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Don Lemon Tonight

Mueller Releases Key FBI Memo Ahead Of Flynn Sentencing; Zakaria On New Political Divisions, Educated Urbanites Versus Less- Educated Rural Folks; Investigating Trump's Businesses; Rudy Giuliani Says Trump Discussed Moscow Project With Cohen, All The Way Up To November 2016; Don Lemon Recounts Comments From Trump Allies Before They Were Supporters; Federal Judge In Texas Rules Obamacare Unconstitutional. Aired 11-12a ET

Aired December 17, 2018 - 23:00   ET

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

[23:00:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon. The Special Counsel Robert Mueller releasing a memo tonight, full of details about then National Security Adviser Michael Flynn's interview with the FBI at the White House. That interview took place on January 24th of 2017, just days after President Trump's inauguration.

Flynn pleaded guilty to lying during that interview about his contacts with then Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak. It cost him his post as National Security Adviser. And in a matter of hours, he faces sentencing.

The Special Counsel Robert Mueller, has recommended no prison time for Flynn and that is because, unlike his lies to the FBI, he told the truth to Mueller's investigators. That includes meeting with prosecutors 19 times. Mueller also said Flynn's guilty plea a year ago encouraged others to cooperate.

Michael Flynn was not alone in having ties to Russia. According to CNN's count, at least 16 Trump associates had contacts with Russians during the campaign or transition.

Today's memo shows us one more piece of that puzzle. We have a lot to discuss this hour. I want to bring in now Fareed Zakaria, the host of "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS".

Good to see you. How are you? Hope you had a good weekend. Thank you for coming in.

The sheer scope of the Russian outreach and interference in America's political system is breath taking, seems like they spared no outlet, no possible point of contact. They went all out.

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN ANCHOR: They went all out. And again, it's important to point out this is not true of every country. This is not -- if you were to try to do a similar sweep on China, you would not find anything like this.

This seems to have been a pretty systematic effort with one campaign trying to get at the -- let's remember, they tried to get to the campaign manager. They tried to get the candidate's son. They tried to get to the candidate's Chief National Security Adviser. So they really were surrounding -- you know, the people who were surrounding Donald Trump were all being lobbied pretty hard by the Russians.

And Michael Flynn, you know, when he talked to the FBI and lied to them, it's unlikely that this was a slip-up or a mistake or an error. Flynn was the former head of an intelligence agency --

LEMON: Right.

ZAKARIA: -- a huge intelligence agency, by the way, with a massive budget, thousands of people working for him. He knows what it means to lie to federal agents about national security issues. He is a 33- year veteran of the Armed Services. He is a lieutenant general. And he was national security adviser for Trump effectively during the campaign and the transition. It is highly unlikely that he somehow accidentally forgot to tell this or -- he knew what he was doing. And apparently, he has come clean.

LEMON: No one -- he is the last person to say, this is how you conduct yourself around investigators and he knows that.

ZAKARIA: Yes. There were people on the Trump circle about whom you could say that.

LEMON: Right.

ZAKARIA: They were naive. They had come in from the business side, they may not have known, not Michael Flynn. Michael Flynn was a veteran of the national security establishment. As I said, he ran one of the largest intelligence agencies. He knew about intelligence, about lying, about federal agents.

LEMON: When I talked about outlets as well, this is beyond the campaign. Let's talk about the American people, right, and social media. This is -- let's talk about the Senate's report on Russian interference on social media. Details and stats as disclosed here -- as discussed here.

Researchers analyzed more than 10 million tweets, 116,000 Instagram posts, 61,000 Facebook posts, and 1,000 videos posted by the Internet research agency, a Russian-linked troll farm that was indicted by the Mueller investigation earlier this year.

Does that speak to how well planned this operation was? That's a lot, I mean, 116,000 Instagram posts, 61,000 Facebook posts and then 1,000 videos.

ZAKARIA: It speaks to the fact that the Russians have had this capacity for a while. They got very good at it. Ukraine, then Western Europe and the United States, they seem to have been the early adopter, the lead player in this game of governments trying to do this.

[23:05:06] And it's scary on how effective they were able to be just with the breadth of activity that you described. But the reason most Americans on both sides of the aisle should be really alarmed by the Senate report is it is absolutely clear that this is relatively easy to do today, that other countries are probably watching and have learned from the Russians and that this can easily happen again.

What Russia did in 2016, China could do. Iran could do. I mean, North Korea could do. There are all kinds of -- it didn't take a lot. It took concerted government effort, some resources, but all well within the scope of what a government can afford. And if we're not worried about what the Russians did in the past, we should be worried about what they might do in the future, what the Chinese might do, what the Iranians -- I mean, this is now open season.

LEMON: They also played on our divisions as well -- as society, right? I just want to read a bit, you talked about it in your "Washington Post" op-ed, about political divisions in America and the west.

And here's what you write. You say "The fissure between relatively better educated urbanites and less educated rural populations appears to have become the new dividing line in western politics. Outsiders feel ignored or looked down upon and feel deep resentment toward metropolitan elites. It's part class, part culture, but there is a large element of economics to it as well."

So, how big of a role does race or culture play versus economics here?

ZAKARIA: You know, in America particularly these things are mixed up. You can't entirely separate race and class and culture, because partly through a history of government policy, it has been possible to discriminate and segregate against blacks, for example, keeping them in ghettos. And so you know, it's difficult to unpack.

What I would say is this. If you look at the people who feel the most outrage, these are people who tend to be -- again, you were talking averages and big data. It tends to be on the older side, white men with less education, who live outside cities, because in a way their world has been upended.

They lived in these small towns and they felt they have a lot of status, they had a steady job. And that world has gone away and that world has been replaced by -- you know, the jobs have gone. That status has gone away with the rise of a much more diverse heterogeneous society. So, I think it's difficult to say what part of it is going on. But what has happened is, these two Americas are growing further and further apart.

And here's the scary part, Don. These forces are working at overdrive. So there was a great report by Brookings on since the recession of '08, 75 percent roughly of the economic employment gains since that -- in this last decade have gone to the 50 top cities in America. Now, to give you a perspective, you take all the cities in America, not just the 50 top cities, and they occupy 3.5 percent of the land mass of America.

So, what's happening is economic activity and opportunities are being concentrated in these small, you know, strips on the coast and a few cities in the center and the people who are not there feel like they have just been left behind and they once had status and now they're angry and resentful. And the Russians -- you're right. The brilliant thing the Russians did was to play on those divisions and amp them up. Just as they continue to do, by the way.

LEMON: But that is where the populations are. The populations are in the city. That's where the big populations are.

ZAKARIA: Seventy percent of Americans now live in the city.

LEMON: But that's what -- that's what has people so upset and now you see resentment upon -- on the part of people who live in the city because they feel they're being represented by a smaller group in the country because -- what is it? Next year, we're going to have a Senate that the majority represents a minority of Americans in this country?

ZAKARIA: Well, put it -- another way to put that statistic is 30 percent of America is now electing 70 percent of the Senate. You know, all those states with -- think of Wyoming. It has roughly a million people.

LEMON: Right.

ZAKARIA: It has two Senators. California with 70 million people has two Senators as well. So, we have a kind of structural problem here where the land is being overrepresented. The people are being underrepresented. So, both sides feel deeply wronged.

LEMON: So then how -- then how do you bridge that gap, so to speak because you're going to have a rural minority overlooking an urban majority and our lives don't really mirror each other at all?

ZAKARIA: And they're going further away. Look, you know, this is one of those things where everybody wants to be an optimist. Everyone wants to have a solution. Look at what's going on in France. It's the same people protesting. Look at who voted for Brexit. It's the same people. More rural, less educated, older. And nobody has an answer but the --

LEMON: Let's be honest --

[23:10:00] ZAKARIA: -- the next wave, Don, it is going to be automation and artificial intelligence. You have 3 million truck drivers in America. What's going to happen to them?

LEMON: But that is the point. And listen, I don't mean any -- I don't mean to disparage older rural people, but that's not the way the world is going. That's not the way the world is moving. The world is not moving back to rural older America.

ZAKARIA: And in a way, you know, I don't know what the answer is, but I think better to have an honest conversation about this --

LEMON: Right. ZAKARIA: -- rather than -- you know, what Trump has done is essentially -- it's a scam. It is a snake oil salesmanship where he is saying all these jobs are going to come back, your status is going to come back, we are going to make America great again. It's a nostalgia tour. It's not real. The problem is actually the opposite. The jobs are moving faster than they were before.

LEMON: Yes. Thank you, Fareed. Don't miss "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS" Sundays at 10:00 a.m. and at 1:00 p.m.. Thanks, Fareed -- to Fareed Zakaria, again. We're learning a lot more tonight about the members of the team of team Trump who had contact with Russia during the campaign, but is President Trump's real Achilles heel is businesses?

[23:15:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Robert Mueller's investigation into Russia's attack on the 2016 election is getting the most of the headlines, but President Trump is also facing questions about his businesses, and he has warned that would be crossing a red line.

Right now the President is surrounded by investigations of his campaign, his transition team, and his administration, plus the Trump organization, the now shuttered Trump Foundation and his inaugural committee as well.

Let's discuss. Michael D'Antonio is here. He is the author of "The Truth about Trump." David Cay Johnston is here as well. He is the author of "It's Even Worse than You Think: What the Trump Administration is Doing to America."

It's very positive, David. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

That was sarcasm, everyone. Good evening, gentlemen. Good to have you on. Michael, there are now so many investigations into President Trump. You say that Trump believed that the real estate business in New York was corrupt and deceptive and he acted accordingly. Explain.

MICHAEL D'ANTONIO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Right. He did believe it was and he did act accordingly. When Donald Trump's dad was coming up in the '30s and the '40s, it was a profoundly corrupt business. You had to pay off the unions. A lot of what you purchased had a big markup, because you were also paying off people there. Politicians were greased. Donald's father actually went around and gave federal housing authority people television sets and cash.

So this was -- this was the way it was back then, but it wasn't the way it was by the time Donald got into it in the 1970s and '80s. It was starting to be cleaned up. The corruption in all of the big old rust belt cities was being squeezed out of real estate development, but he assumed that this is what you do.

So you didn't rent to black and Hispanic applicants. You just committed fraud and denied them apartments. You -- when Russians came calling with their cash to launder money through your apartment buildings, you sold to them, even though you were supposed to do due diligence according to your lenders. So there were all kinds of fraud going on in the Trump organization all the way back and all the way through till today.

LEMON: Wow. So David, the SDNY is also looking into how the $107 million raised by Trump's inauguration committee was spent. Where do you think that will lead?

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON, JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR: I think it's going to lead at least in part right back to the Trumps. I called on Congress when we first found out about the first hint something was amiss here, the congressional -- the Government Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress should do an audit to find out where this money went.

Remember that Melania Trump's interior designer friend who worked for five weeks was paid about $26 million, for what? This was a low-rent inaugural that raised more than twice as much money as the lavish inaugural in 2009 of Barack Obama.

LEMON: David, you know, the most recent revelation over the weekend by Rudy Giuliani is that Trump was still discussing Trump Tower Moscow until November of 2016. He was talking about doing business with a country that was known to be interfering in our election at the time.

JOHNSTON: Well, and a lot of that explains Trump's solicitousness to Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin to today. And you know the information we have is that they were discussing this at least through the period when Trump knew he would get through Republican nomination.

It may well have gone on beyond that. There's nothing that tells us it did not. And that is one of the many shoes from Robert Mueller, who's going to turn out to be a legal centipede that I'm waiting to see drop.

LEMON: A legal centipede? Wait, wait. Explain that. What do you mean?

JOHNSTON: Well, you know, the old saying we're waiting for the shoe to drop and Mueller's got a lot of shoes to drop.

LEMON: All right. I thought that is what it was, but there you go. OK. Thanks for explaining that. So Michael, let's talk about Adam Schiff, the soon to be chairman of the House Intel Committee. He was asked on Sunday about Trump's red line. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA: The President has wanted to draw a red line and say you can't look at my business, but if the President's business is trying to curry favor with the Kremlin, we can't ignore that. And the President should not be in a position to say, you can't investigate certain things, only other things that I don't care as much about. So, that's what I mean. If Mueller is not looking into this, and I don't know whether he is, someone needs to, because otherwise we're being derelict with our security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[23:20:03] LEMON: Is the President in for a rude awakening when Democrats take over the House?

D'ANTONIO: Well, he is. And if they go back far enough, they're going to discover amazing things. I mean, the number of Russian mobsters who were investing in Trump properties is stunning. There was a fellow who went into one of Trump's buildings, actually bought the unit right below Kellyanne Conway's unit. He invested in it, sold it a month later for a half million-dollar profit. A year after that, he gets shot to death on the sidewalk in New York City.

There is such a mess in this Trump organization. There are so many frauds to be investigated, so many crimes to be investigated. In 2015, the Trump Taj Mahal paid a $10 million fine for laundering money through the casino. This is 2015. And they had to confess to this practice going on for years.

So I think Congressman Schiff is absolutely right. There's a red line they should March across and deploy the troops in all directions.

LEMON: Wow. David, did you want to respond to that? I had a question for you here, but I know you wanted to respond.

JOHNSTON: Well, I think Michael's exactly right about that. And let's remember two important things about Trump Tower. Right underneath Donald's triplex, there was a full-blown gambling operation that ran for years, run by Russian gangsters, until the FBI shut it down. And Donald was what, what? There's gambling going on in my building?

And the other was when Donald's close business associate for whom he did favors, the international cocaine smuggler, Joe Wexelbaum, got out of jail. He didn't have money to pay his federal fine. I think it was $30,000, but somehow ended up living in a multimillion-dollar Trump Tower apartment.

There are just so many of these stories. The ones Michael mentioned and the one I did and there are others that will lead to all sorts of corruption around Trump involving money and money laundering.

LEMON: Yes. We have seen -- I mean, earlier this year remember the Trump University thing -- the class action lawsuit from the Trump University.

D'ANTONIO: $25 million.

LEMON: $25 million. Right? So we've seen when it's scrutinized in court there is an outcome that is not always good for Trump.

D'ANTONIO: Well, this is the big problem with a man who's also called individual one is that so much of what he did was based on the assumption that I'll never be investigated, that I'm operating these 500 different private companies all trading back and forth with each other.

What about the entity that the Trump family created that marked up renovations and supplies sold to Trump buildings and then raised the rents based on those marked-up rates of investment in these properties? And those rents are still high now years after they sold the building, tenants are still paying more than they should be paying in these buildings because of a fraud perpetrated by the Trumps.

LEMON: A lot of shady stuff going on.

D'ANTONIO: Unbelievable.

LEMON: Thank you, gentlemen. I appreciate it. A newly unearthed interview could be pretty embarrassing for the President's acting Chief of Staff. Mick Mulvaney was caught on tape during the 2016 campaign calling Trump quote, "a terrible person." He is not the only member of team Trump who had some pretty terrible things to say about him before working for him.

[23:25:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: A terrible human being. That is what Mick Mulvaney called then Presidential candidate Donald Trump during the 2016 election, but now there could be no way Mick Mulvaney still thinks that because he is now the incoming acting Chief of Staff for President Trump.

He must have changed his mind once Trump was elected because he is been busy as a Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. So let's dissect the Mulvaney 180. Here's what he said. This was back in 2016.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICK MULVANEY, WHITE HOUSE OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET DIRECTOR: Yes, I'm supporting Donald Trump, doing so as enthusiastically as I can given the fact that I think he is a terrible human being, but the choice on the other side is just as bad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: That is not the only time he criticized Donald Trump either. Days after the "Access Hollywood" tape came out, Mulvaney posted on Facebook that Trump is quote, "not a very good person." A spokeswoman for Mulvaney says, his comments are old news and he now both likes and respects the President.

And now he is going to be acting Chief of Staff in the Trump White House, but imagine stating on the record that someone is a terrible human being or disagreeing with what they stand for or objecting to their morals and then willingly working for that person. But when it comes to Donald Trump, a few people besides Mick Mulvaney have done exactly that.

I'm going to start with Rick Perry. He once offered this blistering unfiltered attack on Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICK PERRY, SECRETARY OF SECRETARY: He offers a barking carnival act that can best be described as Trumpism, a toxic mix of demagoguery and mean-spiritedness and nonsense that will lead the Republican Party to perdition if pursued. Let no one be mistaken. Donald Trump's candidacy is a cancer on conservatism and it must be clearly diagnosed, excised, and discarded.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: A cancer, a barking carnival act.

[23:30:00] Well, the cancer must have been cured, because Perry now works for Trump as the Secretary of Energy. Remember? He couldn't even remember what the third one was in that debate. It was the secretary of energy. Now he runs the place. Lindsey Graham, a then campaign rival of Trump, laid out his take on the future president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: I'm not going to try to get into the mind of Donald Trump because I don't think there's a whole lot of space there. I think he's a kook. I think he's crazy. I think he's unfit for office.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: But once Trump won office, Graham became a key Senate ally and a vocal defender of Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRAHAM: What concerns me about the American press is this endless, endless attempt to label the guy as some kind of kook, not fit to be president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Senator Graham?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRAHAM: I think he's a kook.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: I had to do that. And Senator Ted Cruz. He had this to say about Trump when Trump attacked his wife on Twitter. Labeled him lying Ted and insinuated with absolutely no proof that Cruz' father had something to do with the assassination of JFK.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R), TEXAS: He's proud of being a serial philanderer, a narcissist at a level I don't think this country has ever seen. This man is a pathological liar. He doesn't know the difference between truth and lies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So tell us how you really feel, Senator Ted Cruz. Fast forward to midterms in 2018, Ted Cruz called in President Trump to campaign for him in Texas. No hard feelings? Someone who once worked for Ted Cruz also made it very clear how she thought about Donald Trump's business practices.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLYANNE CONWAY, COUNSELOR TO THE PRESIDENT: He says he's for the little guy but he's actually built a lot of his businesses on the backs of the little guy and he's a lot of little guys through eminent domain or through not paying contractors after you've built something. The little guys have suffered.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Well, that was Kellyanne Conway. That was in early 2016. But later that same year, she went on to become campaign manager for Donald Trump. Now, she is a counselor to the president in the White House, so much for little guys. And then there's the one person who actually spoke out against Trump while working for him and could still be working for him today.

Of course, we don't know who that senior administration official is because they penned an anonymous op-ed in "The New York Times" claiming the president is unfit for office. They said the root of the problem is the president's amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.

This person said the president has nothing guiding him while he makes decisions in the Oval Office. And whoever it is, we may never know. Claims they stay in their job for the good of this country. Maybe some of these people have good reasons to support the president now or maybe they don't.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CONWAY: I think people will think thrice when they go in that ballot box and say, look, I've tried to send a message all along to Donald Trump, to the establishment, but now I've got to get serious about sending somebody to the White House, and do I want somebody who hurls personal insults or who goes and talks about philosophical differences?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Clearly there's a lot to say about all of this. Dan Pfeiffer, Alice Stewart, Tara Setmayer. We're going to dig into that, next.

[23:35:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: So a lot of top officials in the Trump administration and some of his allies on Capitol Hill did not always have flattering things to say about the president and they weren't shy about expressing their negative feelings very publicly.

Let's discuss now. Dan Pfeiffer is here, Alice Stewart, Tara Setmayer, good to see you. So, Tara and Alice were actually part of a lot of those panels --

TARA SETMAYER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah.

LEMON: -- that I played, the soundbite. Tara, you were sitting at --

SETMAYER: With Kellyanne.

LEMON: -- with Kellyanne. And you're also on my show with her a lot as well. You are a Republican. You have stood firm with your characterization of this president. What do you make of all of these folks changing their tunes now that they are working for the administration?

SETMAYER: I think they're all cowards. Either they were lying then or they're lying now. So, I think that they're probably -- they've sold -- they made a decision to sell their souls in order to have access to power. And I find that to be terribly dishonest. And look at what it's created. Look where it's gotten us. It's destroying the Republican Party from the foundation.

It's fundamentally changed so many aspects of what we were supposed to believe as conservatives. I mean, if you were an alien that came to this planet right now and saw what Republicans were, you'd be like what is this? These people have completely thrown out almost every principle that we stood on as conservatives.

LEMON: And you know what they said about him behind the scenes.

SETMAYER: Absolutely.

LEMON: And they do now except --

SETMAYER: Correct.

LEMON: -- it's different when the cameras roll. Go on.

SETMAYER: Yes. Specifically, you know, some folks that we saw in those clips. You know, I've had dinner with them where they've disparaged Donald Trump up and down, left and right, and yet now they're sitting next to him and some of their biggest proponents. It's despicable.

This is why people hate politics. And the level of dishonesty and just the hypocritical nature of it all has disgusted me. And I understand why so many of my other never-Trumpers have decided to leave the Republican Party. I get it. Because it's unrecognizable now because of people like this.

[23:40:03] But somebody has to stand by and hold them accountable.

LEMON: OK.

SETMAYER: So that's the only reason why I stay.

LEMON: I want to go to Dan. What do you think? She said -- Alice, I'm going to let you speak. But Alice is, by the way, not hypocritical. ALICE STEWART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No.

LEMON: She wasn't always -- she's not. And I'll explain why. But Dan, go ahead and tell me what you think.

DAN PFEIFFER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah, look, I think what -- Tara is exactly right. What everyone knows is that Republicans and Democrats actually -- in Washington actually agree about Trump. They think he's dangerously unfit for the job. Has basically a third- grader's knowledge of how government works.

But for some set of Republicans, Trump is a useful idiot. He is someone that they can use to advance their agenda whether that is having him simply be an organism with an opposable thumb to sign tax cuts, someone who can help some of these grifters enrich themselves, to push forward a nationalist agenda and all that.

And they're using Trump for something else. Everyone knows, anyone with two eyes and two ears knows that he should not have this job, but some people can't say it because it serves their means, personal and otherwise, to have him there.

LEMON: Yeah. OK, so, I usually pose that in the form of a question because if I say the words that you said, people would accuse me of calling the president name, but I'm not. It's just a figure of speech, useful idiot. That has been my feeling all along.

That's why I think there are people who will just go along with him because the agenda is getting done and he's doing all these crazy things, saying all these crazy things, and the media is reporting about it, but they're getting it done behind our backs, right? Or when the cameras aren't on.

So Alice, again, I'm going to say this, and I'll let you say your piece here. You have been honest about saying that you don't always agree with everything the president does. Back in 2016, you appeared on CNN many times. You said the president's actions, his behavior, his conduct, unbecoming for someone running for president.

You supported him the whole time. You said the same thing then. You say the same thing now. Why support him now, though, when his conduct hasn't improved all that much?

STEWART: I'll admit, I thought he would grow into the office and he would change his tune, but he certainly hasn't. And while he says some terrible things and he does some terrible things, he's not a terrible person. And I think Hillary Clinton's policies were terrible and that's why I supported Donald Trump over her.

But I worked really hard. Tara worked really hard for Republicans that would have stepped up and represented our policies and represented the country in a different way.

But at the end of the day, what we have is a Republican candidate that is representative of the policies that I support and that I voted for. He has delivered on the Supreme Court. He has delivered on putting immigration in the forefront. While we haven't accomplished much on that front, he has put that forward. He has reduced federal government regulations.

He has worked really hard on improving the economy. He has worked hard on issues that I support. He is making progress. And number one, the Supreme Court is something that was a huge issue for me and many other evangelicals that voted for him. He is delivering on these promises that he made.

LEMON: OK. Let me -- I've got to get to another thing before we run out of time. You mentioned the Supreme Court. This may go there. So real quickly, please, if you will, Dan, on Friday a federal judge in Texas ruled that the Affordable Care Act was unconstitutional. It's going to be appealed of course but the president is crowing about it. What do you think? Should he be?

PFEIFFER: Well, I mean, the same five justices who twice ruled that the Affordable Care Act was constitutional are still on the Supreme Court. So it's unclear what would have changed. And for Republicans, the idea that the conversation about health care is continuing into the 2020 election should be very alarming after what happened in the 2018 election where health care was the issue that delivered the House to the Democrats.

LEMON: Yeah. I've got 20 seconds left, Tara. So, do you think Republicans should really be happy about this ruling and the president as well? Because Democrats just won a whole lot of House seats running on the health care issue.

SETMAYER: Yeah. I mean, this ruling really has no teeth and it will probably get overturned in appeal. I actually know that the judge who ruled on this. I worked with him when he worked for Senator Cornyn on Capitol Hill. But, no. But they're going to use this as a political victory lap just because, so --

LEMON: OK.

SETMAYER: -- and just really quick to Alice, you know, we could have had any sane Republican and gotten the same results --

(LAUGHTER)

SETMAYER: -- if not better. We didn't need Donald Trump to do this.

LEMON: I knew that was coming.

SETMAYER: I couldn't let it go.

LEMON: Alice --

SETMAYER: So many people -- with all due respect to my friend, Alice, we didn't need Donald Trump to do this. It's not worth it.

LEMON: He did win, though.

SETMAYER: Those things are not worth it.

STEWART: He won the primary.

LEMON: OK.

SETMAYER: Yeah. And it's not worth it.

LEMON: I've got to run. Thank you all. I'll see you next time. I appreciate your time.

STEWART: Thanks, Don.

LEMON: What's next for Obamacare? We're going to talk about that, next.

[23:45:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: A federal judge in Texas dealing with -- dealing a potentially devastating blow to the Affordable Care Act. In a sweeping decision made in a case against Obamacare brought by 20 Republican attorneys general and governors, the judge struck down the entire bill. The ACA remains in effect while appeals play out. But what's next for Obamacare?

Earlier, I talked with Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, who was the White House health policy adviser in the Obama administration. I started by asking him what he makes of the judge's ruling that because the individual mandate is unconstitutional, the entire Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

EZEKIEL EMANUEL, FORMER OBAMA WHITE HOUSE HEALTH POLICY ADVISER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: No, it's a very bad ruling. You know, the Republicans took -- undermined the mandate by repealing the tax penalty of the mandate. So, for the last year, there hasn't been a tax penalty for it, and yet the rest of the ACA has stood.

According to law, if a part of the bill is severable, you can remove it, then you can say that part is unconstitutional, but the rest of the bill can stand.

[23:50:04] Clearly the rest of the Affordable Care Act is operating. We still have Medicaid enrollment. We still have the cost control proposals. We still have the quality improvement efforts and the exchanges by the way are working fine because of the subsidies.

So, lots of the ACA is working fine without the mandate and the penalty, the tax penalty from the mandate. So the judge is just wrong about how essential the mandate is when he declared the whole bill unconstitutional.

LEMON (on camera): But there are those who say on appeal that this will be overturned, this judge's ruling. Do you agree with that?

EMANUEL: Yes, I do think so. I think the appellate court will see that the mandate and the tax penalty are not essential to every working part of the bill and they will say it's severable and the mandate may not work but the rest of the bill can work.

LEMON (on camera): This is what a poll shows, a poll just last month, showed that 65 percent supported protections for pre-existing conditions. Is this a political problem, do you think for -- especially for Republicans now?

EMANUEL: Oh, it's a huge headache for Republicans. Actually the poll I would quote, Don, is the fact that recently 52 percent of Republicans were for Medicare For All.

And that just shows you how much they have undermined people's confidence in the health care system and that if they have a pre- existing condition or one of their loved ones does, that they'll be able to get insurance at affordable prices.

I mean, people are very worried and this doesn't enhance their confidence in the system, and on this issue on health care, they clearly trust the Democrats much more that they really genuinely care about their health care insurance and will ensure they get protection and they get coverage.

I think when you have 52 percent of Republicans for Medicare For All, it should tell you a very strong message about how important health insurance is for the average American.

LEMON (on camera): And it should tell you where the momentum is shifting toward especially when it comes to health care.

EMANUEL: Absolutely.

LEMON (on camera): The president tweeted out that he said that this is great for America. What's your reaction?

EMANUEL: Well, health care is very complicated and I'm not sure he understands it even yet.

LEMON (on camera): As simple as that.

EMANUEL: Yeah, I just -- I mean it's not great for America. It undermines people's protections. If we get rid of the exchanges, there's no guarantee for people that they're going to be able to buy insurance without -- if they had pre-existing conditions with suitable protections.

This effort to bring down the exchanges in the Affordable Care Act if it succeeded would actually undermine people's ability to get insurance at an affordable rate. They understand that and they don't want it.

And I think if the president thinks repealing the ACA is a good thing for Americans, they have told him loud and clear that's not true. And they told him in the midterms, he's just not reading their views very clearly.

LEMON (on camera): Yeah, or he just doesn't want to hear it. Listen, the former president, it wasn't officially named after him but Republicans named it Obamacare and it stuck. He said he -- on Facebook, he said, Republicans will never stop trying to undo the Affordable Care Act. Does this ruling, you think, add to the uncertainty around the ACA, the Affordable Care Act?

EMANUEL: It certainly adds to the uncertainty. I think those of us who follow this carefully think this ruling is not going to stand. But if you're the average American and you don't know which way things are going, you don't spend all day worrying about health care like I do, then it just adds to the uncertainty.

And that isn't a good thing for America. They want this to be put to rest and just to have a stable system. And by the way, Don, I think that's why the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association, nurses, even the health insurers have come out against this ruling.

They are working within the framework of the Affordable Care Act. They think it's working reasonably well, and they want it to continue. And they don't want it upset every six months something else coming down the pipe to upset that framework.

They need some certainty to plan their insurance products, to plan how they're going to deliver care, to plan whether to expand or not expand. This doesn't help them, and therefore it doesn't help the American population.

LEMON (on camera): I'm just wondering two things here, and I'll put it one question. How should Democrats respond to this? And also, the Wall Street Journal, the editorial board said that they're concerned that Republicans are going to, you know, maybe get scared and do some sort of a deal that will actually end up shoring up the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare as it's called. What do you say to that?

[23:54:59] EMANUEL: Well, I think Republicans are going to have to find an answer here. And if they are going to protect people's insurance and protect people who have pre-existing conditions, they're going to have to come to some arrangement. And I do think that's what the Wall Street Journal is worried about.

And you see Republicans supporting Medicare For All. You see the fact that this uncertainly is driving people to embrace something which they think is certain and will guarantee them health coverage come hell or high-water. And the more uncertainty created, the more that pushes people to embrace something like Medicare For All.

So I think their worries are not misplaced. And if you could have a single judge who upsets the apple tart (ph) like this, you know, then Republicans have sowed their own problems and they're going to have to show that they can actually help solve this problem.

LEMON (on camera): Dr. Emanuel, thank you so much.

EMANUEL: No problem. Thank you, Don. Take care.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Thank you so much for watching. Our coverage continues.

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