Return to Transcripts main page

Don Lemon Tonight

House Judiciary Committee will Ask Acting A.G. Matthew Whitaker; Interview with Rep. Ericl Swalwell (D-CA); Rudy Giuliani Getting Attention from All Corners; Trump's Lies and Misinformation About Russia Investigation; Washington Post Op-Ed Claims GOP is now the Pro-Russia Party; American Accused of Spying in Russia Denied Bail. Aired 11-12a ET

Aired January 22, 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.

We've got a lot of major developments tonight in the Robert Mueller Russia investigation. So we're devoting this entire how to an in-depth look, all things Russia for you.

We're learning that Democrats on the House judiciary committee have released questions that they want to ask -- ask the acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker. They want to know if Whitaker has ever been briefed on the Mueller investigation, and if so, whether he shared any of that information with President Trump or his lawyers.

And they plan to ask him those questions publicly when he appears before Congress on February 8th.

And there's this. CNN has learned that Robert Mueller is digging into President Trump's ties to the NRA. Remember, they spent over $30 million in support of Trump's candidacy. So why were they so invested in the Trump campaign? Sounds like Robert Mueller wants to know, too.

That as Rudy Giuliani's confusion tour just keeps rolling along. Shimon Prokupecz joins me. Good evening, everyone. Good evening to you, Shimon. What -- let's talk about Rudy Giuliani.

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Yes.

LEMON: Confusing everyone again claiming that there are tapes that prove Trump did not direct Michael Cohen to lie then immediately taking that comment back. What does the rest of team Trump think of that?

PROKUPECZ: Look, I think it's fair to say that most of the people close to the president, obviously, have some concern about the way Rudy Giuliani is doing things, but really, the client, that is the president, President Donald Trump, is pretty happy with what Rudy Giuliani is doing according to the people that we've talked to.

They say that he is the one person that the president right now, at least in the last 48 hours, is not mad at, given everything that's occurred, you would think some folks at the White House would have concern, but it seems that for now, they are pretty happy with him.

Certainly, the president is. Obviously, some people on the legal team are not always happy with the way Rudy Giuliani goes about messaging and how he says things and mixes things up. But certainly, there are people that are close to the president who thinks what he's doing is effective.

LEMON: What can you tell us about this letter from Democrats that I just mentioned, the ones in the House Judiciary Committee to the acting A.G. Matt Whitaker?

PROKUPECZ: Right, so this letter was sent today to the acting attorney general, Matthew Whitaker. He is going to, interestingly enough, testify before members of Congress the day after Michael Cohen is set to testify. Different committees, but nonetheless, he's going to be testifying the day after.

And they have a set of questions that they want answered about his relationship with the White House. They want to know what he has told the president about the different investigations that involve him, obviously, the Russian investigation. They also have questions about the Michael Cohen investigation and whether or not he's briefed the president about anything concerning that investigation.

LEMON: All right. Shimon, they're also interested in the Michael Cohen case in the Southern District of New York. What does that say to you?

PROKUPECZ: Yes, so certainly, like I said, they want to see if there's anything that Matthew Whitaker gave the president, any information. But the other thing is what they're asking here in this letter is that they want to know if the president, in this letter they write to him, to Matthew Whitaker, "Did the president contact you after he was identified as individual one in documents related to the criminal sentencing of Michael Cohen? What did he say? Did you take any action as a result of that conversation?"

Now, CNN has previously reported that there were conversations between Matthew Whitaker and the president. The president was not happy that the Southern District of New York named him in the court documents. He certainly voiced his displeasure towards Matthew Whitaker over what the Southern District of New York there did.

Obviously, it would be consequential. There could be arguments made that the president was trying to interfere in investigations and that is something certainly that members of Congress said that they want to ask Matthew Whitaker about.

LEMON: All right. Shimon Prokupecz, thank you so much.

PROKUPECZ: Yes.

LEMON: Joining me now is Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell of California who sits on the House Intelligence Committee. Good to see you, Congressman.

[23:05:01] REP. ERIC SWALWELL, (D) CALIFORNIA: Yes, you, too.

LEMON: Thank you so much. I need to know what your reaction to CNN's new reporting that Robert Mueller's team is digging into Trump's campaign ties to the NRA.

SWALWELL: Concerns that we had during our House Intelligence investigation, which was you're seeing, you know, Russians starting to go to the NRA, starting to make contributions there. If you step back and ask, well, what would the Russians have an interest in the NRA for? I think it makes sense.

Like, go to who the Republicans are beholden to. Right? The NRA has such great influence over them. We have evidence of Trump and Butina being in the same room. You know, Donald Trump, Jr., you know, meeting Alexander Torshin and others. You know, that allegation has been out there.

So, we just wanted to see if this was true, and go further and probe further and we're not able to every time we tried. Good news is, we can now look.

LEMON: So, you were on this program and other programs complaining last year that the Republicans who are in control at the time, that they were blocking investigations into the influence that the NRA may have had on the Trump campaign. Are you going to start investigating this now?

SWALWELL: Yes. Part of what we're going to do is fill in the gaps where the Republicans would not allow us to go last time. And so, we can actually, you know, subpoena records to find -- to follow the money.

And so, one issue that we are going to follow, and Chairman Schiff has been pretty clear about this, is whether the Russians were laundering money through the Trump organization so we can subpoena Deutsche Bank records, we can look at this tax returns once we get those and I think have a clearer picture of whether Donald Trump is financially compromised.

LEMON: I just want to show you the -- compare the Trump folks to previous Republican candidates because the NRA got behind Trump early despite his support for gun control, OK, including an assaults weapons ban. Remember that's what before. They ended up spending more than $30 million backing his campaign compared to Mitt Romney, they put $12.5 million toward his campaign in 2012. Red flags for you?

SWALWELL: Yes. So, the question is, were they doing that at the behest of Russian financing? And that's something that we should at least check out. I don't think we can make that conclusion right now, but I think there's evidence to keep looking.

LEMON: Yes. Can we talk about Rudy Giuliani?

SWALWELL: Man. LEMON: Rudy Giuliani says that Trump never directed Michael Cohen to

lie. He told the New Yorker that he reviewed tapes. He said tapes, texts and e-mails to confirm that. Then he immediately said, OK, there were no tapes. Why do Trump and Giuliani keep bringing up tapes?

SWALWELL: Because there were tapes. It's like why did Donald Trump say the election was going to be rigged before November 2016? Well, the election ended up being rigged. Why did he talk about voter fraud so much? Well, we saw in North Carolina, you know, there was election fraud.

So, sometimes it's like he knows of his own, you know, consciousness of guilt and so he's going to accuse someone else of doing that first. I think that we can't say that Rudy Giuliani is cleaning this up. He is just lying and when they get caught in a lie, they just change the story and they hope that by muddying this up, we all get confused and can't keep track of what's really going on.

LEMON: Do you think confusion is part of -- is part of his mission, maybe even his main mission here?

SWALWELL: Yes. It's a classic defense strategy, too, that I saw as a prosecutor which is if you get the jurors to wonder, you know, whether the, you know, sky is blue or if it's some other color, gray, red, you know, if you just get them to wonder, you don't need them to say that Donald Trump is innocent, but if you can't be conclusive about the evidence against him on collusion, on obstruction, then they may just say, well, it's, you know, tie goes to the runner.

LEMON: Did you see the Politico reporting? I just want to make sure, I want to read it properly, that Trump was apologetic after Giuliani said -- apoplectic, excuse me, after Giuliani said that the president was involved in Trump Tower Moscow talks through the end of 2016 campaign. Does that say anything to you?

SWALWELL: Yes. Again, that tells me what we've all suspected which this was ongoing longer than they had told us because, of course, first they said it ended in October-November of 2015. Then Cohen acknowledged it went much farther.

But as we suspected, and what we saw throughout the investigation that we had last year, was that, there were outreach -- there were efforts to connect with the Trump team throughout the campaign by the Russians and, Don, they never said no.

LEMON: Yes.

SWALWELL: They never said no.

LEMON: So, Michael Cohen --

SWALWELL: Yes.

LEMON: -- February 7th, right, is going to testify in front of the House oversight committee. Now, it has been said that he won't be able to testify or answer questions about things that are still ongoing or things that are still under investigation. What is he going to be able to say? What are you going to be able to question him?

SWALWELL: Yes. We want this to be a come clean, you know, interview, so that we understand, you know, why he lied, you know, what he did, what the president ordered him to do.

Now, Chairman Schiff is also seeking his testimony on the House intelligence committee which we hope happens and that we can learn about the Mueller investigation.

[23:09:52] But, Don, he is one of the few individuals who lives in all three of Donald Trump's worlds, lived in his personal world. Obviously, he was involved with payoffs. He lived in his professional world, did this deal with Trump Tower in Moscow, and lived in his political world. He was paying, you know, to rig polls.

So, he knows about all the shadiness in the Trump organization. It's time to come clean. Not only will that help us know what he did, but it also explain, I think, why others are protecting the president and lying about it today.

LEMON: OK. So, let's talk about the committee that you're on because the Chairman Schiff said that he expects to bring Cohen before your committee, closed-door session, right? So what kind of questions that you want Cohen to answer?

SWALWELL: yes. Well, first, let's go back through everything you told us, Mr. Cohen, you know, a year ago and tell us the truth now. So, give him an opportunity to give us the full truth.

But I think what would be most helpful for the American people to ultimately understand is what did Donald Trump know about the Russian efforts to help him? What did he know about the deals that were going on in Moscow and what did he know about the Trump Tower meeting?

Because, again, whether it was a crime or not, it's betrayal. If you know that a foreign adversary is attacking our democracy and they want to help you and you just keep inviting it and allowing them to do that, that's betrayal.

LEMON: This is going to be interesting.

SWALWELL: Yes.

LEMON: We thought 2018 was crazy. This is going to be crazy. Thank you, Congressman.

SWALWELL: Yes. Thanks, Don.

LEMON: Always a pleasure.

SWALWELL: Of course.

LEMON: I appreciate it.

The president's attorney inundating us with interviews, with walk backs, clarifications, leading to more questions, but is the confusion part of Rudy Giuliani's strategy?

[23:15:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Rudy Giuliani has been talking and talking and talking and talking for the last few days. Making claims one day that contradict what he said the day before.

On Sunday, he told CNN that President Trump was involved in conversations about the Trump Tower Moscow project through 2015 and 2016. Later that day, when speaking to the New York Times, he quoted President Trump as saying "the discussions were going on from the day I announced to the day I won."

The next morning, Giuliani released a statement saying that all his comments were hypothetical and not based on conversations he had with the president, which brings us to last night's interview in the New Yorker where he said that even if Trump had been having these Trump Tower Moscow conversations, they would not be criminal.

OK. There's a lot there. I know. But we're going to discuss it. Juliette Kayyem is here, Renato Mariotti, and Harry Litman. Good evening. It is a lot. So we'll go through it and hopefullym we can shed some light on what's going on if that's possible.

Juliette, Rudy Giuliani has been all over the place for the past two days.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes.

LEMON: Is he just winging it or could it be part of a larger strategy? I know I ask you the same question in different ways all the time, but what do you think?

KAYYEM: So I think, just taking the history of Giuliani, it's just worth remembering because a lot of people watching may be younger, just what a strange Giuliani this is, for those of us who, you know, were in the world of 9/11 and remember the role he played for the city and certainly the nation. This is a very different person.

I, in fact, teach Giuliani as a case for my crisis management class. And I'm sort of stuck this year. I don't quite know how to do it us because he's so different now. And I think now who is this Giuliani?

I actually think he's pretty wise. And I'm -- and the reason why is he's often right. I mean, he discloses things too early, discloses them quite casually in a conversation Fox, or something with CNN. But I think if you look back on both the Stormy Daniels case, and certainly the Russia investigation, he tends to be accurate.

So, I take him at his word. I'm reminded just, and I'm reminded what Trump's tweet was coming into this year, 2019, I often think about it, he said, remember he tweeted, just calm down, everyone, and enjoy the ride. I think that's what Giuliani is like, trying to get us to do, like, everything is illegal, we broke every law. Just calm down and enjoy the ride. And I that's -- I think that's their motto for 2019.

LEMON: Yes. Whenever someone ever tells you that, you get in a car, you're like, whoa, what?

KAYYEM: That is not --

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: What the hell does that mean, right? OK. Harry, Politico, right, reporting that Trump was apoplectic after Giuliani's weekend interviews where the White House aide told him this. "Handling Rudy's -- you can fill in the words f-ups -- takes more than one man."

But if the president is so unhappy, why is Rudy still talking? Doesn't he serve an important purpose for Trump, right?

HARRY LITMAN, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: Right. Well, you know, I actually have a lot of trouble seeing any method to him. I think he does basically wing it. It's terrible for Trump.

You know, as a defense attorney. I think Emmet Flood, a real lawyer on the case must, himself, be apoplectic because Giuliani is a serial, not just liar, but he waves what otherwise be confidential information and he sometimes makes admissions that will be attributed to Trump.

But far worse, he is for the spokesperson on the most pressing public issue of the day, he and Sarah Sanders, and so the American people are digesting a version that, Yes, I see Juliette's point, he eventually might come around to the accurate and accurate rendition, but it certainly doesn't seem to be a concern and there's on the contrary a genuine indifference, I think, to actually telling the truth to the American people.

So I think he's both toxic and just more a buffoon than not, but it's a sober situation all in all.

LEMON: OK. Renato, let's put up another -- the other Politico quote.

[23:19:57] Again, Rudy Giuliani says, "I do have a mastery of the facts." But then he goes on to say, "that's why I can spin them honestly, argue them several different ways."

If we had full command of the facts, why so many stories and why so many corrections?

RENATO MARIOTTI, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: You know, Don, I don't believe he is. I was -- I've been on the set with Rudy Giuliani when he was on CNN before. And I really got the impression he was winging in. You know, folks at home have to realize I'm now -- I'm a practicing lawyer at a law firm, and when lawyers in my firm go and prepare themselves for an argument in court or prepare themselves to speak to the media, they spend hours preparing. They'll have these outlines and notes and documents and binders with tabs in them.

I mean, Giuliani prepares less for these appearances than a lot of my associates prepare to argue a routine motion. I mean, he literally just making some of the stuff as he goes along.

And that mistake you highlighted earlier where he literally recounted a conversation that he had with Trump, where he said Trump told me, you know, that he was talking about Trump Tower in Moscow. That is just a classic waver of the attorney-client privilege. There are no good reasons to phrase things that way. So, I think there's so much --

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: No, that's hypothetical. That was hypothetical, remember, he came back and said it later. A quote is hypothetical.

MARIOTTI: Yes, he is -- I mean, that is just -- it's hard to even say that with a straight face, Don.

LEMON: Yes.

MARIOTTI: And I got to tell you, at times that he is trying to leak things in advance, I agree when he went on Hannity and said that, you know, that Trump had reimbursed Stormy Daniels -- or reimbursed Cohen for the Stormy Daniels payments, sure. But a lot of times he's just talking out of his butt, and I think really we should stop trying to pay so much attention to it because it's just -- it's silly.

LEMON: I was like, wait, did he just say that?

(CROSSTALK)

KAYYEM: I have to say --

LEMON: Go on, Juliette.

KAYYEM: I mean, my distinguished lawyers on the panel, I just disagree. I think Trump has not fired him. Trump knows the damage Giuliani, quote, unquote, "damage that Giuliani is doing." One has to assume that Trump wants this. And why does he want this? Either because the truth is going to come out, anyway, so just have him, you know, prepare us, grease the runway, do everything that Giuliani is doing.

And the second is when the stuff is going to hit the fan, so to speak, Giuliani will have been with Trump. Trump views Giuliani has an elder statesman, someone with ties to the FBI, someone with ties to the U.S. attorney's office in New York which is a relevant office. And he's holding him close.

I don't think Trump -- I don't think -- I Trump sees what you both are saying, and he's choosing to keep Giuliani. So, you have to ask yourself why. This is the strategy. It's not mistakes. This is the strategy.

LEMON: Yes. The media juggle, like, let's throw this out, see if this works, what about this, what about that? And in the meantime, watch the hand behind the back.

So, listen, Harry, let's talk about another interview. This one is in the New Yorker yesterday. Giuliani said "Even if Trump had a project in Moscow, there would be nothing wrong with it." Is that how you see it? LITMAN: Right. I think next, we'll learn that, the Trump Tower was

built and Putin is living in the penthouse.

The real risk here is, you know, he is blind to the fact in front of his face that, of course, when a candidate is out there advocating for a weakening of NATO, a weakening, if not evisceration, of the sanctions and at the same time he stands to make $300 million or more building the largest tower in Europe and the crown jewel in his empire, there's an obvious not just conflict, but a huge problem that the electorate really ought to know about.

And that's the, you know, leaving aside the crimes, that's the sort of sin, politically, that happened here, is people were denied really important information that would have gone directly to his qualifications for office.

LEMON: So, Renato, Juliette, Renato says he doesn't think that he prepares. Right? How much do you think, Juliette, that Giuliani and the president even speak?

KAYYEM: That's unclear to me, but I do -- I think Giuliani said that he has had conversations with him or maybe they talk through proxies, but I do know that Trump hasn't silenced him yet. And I think that is relevant at this stage.

I mean, Giuliani has gotten lots and lots of, you know, opportunities to be fired at this stage, and I think, you know, and so, I just have come to believe that is the strategy, that this is not Giuliani talking off the cuff.

I mean, he's not -- he's -- you know, he's unprepared in some ways because he's saying too much, but I do think that this is a way of trying to make us, to quote Donald Trump, "enjoy the ride." Right? It is just nothing matters. It's the Trump Tower, we stopped talking about it in January or June or September. Who cares?

[23:25:02] Why are you guys all so factual. Why do you care about all these little things? And it's, I think, look, what other defense strategy does the president have at this stage except for to simply say nothing matters?

LEMON: It's kind of like -- in the movie when someone takes a drug and you're like, I don't know if I should do this.

KAYYEM: Yes.

LEMON: Just --

KAYYEM: Just enjoy the ride.

LEMON: Renato, you know, another part of this New Yorker interview, Giuliani said that he listened to the tapes that contradicted BuzzFeed's reporting that there was evidence that the president told Cohen to lie. OK?

So, here's what Rudy says. He says, "I've been through all the tapes. I've been through all the texts. I've been through all the e-mails and I knew none existed." And then the interviewer follows up, "wait, what tapes? have you gone -- what tapes have you done through?" And then Rudy says, "I shouldn't have said tapes." "So, there were no tapes you listened to, though? No tapes." "Well, I have listened to tapes but none of them concern this."

So, right, look at the text. It's still confusing there. Was that an innocent slip of the tongue, you think, or is it possible there are actually tapes?

MARIOTTI: Well, I think there are tapes but they're related do something else. Now, we heard one tape already. I think did Chris Cuomo, was he the one who broke that, I think?

LEMON: Right, where they were talking. Right.

MARIOTTI: Yes, there may be more. You know, who the hell knows. I mean, maybe Cohen was taping Trump while he was -- while Trump was president. I wouldn't put anything past Cohen. I would just say this is an example what I was talking about.

I agree with Juliette that there's some strategy of distraction, sometimes Giuliani prepares, tries to prepare the base for what's to come. that sort of thing. Now we're down to, you know, he did collude, but it wasn't conspiracy to hack or whatever the latest line is.

But I will just say that some of this stuff is such a bizarre screwup, that I just think he does a bad job at it. I think the reality is Trump is, you know, can't find anybody really competent to spin his tale to the media so we're left with Rudy Giuliani.

I mean, the only person with a worst lawyer than Trump at this point is Jerome Corsi who is suing for a trillion, trillion-billiony (ph) dollars.

LEMON: Do you said a trillion, billiony (ph)?

MARIOTTI: Yes, something like that, right? I think didn't he correct it today? Instead of $1.4 trillion, billion now he's down to $1.4 billion. And when that's the correction you have to make, you know you're in very big trouble with your lawsuit.

LEMON: Yes. Harry, I caught that.

(CROSSTALK)

MARIOTTI: But I think (Inaudible) who's got the better lawyer.

LEMON: I caught that.

MARIOTTI: Yes, $1 million. Thank you.

LITMAN: Million dollars. I want to sound a quick agreement with both Juliette and Renato in a sense that strategy or not, it's certainly not true and we ought to really try our best to stop listening into this guy. LEMON: All right, Harry. Thank you, Harry. Thank you, Renato. Thank

you, Juliette. I appreciate your time.

KAYYEM: Good night.

LEMON: The president has told over 8,000 lies and mistruths during his first two years in office, that's according to the Washington Post. And a lot of those are about the Russia investigation. We're going to break them down, next.

[23:30:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: President Trump has made more than 8,000 false or misleading statements and claims since taking office a full two years ago. That's according to The Washington Post's fact checker's database. One frequent subject of his lies and misinformation, the Russia investigation, which he constantly slams and belittles. But as CNN's Tom Foreman shows us tonight, the facts don't support President Trump, what he's saying.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (voice over): It is one great hoax. This is a hoax. Witch hunt.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Among all the president's claims about the Russia probe, none has been so unwavering as the idea that it's a partisan plot to take him down.

TRUMP: It's a witch hunt. It's a disgrace.

FOREMAN (voice over): But the facts say otherwise. His assertion that Robert Mueller and his team are angry Democrats, not an ounce of proof, even though some contributed to Democrats in the past. Trump's notion that no one on his team did anything wrong, refuted by charges against and guilty pleas from five of his associates.

WILLIAM BARR, NOMINEE FOR ATTORNEY GENERAL: I don't believe Mr. Mueller would be involved in a witch hunt.

FOREMAN (voice over): Even his attorney general nominee is weighing in.

BARR: I believe the Russians interfered or attempted to interfere with the election, and I think we have to get to the bottom of it.

FOREMAN (voice over): Another claim, Trump had no business with Russia during the campaign.

TRUMP: I have nothing to do with Russia, folks. OK? I'll give you a written statement.

I know nothing about Russia. I know about Russia, but I know nothing about the inner workings of Russia. I don't deal there.

FOREMAN (voice over): His former attorney, Michael Cohen, heading to jail and cooperating with the Mueller investigation, says contrary to earlier denials, plans for a Trump Tower in Moscow were still in the works deep into the election.

RUDY GIULIANI, ATTORNEY FOR PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: He's telling the prosecutors what they want to hear.

FOREMAN (voice over): Though Trump's current attorney, Rudy Giuliani, continues to try and muddy the water.

GIULIANI: There's no business there.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: I don't deal there, is what the president said. He said, I don't deal there.

GIULIANI: I don't have any -- he doesn't.

FOREMAN (voice over): Another claim, Trump's team was not coordinating with Russians.

TRUMP: There's been no collusion. Absolutely no collusion.

FOREMAN (voice over): It's now known 16 Trump associates had contact with Russians during the campaign or transition including at that now infamous meeting in Trump Tower involving Donald Trump Jr., in which he had been promised dirt on Hillary Clinton. Proof of collusion, no, but communication, absolutely. And Trump has repeatedly said, maybe the Russians weren't even involved.

[23:35:00] He has raised doubts time and again about the whole idea that Russia interfered in the election, even standing next to the Russian president as he did so.

TRUMP: So I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOREMAN: But, of course, all the major U.S. intelligence agencies say the evidence points squarely and overwhelmingly at Russia. These are just a half dozen examples of how The Washington Post says the president hundreds of times either misstated, misled or flat-out lied about the Russia investigation. Don?

LEMON: Tom, thank you so much.

My next guest bluntly says the Republican Party is now the pro-Russia party. She'll explain why she thinks that, next.

[23:40:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: The president's fondness for Vladimir Putin well documented, but a Washington Post op-ed argues that the president's party has an appreciation for Russia, too.

Let's discuss now. Catherine Rampell, she is the author of that op-ed, by the way. Also joining us, Alice Stewart. Good evening to both of you. So I want to read a portion, Catherine, of your new op-ed in The Washington Post.

It says, "the grand old party has quietly become the pro-Russia party, and not only because the party's standard-bearer seems peculiarly enamored of President Vladimir Putin. Under Republican leadership, the United States is starting to look an awful lot like a failed Soviet system the party once stood unified against."

Wow, what did you mean by that?

CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, what I meant by that is that under Republican leadership, essentially the country is turning into many of the red baiting Soviet fever dreams that Republicans once held 30 years ago. Things like we have purges, we have people standing in literal red lines these days. We have televised cabinet flattery sessions. We have more advocacy for a centrally planned economy, industrial policy. I mean, that is what Trump is doing when he has these bailouts of coal plants.

So on so many things that we have historic -- we had historically, I should say, criticized the Soviet union for, you know, the most tyrannical impulses of an autocratic leader, we are giving in to those very same features within the United States.

LEMON: Interesting. Alice, I want you to weigh in. My question is, has the Republican Party abandoned its principles, democracy with checks on the president, law enforcement acting without fear or favor, free markets?

ALICE STEWART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No. And let me just start off by saying Catherine's piece is a very thought-provoking piece, but I take exception to the premise. Yes, I have a little heartburn over the president's close relationship and his opposition to speaking critical of Vladimir Putin, but I take exception with the fact that there's a strong correlation with the Republican Party and ties to anything that is remotely infatuated with the Soviet party, and she mentioned the Ayn Rand reference at the top of her piece.

Look, the Ayn Rand philosophy and why conservatives like her ideas and ideologies and liberals -- she's a boogieman to the liberals is because she supported individualism, she supported productivity, individual productivity and the need for that and how that helps an overall society.

And, look, her referring repeatedly in the piece to Donald Trump as an autocrat, any time there's a president who uses their presidential powers, the opposition party is always going to call them autocrat- like. Republicans did that to Barack Obama and liberals did that to George Bush. So that is an easy word to throw around but this is the president using his presidential powers to execute policies that he ran on and quite frankly he won on.

RAMPELL: Except I don't remember Barack Obama, for example, having these televised flattery sessions where he went around the room and expected the people around him to praise him. I don't remember President Obama referring to the members of the media as enemies of the people, which, again, was a thing that the Soviets did. I don't remember President Obama calling for purges of law enforcement, of the deep state, all of these things that we have seen in autocratic regimes.

If Trump is not a successful at many of these kinds of objectives, it's partly because we still technically live in a democracy. But basically, a number of the checks on his power including what is supposed to be a co-equal branch of government, Congress, has abdicated its responsibilities with the Senate refusing to stand up to him.

They don't want to criticize him when he attacks our freedom of the press. They don't want to criticize him when he attacks the independence of our federal law enforcement, when he suggests on live TV that the FBI should go after the family members of a former lawyer of his who he decides he is no longer on his good side.

So, you know, if, again, if he's not as successful at some of the things that other autocrats have also pursued, that still, I guess, reflects favorably on the fact that we still have a semi-functional democracy, but it's not because he espouses the values of Ayn Rand.

LEMON: Yeah. Go ahead.

STEWART: Look, I don't like to play whataboutism but you brought up several instances involving President Obama and you mentioned in your piece talking about this president picking winners and losers. I would venture to say that Solyndra was one of the winners that President Obama picked while he was president.

[23:45:04] RAMPELL: Yeah, that policy --

STEWART: We are certainly talking about his autocrat measure. He exercised -- I'm not finished yet. I'm not finished. President Obama also exercised his -- President Obama exercised his right to use executive authority on many occasions that many people thought was autocrat-like, but that is him using the presidential powers that he had every single right to do --

RAMPELL: No.

STEWART: -- and President Trump is doing the same thing.

RAMPELL: There is a huge world of difference. First of all, the Solyndra program that Republicans like to criticize actually made money. There was one failure which was Solyndra, which got a lot of attention, but the program overall made money.

Second of all, if you want to look at the kinds of industrial policies that this president has pursued, he is trying to have bailouts of coal plants. He's trying to shield the steel city from free markets, from technological change.

You know, he has gone above and beyond in terms of imposing thousands of tariffs on thousands of goods intended to shield, again, domestic industry from foreign competition. If that's not, you know, anti-free market, if that's not in fact autocratic in many of those cases when we're talking about tariffs, he's citing national security rationale, which, again, not something that you do in a free market.

LEMON: OK. I want to get back to the Russia. We have a short time left. I let you guys go because that was a very interesting conversation. You both made really good points. Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell spoke to The New York Times magazine, and this is what Paul Ryan said to the Times when he was asked if he and Mitch McConnell had a plan if Mueller was fired, if the president fired Mueller.

Yes, Ryan replied unhesitatingly. What was the plan? I asked. I'll just leave it at that, he said. Did we discuss it? Yes, we discussed it. Yes, we were prepared if that actually would have happened. A minute later, he added, I can answer that with a question, has the guy been fired? No, he is continuing on.

They had a plan, though. What does that tell you, Alice?

STEWART: Well, it tells you that's a smart thing to do. We don't know what's going to happen with the Mueller probe. We don't know how it's going to turn out and what the consequences of that will be. So I think it's important for them to have a plan one way or the other. We may come to find something very incriminating as a result of this Mueller investigation, or it may turn out to be nothing --

LEMON: OK.

STEWART: -- but it's smart for them to have a plan --

LEMON: All right.

STEWART: -- in preparation for what the outcome is.

LEMON: For the sake of time, I want to get the final word quickly.

RAMPELL: I'd love to know what this plan is because it kind of reminds me of the secret plan that Trump had to defeat ISIS or the secret plan that he had to replace Obamacare. I'm not going to believe this thing actually exists or they have the credibility to follow through on it unless we see what it is.

LEMON: All right. Thank you, both. I appreciate your time.

Accused U.S. spy Paul Whelan is being denied bail and his Russian state-appointed lawyer claims he was found with Russian state secrets on him. I'm going to ask the former chief of CIA Russian Operations, Steve Hall, what he thinks about all of this, next.

[23:50:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: So tonight, the news is not good for Paul Whelan. He is the American citizen under arrest in Russia accused of spying. At a pretrial hearing today, he was denied bail. His state-appointed lawyer says Whelan has -- was found with classified material when he was arrested. I want to talk about this now, about this case with Steve Hall. He is a retired chief of CIA Russian Operations. Steve, it's good to have you on. So Whelan, he's been given a thumb drive. He was given a thumb drive by a Russian citizen which he believes contained vacation photographs, not Russian state secrets, and he was arrested moments later. That's according to his lawyer. Do you think this was a setup? Was he set up?

STEVE HALL, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yeah, absolutely, Don. This is something that the Russians have done for years, for decades. There have been former American diplomats, there have been former American journalists, western, you know, newspaper and business folks who have been in Moscow who have been subjected to this type of thing.

So yeah, this happens all the time. And you're absolutely right in terms of your lead-in on this. Mr. Whelan is indeed in some serious trouble because when he gets out depends on none of those words that you were using like bail or judge or attorney because that's all just window dressing.

There's a reason why the phrase Potemkin village originated in Russia. All of those phrases are meant to make people like you and me think and the American people think that there's actually a valid system of justice in Russia. And there's not. He'll get out when Vladimir Putin wants him out.

LEMON: So, his family says, Whelan, his family says he was in Russia for a vacation. His attorney said that he believes his client is not politically motivated. Do you think this is related to the arrest of Maria Butina on spying charges here?

HALL: Yeah, if I had to belt, it's probably related to Butina. The thing is that part we don't know. We don't know exactly what it is Vladimir Putin and his buddies in the Kremlin are hoping for, hoping to get out of the United States in exchange for this hostage they've taken.

My guess is it probably is Butina because of the timing and because it makes sense that Putin would want to get Butina back sooner rather than later given the information that she has and given the possibility that Mueller and others might be interested in whatever information she might have with regard to her connections to the NRA and other conservative causes in this country. But yeah, my guess is probably Butina.

LEMON: Let's talk about the Russian model and self-declared sex coach, Anastasia Vashukevich.

[23:55:00] Has been freed from police custody in Moscow. Many experts including yourself thought that we might never see her again. I remember you saying them. We were saying that this woman, she looks like she's drugged and on and on, then taken away. Are you surprised that she is -- are you surprised by that? And is she still in danger?

HALL: If she's still in Russia, she's absolutely still in danger. Again, it's difficult to know what's at play here because, you know, again, there is no system there. It's not as though all of the sudden the vaunted Russian legal system has said oh, it turns out we don't need to hold her or there is no legal case against her.

This is Oleg Deripaska, the oligarch and the lieutenant of Vladimir Putin, who she was hanging out with. And is it possible that he weighed in and said OK, let's -- we've scared her enough, let's let her go.

LEMON: Her story has certainly changed. She said, I'm not going to do anything, I'm not going to expose anybody, put out any more pictures, I'm done.

HALL: Yeah. I usually don't feel badly for the type of people who go on Oleg Deripaska's yachts and hang out with him. But when I saw the change in her behavior when she saw what was facing her, yeah, it's quite a change and you can understand why. I would do the same thing if I were trying to save my own life.

If she's still in Russia, she's still in -- really even if she's in Belarus where she's originally from given the close connections between those two countries and their intelligence and police services, she could still be in trouble there, too. I don't think she's out of the woods yet, but we'll see.

LEMON: All right. Steve Hall, thank you. Appreciate your time.

HALL: Sure.

LEMON: And thanks for watching. Our coverage continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)