and the both of them were all grins. The picture said everything you need to know about their attitude about what's going on. They know exactly they're winning and we're losing.

LEMON: It's really outrageous. Thank you all. Have a good weekend.

Robert Mueller reportedly investigating exactly what Don Jr. and Ivanka Trump knew about the Trump Tower Moscow deal. Could they be in legal jeopardy? I'm going to ask the man who wrote the book on Trump and Russia. That's next.

[22:35:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: There are new questions tonight about the involvement of the Trump family in that Trump Tower Moscow deal. The special counsel reportedly examining the deals that Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump may have played in the project. That's according to Yahoo News.

Seth Hettena is here. He is the author of, "Trump and Russia - a Definitive History." "Trump and Russia - a Definitive History." I want to get that out. It's important because you write about a lot of these things. You know about a lot of these things. Before I get into it, this was sort of your "I told you so" moment.

SETH HETTENA, AUTHOR, TRUMP AND Russia - A DEFINITIVE HISTORY: A little bit. You know, you said it at the outset, right? This is about -- this is about money. And Trump has been chasing Russian money forever, since 1987. He's been going to the Soviet Union then to try to find a building, and it just has never stopped.

LEMON: Let's talk about, Seth, in the charging document because -- from the special counsel. It says Michael Cohen said he briefed family members of Individual One. Individual one, of course, is the president. And then now there's a report that Mueller is intensely focusing on Don Jr's and Ivanka's role in this Moscow project. In your book on Trump and Russia, you talked about the children, but how deeply are the children involved in all of this?

HETTENA: Well, they're involved. You know, this hasn't been gotten much discussion, but Ivanka picked the architect for the Trump World Tower. In the letter of intent, it said that there is going to be a spa by Ivanka in the building.

[22:40:01] Don Jr. was -- you know, he was involved. He was a kind of a go-between between the family and Russia. So, I think the kids are probably more involved than Trump himself.

LEMON: You think so?

HETTENA: I think so, yeah.

LEMON: Because Don Jr. told the House Judiciary Committee that he was only peripherally involved in the project. Do you buy that?

HETTENA: He may have -- he may not have been negotiating with Felix Sater and Michael Cohen. I think he was aware of it. I think he knew about it. Was he making critical decisions? I'm not sure. But one of the things we're going to see is what -- Don Jr. has testified to the House. Devin Nunes hasn't released any of those transcripts, but those things are going to come out, and it's going to be interesting to see what's in those things.

LEMON: You know, both Don Jr. and Eric have made comments about Russia. Eric said something like, we -- for the golf courses -- before he said something like we have this much funding that we need from the Russians. And then "The Washington Post" was reporting that as far back as 2008, Don Jr. told a real estate conference Russians make up a pretty -- and this is a quote, "a pretty disproportional cross section of a lot of our assets." And that he had traveled to Russia six times in 18 months. How badly do they want a deal from Russia, and why is that?

HETTENA: You know, this tower in Moscow was like the silver bauble that was being dangled before Trump.

LEMON: Why is that, though?

HETTENA: You know, that's a great question. You know, Trump is not going to be welcomed in London. Canada is not going to be embracing him. But Russia, where there's bigger than life characters, Trump is like a natural fit. And I think he goes where he feels accepted and loved, and I think he's always felt accepted in Russia.

LEMON: But is it something about the way business is done in Russia?

HETTENA: Totally, yeah. You know, it's this -- Trump comes from this New York kind of rough and tumble world, and I think that's the way business is done in Moscow. And I think, you know, he likes -- he likes to, you know, live large, and that's what Russians do.

LEMON: So, let's talk about -- yeah. Well, when I said something about the way that business is done in Russia because, you know, if you go to London, if you go to any of those places that you talked about, they have restrictions and regulations pretty close to what the United States has.

HETTENA: Yeah.

LEMON: Right?

HETTENA: Yeah.

LEMON: Not Russia.

HETTENA: Yeah, yeah.

LEMON: So what is that -- what are you saying?

HETTENA: I'm saying, you know, Trump -- you know, this all goes together. Like with the clips you've been playing earlier where, you know, Trump is praising Putin for his being a strong guy. Trump doesn't like rules.

LEMON: What I'm trying to get to is you said red note -- red note, a super red note.

HETTENA: Yeah. Sure.

LEMON: So I'm asking you about the business dealings. Is there -- and I'm not saying there was --

HETTENA: Yeah.

LEMON: Is there -- is there more room for corrupt intentions, and is it easier to get things by there and to do with money what you --

HETTENA: For sure. Trump doesn't like to play by the rules. He doesn't like to pay taxes. He doesn't like to do business the way it's -- you know, under rules. In Russia, the rules, you know, can be bent if you know the right people, if you have the right connections. And yeah, I think that's a natural fit for Trump.

LEMON: Yeah. So he said back in 2017 that it was a red line, right? This is July of 2017. It was a red line and that he wouldn't tolerate Mueller looking into his business dealings, and you say there's so much more to come.

HETTENA: Yeah. I think, you know, this is just the beginning. And, you know, Adam Schiff, the incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, he's flat-out said he's going to be looking into all of Trump's business dealings going back before the 2016 campaign. He doesn't want to interfere with what Mueller's investigation is doing. So we're just starting to crack the egg here.

LEMON: OK. So, knowing what you know and what you believe is there, is it any surprise that the reporting is he is just beside himself, distracted and --

HETTENA: Not at all.

LEMON: -- because he knows what's there.

HETTENA: Look, Trump haunts our minds with his Twitter feeds every day, but I think Robert Mueller haunts his mind. And I think the pressure gets -- you know, he's in Argentina, and he's still tweeting about this stuff. You know, he's being -- he is -- the pressure is ratcheting up, and it's just going to get -- you know, we've got two more years. It's going to get a lot worse.

LEMON: "Trump and Russia - A Definitive History," and Seth Hetenna is the author. Thank you so much for joining us, Seth. I appreciate it.

HETTENA: Thanks for having me.

LEMON: Yet another Trump cabinet member under fire for his behavior. We're going to tell you how Ryan Zinke reacted to an op-ed calling on him to resign and you'll decide if what he said is appropriate.

[22:45:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: The president is in Argentina tonight at the G20, and our sources say he has been in a terrible mood and distracted over the Russia investigation. Mr. Mark McKinnon is here. He's the executive producer of the Circus on Showtime who was also an adviser to George W. Bush and John McCain. He's here to discuss.

Good evening to you. Let's have our fire side chat, shall we? I hope you're doing OK. Before we get started, before you and I talk, I just want you to listen to what the Japanese Prime Minister Abe told President Trump today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHINZO ABE, JAPAN PRIME MINISTER (through translator): So once again, from the outset, I'd like to congratulate you on your historic victory in the midterm election in the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: And look at that, historic victory in the midterms? What?

MARK MCKINNON, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER OF THE CIRCUS: Well, he knows exactly what Donald Trump wants to hear, and he said it. That's the -- he knows the way to Trump's heart is to flatter him. That's the way Donald Trump saw the midterms, so why not just echo what he knows what Donald Trump has been thinking.

[22:50:00] LEMON: But it's completely false. Do you think he -- so he knows it. He's just flattering him. But I don't think Trump was even buying it, if you look at his face.

MCKINNON: Well, again, as a G20, this is a place where you have elevated diplomacy, where people are blowing smoke up everybody's trouser legs left and right.

LEMON: I'm glad you said trouser legs. I thought you were going to say something else. But go on.

MCKINNON: No, but I mean everybody's -- it's a lot of the diplomatic excess at these things. This is a great example.

LEMON: Yeah. I wanted to talk about another story. The top Natural Resources Committee Democrat Congressman Raul Grijalva penned an op-ed in USA Today calling on the interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, to resign because of mounting scandals. It is Zinke's response that has caught some attention and really everyone's eyes. So, here's what he tweeted out about the congressman. OK. He said it is hard for him to think straight from the bottom of the bottle. This is coming from main who used nearly $50,000 in tax dollars as hush money to cover up his drunken and hostile behavior. He should resign and pay back the taxpayer for the hush money and tens of thousands of dollars he forced my department to spend investigating unfounded allegations.

You know, he went straight into the gutter. Is this how a cabinet secretary should be responding to his critics?

MCKINNON: Well, I'll tell you what it is. We've clawed our way to the bottom now. And I think what's going to happen in the next two years is we're just going to keep digging. In the next two years, I think they're going to make the Circus look like a zoo. This is just a foreshadowing. We've got a -- I mean -- and there's blame on both sides here, by the way. I mean, the response is absolutely indefensible. But I think it's a way that we're going to see not only cabinet secretaries but candidates in 2020 mimicking and echoing the guy at the top of the ticket, Donald Trump. They've seen that's the way --

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: You think it's a winning strategy or formula?

MCKINNON: Yeah, but I will say that on the other hand, there's some shared responsibility here in the sense that Grijalva is a lame -- this is a lame duck session. He's not even -- he's not even chairman of the committee yet and he's calling for the secretary to resign before he's even had his own hearings or seen the evidence from those hearings. So, it seems he's jumped the gun a bit on his own parcel. I think there's shared blame and responsibility here. But I mean, what it tells us is just what the next couple of years will look like.

LEMON: Point taken. Hold your horses a little bit. I get what you're saying. But considering what Zinke can I did though, do you think it shows a profound disrespect for the office? Listen, maybe he jumped the gun, but there are ways to respond because he's talking about his alcohol dependency, right, his past alcohol dependency, and also something else that happened I think there was a payout because of an allegation. But don't you think that just shows a disrespect for the office? There are ways to respond to people other than going to the gutter.

MCKINNON: Oh, completely. As I said, they're just mimicking their boss. And I remember our message with George W. Bush in 1999 running for the presidency, we wanted to restore honor and dignity to the Office of the White House. I think we'll hear a lot of that mantra from Democrats rubbing in 2020 because no matter how you get there, once you're there, people expect a certain amount of decorum. All of that has been shattered.

LEMON: Yeah. Politicking like it's 1999. Those days are over. Wow, that takes us back. Restoring dignity to the office, we need that politicking back. Listen, I just -- MCKINNON: That's quaint.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: Yeah. I know. Right? That's pretty -- that's quaint. So, listen, this is how the congressman responded. The American people know who I'm here to serve and they know in whose interests I'm acting. They don't know the same about Secretary Zinke. You know, you said he should have held his horses a little bit, but that seems to be a more appropriate way to respond. It's about the people and it's getting lost on some in this administration I think.

MCKINNON: Well, at least it wasn't a personal attack on the secretary and talking about the people he represents and working on their behalf. So, I think that was a higher road response, and hopefully, they can try and elevate their way out of the gutter, which is where they've been the last 24 hours. You know, I just say that those who were taking over the chairmanships, you got ways -- you got a month or so of lame duck session here. Let's wait till you're in the chair before you start calling for resignations.

LEMON: You talked about that's how -- we're going to see some of the other candidates, right, coming up sort of behave this way, right? Yeah? My question is --

MCKINNON: I wanted to add one other thing, Don.

LEMON: Yeah. Go on.

MCKINNON: Well, I just wanted to say also three days ago, the inspector general came out and one of those allegations against the interior secretary was discharged. So -- I mean there's lots and lots of others as Grijalva has been pointing to.

[22:55:04] But again, let's get this vetted out in the course that it should be before we start calling people to resign.

LEMON: I got you. So, listen, you talked about candidates and this is sort of the way it's going to be. Donald Trump at some point is going leave office. In this kind of thuggish politics in general, not just from candidates, do you think this is going to be with us for a while?

MCKINNON: Well, that's the big question. And again, I think that the market was formed (ph). The market are voters. And the question is to what extent do voters wan a change from the current sort of behavior that we see out of the White House. There's a lot of people who liked it. His base loves it a lot. But how large is that base? And I think that there will be a referendum on that be in 2020, for sure. It will mostly be a referendum about the character and quality of that character in the White House beyond all the specifics. I think that that's going to be the larger framework of the debate is just the general character of the person in the Oval Office. And so, I think that will we'll have an up or down vote on that and it will be very shortly.

LEMON: It's hard to change people's behavior who have been there for a long time, I think, who have been in -- who had been lawmakers in both chambers of Congress for a long time. It's easier to change the candidates' behavior because you can just say I'm not accepting this and you don't have to vote for them. But some of those folks are in there and they're used to operating this way.

MCKINNON: Sure. And they're going to continue operating that way until they get a clear rejection from the voter. I would say the midterms were a clear signal. Despite what the Japanese prime minister said, I think there was a much different outcome. You know, Bill Clinton and George Bush and other presidents have seen that as a course correction and changed their -- and modified their rhetoric and we'll see if that happens, this time, unlikely.

LEMON: Look. You bring it full circle. You brought it right back to where we starred and the Japanese prime minister. That's why we love you. Thank you. "The Circus" on Showtime. Mark McKinnon, we appreciate it. Have a good weekend.

MCKINNON: Kick it. Kick it hard.

LEMON: Kick it hard. We'll be right back.

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