Return to Transcripts main page

Don Lemon Tonight

SDNY Subpoenaed Trump's Inaugural Committee; Trump Organization Using E-Verify; Trump Displays 'Willful Ignorance,' Disregards Intel Briefings and Analyses; President Trump Sought Loan From Deutsche Bank While Running For President. Aired 11-12a ET

Aired February 04, 2019 - 23:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:00:00] DON LEMON, CNN HOST: This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon.

We've got development in the Russia investigation to tell you about. And we're looking ahead at the State of the Union tomorrow.

We also have breaking news on the president, his inauguration and his business. President Trump's inaugural committee confirming in a statement tonight that federal prosecutors in New York have subpoenaed the committee for documents.

In addition, a source telling CNN the subpoena is wide-ranging seeking documents related to donors, vendors and committee finances. It is important to note that this action is coming from prosecutors in the Southern District of New York and not from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office. That's a sign that the New York investigation is heating up.

And we're learning tonight that the Trump Organization has fired at least 18 undocumented workers from its golf courses over the past two months. That is according to the Washington Post.

Much, much more to come on both of those big stories and news on Donald Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, he will be sentenced by a federal judge in Washington on March 13th, 13. This is in connection with his guilty pleas on charges of conspiracy and witness tampering.

A separate judge in Virginia will sentence Manafort at a later date for his conviction of eight financial crimes.

That as President Trump won't commit to releasing Mueller's report to the public when it is finally complete. He claims that decision is up to the attorney general.

But let's remember the president's pick for A.G. William Barr refused to commit to the releasing of the report when pressed by a top Democrat on the Senate judiciary committee.

Shimon Prokupecz is here with much more on all of this. Shimon, your job is cut out for you tonight.

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Yes.

LEMON: Good evening.

PROKUPECZ: Good evening.

LEMON: Federal prosecutors looking for these documents. What are they looking for?

PROKUPECZ: I think you're certainly right, Don. This looks like things certainly are heating up. This is certainly an escalation in terms of this investigation out of the Southern District of New York for prosecutors to get this kind of subpoena to go through this, certainly they would need to have wanted a lot of information.

And it appears when you look through this that this is what they want. They want almost everything that this inauguration committee has, documents, e-mails, text messages, what they are really looking for, they are wanting to see what foreign money, if any, went into the inauguration.

LEMON: So, what are the crimes then?

PROKUPECZ: Well, it's a straw donor. Straw donors used by foreign nationals to put money into the inauguration. It's illegal to ingest, to put in foreign money into a campaign, inauguration, so that would -- this is what it looks like they are looking at.

There are other things as well that they are looking at whether or not some of the money was misused but I think the foreign influence, whether or not foreign money went into this campaign by straw donors, people acting as U.S. citizens and that's how this money went in.

Someone I spoke to tonight reminded me that during the campaign a lot of people weren't donating because they didn't think he was going to win. But once he won, once the president won, once Donald Trump won everything changed. Everyone was trying to throw money at the inauguration hoping that they can catch up to what they missed,

So, this is certainly an indication, you know, we've said this so many times that the southern district is digging in. They have asked for so many records here. It's really stunning.

LEMON: It looks like this investigation is heating up, and maybe that, does that indicate that it may be nearing an end?

PROKUPECZ: Well, it could indicate that Mueller is nearing an end. Because we know that Mueller was looking at foreign money that have gone into the campaign or maybe the inauguration. This activity could suggest that the Mueller team working with SDNY has said you know what? You guys are now free to go ahead and pursue this. I'm done on my end and what I was looking at. I'm now leaving this for you. I'm giving this to you, start looking into this.

And that could be what this is. You know, I have said and I do believe this, and many of the folks here at CNN who have been covering this, is that there are parts of this investigation even when Mueller goes away that will live on because the Department of Justice is looking at so many different aspects. That really has come out of the Mueller investigation.

[23:05:03] So this is definitely something that, you know, in the Trump Organization and the inauguration certainly the Southern District of New York is digging in here.

LEMON: Thank you, happy birthday.

PROKUPECZ: Thank you.

LEMON: You don't look a day over 50.

PROKUPECZ: You're nice. Nice to be here.

LEMON: Happy birthday. I really mean that. You've been working really hard over the past couple years. I appreciate that, Shimon Prokupecz.

I want to bring in now Susan Glasser and Douglas Brinkley and Jack Quinn. Good evening to all of you.

The subpoena says, Jack, that the investigation pertains to conspiracy against U.S. mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering among other things. This is pretty serious stuff. Jack, can you hear me? Are you with me?

JACK QUINN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I'm with you.

LEMON: Did you hear my question in full?

QUINN: I did.

LEMON: I can repeat. OK. So, this is what the subpoena says that the investigation pertains to conspiracy against the U.S. mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, among other things. Pretty serious stuff.

QUINN: Yes, very serious stuff. Serious as it gets. And obviously, they are looking at whether they were foreign donations being made, that of course, is incredibly serious crime. Ties into the while Russia angle but may implicate other countries, as well, you know.

LEMON: Susan, the subpoena mentions false statements which seem to be a real problem with Trump associates, right?

SUSAN GLASSER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: You know, the sweeping nature of this means we actually are still sort of pounding the elephant blindly in the sense that we don't know is this Southern District of New York building a case around a particular kind of violation that they perceive in the inaugural committee? Is it a fishing expedition? Is a broad subpoena that seems like they're essentially hovering up all the records?

I think it's too early to tell so far but it does seem like a breathtaking kind of frontal assault, right, on the Trump Organization. And I'm struck tonight. Remember that you have key former officials from the Trump world who

are cooperating with prosecutors who may have already offered them significant information and a road map, if you will, to what they should be looking for when these documents come back. And I think that's very important, it's not the very beginning of this investigation but when that's already been going on a long time with cooperating witnesses like Michael Cohen.

LEMON: Yes.

QUINN: And Rick Gates.

LEMON: Yes. Interesting.

GLASSER: Yes, and Rick Gates, exactly, who was the head of the inauguration committee.

LEMON: Douglas, let me bring you in. Because yet another investigation into Trump world, this one, this is only going to add to the clout around the Trump presidency, no?

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: No question about it. We probably have a new buzz phrase, straw donors. I think we're going to be hearing that in the next few weeks. Trump's inaugural was a mess from the day he talked about, you know, it was a larger crowd size than Barack Obama and this idea of trying to do whatever he could to capitalize on winning.

You know, I think it was correct we just had on that nobody thought Donald Trump was going to win, maybe Russia thought they could get some benefits from having him as the nominee, you know, hammering away at Hillary Clinton.

But lo and behold, once Trump won naturally a lot of foreign actors were trying to buy influence in the Trump administration. If its proven that this happened at the inaugural, this is another massive serious headache for a president that, you know, is just having corrosion going on all around him.

LEMON: Jack Quinn, the former governor Chris Christie, former governor of New Jersey said last week that the SDNY posed a bigger threat to the president than Mueller. I've heard other folks say that. I'm not sure if you agree. Do you think the subpoena might prove him right?

QUINN: I think absolutely will prove him right. And I have a hunch, as I indicated earlier that this is going to be about countries in addition to Russia.

You know, Tom Barrack, I want to be careful here, I'm not accusing him of wrongdoing but his whole business empire has turned very significantly on his relationships with Gulf states and countries that these countries at that point in time were as eager as Russia or anyone else to curry favor with the Trump political people.

LEMON: Yes. Douglas, timing is everything, right? All of this is happening when the president is set to deliver the State of the Union address tomorrow, remember the one that was postponed. It's been very controversial. Him and Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats have been at odds. The president's legal troubles clout everything he's going to say tomorrow, do you think?

BRINKLEY: There are no questions about it. We may look back in the last moment where Donald Trump had a 40 percent approval rating. I mean, the rest of this year, the idea of a Mueller report coming out the Southern New York District continuing to be looking into Trump's potentially nefarious activities.

[23:10:01] He had -- you know, with the state -- you know, history remembers either phrases or moments. This will always be remembered as the great shutdown that the State of the Union got cancelled for weeks because of government shutdown and now here we are again. He has formed, Donald Trump.

And there is still a kind of veiled threat there will be a government shutdown again --

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: Douglas, sometimes his poll numbers, many times his poll numbers when you look at, you know, the economy, you know, they are still. They're low. They would be lower probably without the economy but his poll numbers can defy gravity sometimes.

BRINKLEY: Well, they -- that base does. But he went down during the shutdown, Don, about 37 percent in the approval. Now he's at 40. He usually gets a bump out of State of the Union of a couple points but now with these headlines coming on about the inauguration and, you know, Trump business and illegal workers and he just never can seem to get ahead of himself.

I don't know how he puts points on the board tomorrow night if you're looking to unify the country, so I think it will be another approach towards the base he might be saying we're going to talk with Democrats for a couple -- you know, maybe on immigration.

But he wants to try to sell us that there is another caravan coming to the border that this is a giant national security threat in order to still get that elusive wall in which he doesn't seem to be able to produce, although you said earlier correctly, Don, there is so much border wall already down there, he should claim it and move on to another issue at this point.

LEMON: I've been saying that. I'm saying it's his and I'm getting it done even though, you know, other administrations had already done it.

Hey, correct me if I'm wrong, he's always been -- I want to move to Susan. His poll numbers and his approval rating has always been under water. He's never been above 50 percent of the country, right?

BRINKLEY: Right now, Don, the only president in modern times that had -- as lower coming into this point in your presidency for State of the Union was Ronald Reagan -- LEMON: Yes.

BRINKLEY: -- in 1983 and that's the big hope for Trump. Reagan became a two-term president. If he could start finding something to galvanize the country, Reagan brought in veterans and got better at foreign policy, the economy got an uptick and Reagan pulled himself out of that. But Trump is just sort of stuck at that 40 percent mark. Reagan said he needed to be about 50 percent to govern well.

LEMON: Got it. Susan, to you now. This is what a White House official is telling CNN that the speech is bipartisan in tone. Is that a reflection of the fact the president is going into this state of the Union politically wounded?

GLASSER: Undoubtedly it is and frankly, that would have been the normal response to almost any president when faced with the rebuke of the midterm elections and losing one of the two Houses of Congress. You would have expected him to have already made this bipartisan play some time ago but instead, we spent January in a state of partial government shutdown and a sense of, you know, hopeless division in the country.

And I'm struck by the fact that we're about to have this State of the Union even if a few weeks late and these are basically irreconcilable alternates that you're shoving at us, right?

On one hand, he's going to be very bipartisan, they say, on the other hand, he's unyielding and unmoving on his wall and he may or may not soon declare a national emergency and essentially try to bypass Congress if he can't get what he wants.

These are not reconcilable. You cannot both be bipartisan and continue to pursue an immigration policy that says that there is a non-existent invasion in our self that justice a massive military deployment of U.S. troops inside our borders, billions of dollars additional spending and a wall.

Those are not --that is not a bipartisan approach. And you know, one interesting indicator, right, is that the speech is apparently being written by Steven Miller, the young aide who has been the architect of President Trump's hard line strategy who seemed to have had a strong hand in the famous American carnage inauguration speech, as well.

It's hard for me to imagine that whether there are boiler plate phrases in there seeking bipartisanship, whether Democrats are going to come out and see and hear a bipartisan overture that has any meaningful chance of leading to a sustained different course in our politics.

We know for better for worse where our politics are right now and they are the politics of division and partisanship and discord.

LEMON: That's a good point. Hey, Jack, just a quick answer, if you can, given to what she said, he's going into the speaker of the house, it's bad for the country, we have to get the wall, I'm going to declare an emergency, if I don't what they bring me, if it doesn't include the wall, there is not -- I mean --

QUINN: Look. At this point in Bill Clinton's presidency, I was there. His reelect number right now going into the second term was 39 percent. So, he was well under water as well.

[23:15:03] And he made a decision to reset, and he reset essentially by moving toward the opposition, the Gingrich crowd, working with them, claiming -- essentially stealing victories that mimicked some of the policies that they were espousing.

LEMON: Yes.

QUINN: The question here is will Donald Trump see the need to do a reset now? Will he say to Nancy Pelosi tomorrow night the American people want us to work together to collaborate to cooperate and to get things done for them or will he instead throw down the gauntlet once again?

LEMON: You're asking -- you're asking this current president to take a page from a Clinton --

(CROSSTALK)

QUINN: I think for the next 24 --

LEMON: Good luck to that.

QUINN: For the next 24 hours, that to me is the question. He has an opportunity now to reset. I suspect that he'll follow Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh and not do what Bill Clinton would do in this circumstance.

LEMON: Well, you get what you get. Thank you both. I appreciate it. Thank you, all, I should say. I appreciate it.

Our big breaking news tonight, the Trump Organization has fired at least 18 undocumented workers from five golf courses over the past two months that while the president is ranting about immigration and his border wall.

Congressman Ted Lieu is here and we're going to talk about all of it.

[23:20:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: More breaking news tonight related to the president and his business. The Washington Post reporting that the Trump Organization has been fired undocumented workers from its golf courses in New York and New Jersey in the New York and New Jersey area.

Let discuss now. Congressman Ted Lieu is here. He's a Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee and Foreign Affairs Committees. Good evening, sir. So glad to have you on. Let's start with the big braking --

(CROSSTALK)

REP. TED LIEU, (D) CALIFORNIA: Thank you, Don.

LEMON: Absolutely. Let start with the big breaking news stories, OK. I want to ask about the report in the Washington Post that the Trump companies have fired 18 different undocumented workers at five different golf courses over the last two months. This, of course, while the president is claiming zero tolerance at the border trying to build a wall.

LIEU: It is unfortunate that the Trump Organization fired these 18 workers. They relied on them to generate a profit. There is no evidence they were bad workers, and what we see as politics getting in the way and it's really harming the livelihoods of these 18 people.

In addition, it's difficult for Congress to deal with this president when he doesn't rely on the same facts everybody else does. So, if you look at basic facts, we know that border crossings are at a 20 to 45- year low. Violent and property crime were down across the United States, and immigrants both documented and undocumented commit less crime than native born Americans.

LEMON: Yes. I don't think you could keep them on. Do you think he should have kept them on and once it came out there and employing undocumented workers?

LIEU: I think it would have been politically impossible for him to do that. But it does show that his organization was relying on people who were helping him generate profit. There is no evidence they weren't doing a good job.

LEMON: Yes. In a statemen released within the last hour the Trump Organization says that they will be instituting the E-Verify system moving forward. But I want you to listen to this. This is from the 2016 campaign.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What are we going to do about illegal hiring? Because the Republicans join the Democrats who said in that bill a couple of years ago we're going to stop illegal hiring because that's the mandate.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We can do that with E- Verify and with the --

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you for it?

TRUMP: I'm for it. I use it. You know, I'm using E-Verify on just about every job at Doral I'm using it. But I'm using it on building the old post office on Pennsylvania Avenue that I'm building into--

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a good job.

TRUMP: -- what will soon be a phenomenal hotel.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But isn't --

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: And I'm using E-Verify.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Clearly, they weren't using E-Verify, even though the president said that they were. Why do you think that is?

LIEU: Again, this is all politics. The president, but right now, we've got over 10 million undocumented people in the United States, and what we need is a pathway to citizenship so that these 18 people at the Trump Organization can continue working at their jobs without fear of being fired because if you don't have 10, 11 people working, then you've got even larger problem.

And so what we need is a pathway to citizenship, put everyone to work and that will both grow the economy and also be right thing to do.

LEMON: The president's inaugural committee has been subpoenaed by federal prosecutors and they are looking into allegations of conspiracy against the U.S., false statements, mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, inaugural committee disclosures, violations and laws prohibiting contributions by foreign nations and contributions. Wow. In the name of --

LIEU: Yes.

LEMON: -- contributions in the name of another person. I want to make sure we got that in there. That's a lot. What's your reaction?

LIEU: I have two reactions. The first is it sure does look like everything Donald Trump touches becomes tainted with corruption.

And second, this is an independent investigation run separately from special counsel Mueller's office out of their Southern District of New York. These are seasoned prosecutors. They will look at whether federal crimes were committed and want to see how the investigation goes.

I'm on the House Judiciary Committee, and we're also going to be conducting our own investigations to see what the president may or may have not known related to a whole bunch of possible activities. We're certainly going to be looking at this in the future, as well.

LEMON: Yes. The president spoke with CBS yesterday. This is what he told them about the possibility of being impeached. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The only way they can win, because they can't win the election, is to bring out the artificial way of impeachment and the problem is you can't impeach somebody for doing the best job of any president in the history of our country for the first two years.

This is supposed to be high crimes and misdemeanors. Well, there was no high crime. There was no misdemeanor. There was no problem whatsoever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[23:24:57] LEMON: So, he seemed to be saying that he couldn't be impeached because he's doing such a good job. But a new CNN poll found that only 40 percent of the country approves of the job that he's doing.

Still, you know, popularity or the lack thereof is not and never has been the standard for impeachment. Correct?

LIEU: That's correct. Impeachment is not about winning or losing the election. It's about whether or not the president of the United States committed federal crimes and what to do about it if he in fact did that.

So, in the House committee, we're going to hold hearings this year to look at that record. We don't have a record right now. What we have are different newspaper articles. We got statements made on television.

We need to have witnesses come under oath and give testimony and we're going to subpoena documents and at the end of all that, there will be a record for the American people to see and then we can make a decision as to what to do from there.

LEMON: He also told CBS that he's going to leaving the decision to publicly release the special counsel's final report to the attorney general, which is likely to be his nominee William Barr. Is he setting a bar to take the heat if Mueller's report is never released to the public?

LIEU: It is highly disturbing that Mr. Barr seems to think that he doesn't have to release the Mueller report. I don't see how politically that's possible. This is probably going to be one of the most important documents in U.S. history. And for the American people to not see it would simply be untenable.

In addition, Democrats in Congress do have subpoena power. We could also subpoena different people involved with the special counsel office to come in and talk. So, there are different ways to get this information out. The best way is to simply have special counsel Mueller's report made public.

LEMON: Thank you, Congressman Lieu. Always appreciate it.

LIEU: Thank you, Don.

LEMON: Senior intelligence officials are speaking out to Time magazine warning that the president ignores the facts they give him during intel briefings and his quote, "willful ignorance has them worried about American security." The reporter who broke the story joins me next.

[23:30:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: The country's senior intelligence officials are reportedly worried that the president -- President Trump is endangering our national security with his disregard of briefings by the Intel Community.

One official is telling Time magazine that the president displays a 'willful ignorance' of the information presented to him. That article was written by John Walcott, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, and he joins me now.

John, good evening to you.

JOHN WALCOTT, ADJUNCT PROFESSOR, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN SERVICE: Good evening. Good to be here.

LEMON: Absolutely. You spoke to analysts who have compiled the briefs and officials who have briefed the president, and they are citing multiple in person episodes they are concerned about. It is a very select group of officials with this access. So tell us more about why they are so worried.

WALCOTT: Well, I think, Don, the worst fear they have is that the administration will get hit out of nowhere with a major national security incident, something like a cyberattack on the financial system or the electric grid. And the president has simply done nothing in two years to prepare himself for that kind of eventuality, figure out who did it and how to respond to it.

LEMON: You reported that the president sometimes reacts in anger -- with anger to his intelligence briefings. So officials are getting warned before the briefings. Talk about that.

WALCOTT: Well, I think we've all seen examples where the president doesn't like what he hears. We saw one as recently as last week when the top intelligence officers in the country took issue with his view of a number of things, never mentioned among other things the need for a wall on the southern border, and his response was to say that they need to go back to school. And privately, an official told me, you know, he is the one who needs to go to school.

LEMON: Yeah. Is that normal -- is it normal for a president to react in anger or just absorb the information and try to work with it?

WALCOTT: Well, nobody likes to be told things that essentially say no, you're wrong and here's how it is. That's true in business. It's true everywhere.

LEMON: Right.

WALCOTT: But the difference here, I think, Don, is that number one, he doesn't digest that information and have any second thoughts about his initial opinions. And two, he's starting from a very low base of knowledge. He has never really gotten involved in foreign affairs or national security policy or military policy. So he's starting from nothing. And after two years, the folks who try to brief him have not seen much of a learning curve.

LEMON: You also write about tricks that briefers used to keep the president's attention. Things like repeating his name as frequently as possible. What else?

WALCOTT: Well, number one, they bring visual aids. That's the story -- the Time magazine story about bringing miniature mockup of the North Korean nuclear test facility and putting a miniature Statue of Liberty inside it to help him grasp the size and the complexity of that complex.

In other occasions, they bring maps, they bring photographs, and they bring all sorts of things to try to help him concentrate. There is one case where in the middle of a briefing on a fairly important subject, he started looking for a shoot catalogue.

[23:35:02] It's very hard to keep his attention. The other trick they use that he seems to respond to is to say Mr. Trump, Mr. President as frequently as possible, every other sentence.

LEMON: Yeah. You know, we're also reacting to this Axios report that shows 60 percent of the president's schedule is listed as executive time. Do the officials you spoke with have concerns about the frequency or infrequency of the intelligence briefings?

WALCOTT: That's a great question, Don. The answer is a simple yes. In fact, he's spending less time being briefed now than he was at the beginning of his administration. A lot of briefings were taken by John Bolton, the national security advisor, some by Mike Pence, the vice president, rather than by the president himself.

The other big difference, I think, is that he doesn't read the briefings. Barack Obama, for example, who also started from a fairly low base of understanding of these kinds of issues although he had been on the Senate Armed Services Committee, would take home enormous briefing books in the evening and read them. There is no evidence that this president does anything like that.

LEMON: Wow. John Walcott, thank you for your time.

WALCOTT: Pleasure.

LEMON: Fascinating article. Thank you so much. Just how dangerous is the president's disregard for briefings from his own intelligence agencies? I'm going to ask two CIA operatives what they think.

[23:40:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: America's top intelligence officials increasingly concerned that President Trump is willfully ignoring information and analysis presented to him in the briefings. That is according to Time magazine.

I want to discuss now. Steve Hall is here. He is a retired chief of CIA Russian operations, and Bob Baer, a former CIA operative. It's so good to have both of you on this evening to discuss this.

Bob, you first. Intelligence officials are being warned to avoid giving the president intelligence assessments that contradict stances the president has taken in public. What are the risks if intelligence briefers stop laying out the facts for this president as one former intelligence official warns could happen?

ROBERT BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY ANALYST: Don, it's enormous. It's like, you know, attacks coming on Pearl Harbor and you're afraid to tell the president because he happens to like the Japanese emperor. You know, we're going to get blindsided. It is just a miracle. I think there hasn't been a war so far.

I mean, this guy does not like facts. He doesn't like the Intelligence Community. He doesn't like the FBI. As far as I can see, he gets his intelligence from his buddies on the phone or from Kim Jong-un, or you know, Vladimir Putin. I mean, I think it's very dangerous. I think we're in a really, really dangerous position.

LEMON: Steve, is the president's disregard for these intelligence assessments more proof the president would rather operate in a fact- free environment that is politically expedient instead of dealing with the, you know, on the ground realities?

STEVE HALL, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I think that's a good way to put it, Don. I think this president seems to be confused by facts, intelligence and policy. I mean, the Intelligence Community's responsibility is to, you know, collect information, analyze it, and then send those facts to the president.

That's why they do it. That's why most of the signup because you want to have an impact on the most senior level of policy making in this country. But policy is completely different from intelligence. Policy can have things to do with, you know, what the political -- domestic political reaction is going to be to a foreign policy decision the president makes. It could have to do with how much money is in the treasury especially if military is involved.

So, you know, again, to quote or to allude to a famous quote, the president is indeed entitled to his own foreign policy. He is not entitled to his own facts. And as Bob alludes to, who knows where he is getting those facts from if not from his own Intelligence Community?

LEMON: I'm glad you said that because if you think about -- this is a -- you know, Bob, this is a president who believes in conspiracy theories, right? And even the FBI wanted to --reportedly wanted to investigate him as a Russian agent. I mean, that's got to be concerning to the Intel Community and the people who are giving the briefings.

BAER: Well, Steve knows better than I. I would be very reluctant to give him sensitive reporting on Russia, this president. You simply wouldn't know where he would go with it. If you had an asset inside the Kremlin, for instance, telling you the Kremlin secrets, I would be very reluctant to tell this president.

We know from The Washington Post that a lot of the Russian stuff is put into footnotes because they know Trump will never get to those. And so you have pretty much -- I think the vice president is getting the sensitive briefings but not Trump.

LEMON: Steve, go on.

HALL: You know, what Bob is just referring to and what I think your previous guest, John, was talking about, we're in a really, really dangerous and bad place if intelligence briefers that the PDB, the President's Daily Briefers, the senior most analysts that go in to brief him on the part of the Intelligence Community, feel like they can't speak truth, feel like they have to edit themselves.

You know, everybody has had a situation where you go to your boss or to whoever and you know you have to give him bad news. But it's a really bad situation if you feel you can't give them that bad news.

In this situation, when we're talking about U.S. national security and the -- if we're even contemplating the idea that senior intelligence officers don't feel like they can trust their own president, don't feel like they can give him the straight scoop because he's going to get angry with them, that's -- not only is it infantile, but it's extremely dangerous to our country's well-being.

[23:45:06] LEMON: You know, Bob, we've been talking a lot about executive time. But is it -- is there another way to look at this? NATO secretary general credits the president for $100 billion -- a $100-billion boost in defense spending, and the U.S. and South Korea have reached a preliminary deal with South Korea, boosts its contribution to nearly $1 billion to keep 30,000 U.S. troops there.

He's getting countries to contribute more, according to him, according to the secretary general. Is the president unorthodox approach working?

BAER: No, because they are terrified of him. NATO is terrified that he is going to pull out. The South Koreans are. And he's essentially blackmailing them for a little bit of extra money. But the last thing you want to do at this point is terrify your allies. We need them. We need NATO. We need the South Koreans. They simply don't know what he is going to do.

He could pull our troops out of South Korea and the North would be in Seoul within hours. I mean, people are truly worried about this guy and they are worried about his allegiance to Vladimir Putin and others autocrats around the world. They are very, very worried.

LEMON: Well, listen, Steve, to that point -- Bob, I want to get your -- take a look because on one hand, as you said, he's getting other countries to contribute and cough up more money, right, in defense spending.

But on the other hand, he is pulling the U.S. out of places saying they shouldn't be the world -- we shouldn't be the world's policemen. And maybe he's doing more damage to these institutions like NATO in the process.

HALL: You know, even a cursory review of the history which, you know, from all reports this president is reluctant to do, you know, takes you back to pre-World War II times, even pre-World War I times when there was a lot of isolationism, there was a lot of populism, there was a lot of nationalism.

I think Rand Paul said something very similar to that today where he said hey, I'm really worried about fighting foreign wars and let's focus on the United States of America. I mean, we have to understand that the interests of the United States of America are best protected by force projection rather.

You got to get out there -- you got to have those alliances like NATO. You have to have those tight regional alliances that help you not only predict but project your power against those who are against the United States of America, Russia, China, North Korea, places like that.

Unless you do that, it doesn't do you any good at all, to just sit behind shutters in the United States of America. Donald Trump apparently -- nobody briefed him on that apparently.

LEMON: Your information, you have been informative and frightening at the same time, both of you. Thank you very much. We'll be right back.

BAER: Sure.

[23:50:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: "The New York Times" reports that while then-candidate Donald Trump was lending millions of dollars to his presidential campaign, he was trying to get a loan from Deutsche Bank, presumably for work on the Trump golf course in Scotland. The bank turned him down.

I want to bring in now David Cay Johnston. He is the author of "It's Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration is Doing to America."

You've been writing and reporting on this man and his family for quite a while. I want to ask you about this. What this Times report tell you about Trump's finances?

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON, AUTHOR: Well, Donald is always desperately in need of cash. You know, during the campaign, he told people he was worth more than $10 billion. But when he took office, his financial statement just shows $1.4 billion, so almost 90 percent of his claim net worth just disappeared. And even then, he placed a ridiculously high value on a number of his assets.

Don, there is not now and there never has been a scintilla of verifiable evidence that Donald Trump is or ever was a billionaire. Because he's always in need of cash, because he runs through it like crazy, he's -- I have no doubt he was in need of cash during that campaign. And Deutsche Bank, which has been the preferred bank for Russian oligarch money laundering and all sorts of illicit activities, has been the one bank that would loan Donald money, and they went, no, we're not going to do it this time.

LEMON: This is what the Times is reporting, David, that Deutsche Bank was concerned they would be in a bind, if you will, if Trump won the election and then defaulted. Were they right to be concerned about that? Not that he would win, but risk.

JOHNSTON: Oh, yeah. Yeah. How are they going to go collect against him for this? They were also worried about risk to their reputation, although it's a pretty damaged reputation because they have laundered so much money for Russians and they've been fined so much. I think it is over $20 billion in fines for wrongful conduct in the United States, Germany and Cyprus, that you sort of wonder, why hasn't its license to exist as a bank been taken away?

LEMON: Yeah. I just want to get -- this is the response to The New York Times. A Trump Organization spokesperson, Amanda Miller, denied the company had needed outside funding for Turnberry. This story -- she said, "This story is absolutely false. At no time was any money needed to finance the purchase of the refurbishment of Trump Turnberry." What do you think of that?

JOHNSTON: Well, Donald has a huge internal loan for the Turnberry property. And the Turnberry property has been a huge money loser for him. He claims it's worth $200 million. Would you pay $200 million for a property that's been losing well over $10 million a year for several years in a row?

[23:54:54] And so, we don't know where that internal loan leads back to, and unfortunately, the federal election disclosure form which Donald himself said, quote, "is not designed for a man of Mr. Trump's great wealth," end quote, would not require him to fully disclose the source of any loans that are behind his loan to himself if he organized them as partnerships or in various other ways.

So, this all goes to Donald's money is a house of cards. He has a lot of cash flow and he runs through that money like mad, but he is not a wealth builder which is what business people are. They build up wealth, not Donald.

LEMON: As they say, his burn rate is high, right?

JOHNSTON: Yes.

LEMON: David Cay Johnston, always a pleasure. Thank you.

JOHNSTON: Thank you.

LEMON: And thank you for watching. Our coverage continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)