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Don Lemon Tonight

Rod Rosenstein to Pass His Job to Next A.G.; Court Filings Reveal Truth; Like Father Like Son; Trump Jr. Compares Border Wall to Zoo Fences; TV Meteorologist Fired Over Racial Slur, Says He Misspoke; Attacker Gets Nearly Four Years in Prison for Beating a Black Man; Shutdown Creates Financial Crisis. Aired 11-12a ET

Aired January 09, 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.

Big developments in the Russia investigation of Robert Mueller's investigation. A source telling CNN that polling data that Paul Manafort shared with a Russian operative was intended to go to two pro-Putin Ukrainian oligarchs who owed Manafort millions of dollars.

I want you to listen to what the top Democrat on the Senate Intel Committee, Mark Warner, told CNN's Manu Raju today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARK WARNER, (D) VIRGINIA: This appears as the closest we have seen yet to real life actual collusion. Clearly, Manafort was trying to collude with Russian agents. And the question is, what did the president know? What did Donald Trump know about this exchange of information?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: And there are rumblings that the Mueller investigation might be getting close to wrapping up. One possible indication a source telling CNN that Deputy Attorney Rod Rosenstein who oversees Mueller is set to leave when President Trump's new attorney general is confirmed which could happen by mid-February.

Rosenstein has signaled to other officials he'd go when Mueller's investigation was complete or nearing its end.

I want to bring in now Susan Glasser. Also, Max Boot, the author of "Corrosion of Conservatism: Why I Left the Right." Garrett Graff is here as well. He's the author of "The Threat Matrix: Inside Robert Mueller's FBI and the War on Global Terror."

Welcome to the program, everyone. I hope you're having a good evening. Garrett, every day we learn something new in the Russia investigation. We keep saying that there's still so much that we don't know. Now we know that Manafort shared polling data with the Russian operative with ties to Putin during the 2016 campaign. It feels like this could be straight out of a political thriller, honestly. GARRETT GRAFF, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Absolutely. And as Mark Warner just

said, I mean, this is the beginning to step into the c word territory, collusion, conspiracy, cooperation, whatever you want to call it.

I think one of the things that's important to look at and realize is that a lot of what we have been learning over the last couple of weeks and the sort of this flood of information coming out of the Mueller probe since Thanksgiving is the what? You know, that he is sharing polling data. As the what?

What we haven't yet begun to learn is the why. And that's what where we can assume Mueller is focused on in this next stage and sort of what the next phase of this investigation is going to be publicly is explaining why people were taking the actions that they actually did.

LEMON: Susan, and what's incredible in the situation is we're only learning about this because Manafort's own lawyer screwed up the redactions, oops, right? So, the question is, what else does Mueller have?

SUSAN GLASSER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, we can only hope that more redactions go unmade in future filings. You know, there are so many questions. for example, what is the nature of this polling data, is this just, you know, sort of top line horse race stuff, is it valuable internal campaign data?

There's some suggestion. All along we wondered how did the Russians come up with this sophisticated targeting operation in the 2016 campaign? How did they know to go after disaffected Democratic voters, Bernie Sanders voters, African-Americans seem to have been targeted by much of the Russian propaganda?

Was this evidence that we're now seeing indications of, of actual coordination and sharing of information that enabled the Trump campaign to target the same people as the Russian influence campaign in the United States? We don't know the answer to that yet. I'd be very curious to know what is the nature of the polling information that was shared with Russians or potentially shared with Russians.

And again, there's also the real question we have to ask. Paul Manafort obviously has been convicted and you know, was operating, it was a deeply compromised figure. What we don't yet know is the extent to which he was essentially sort of trying to privatize Trump campaign information in order to help his own business interests --

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: Interesting.

GLASSER: -- or whether he was actively doing this on behalf of the Trump campaign.

LEMON: Got it.

Hi, Max. So, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee is Mark Warner. He says this is the closest thing that we have seen to collusion. And you agree, the headline to your new op-ed is called the collusion case against Trump just got a lot stronger. Can you explain to me why?

MAX BOOT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, Don, this is the definition of collusion. I mean, I had to laugh earlier today on CNN. We had a Republican congressman on saying well, we're still waiting for evidence of collusion.

[23:05:00] Well no, this is it right here when you have the campaign chairman of the Trump campaign sharing data and polling numbers with the Russians, that is collusion. In terms of Russians as we know were launching this very extensive social media campaign to help elect Donald Trump.

And as Susan was suggesting typically when campaigns do advertising, they need data in order to be able to target it in order to figure out who they're trying to reach and what kind of message they want and this suggests that perhaps Paul Manafort was actually providing that data to the Russians. We don't know for sure but that's certainly what it looks like.

It's hard to imagine another reason why a Russian linked to Russian intelligence would want American polling data. What legitimate reason is there for Paul Manafort to pass this information along?

This is collusion. This is an indication that there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. The question now is what did the president know and when did he know it?

LEMON: Yes. That's how you end it. Interesting. That is an interesting -- two interesting questions there.

Susan, Republican Senator James Lankford says that this is not a smoking gun. But isn't that looking at this the wrong way? Because it will be lots of evidence that builds a case, right? It's always.

GLASSER: Well, Garrett made an excellent point, which is, you know, we're still waiting for the Mueller investigation or other court cases to produce the why this is happening for us. And that's what I was alluding to. Paul Manafort could have many different motivations. One as the campaign chairman for the Trump campaign, two, because of his own Web of business interests and his own increasing panic over that compromise web of business interest when his Russian linked oligarch was thrown out of the presidency of Ukraine.

So, we don't know the why behind it yet. But I think you make an excellent point. That senator by the way said that this was not that big of a deal because it wasn't just some Russian intelligence agent. It was someone that Manafort already knew and had worked with.

Far from being exculpatory, it seems to me that that should have been the biggest red flag of all. The idea that Donald Trump hired Paul Manafort as his campaign chairman when these links between Manafort and Russians and Ukrainians tied to Russia were well-known among a wide array of people and it's -- again, it's astonishing that Manafort was hired to run the Republican presidential nominees' campaign in this kind of a situation.

And so, the idea that he has a long-standing relationship with someone who is believed by American intelligence officials to be a Russian intelligence asset, this is mind blowing. In and of itself this would have been a scandal in any other political context.

LEMON: Right.

GLASSER: Just that.

LEMON: I'm --

(CROSSTALK)

GLASSER: Just that without any of this other stuff.

LEMON: I'm paraphrasing here and correct me if I'm wrong. Because I think Rick Santorum said that part of the main reason that Manafort was hired is because there weren't any top Republicans who wanted to work for Trump in the days when he needed it, right? Garrett, is that correct? Is that a viable excuse?

GRAFF: Well, and remember, Paul Manafort wasn't hired to be campaign chairman. He volunteered to be the unpaid campaign chairman which has always been an interesting fact in and of itself.

Because remember, Paul Manafort in the midst of this, as we now know in court documents and laid out in his trial, was in the midst of his own $65 million decade-long money laundering scheme when he stepped into this role on the Trump campaign.

So, why was this man who was so deeply in debt to Russian oligarchs running this massive tax bank and money laundering scheme willing to work for free for Donald Trump? That has always been one of these interesting questions that we haven't heard.

And you know, as Susan is talking about, you know, his business partner, Konstantin Kilimnik believed to be a Russian intelligence asset, one of those whys that we are still waiting to see is Mueller talking about why he believes Konstantin Kilimnik was a Russian intelligence asset in 2016 during the campaign. What does Mueller know about what Konstantin Kilimnik was doing and who he was talking to on the backside of those conversations with Manafort?

LEMON: Got it. So, Max, listen, Trump has argued before that Manafort is wrong. Doing it all before he ever worked for Donald Trump. Does this new revelation from Manafort's own attorneys change that?

[23:09:56] BOOT: Well, of course. This is an admission that Manafort was doing something incredibly shady even as he was running the Trump campaign.

I mean, look, Don, if Paul Manafort were sharing this polling data with the super PAC, he would be breaking the federal election law right there. So, think about what it means that he is sharing this data with a foreign government that seeking to influence the American election.

I mean, this is part of this web of deceit and skullduggery involving Paul Manafort that we've been alluding to. The fact that he owed like $17 million to Oleg Deripaska, this Russian oligarch close to Putin.

And the Washington Post has reported that during the campaign, Paul Manafort contacted Deripaska and offered to make him whole with briefings on the campaign with exchange of information. In other words, more collusion.

And by the way, another detail of that, that Robert Mueller revealed last year is that the Russian stole data analytics from the Democratic National Committee right before the Trump campaign changed their campaign strategy.

And so that raises the suspicion that the data sharing went both ways, not only Manafort sharing data with the Russians but the Russian possibly sharing stolen Democratic Party data with the Trump campaign. I mean, this is the kind of stuff that we're waiting for Robert Mueller to get to the bottom of but as I say, it's pretty clear that there was a level of collusion that was clearly going on here.

LEMON: Interesting. Susan, in the short time that we have left, let me ask you this. CNN has identified one of the law firms representing that mystery company, the other one is challenging a subpoena related to the Mueller investigation. The firm is Alston and Bird and they previously represented Russian interests. What's your read on this?

GLASSER: You know, this is the long running Supreme Court has made it all the way to the Supreme Court fight with the Mueller investigation. I think, to me, it's an indication that we just don't know how wide the Mueller investigation has cast its net at this point.

I anticipate that this might not be the only time that the Mueller investigation reaches the Supreme Court and, you know, one of the things that the probe was already uncovered, both in this case, it appears, and in the case involving Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser, is that the real unseemly side of the Washington influence business.

You mentioned, you know, this Washington firm, there are many who have been caught up in the investigation, and by the way, we haven't seen the end of it there, we're expecting potential charges against other major former lobbying firms that would stem from undisclosed work and I think, this is one of the things that Manafort case really underscores for all of us.

It's just the nexus between the Trump campaign and people who were seeking to monetize and leverage their connections. That's what this is all about. It's about corruption. It's about corruption at the heart of our political process. I don't think it's going to be the only Supreme Court case to result from the Mueller investigation.

LEMON: Interesting. I got to run. Thank you. Thank you, all. I got to run because I'm going to talk with Congressman Denny Heck about all of this. He's on the intelligence committee. And he's here. There he is. Next.

[23:15:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: So, a source tells CNN that Deputy Attorney General is expected to leave the Justice Department in the next few weeks. The news comes as President Trump's nominee for attorney general heads to the Senate for confirmation hearings next week. If confirmed, William Barr will replace acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker who would also oversee the Mueller investigation.

Let's discuss now with Congressman Denny Heck who serves on the intelligence committee. Good evening, congressman. Thank you for coming on tonight.

REP. DENNY HECK, (D) WASHINGTON: You're welcome.

LEMON: Rosenstein is the person who appointed Mueller as special counsel to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. What does his departure mean for the Russia investigation?

HECK: TBD. There's an awful lot of stuff that already in the pipeline, Don. I guess I was thinking about that inadvertent disclosure of the Manafort court filing today of the redacted material. And stop and think about the number of graphics that you put up over the last year of court filings that had substantial redaction and all those black spaces.

Well, if you put all of those together, of those different court filings, all of that redacted material it would be a book thicker than "War and Peace." Bob Mueller knows all of that stuff. So, the fact to the matter is this one tiny accidental revelation which is fairly shocking, fairly significant may be just the tiniest fraction of what is already as it were in the can and yet to be disclosed.

LEMON: How do you interpret Rod Rosenstein's decision to resign? Is that a vote of confidence for William Barr?

HECK: It may be that he feels that they're near the end. It may be that he's tired. It may be that he wants to do something else. We don't know.

LEMON: Do you expect your committee or any other committee to subpoena Rosenstein in the near future?

HECK: I have no idea. We're just now in the process of forming the committee. In fact, the new members of the HPSCI intelligence committee haven't been named yet. And once they are then we'll get right to work with developing a path forward on the kind of the oversight accountability for the undone business of the Russian investigation from last year.

I know that Congressman and now Chairman Schiff has indicated in several occasions that there is some material that he wants to get after and find some answers to that we were prohibited blocked from doing so last year.

LEMON: Senator Lindsey Graham met with Attorney General nominee William Barr today said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: I asked Mr. Barr directly, do you think Mr. Mueller is on a witch hunt. He said no. Do you think he would be fair to the president and the country as a whole? He said yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: And Mark Warner the top Democrat on the Senate intel committee says he is absolutely not reassured by Barr saying that he would interfere with the Mueller investigation. Are you?

[23:19:58] HECK: No. Not, whatsoever. I think that the memo that Mr. Barr submitted unsolicited last year better known as a job application indicating that he was afraid that the Mueller investigation would overreach its legal boundaries. Predicated on what legal analysis, I'm not entirely sure. In and of itself is disqualifying.

I'd suggest to Mr. Barr however that he should be very careful in confirmation hearings. Just to remind you, Don, it was during this confirmation hearing that the future Attorney General Jeff Sessions indicated that he had not spoken with the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and that proved not to be the case and it was what led to him recusing himself.

And we all know that President Trump has very low tolerance for anybody around him whoever says anything that he disagrees with. That's why he's fired everybody from his first two chiefs of staff to his secretary of state to his secretary of defense and right on down the line.

LEMON: Yes.

HECK: So, he needs to tread carefully going forward. No, I don't have a lot of confidence in him given the memo that he submitted last year.

LEMON: You know, the subject of executive privilege has come up a lot. So, I want to ask you because the Washington Post is reporting tonight that the president's legal team -- I don't know if you know this, wants to stop discussions that Trump had with top advisers from being disclose to House Democrats. They say the House could cite executive privilege to keep secret any part of Mueller's report having to do with possible obstruction of justice by the president. If they go forward with that, are you going to challenge them on it?

HECK: Yes. I haven't even spoken with the chairman about that, but I'm fairly certain that that's not something that we would receive favorably whatsoever. Clearly, what they're reacting to is an abject fear that somebody is going to be caught having committed perjury and frankly, I think that's likely to be the case.

I think as has been revealed in other instances, there are people who came before and said things that will not bear up under the light of day and will not bear up under the other additional information that director Mueller has gathered in the course of his investigation. I think they're very afraid. I think they're afraid of going to jail, frankly.

LEMON: Interesting. Before I let you go, I got to ask you something. I need to ask you about the president, you know, the reports that he walked into the meeting with Democrats at the White House today, walked out of the meeting, right? It looks like your party isn't budging on the president's demand for a wall. What do you think needs to happen to get the government back open?

HECK: Well, there are any number of paths forward that would enable us to reopen the government but the quickest, cleanest, and most straightforward is for the government to acknowledge that he's not going to win this battle.

Can we just step back and look at this for a minute? I agree entirely with what my Republican colleague Will Hurd said either this morning or last night when he said if the president is correct that this is a crisis, help me understand why this we aren't paying the people who are actually dealing with the crisis.

Now to put this in broader mathematical context, Don, there are 800,000 people who today after tomorrow are not going to be able to collect a paycheck or maybe pay their rent or their bills. Two hundred thousand of them are associated with homeland security. That's where the battle is.

Six hundred thousand of these employees have absolutely nothing to do with this disagreement. Nothing. Zero. Zip. And they are being held hostage and punished by this president in pursuit of his disagreement with us over policy objectives.

You know, I've been here now, this is the beginning of my seventh year and I've had issues I've been working on for seven years. What we have with the president is a difference of opinion over a particular policy. And it sometimes takes years. I can attest to that to achieve your objective.

We agree on some things. We agree we need border security. Nobody disagrees with that. We disagree about how to achieve the best form of border security. He wants a fifth century solution or he want the 21st century solution. But what we disagree vehemently over is that it is OK to close the federal government over this disagreement.

LEMON: Congressman Denny Heck, thank you, sir.

HECK: Thank you, Don.

LEMON: Did you see what the president's son Don Junior wrote on Instagram? A lot of people are outraged. We're going to tell you why. That's next.

[23:25:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: So, did President Trump's oldest son compare asylum seekers to -- at the southern border to zoo animals? Let's talk about this. Tara Setmayer is here. Alice Stewart, Karen Finney. Hello, hello.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello, Don.

LEMON: I got a panel full of very smart and talented and dare I say, attractive women. Thank you so much for joining us.

ALICE STEWART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You can say that, Don.

LEMON: I know. I don't want to get in trouble.

(CROSSTALK)

STEWART: We'll take that.

LEMON: You're good. OK, good. So, Tara, I'm going to start with you. Today in an Instagram post, Don Jr. appeared to compare migrants seeking asylum to zoo animals and he posted this. He said, "you know why you can enjoy a day at the zoo? Because walls work." It came up this post shortly after the president's Oval Office address last night. What's your reaction?

TARA SETMAYER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You know, we have -- how many discussions have we had about the inappropriateness of not only the president but his son? How many times during the campaign did the president or his son retweet things that were inappropriate whether it was racially inappropriate, inappropriate concerning Jews, concerning women.

I mean, this has been an ongoing pattern of behavior. So, when Trump apologists come on and say how can you say that, you know, he's a bigot or he's a racist or he's demonized? He hasn't demonized immigrants. These are perfect examples of this. And women will say well, it was his son, it wasn't him.

Donald Trump, Jr. can't wake up in the morning without getting his father's permission. Let's be honest here. So, this is just an extension of the Trump brand and it's one that demonizes immigrants. And this dehumanization of immigrants. And I'm a hawk when it comes to border security. I work in this issue for seven years on Capitol Hill. I am no snowflake when it comes to border security.

But you cannot dehumanize people in this discussion. Real lives are at stake on both sides of the border here and this is just a tasteless way to do it.

LEMON: Comments like this, Alice -- I know you want to get in -- especially coming from the president's son, though, is it helping to mainstream this sort of demonizing of people, as she said, hate, maybe even racism?

[23:30:01] STEWART: I hope not. Look, I think it needs to stop. I'm glad that he took it down. He should also apologize on top of that. Look, this is another example where, you know, he posted before he thought. Oftentimes, they speak before they think, and really shouldn't happen. This is a perfect example of why he didn't get a job in the administration, quite frankly. But we can't lower the bar. We can't say that this is OK. Clearly, we all know what he was trying to say, walls work. This is a big issue for his father, but he should have just posted walls work, period, and left it at that.

LEMON: Why the face, Karen?

KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Come on, now, girl --

LEMON: Karen, why --

SETMAYER: -- animals.

(LAUGHTER)

SETMAYER: This is not the first time that he's done this.

FINNEY: OK, hold on, hold on. Come on, now, you all. Let's get real about what's happening here. This is Trump and his son returning to the southern strategy. This is Trump's southern strategy. This is how he won the election. Race baiting. Trying to pit groups of, you know, people against each other. Going after gay people, going after immigrants, going after black people and brown people.

So, I mean, let's be really clear. I mean, we know there have been seven studies that show us that one of the highest indicators of people who voted for Trump was fear of racial -- of change and racial animus, racism and sexism, plain and simple.

LEMON: Hey, Karen, let me put this up while you're making the point, OK? Because he's made controversial analogies on social media before like when he compared Syrian refugees to a bowl of Skittles candies in which some of the candies --

FINNEY: That's right.

LEMON: -- are poisonous and will kill you. It drew swift condemnation and comparisons to white supremacy memes (ph) as you're talking about. Is Don Jr. just aiming to please that same sort of base as you're saying as the father (ph)?

FINNEY: Absolutely. That's the same thing. He did it during the campaign. And my point is, now that they're in trouble, numbers wise, Trump and his son are going right back to the same playbook that they used during the campaign.

This is exactly -- you know, during the campaign, they mainstream the alt-right and these nativist policies that we have seen from this president. Of course Donald Trump Jr. is going right back to that same playbook because they know they're actually losing on this issue.

And as you have said so many times and others throughout this crisis which Donald Trump himself has created, there is absolutely no need to connect this wall, fence, name it what you will, and what is cruel and despicable, endangering more than 800,000 Americans, economic security, the health of our country, our own safety and security. There's just no reason to be doing it.

LEMON: Yeah. I need to switch gears now. Tara, I want to get your response to this story. I'm talking about TV meteorologist. His name is Meteorologist Jeremy Kappell. He was fired from his position as chief meteorologist at Rochester WHEC, when he appeared to use a racial slur when referring to a park named after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Let's listen so what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEREMY KAPPELL, METEOROLOGIST: The way it looked out in Martin Luther King Jr. Park.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So, Jeremy and his wife released an apology on Facebook. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAPPELL: Unfortunately I spoke a little too fast when I was referencing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. So fast to the point where I jumbled a couple of words. In my mind I knew I mispronounced, but there was no malice. There was nothing that I could have -- I had no idea the way it came across to many people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So, he went on to say that he would never want to tarnish the reputation of such a great man like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. What do you think? Fired too quickly?

SETMAYER: Yes. I mean, we're all in this business. We speak quickly. It's an easy way to mix up words. We do it all the time. I think that this was an honest mistake. And yeah, I think it was just in the climate we're in. They reacted too quickly.

That's just my honest opinion. I don't think there was any malice at all involved. I listened to it several times. It's very easy to mix those sounds and words up with that. And so, you know, I actually kind of feel sorry for him a little bit.

LEMON: I got to go quickly. I know you guys want to get in. First, Alice.

STEWART: Clearly he misspoke and corrected it quickly, but he gave a very heartfelt sincere apology.

LEMON: OK.

STEWART: I don't know what more we can ask. And Al Roker has come to his defense and hopefully that will help.

LEMON: Go ahead, Karen.

FINNEY: I just disagree. I think he knew what he was saying, and I think it's part of the climate that we're living in and the tone set by Donald J. Trump.

SETMAYER: No, no evidence of that in this case. There is a lot of case of that but not in this one. Not in this one.

FINNEY: When you say coon, when you say that kind of language, you know exactly what you're saying when you're saying it.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: I get it. How much time do we have, you all? Can we just run -- I know we have to go. Just run it real quick for me. Just run that. The original one. The original one.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAPPELL: Martin Luther Coon King Jr. Park --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FINNEY: Now come on. Come on, people.

SETMAYER: No way.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: I just -- OK, look, I got to go.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: I got to go.

STEWART: He quickly corrected it.

SETMAYER: Exactly.

STEWART: He corrected it as soon as it came out of his mouth. He misspoke.

[23:34:59] LEMON: I don't know, but I know sometimes I say things on the air, and my producers will say, did you know you said such and such --

SETMAYER: Right.

LEMON: -- and I won't even realize that I say it. Sometimes, I jumble some words together. And sometimes when you jumble them together, they will be exploited (ph), you didn't mean to say it, right?

FINNEY: But you correct yourself --

LEMON: So I don't know --

FINNEY: You correct yourself very quickly, and this man didn't -- nobody -- he didn't apologize until somebody --

LEMON: OK. FINNEY: -- who is watching this broadcast --

SETMAYER: Because he didn't notice.

LEMON: I just think -- I think it is --

FINNEY: Nobody else noticed? Come on, now.

LEMON: If he has a history -- if he has a history of that --

SETMAYER: -- real racism. This is not it.

LEMON: -- but I think that -- I think it's too hard to judge. I don't --

SETMAYER: Right.

LEMON: OK, I don't think he meant to say it. I don't. I just think he jumbled his words. So they should reevaluate that. And he's welcome to come on to explain himself if he wants to. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it.

One of four men convicted of beating a black man at the hands -- at a white supremacist rally, I should say, in Charlottesville, now facing four years in prison. We are going to ask the victim, DeAndre Harris, if he feels justice has been served. There he is right there. We will see him on the other side of the break.

[23:40:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: A white man who took part in beating an African-American man at the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville back in 2017 -- you remember that? Well, he has been sentenced to nearly four years in prison.

Who can forget this disturbing video? A group of men beating DeAndre Harris in a parking garage during the Unite The Right rally. Four men have now been convicted. Harris sustained serious injuries to his head and his left eye, as well as his left hand and forearm. DeAndre Harris joins me now along with his attorney, Lee Merritt. Thank you, gentlemen. I appreciate it. How are you doing, DeAndre?

DEANDRE HARRIS, ASSAULTED AT WHITE SUPREMACIST RALLY: I'm doing fine, man, how are you?

LEMON: Yeah, I'm doing fine. Listen, Daniel Borden was the last of the four men sentenced to prison for attacking you at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. How do you feel about the four assailants that they have now been convicted?

HARRIS: It's always a good idea that justice has been served. So, that is good. However, you know, I -- that day was crazy. I couldn't have made it out. So, maybe -- maybe four years, you know, is it maybe the ideal sentence that I was looking for really, despite the fact that I could have actually not left that rally, you know. Unfortunately some people didn't leave that rally, you know. Rest in peace to Heather. So, I just look at it in that situation as what if I didn't leave that rally? Then what type of actions would have been taken then?

LEMON: You thought he should have gotten more time?

HARRIS: Yeah, but I can't be a jerk. But justice has been served, and I'm still here. So, that's the biggest part of it. I'm still here today. I can sit here and talk to you and tell you this story. So, that's all what I'm really grateful for, that I'm still here today.

LEMON: You can do what you can. Lee, has justice been served for DeAndre?

LEE MERRITT, ATTORNEY FOR DEANDRE HARRIS: I don't think it has been completely and DeAndre and I are preparing a lawsuit. Not only gets the man who attacked him and the organization that they belong to, but we're looking at Charlottesville's culpability because, as you know, from a memo, that has not been released.

They allowed that violence to take place. The chief of police in Charlottesville encouraged that violence and said once it starts, then we can shut the rally down for being disorderly. It was just a poor plan to begin with.

LEMON: Yeah. DeAndre, you were beaten very badly that day. You had a broken wrist and serious head wounds. This is a graphic image of your injury. But I think it's important for people to see the types of wounds you got from this attack. So, we'll show it briefly and then we're going to take it down. I mean, wow.

A young woman, Heather Heyer, as you mentioned, killed that day. When you look back, what can we as a country learn from what happened to you? From the events? Heather's death in Charlottesville?

HARRIS: That, really, man, hate is really out there and it just really brings awareness to everyone in the community of Charlottesville and the whole world really that hate is really out there. You have to watch your back and you got to really stand on your toes about things. If it's truly something that you believe in, then by all mean, it is necessary to fight for it, most definitely.

LEMON: I got to ask you, DeAndre. Racial tensions were high that day in Charlottesville. President Trump has taken a lot of heat for saying that there were very fine people on both sides at that rally. Do you think things have gotten better or worse in this country since that day?

HARRIS: I really think things have really gotten worse, man. Really. That's my honest opinion. I really think things have gotten worse in this world.

LEMON: Why?

HARRIS: Did you say why?

LEMON: Yeah.

HARRIS: Man, just different things that are happening, man. It's like people are OK with really expressing their racial tension against other races now. It's like it's OK now, but it's like -- like we have been overcoming that time. That time is way beyond us. It's past us already. But it's like, it's coming back to the time that now we all thought that we forgot about racism and it really still exists.

LEMON: Yeah.

HARRIS: And it just really -- it really brings -- brings it to the eyes of everyone now and shows it to everybody.

[23:45:03] But I really feel like it changed the world because everybody is feeling like it's a good thing to express the racial tension toward the next man, you know.

LEMON: Lee, not to give you short trip, how far along are you in your lawsuit? Is it filed? Are you considering?

MERRITT: We're waiting for this last sentence to take place which happened this week.

LEMON: OK.

MERRITT: And so we expect to file as early as next week and move forward with litigation.

LEMON: Lee, thank you. DeAndre, thank you and we're glad that you're doing better. You have a very positive attitude about it and again, we really appreciate you coming on. Best of luck to you.

MERRITT: Thank you.

HARRIS: I appreciate you having me, man. Thank you.

LEMON: Lee, keep us updated, OK? Thank you very much.

MERRITT: Will do.

LEMON: All right. The president says that a lot of the people affected by the shutdown agree 100 percent with what he is doing, but a lot of federal workers are suffering real hardships. Their stories are next.

[23:50:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: The partial government shutdown has created a financial crisis for many of the 800,000 workers who are not getting paychecks. Some are dipping into their savings, relying on credit cards, even setting up Go Fund Me pages just to make ends meet.

And what's being done for them? Well, employees for the U.S. Coast Guard got a five-page tip sheet on living without a paycheck. Here are some of the suggestions. They included holding garage sales, babysitting and even working as a mystery shopper. Well, that tip sheet was taken down after the Washington Post asked about it.

Here to discuss is Hector Figueroa. He is the president of the Service Employees International Union. Thank you so much.

HECTOR FIGUEROA, PRESIDENT, SERVICE EMPLOYEES INTERNATIONAL UNION: Thank you for having me.

LEMON: I appreciate you joining us. As I said, that tip sheet was removed. But do you think that this is evidence that people don't understand what these workers are going through? What these people are going through? And the stories. Tell me about the stories you're hearing.

FIGUEROA: Certainly. What we're hearing from our members is that this is incredibly painful for them. It comes right in the middle of the holiday season. We are talking about members like, you know, Tiara Logan (ph), who is a single mother of three. She is now struggling to see how she can buy baby formula.

LEMON: She said she's skipping meals and worried about baby formula for her baby.

FIGUEROA: That's very true. She is now having to sacrifice her own health in order to keep her children, you know, healthy and fed. It's really a very undignifying situation. We have members like Donna Kelly (ph) who works also at Smithsonian. She was here in New York today. We had a meeting with her.

LEMON: There's her picture right there. She is -- this picture again is courtesy of the union. She is a security guard at Smithsonian.

FIGUEROA: Correct.

LEMON: Earning slightly more than minimum wage as a contract worker. She is now applying for food stumps and then returning to Medicaid.

FIGUEROA: Yup. She cannot pay for her blood pressure medicine. She has been very active as a leader. She is a member of (INAUDIBLE). She had to stop talking to the press because, you know, her own doctor said you can't go on without your medicines and you can't go on with high blood pressure.

LEMON: You spoke with her today?

FIGUEROA: Yeah.

LEMON: What did she say to you?

FIGUEROA: What she said to us, you know, she appreciates the efforts of the union. She is very worried about where this is going. We have to do everything we can to tell her story, tell the story of her co- workers, and hopefully at the end of the day get Congress to take action or the agencies to take action to restore the money that she has lost.

LEMON: So some members of your union won't get paid back because they don't directly work for the government. They are contractors.

FIGUEROA: That's correct.

LEMON: They are security officers and building cleaners, right?

FIGUEROA: Absolutely.

LEMON: How are they getting by?

FIGUEROA: They are getting by right now borrowing money from friends and family. They are making arrangements by using the early days they are on paid leave, vacation, holidays they had left, but they have no more left. They are really making decisions that are really hard for them. Julia Quintana (ph), she was on the New York Times recently, talking about how she is using the rest of the food she has in her fridge.

LEMON: In her freezer.

FIGUEROA: And now she has to figure out how she is going to feed herself --

LEMON: Yeah.

FIGUEROA: -- and her mother.

LEMON: The last time there was a shutdown, your contract employees did not get paid, right?

FIGUEROA: They did not get paid. There were informal arrangements like the ones I'm describing. Some employers were able to get folks to use unaccrued vacation and sick days, but again, the money that they needed to sustain themselves didn't come through.

LEMON: This is now going to the time where it could be the longest shutdown, right? The president has said that there is higher purpose than next week's paycheck.

FIGUEROA: The higher purpose really means nothing to people who work really hard. They keep our buildings and facilities safe, and they're treated like they're just nonexistent. One thing that I like to share with you is, one of the things that folks are telling us is, this is going to be the longest shutdown, if I am not mistaken, if we continue to go through this weekend.

We have to go from telling their stories which we have to do to also take action. We're going to start to be more mobile, more active, you know, beginning tomorrow because, you know, it's just too devastating for these members.

LEMON: So your members are following this closely?

FIGUEROA: Very closely.

LEMON: And the politics of it as well?

FIGUEROA: And the politics of it as well.

LEMON: So, did you breath the sigh of relief when -- initially when you heard, well, Senate has come to an agreement, the government is not going to shut down. Was there a sigh of relief?

FIGUEROA: Yeah, there was a sigh of relief.

LEMON: Because then after that, the president said, no. Because there was an agreement, where both sides actually did compromise.

FIGUEROA: Absolutely.

LEMON: So this is being painted as both sides -- by some folks?

[23:55:03] Is this both sides?

FIGUEROA: It's not both sides. This is really one side only. The president has all the responsibility for this issue. He even said that publicly.

LEMON: Do your members think that?

FIGUEROA: Our members think that. Our members are thinking of two things. One is the president is responsible for the shutdown, but Congress has to be now responsible for fixing the damage that has been done to them.

LEMON: Thank you so much, Hector.

FIGUEROA: Thank you.

LEMON: Good luck to you. We appreciate you coming in.

FIGUEROA: Thank you so much. Take good care.

LEMON: And thank you for watching. Before we leave you, here's a look at a new CNN series. It is called "American Style." That premieres Sunday night here on CNN.

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