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Don Lemon Tonight

President Trump Wants to Keep Campaign Promise; Not So Good News for Manafort; Manafort Accused of Sharing Trump Campaign Data with Russian Associate; Government Shutdown Consequences Mount; R. Kelly Reportedly Facing Investigation in Georgia after Airing of Docu- Series 'Surviving R. Kelly.' Aired 11-12a ET

Aired January 08, 2019 - 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.

President Trump in his primetime address from the Oval Office tonight trying to make the case for his wall, calling it critical to security at the border, but did his last-ditch effort persuade Americans? This is a crisis he wants you to believe is worth shutting down huge swaths of the federal government for, leaving 800,000 employees without pay.

A lot of what the president said tonight doesn't hold up to scrutiny. And in their response, the Democrats accused him of appealing to fear and ignoring facts, blaming him for the shutdown, which is now in its third week, the second-longest ever.

A lot to talk about. And I want to discuss it with just straight off the bat with journalist, Maria Elena Salinas. Thank you so much. It's good to see you. Good to have you back on.

MARIA ELENA SALINAS, JOURNALIST: Thank you so much, Don. Good to talk to you.

LEMON: So, he -- the president began his remarks tonight, Maria, by saying that the United States is out of space to detain the people who are coming here, speaking of crisis of the heart and the soul and the plight of the immigrants coming here. Listen to this and then we'll discuss.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Last month, 20,000 migrant children were illegally brought into the United States, a dramatic increase. These children are used as human pawns by vicious coyotes and ruthless gangs.

One in three women are sexually assaulted on the dangerous trek up through Mexico. Women and children are the biggest victims, by far, of our broken system. This is the tragic reality of illegal immigration on our Southern border. This is the cycle of human suffering that I am determined to end.

(END VIDEO CLIP) LEMON: Maria, let's just get to the facts. Because the mess created at the border as a result of the detention of the -- is the result of the detention of children and families, the change in the asylum rules, that is a problem of the president's own creation.

SALINAS: It is. This was lie after lie after lie. And yes, of course, it's a crisis of the heart and the soul, and Trump is creating a crisis of the heart and the soul by poisoning hearts and souls with his rhetoric against immigrants.

And what I just heard and what you just played right now, it doesn't make sense. He's talking about apples and oranges. Yes, it's true that people risk their lives to come here, and we have to imagine, we have to be a little bit more compassionate and imagine how desperate a family must be and what danger they are in in their own country to take that very treacherous trip and risk their lives to come here and look for asylum.

Now, if anybody is breaking the law, it's the Trump administration, because our law clearly says that we are obliged to listen to their case, listen to them, and if it's not true, if we do not believe them, if they're not credible, when they probably have to be sent back, but that's why the courts have stopped this.

So, Trump is basically breaking the law with some of his executive orders saying we will not listen or we will not listen to these asylum cases and we will not accept these people, when we are not obliged to accept them, but we are obliged to listen.

LEMON: To listen, Yes. Let me ask you. The president brought up a number of incidents involving illegal immigrants who have committed crimes, he says. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Day after day, precious lives are cut short by those who have violated our borders. I've held the hands of the reaching mothers and embraced the grief-stricken fathers, so sad, so terrible.

I will never forget the pain in their eyes, the tremble in their voices, and the sadness gripping their souls. How much more American blood must we shed before Congress does its job?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Listen, terrible stories, and we don't want to minimize the pain of any victims, any family, that anyone is feeling, right? But the facts show that undocumented immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than U.S. citizens.

[23:04:59] SALINAS: Definitely. And, you know, this is one of the things that concerns me the most as a Latina, as an American, that Trump continues to equate immigration with crime, with terrorism, with violence, and it's just not true.

Tonight, he said thousands of Americans have been brutally killed by what he calls illegal immigrants -- had -- prefer to call them undocumented immigrants. And he said thousands of lives will be lost in we don't do something about this.

Well, you know, that's just not true. As you said, statistics show that U.S. citizens are more likely to commit crimes than immigrants. And if we have a national crisis, really, it's because our easy access to guns. If we have a national crisis, it's because of the massacres, Sandy Hook, Parkland, Las Vegas. I mean, we're not safe here in this country, but we're not safe in our schools, in our churches, in our parks, in concerts, because of these massacres, none of which were committed by immigrants.

So, you know, this is really bald for the Latino community, because we continue to see an increase in hate crimes --

LEMON: Yes.

SALINAS: -- and incidents where Americans attack and criticize those who look different and those who sound different, those who speak other languages, and this is really a crisis for us as a community to have such negative rhetoric thrown at us.

LEMON: Maria, I want to ask you, because you say that you've noticed a lot of support for President Trump in the Latino community. Tell us about that. What specifically do they support?

SALINAS: I do. I've seen it a lot. I've seen a lot of comments on social media, where people are buying some of these arguments against undocumented immigrants. And it's very sad to see that our own people, who are immigrants themselves, are attacking these immigrants that are trying to come in, knowing themselves how difficult the situation is in a lot of these Latin American countries.

And, you know, they're buying it, and some people, just like some other Trump supporters, are saying, well, you know, so what if he tells lies, as long as we have lower unemployment among the Latino community.

And I just think that's not acceptable, not for our community, not for anyone in the U.S. to say that it is acceptable for the president of the U.S. to lie over and over and over again and to create these kinds of situations where people are afraid. Americans are afraid of immigrants and immigrants are afraid of going out. You know, he's separating us into us and them.

LEMON: Maria.

SALINAS: And let's just remember that the majority of Latinos in this country are U.S. citizens, and we feel that we are also being attacked just because of the color of our skin or the accent in our voice.

LEMON: I have a similar experience to you with among people I know who are immigrants, and who -- I have a couple friends whose parents tried to come over illegally a number of times, didn't make it, were sent back, and then finally came over. And now, they're here and they say all those people shouldn't be doing that at the border when they saw -- when all the cameras were down on the border.

And it was just -- it is just perplexing to me like those people are trying to come through, many of them through legal ports of entry, why would you think they shouldn't come over when that's how your family come over -- came over, and even you. Is it you, OK, we're here, shut the door behind us? What's going on?

SALINAS: I mean, I don't understand that, because the immigrants that we see at the border now are no different than the thousands that have come or maybe even millions throughout the years.

The difference is that in this caravan, they come together, so they look like they are together in larger numbers, but they really are not much different.

Another criticism that I hear is why are they using their kids, they're bad parents, it's their fault in anything happens to their kids. You know, I've covered the border for years and years and years, for decades, actually, and I've covered Latin America, also for decades. And for a long time, people have criticized those who come to this country in search of a better life, to make money, to send it back to their families, and leave their kids behind.

And that, in a way, is one of the reasons why a lot of these gangs recruit these young kids that are left there alone, with a grandmother, with an aunt, with a neighbor. And now they are bringing them, because of the dangers of leaving them there, they're being criticized. I think we need to be a little bit more humanitarian. We need to listen to their stories.

And I think that's probably one of the reasons why Trump is doing this, because I think the media has done a good job in covering the humanitarian part of it. I see a lot of stories on CNN, on other networks. I read a lot of stories in newspapers, about humanizing these immigrants, telling their story, allowing them to say why they came here, what was their condition like in their home countries?

And, up know, that's why now President Trump is using these words, like humanitarian, and you know, we want to make sure that they are sent back in a safe manner and a humanitarian matter --

LEMON: Trying to --

SALINAS: -- and that this is a crisis of soul. Yes. He's trying to --

LEMON: They're trying to appeal to the sensitive side of American, yes.

SALINAS: -- appeal to the compassion. Exactly.

LEMON: Yes. I've got to run. But I always--

(CROSSTALK)

[23:10:03] SALINAS: Exactly. But he's actually poisoning the sensitive side of America.

LEMON: We always love having you on. Thank you, please come back. Thank you so much.

SALINAS: Thank you so much, Don.

LEMON: Absolutely. I want to bring in now Frank Bruni and Philip Bump. So, thank you, guys. Good to see you. So, Frank, you know, straight up, the first address by the president from the Oval Office, that's a big deal, right?

FRANK BRUNI, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Very big deal, Yes.

LEMON: And quite honestly appearing stiff. This is not his best venue. There he is right there. He tried to make the case that the real crisis is at the border. But do you think tonight's address, did it show that there was a credibility -- a crisis of credibility, maybe?

BRUNI: I don't think that tonight --

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: The crisis at the border.

BRUNI: Yes, no, I don't think tonight's address is going to move the needle at all because I think people have heard him say these sorts of things in different pieces before.

As you were playing that tape at the beginning, I was struck even more so than when I first watch it in real time. By what dissonance there was between his manner and his words, right. I mean, so, he was talking right off the top, he talked about African-Americans, he talked about Hispanic-Americans, Latino-Americans, he mentioned women and children several times.

I mean, these were remarks that were designed to portray him as Mr. Empathy, but he delivered them in this sort of reluctant robotic fashion that gave the lie to the idea that he really feels this empathy and he's really concerned about human suffering.

He is not concerned about human suffering. He wants to get this wall because he promised it to his base. His pride is on the line. And so, he's doing what he thinks might move the needle, but this isn't going to do it tonight.

LEMON: Interesting. I'm going to get your opinion. But I want to listen to what the president what he said from some of what he said from the Oval Office. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: How much more American blood must we shed before Congress does its job? To those who refuse to compromise in the name of border security, I would ask, imagine if it was your child, your husband or your wife whose life was so cruelly shattered and totally broken. To every member of Congress, pass a bill that ends this crisis.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILIP BUMP, NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, WASHINGTON POST: I mean, just watching that right now, to Frank's point that strikes me, I remember back in 1998 when Michael Dukakis was asked that question about, what if your wife had been murdered, would you then support the death penalty. And he sort of robotically said, well, no, of course, I do not support.

I mean that sort of what it comes off and I think that's a valid point. But I think it's important to remember that, while this was a speech that, as usual, included falsehoods, included lies, included statements which were not accurate, the biggest argument that he made, which was false, was this argument that these immigrants who come into the country illegally are inherently dangerous.

And that's the point that he was making there. He was saying you need to look out for these folks.

LEMON: Right.

BUMP: You need to worry about them, they're going to come and they're going to kill your family. That, itself, is not a true statement. Certainly, there are incidents.

BRUNI: But it's interesting, it's something he's clung to forever.

BUMP: Exactly.

BRUNI: I mean, when you're saying that --

(CROSSTALK)

BUMP: Right, exactly.

BRUNI: -- he's been consistent, if not nothing else. This is the same Donald Trump who came down the escalator at Trump tower and said Mexican rapist, Mexican rapist.

BUMP: Right.

BRUNI: He's right back there, and really, he's never left --

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: For me, that was American carnage, from the inauguration.

BRUNI: Yes. American bloodshed, American --

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: So, this is, I just want to get to again, because it's important to point out the facts. And this is how immigrants commit crimes in this country. There's a 2018 study by libertarian Cato -- libertarian Cato Institute which reviewed criminal conviction data from the Texas department of public safety, found that immigrants, legal or illegal immigrants, are less likely than Native-born Americans to be convicted of a crime.

Throughout the country, there is also generally a decrease in the number -- a decrease in the number of violent crimes, that's according to the FBI. So, you're right on point.

BUMP: Right.

LEMON: It's not -- it doesn't add up. It's awful, these tragedies. It shouldn't happen, but they take those tragedies to use that narrative to say that all, right?

BUMP: Right. But the amazing thing about this, and to, again to Frank's point, is that -- it's because Donald Trump is in a tough political fight right now and he's not used to tough political fights.

And so, what he's doing is reverting to form. He won the presidency. He won the nomination first by getting these cadre of Republicans who were loyal to him because he took this hard line on immigration. He carried that through the general election making the same arguments. It's the only argument he knows.

And he beat the pundits in 2016. They all say I'm going to lose, I'm going to beat them. He beat them using this argument. And so, what he's doing is, more than anything else, simply going, well, this worked last time and trying to use the same hateful rhetoric.

LEMON: Yes.

BUMP: And the amazing thing is, he hasn't yet realized that everyone has heard this before. Everyone in 2016 who voted against him heard him make these same cases and aren't going to be swayed.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: Yes. He's going back to --

BRUNI: I think the amazing thing is, why wasn't he doing this for the last two years? He's now working with a Democratic majority in the House. He wasn't trying this hard to get his beloved and off-promised border wall when Republicans had control of Congress.

BUMP: Right.

BRUNI: That is just surreal.

LEMON: Frank, this is your piece, your latest piece in the New York Times, and you said it isn't about a wall, OK? The headline is up there. "The wall is a symbol of Donald Trump's neediness. Seldom has a president's ego required so much shoring up. There's not enough concrete in creation for that job."

That's what you call a burn. I mean -- [23:15:03] BRUNI: Technically.

LEMON: Why do you say that?

BRUNI: Because I think if you look at this presidency in various episodes from the beginning to end, you see time and again, President Trump doing things that are just meant to prove his potency, things that are meant to make him feel good.

We talked about this you and I one night on the show when he went and finally made that first visit to troops in a combat zone. And he didn't thank them for their service, he told them that they should thank him for having gotten them a pay raise and given them shiny new equipment.

I watched this presidency up to this moment, and including the wall, and it's so often feels to me like a sequence of events designed to make a man feel better about himself.

LEMON: OK. You also --

(CROSSTALK)

BRUNI: Not about making America great again.

LEMON: You said it's not really a wall that Trump is after, if, indeed, it ever was, it's a victory for victory's sakes -- for victory sake. It's a show of his might. It's proof of his potency as you said. What happens if he doesn't get this big, beautiful wall? What happens to his potency?

BRUNI: Well, I mean I think this is a crisis of confidence for him. But he'll move on and make a raft of excuses. He's expert at making excuses for when nothing is his fault and nothing has really diminished him. So, he will just kind of weave some new fictions that serve that purpose.

LEMON: OK. So, but is this really about, you know, I know what you say, you know, I'll take you at your word that that's it. Other people say this is about, he's got to do it for his base or he's in real trouble. You don't think this is about losing -- if he loses conservative media and those people who have those giant megaphones, that's where the real trouble is.

BUMP: Yes, I mean, I think that's generally true. I'm not sure conservative media is going to go anywhere. I mean, it still is the case that Fox News, for example, 50 percent of Republicans say it's their most trusted news source. I don't think Fox News is worried about controlling the Republican base. I think they're worried about making sure the Republican base still likes them. You know, I think it certainly is the case of Donald Trump --

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: Right now, he says jump and they say how high.

BUMP: Yes, absolutely.

LEMON: If that doesn't continue --

(CROSSTALK)

BUMP: Because their viewers like that and so on and so forth. I mean, I don't think, I don't think while something like 90 percent of Republicans approve of the job that Donald Trump is doing, it's really only a very small portion of that base which is really, really fervently excited about this wall.

I think to Frank's point, the way this thing ends, is Donald Trump comes up with a copout. He comes almost -- so he's already tweeted that the walls are already mostly built in the borders are already secure. He is going to come back to some sort of line like that --

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: So then, what does he need money for? If the wall is already built and it's already --

(CROSSTALK)

BUMP: Because conservative media is smart enough to recognize that actually that's not the wall isn't being built. And so, he got himself into this position where he is trying to do the thing he always said he was going to do, even though he never really had a plan to do it.

BRUNI: Where was he for two years? For two years, you know --

(CROSSTALK)

BUMP: You're asking the wrong guy.

LEMON: I do hear the conservative media saying the wall is already built like he says.

BRUNI: No. No, that's not what Ann Coulter tweets.

LEMON: Well.

BRUI: That's why he unfollowed her.

LEMON: Burn. Now that is a burn.

BRUNI: It's true.

LEMON: Thank you both. I appreciate it.

We have news tonight about the Russia investigation. Did Paul Manafort feed information to a close Kremlin-linked associate? Robert Mueller says he did. More on that next.

[23:20:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Lawyers working for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort have accidentally made public the clearest public evidence yet of coordination between the campaign and Russians, revealing in a court filing that Manafort shared polling data with an alleged Russian operative. This was while he was serving as a Trump campaign chairman.

Information was improperly redacted by Manafort's lawyers so journalists were able to read the portions they blacked out. The filing was -- the Manafort team's response to accusations that he had lied to the special counsel.

So, let's discuss this. Matthew Rosenberg and Philip Mudd are both with me.

Good evening, gentlemen. Number one, how does this happen, but listen, sharing polling data with a Russian intelligence operative, Phil, during the 2016 campaign, this is a bombshell. Is there legitimate explanation for this?

MATTHEW ROSENBERG, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I --

(CROSSTALK)

PHILIP MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: I don't know there's legitimate --

LEMON: Philip, Philip, Philip.

MUDD: Yes, I can't think of one, but that's -- that's my judgment. That's not a legal issue. The legal issue I would have here is pretty simple. You're talking about one case in isolation, that's Paul Manafort. There are other cases, obviously, the special counsel is looking into, for example, other people involved in the campaign who were in contact with WikiLeaks.

The one piece missing here -- and we're about half a step away from that, Don -- is we have Paul Manafort offering information, polling information to someone who is evidently connected with Russian intelligence. The one question -- why?

What did the campaign want to get in return? In particular, did they want to offer the polling information to ask or suggest to Russian intelligence that Russian intelligence offer to intervene in the campaign, by, for example, buying stuff on Facebook. We don't know that yet. That's the final shoe to drop here, Don.

LEMON: How do you not redact? I mean, doesn't he have competent lawyers? Like, what is going on here, Matthew, before I go on, I want to ask you about some of the reporting, but how do you not redact it properly?

ROSENBERG: This isn't the first time this kind of mistake has happen, and God bless the incompetence. Because really -- we were in a meeting on a kind of conference call on something totally unrelated, one of my colleagues figured out the redaction issue, and everybody got excited. It's you know --

(CROSSTALK) LEMON: So, worked out -- it worked out in your favor but not been

necessarily --

ROSENBERG: Yes.

LEMON: -- for Paul Manafort. Listen, this is what your paper the New York Times is reporting tonight. That both Manafort, Rick Gates, and Rick gates, they transferred data to Konstantin Kilimnik --

ROSENBERG: Yes.

LEMON: -- in the spring of 2016?

ROSENBERG: Yes.

LEMON: How significant is the timing?

ROSENBERG: I mean, look, spring of 2016, the campaign is gearing up. Manafort is now in the saddle. Kilimnik is a guy with ties to GRU, the Russian military intelligence service. He may have once served in it. He's working for an oligarch named Oleg Deripaska who Manafort used to work for. They have a kind of business dispute, and Manafort is now trying to help this Deripaska guy to settle a business day. Deripaska, of course, is close to Putin and the Kremlin. It just doesn't look good.

[23:24:59] You know, at some point, we've had a lot of campaigns with kind of hinky things in the margins, but why are all these people in the campaign tied back to shady Russian characters? There's something here that, beyond the legalities of what Mueller is looking into, just politically, it's a lot of questions and they remain totally answered.

LEMON: Yes. So, Matthew, listen, Manafort was the campaign chairman from March to August of 2016. What kind of polling information would the Trump team have at that point in the campaign? How detailed?

ROSENBERG: I mean, I imagine pretty detailed, especially going into August. You know, you're trying to figure out, OK, what do we got to hit? Where are the states where we think we can win?

LEMON: That's pretty close to the election.

ROSENBERG: And they were doing a pretty -- they did a pretty good job in it, apparently.

LEMON: Yes. You know, Phil, we know that Russians were attacking the 2016 election, targeting U.S. voters. We know they wanted to hurt Clinton and help Trump. How helpful would this data be in that effort?

MUDD: I think, depending on the sort of granularity of it, for example, you're talking about county-wide or state-wide data in places like Florida or Pennsylvania. And remember, Don, we're looking at one piece in isolation.

We also know that Roger Stone, there are allegations about his contact with WikiLeaks. If you put all this information together, is Paul Manafort providing this information to a potential Russian intelligence asset at the same time as somebody else connected with the Trump campaign is talking to WikiLeaks about where they might intervene in U.S. states?

You cannot look at one of these cases in isolation. And that's one of the challenges for the Mueller investigation, why this is taking so long. You have to put this together like a Rubik's cube and say, what was everybody doing at the same time, Manafort, Stone, et cetera, in terms of the campaign? If I'm looking at this, I'm saying it's pretty significant.

LEMON: Yes. Hey, Phil, I want to ask you, you've been in border briefings before, correct?

MUDD: Yes.

LEMON: I want to get back to the border with what the president said tonight. So, you watched. Did anything jump out to you, things that did or did not come up in the border briefings as to what he was saying?

MUDD: There was one thing, Don, let me take this away from politics and get into practice. You could talk about organized crime, you could talk about gangs, you could talk about human trafficking. My world for years was counterterrorism.

Between 2002, when I returned to the CIA, and 2010, I was detailed to the FBI for a few years between 2005 and 2010, I was thinking, today, I run every day during my run I must have sat in maybe 1,500 or 2,000 threat briefings. That is people in this country who are trying to blow something up and people trying to come into this country to try to sponsor an act of terrorism.

Fifteen hundred and 2,000 threat briefings, I can't remember one case out of 2,000 threat briefings, where we spent a lot of time talking about the southwest border. That's 2,000 threat briefings.

So, what jumps out to me when I see people, including the secretary of homeland security talking about the threat of terror coming across the southwest border, my experience was, if you had told me years ago that there would be a conversation in this country about terrorism with the origin coming across the southwest border, I would have looked at you like you had three heads. We didn't experience it. That wasn't my world, Don.

LEMON: Thank you, Phil. Thank you, Matthew. I appreciate your time.

ROSENBERG: Yes.

LEMON: So, now back to Russia. At the end of the day, does this court filing that we've been discussing that we've been talking about, hold evidence that Manafort colluded with Russia? I'm going to ask John Dean next.

[23:30:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK) LEMON: New court documents have revealed that Paul Manafort shared polling information with a Russian operative during the 2016 campaign. So, is that collusion? Here's what Congressman Eric Swalwell of the Intelligence Committee says.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ERIC SWALWELL (D), CALIFORNIA: Yes, the Trump campaign met with and worked with Russian spies while Russia was interfering in our democracy. We know that the Russians were weaponizing social media. They are putting out targeted ads. They are putting posts on Facebook and YouTube, you know.

And if they were doing that in a targeted way with the information that the Trump campaign had about, you know, what areas you should do that, what types of voters you should do that, that would be collusion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So let's discuss now. Former Nixon White House counsel, John Dean, is here.

John, good evening to you. Thank you for coming on tonight.

JOHN DEAN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Good evening.

LEMON: So, listen, his campaign chairman shared polling data with a man tied to Russian intelligence -- allegedly tied to Russian intelligence during the campaign. How is that not collusion?

DEAN: It is collusion. I agree with the congressman. In fact, while I was in the green room and reading "The New York Times" story, which actually advanced the story by adding Gates to the sort of corroborating that the information had been passed, I said, listen, this is collusion. It's what it's called. It's also a potential evidence of a conspiracy. There's probably much more that we don't know.

LEMON: So, at what point can that case be made for a criminal conspiracy?

DEAN: I think Gates is the one that will make the case. He'll say, we had an agreement with the Russians, we were working with them, we were supplying them information, we knew they were helping the campaign, and they were asking for what we could do to help target things. And that's exactly what they did.

LEMON: John, is it conceivable to you that Manafort would be sharing confidential campaign polling information, discussing a Ukrainian peace plan with a man tied to Russian intelligence without Trump knowing -- allegedly tied to Russian intelligence without Trump knowing?

DEAN: It's very difficult to envision that. He and his partner, Gates, were obviously in on a lot of this information. It was going upward. They weren't freelancing. Maybe the offer to brief the oligarchy he was in debt to might have been freelancing.

But I think, you know, this is a very small campaign. This isn't a large organization. It's a mom and pop operation. And so it's hard to imagine that they didn't share information back and forth.

[23:35:03] LEMON: Yeah. The New York Times is reporting tonight that both Manafort and Rick Gates transferred data to Kilimnik in the spring of 2016. What does that mean for the Mueller investigation?

DEAN: Well, it means they've been on this information for quite a while. You know, when I downloaded -- first learned of that the court had posted on their website the response to the special counsel's pleading on whether they were going to fight it or not fight it, it never occurred to me to try to remove the redaction.

I just printed it out. But apparently it was not that difficult to do it, so, you know, the world now knows and the Times was able to take it a little bit further and add Gates to the story.

LEMON: Yeah. So, Mueller has accused Manafort of lying about contacts that he had with the White House. A section of this document that was supposed to be redacted reveals that one of those contacts was the president himself. Is that significant?

DEAN: I think it is. You know, the -- it's hard to tell what the president knew and, you know, Manafort is certainly not the most reliable person. He's not likely to be somebody they're going to call as a witness in any proceeding.

They might call him for a witness in the Congress to get more information, but I can't imagine that Mueller, who has now really said he is a liar, and we don't want -- he broke his plea agreement with us, so, he's not a reliable source for them for much of anything. But it's -- it's a huge day in advancing the story with that redacted material actually surfacing.

LEMON: John Dean, always a pleasure. Thank you.

DEAN: Thank you.

LEMON: The president's shutdown is creating major problems, not only for individual federal workers, but for the whole country. What you need to know, next.

[23:40:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: So, this is important information you need to know, OK, about this whole shutdown. In just a few minutes, at midnight, there is a deadline that will come and go. Many federal workers aren't going to be happy about it.

Since there doesn't seem to be a deal in the end to end the shutdown, by then, the government won't be able to make its next payroll. That means workers will have to wait until January 26th at the earliest to get their next salary checks. That's a big deal, especially for people who have bills to pay and families to feed. We all know the federal government is based in Washington, but there are federal workers who are going without pay all over this country. Analysis from the Washington Post says that outside the D.C. area, the states where workers affected by the shutdown are most concentrated are Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, New Mexico, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Idaho.

But the truth is, wherever federal employees are not getting paid, there will be problems because of it. In California, there are well over 30,000 federal workers affected.

There, CNN is reporting that excessive absentees by TSA officers currently working without pay have impacted security operations at Palm Springs International Airport. The TSA employees who are not getting paid are being told they may be disciplined for missed shifts.

In Alabama, where there are significantly fewer federal workers, there are still significant affects. In the town of Aliceville, there is a medium security women's prison with nearly 300,000 prison workers.

Many of those workers drive in from the surrounding areas to spend money at the town's few restaurants and gas stations. If the prison employees are not making money, which is now likely the case, they are not spending money as well, and that means the town isn't making money.

And while federal workers are almost certain to receive their pay back eventually, the same assurance doesn't hold for federal contractors. Bloomberg's analysis says that during the shutdown, federal contractors could be out an estimated $200 million a day in lost or delayed revenues.

And federal contractors work all over this country, like Julie Burr, an administrative assistant for the Department of Transportation in Kansas City, Missouri. She told CNN that her life savings have been depleted as a result of the shutdown. And this is how she is managing to get by.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JULIE BURR, ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION: Fortunately, I was given the advice to set up a Go Fund Me, and I made a goal of approximately two months of salary because I wasn't sure how long this would last and I have met my goal. So, I appreciate everyone helping with that. That's going to help get us through. It helped with my January rent and more than likely will have to help with February rent also.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So, for some people affected by the shutdown, it simply comes down to being able to put food on their table. The New York Times talked to Julia Quintana, a janitor at the Department of Agriculture. She hasn't been paid since the shutdown began, and she is worried that she won't be able to eat. She told the Times, "I have put a lot of food in the freezer and we are taking it all out. That last fish and the last shrimp and the last chicken is all we're eating now. I'm worried about not having food this week."

When she was told that President Trump suggested that the shutdown could last months or years, Quintana said, "Oh, my god, we're going to die of hunger."

Let's discuss now. Ashlei Stevens is here. She is a spokeswoman for the Professional Services Council.

[23:45:00] Ashlei, good evening. Good to have you on.

ASHLEI STEVENS, SPOKESWOMAN, PROFESSIONAL SERVICES COUNCIL: Hi, Don. Glad to be here.

LEMON: This is really awful, when you hear these stories, and there are so many of them. Tell us what your workers do. What kinds of jobs are they doing or not doing as the case may be?

STEVENS: Right. So, the Professional Services Council, we are the leading trade association representing the government technology and professional services federal contractors. So, we have contractors representing 400 companies. We have contractors in every state representing every federal agency.

And as you mentioned, Don, you shared the stories of Julie and Julia, just like the shutdown is impacting them, the shutdown is equally hitting federal contractors, if not, a little bit harder so, and that's because, as you mentioned, as government employees ultimately will receive their back pay, contractors historically have never received back pay.

And that's one thing we're focusing on at PSC, is to make sure that contractors who are not getting paid now will receive back pay after the shutdown ends.

LEMON: All those people that you mentioned, that you -- that work for you, what do they do?

STEVENS: It ranges on from your lower wage workers. You have cafeteria, janitorial staff on up to higher skilled aerospace engineers, consultants. We have folks who do data research in health care, working across all agencies.

So, as you realize this is a partial shutdown, not all agencies are impacted, but for those that are, this is really taking a toll on a lot of contractor companies who are really trying to struggle to find ways to just pay their employees, if they have the resources.

But what we're seeing even from some of the smaller businesses, they may not have the funds to pay employees. And as my CEO has said, there's a possibility that if this shutdown continues, some of the smaller businesses may ultimately shut their doors for good.

LEMON: Go out of business.

STEVENS: That's not what we want to see at all.

LEMON: And a significant number of people you represent, like a lot of Americans, they live paycheck to paycheck, little savings. And as contractors, they will never get back pay.

STEVENS: Exactly. And again, we see the gamut. There are folks who no matter what their salary is, the point that we want to make is, they are committed to the same mission of public service as their counterparts who are government employees. They work side-by-side every day achieving the same mission. What's happening with the shutdown, the American public is not -- they are not having agency missions fulfilled because of the shutdown.

So, yes, folks are going, they're living in uncertainty. They don't know where their next paycheck is coming from, and that creates uncertainly around when am I going to pay my mortgage? How am I going to take care of child care?

LEMON: How am I going to eat?

STEVENS: How am I going to take care of, you know, elderly or disabled loved ones? There are a lot of factors on the table. The way that we can mitigate this again, PSC sent a letter to congressional leaders last week asking them to prioritize full funding to end the shutdown and also offer back pay for contractors.

Earlier today, PSC also sent a similar letter to the White House and to President Trump, saying, hey, listen, please, we ask you to work with Congress to bring this to an end.

LEMON: Yeah.

STEVENS: What we've noticed, Don, is that in the last 22 government shutdowns, government employees were always made whole and always received their base (ph) pay. We want that equal treatment for contractors. We want to see that happen after this shutdown ends, is that contractors no matter where they are in the pay scale, no matter where they are in their skill level, that they are made whole.

LEMON: The president says that he can relate to workers like your members, that they will adjust. What do you say to President Trump tonight?

STEVENS: You know, I think everyone has had to adjust, and I think we've had to adjust for reasons that were beyond our control. So, I think the adjustment that we all would like to see made is full year appropriations, and that's what we're working for.

So again, we've said to President Trump, as we did earlier today in a letter that we sent, hey, we want to work with you and Congress to bring an end to the partial shutdown and let's get folks back to work, let's get government missions fully up and running so that we can serve the American people.

LEMON: Thank you, Ashlei. I appreciate it. Please come back. Hopefully -- honestly, we don't need you to come back, right?

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: That the government will be back up and running and everybody will be getting their paychecks, but if we need you, please come back.

STEVENS: Absolutely. If I'm back, you'll be hearing that contractors are receiving their back pay.

LEMON: Right. Thank you very much.

STEVENS: Thank you, Don.

LEMON: I appreciate that. Hey, listen, sometimes in the haze when you have a lot in front of you, I misspeak. I misspoke when I talked about the prison in Aliceville, Alabama. The facility, I said there were 300,000 workers. There's actually 300 workers. OK? We'll be right back.

[23:50:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Follow-up to the story that we did last night on singer R. Kelly. The Lifetime documentary series, "Surviving R. Kelly" has revived allegations of abuse, predatory behavior, and pedophilia against him.

Now, there's word that he could be facing an investigation by the district attorney in Fulton County, Georgia. An attorney for the family of Joycelyn Savage, one of the women featured in the documentary, says he was contacted by the D.A.'s office after the series aired. Investigators reportedly seeking information about incidents that allegedly took place in Kelly's Georgia home in 2017.

The D.A.'s office won't comment, but Joycelyn Savage's family is speaking out to CNN. They've claimed she's having a sexual relationship with Kelly and that she's being manipulated by him into cutting off contact with the outside world, although Joycelyn made a video statement in 2017 saying she was not being held against her will. Here's her family.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIMOTHY SAVAGE, FATHER OF JOYCELYN SAVAGE: We haven't seen our daughter. We as of right now today have no proof of life.

JONJELYN SAVAGE, MOTHER OF JOYCELYN SAVAGE (voice over): No.

T. SAVAGE: Whatsoever.

[23:55:00] J. SAVAGE (voice over): We get --

T.SAVAGE: And that's hard for me to say, but I have no proof of life that my daughter is living right now. None.

JAILYN SAVAGE, SISTER OF JOYCELYN SAVAGE: She's 23 now. She's in her mid 20s. In your mid 20s, you're supposed to be living your best life. You're supposed to be, you know, having fun and not like being ruined by some --

J. SAVAGE: We want to get back to where she was before she left.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Meanwhile, the Cook County State's attorney in Chicago where the singer is originally from says her office has been in touch with two families related to allegations against R. Kelly. She is asking anyone with information to speak up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KIMBERLY FOXX, COOK COUNTY STATE'S ATTORNEY: Please come forward. There is nothing that can be done to investigate these allegations without the cooperation of both victims and witnesses. We cannot seek justice without you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: A lawyer for Kelly says there's nothing there, that the prosecutor's going on a fishing expedition which will result in false accusations. We'll keep you updated. Thanks for watching. Our coverage continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)