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Don Lemon Tonight

Trump Doesn't Need To Get Congress' Approval On Iran; "New York Post" Article Deleted; Pirro Pummeled Sessions After He Blocked DOJ Gig; America's Ultra Rich Have A Message For 2020 Candidates; President Trump Delays Immigration Raids 'At the Request Of Democrats'; Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) Is Interviewed About Immigration Raids, Southern Border, And Impeachment; Meet CNN Hero, "Paul The Cat Guy." Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired June 24, 2019 - 23:00   ET

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

[23:00:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon.

President Trump insisting tonight that if he decides to launch a military strike against Iran, he does not need approval from Congress. Listen to what he told Hill TV.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I like the idea of keeping Congress abreast, but I wouldn't have to do that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sure. Nancy Pelosi actually said you must have congressional approval. So, you disagree with her on that?

TRUMP: I disagree. I think most people seem to disagree, but I do like keeping them -- they have ideas, they're intelligent people. They'll come up with some thoughts. I actually learned a couple of things the other day when we had our meeting with Congress which were, I think, helpful to me. I do like keeping them abreast, but I don't have to do it legally.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Well, earlier today, the president signed an executive order imposing new sanctions on Iran's supreme leader and others in the Iranian regime in retaliation for Iran shooting down an American drone in the Strait of Hormuz last week.

A lot to talk about. Mr. Fareed Zakaria is here, the host of CNN's "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS."

Always a pleasure. Good to have you on.

So, the president announcing today what he calls hard-hitting sanctions against Iran's supreme leader and his associate. It comes after he halted that military strike. Did he do the right thing?

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST: Look, he halted the military strike because he said he didn't want 150 people to die. He seems to have been surprised to learn that military strikes actually involve killing people, that people die.

The sanctions that are in place in Iran probably -- I haven't done the calculations, but I think it's fair to say almost certainly will kill several hundred, maybe thousands of people over the next few months in terms of depriving people of medical supplies, food, nutrition.

And when you do a military strike, the people you are killing will tend to be Iranian soldiers, military officers who are, you know, volunteering to take part in Iran's military struggle. The people you kill when you impose sanctions are the most vulnerable people in society. These are the poorest people, the sickest people.

So, if that's his concern, he seems almost gleeful about the idea of imposing more and more sanctions on Iran. Has he thought about the human cost of this? I don't think so.

LEMON: But has he thought -- has he thought it through because I mean, what you, he has advisers, one would hope, that would tell him -- that are advising him as to what you said as well.

ZAKARIA: I don't know, Don, because I mean so much of the policy in general coming out of the Trump White House feels like a kind of weird, impulse-driven policy. On Iran it seems it's a combination of ideology and impulse, and it's almost unthought through.

So, you have this bizarre situation which I can remember no president in recent modern American history. The president of the United States, the White House formally announces sanctions against the leader of the state they almost went to war with last week, and they announce them against Ayatollah Khamenei, who is the man who died leading Iran 30 years ago. They get the name wrong.

I mean, if Saturday Night Live were to do a skit about this, we would say it was taking it a step too far, right? And so, when you see things like that, it must make the rest of the world think, are there any grown-ups in the White House? Is there a proofreader? Is there a copy editor in the White House who is actually looking over this stuff and saying, no, it's Khamenei. Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic republic died, you know, a long time ago.

LEMON: Also tonight, Axios revealed nearly 100 internal Trump transition vetting documents, Fareed. One was red flag was General David Petraeus who was under consideration for secretary of state and national security adviser.

Petraeus is opposed to torture is what it says. What does it say about the Trump administration that that is a red flag?

[23:05:01] ZAKARIA: Well, to be fair to them, it's not clear what those documents were being used for. Apparently, they were briefing Trump on the people he might meet and making him aware of all the negative things that said about him. And frankly, it speaks well of Trump if he was willing to meet people who disagreed with him on things. The bigger issue to me, it reminds one is, that Trump repeatedly came

out in favor of torture even though he knew that the senior most military leaders in the country from Petraeus to people like Colin Powell, to people like John McCain who had served in combat, were all telling him it doesn't work. It's un-American. It betrays our principles. So why would you persist in it?

To me, that's always been the real scandal. The fact that, you know, it was flagged to him that Petraeus disagreed with him and he still met with him, fine. That's actually -- it's going to meet with the people you disagree with. But what it never seemed to do is make him think, wait, David Petraeus knows a hell of a lot more about this subject than I do. Maybe I should rethink my position.

LEMON: Yes.

ZAKARIA: He still to this day has never renounced that view that the United States military should engage in torture. Just think about that, in violation of Geneva Convention. We have a president who actively asserts and endorses that view.

LEMON: Let's talk about more vetting documents here because Kris Kobach is a former Kansas secretary of state vetting document had a whole section on white supremacy.

Here's what it says. It says "Past political opponents have accused Kobach of allying himself with groups that had connections to white supremacist groups."

He was recently considered for an immigration post -- immigration czar post. So, you know, potential ties with white supremacy aren't a deal breaker for the administration? Is that what you're reading from here or am I reading that wrong?

ZAKARIA: Look, this is a dark history of the Republican Party for a long time. Let's be honest. Ever since Richard Nixon and the southern strategy, there has been a wink-wink strategy toward people whom the Republican party Knew were in fact avowed racists, in some cases extreme racists, and in some cases, whether you call them white nationalists, white supremacists.

And what had happened over the last 20 years is that the party had really been moving very clearly away from that. And I think you have to give the Bushes, father and son, for some movement away even though in his election, George Bush the elder used some of those same tropes, the Willie Horton stuff. But there had been a move away.

What Trump represents is a kind of return to a very dark history of using race and white supremacy and using people who are really quite extreme in their views and encouraging them and, you know, finding a home for them.

The Charlottesville comments obviously are all part of -- you know, part of this process. And, you know, this is what sometimes worries me when Trump keeps saying he doesn't like political correctness. OK. We all agree political correctness -- LEMON: Right.

ZAKARIA: -- has gone kind of too far in many ways. But some of it was teaching people that it was actually not OK to be avowedly and explicitly racist.

LEMON: Yes. You are correct with that. I want to get you to weigh in on Vice President Pence's exchange with Jake Tapper. This is about climate crisis, OK? Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Do you think it's a threat, manmade climate emergency is a threat?

MICHAEL PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I think the answer to that is going to be based upon the science.

TAPPER: Well, the science says yes.

PENCE: No.

TAPPER: I'm asking you what you think.

PENCE: There's many in the science that --

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: The science community in your own administration at NOAA --

PENCE: I got --

TAPPER: -- at the DNI, they all say it's a threat.

PENCE: I get it. Look --

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: But you won't for some reason.

PENCE: What we've said is that we are not going to raise utility rates. Remember what President Obama said?

TAPPER: That is not a threat.

PENCE: He had his climate change plan. He said it's necessarily going to cause utility rates to skyrocket. And that would force us into these green technologies. Now you got Democrats all running for president that are running on a Green New Deal that would break this economy.

TAPPER: OK. So, you don't think it's a threat is all I'm saying? You don't think it's a threat?

PENCE: I think we're making great progress reducing carbon emissions. America has the cleanest air and water in the world. We'll continue to use moderate forces --

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: That's not true. We don't have the cleanest air and water in the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Why is the vice president of the United States incapable of saying that climate crisis is a threat?

ZAKARIA: Well, because again it signals to a certain group of people. It signals a certain kind of attitude. So much of this has now become a sort of almost tribal, you know, you're sort of trying to say things to your -- but, you know, he said something there which was it's important to point out just how demonstrably untrue this is.

[23:10:01] So we have this from the last couple of weeks, a new article in Nature, the largest study of 19,000 glaciers around the world. They are now -- the studies now say -- this is in Nature magazine. Average glacier melting is happening 18 percent faster than previously estimated, five times faster than in the 1960s.

Collectively this represents a loss of 369 billion tons of snow and water every year. This is from last week. And what I don't understand is Mike Pence doesn't need to look at the science. He just needs to look out of his window. Every day you are seeing 25 states have hurricane and tornado watches.

You have glaciers melting five, six times faster than they were 30 or 40 years ago. Every day you get one more example of weird weather, which is all related to this manmade -- or man-induced climate change.

You know, what I worry about is we are getting to the point where, you know, we may be past a point of no return, where we may not be able to seriously address this. And at that moment, to have the nonsense that is being talked about, for example, in that interview, he talked about clean coal as this miraculous technology. It's not. Clean coal is an oxymoron. It doesn't really exist.

LEMON: Yes. Thank you, Fareed. I appreciate it. Be sure you tune in to "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS" Sundays at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.

President Trump tonight denying the sexual assault allegations from writer E. Jean Carroll saying, quote, "she's not my type." Her response is next.

[23:15:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: President Trump responding tonight to E. Jean Carroll, the writer who accuses him of sexually assaulting her in the mid-90s saying she's not my type. It never happened.

Let's discuss now. Midwin Charles is here, Olivia Nuzzi, as well as Alice Stewart. Hello.

Thank you. I appreciate all of you joining us.

Alice, I'm going to start with you. President Trump spoke with the Hill earlier today where he vehemently denied these allegations. But here's what he said. He said, "I'll say it with great respect. Number one, she's not my type. Number two, it never happened. It never happened, OK? Totally lying. I don't know anything about her. I know nothing about this woman. I know nothing about her. She is -- it is just a terrible thing that people can make statements like this."

OK. So, what do you think? Should number one be "I didn't do it?"

ALICE STEWART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Absolutely. It should be unequivocal, without a doubt this didn't happen and you know, I regret the pain she's going through. But, Don, --

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: Instead of saying she's not my type is what I meant by that.

STEWART: Well, the problem is that kind of behavior be OK if she was his type? No, it wouldn't be. But this is standard Donald Trump response to these kinds of allegations. He does the same thing. He denies it. He denigrates the women, and he doubles down.

And by him saying that she's not his type, that is denigrating to her. It's disrespectful and certainly doesn't address the issue at hand. And she has, in my view, a very credible allegation, a very serious -- probably one of the most serious that we've had to come out against this president.

And I think her credibility far outweighs his because first of all, he has no credibility on this, and the benefit of the doubt is nowhere to be found with President Trump and these types of allegations.

So, the fact that he is using the same type of response to address a serious, credible rape allegation, I think is quite disturbing, and I don't think we're hearing the last of it.

And for him to do this on the heels of rolling out Juanita Broaddrick, who accused Bill Clinton of the same kind of thing, this is hypocrisy in its worst form. For him to say we should believe someone like Juanita Broaddrick, who had serious claims against Bill Clinton, but a serious claim against him, we should not believe it, I think there is a real problem here.

LEMON: So, listen, Alice, you're the Trump supporter in this group.

STEWART: I am.

LEMON: And it sounds like you're agreeing with what George Conway wrote.

STEWART: I do. He was right on. Any Republican who believed Juanita Broaddrick and her claims against Bill Clinton would be the height of hypocrisy if they didn't believe E. Jean Carroll's allegations against Donald Trump, and in my view, these allegations and her story is just as disturbing as Juanita Broaddrick. And we had a lot of Republicans who were pointing the finger at Bill Clinton when now I think the finger should be pointed at our president.

LEMON: So, what do you -- Alice, I want to stick with you just for the moment. So, what do you think should happen next?

STEWART: She says -- E. Jean Carroll says she doesn't want to press charges, and I completely understand, and no one should question why she's bringing this up at this point. But the question still remains to be seen. Did he do this? What happened, and what is he going to do in the future if these allegations come forward?

These are serious allegations, and Republicans need to take a serious look at this. Look, in my view, we knew this kind of behavior was evident in this president when he ran for president. The Access Hollywood tape was one of the most disgusting political things we've heard.

The things that he talked about admittedly on the Access Hollywood tape is exactly what happened here. So, it was really hard to believe that this didn't happen when he has bragged about it in the Access Hollywood tape.

But at the end of the day, he wasn't my first, second, third, fourth, or fifth choice for president, but he is the Republican nominee, and many Republicans, myself included, support his policies. But this kind of behavior is just not acceptable.

LEMON: Midwin, I want you to listen to E. Jean Carroll describing what happens each time an accuser makes an allegation of an inappropriate sexual behavior against Trump. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[23:19:55] E. JEAN CARROLL, PRESIDENT TRUMP ACCUSER: With all the 15 women or 16 who have come forward, it's the same. He denies it. He turns it around. He attacks, and he threatens. That is the -- and then everybody forgets it, and then the next woman comes along, and I am sick of it.

I am -- Alison, I am sick of it. Think how many women have come forward. Nothing happens.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: What do you think, Midwin?

MIDWIN CHARLES, CRIMINAL DEFENSE & CIVIL TRIAL ATTORNEY: Well, I think she's right. One of the things that I always say is we tend to live in the United States of amnesia and Trump seems to benefit from that.

I think we are living in a period of time where there is so much atrocity and drama coming from Trump and this administration on a daily basis that we are sort of nullified from all of it. It's almost as though it's an atrocity almost every single day, and I

think she's right. I think people tend to forget about it. People give him a lot of leeway.

I found it to be very disconcerting that a lot of major newspapers did not even cover this in the same way that they did allegations of Biden touching a woman on her shoulder or Hillary Clinton's e-mails. For example, the New York Times covered this story in their book section rather than on the very front page.

LEMON: But, also to, you know, this isn't, well, he was inappropriate with me or he made a pass at me. This is something that's completely different. This is a whole different --

(CROSSTALK)

CHARLES: Exactly. Well, let's make this clear. This is rape. What she alleges happened to her --

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: She doesn't like to use that term though.

CHARLES: I know. I know. But the law says that what happened to her is rape. The law requires that there be penetration for it to constitute rape and make it different from sexual assault. And I think that it's time in this country that we start talking about it that way.

Our image and our perspective of what rape is and what it looks like has been shaped by movies and television shows, and frankly that has been written largely by men. And it's always sort of, perceived as something that takes a long time, that is incredibly violent and requires a weapon. But rape doesn't always happen that way.

It can be very quick. It can take a matter of seconds to the point where sometimes even the woman who has experienced it hasn't recognized it as rape.

LEMON: So, Olivia, you know, Midwin mentioned this. Why is it there's such a difference between how President Trump is covered and how other candidates are covered?

I mean, I'm thinking about the story of Joe Biden as she mentioned, you know, putting his hands or standing -- you know, just women saying, well, he made me uncomfortable, in the same breath saying it wasn't sexual. He just made me uncomfortable. He was too close. So, are we even in the same universe here?

OLIVIA NUZZI, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, NEW YORK MAGAZINE: No, we're not. And I think unfortunately in our attempt to be fair, members of the media have been tremendously unfair and have done a really poor job of differentiating between serious allegations of rape and sexual assault and allegations that are something else entirely like those you mentioned about Joe Biden touching people on the shoulder, making them uncomfortable in a non-sexual way. I think because the standards are so low for what we expect of Donald

Trump's behavior, it's almost -- it's almost a non-event when he's accused of something completely abhorrent like this.

LEMON: Yes.

NUZZI: And, you know, I think he really benefits by the fact that people expect this of him. You know, all of these stories are always confirmation. They're not revelation. But when something comes out about Joe Biden or anybody else who people have a very different opinion of than they do of Donald Trump, it feels like a big event because it feels like we're learning something new. So, if Donald Trump --

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: What are other candidates saying on the trail?

NUZZI: Yes. I was in South Carolina this weekend talking to some of the different Democratic presidential candidates about what they think Congress should do, if anything, what they make of this allegation. Most of them said that they're not taking anything off the table.

Bill de Blasio said that, you know, if there's a complaint, he thinks the NYPD should investigate it vigorously. But it was a question to Elizabeth Warren posed by Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times that I thought had the most interesting response, which she kind of deflected.

She didn't say whether or not she thought Congress should investigation, but she says in a pretty somber tone that, you know, this is who Donald Trump is. We already know this, and it's just the details that we learn about. I'm paraphrasing.

LEMON: Yes.

NUZZI: But that's basically what she said, which I think is a really bleak way to look at all of this.

LEMON: Listen, it's an important conversation. Obviously, it's not going to end here. We'll continue. Thank you so much. We appreciate it. We're going to continue to have this conversation on the other side of the break. Don't go anywhere.

[23:25:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: New tonight, sources telling CNN a "New York Post" adviser, a Trump supporter and an old lieutenant of Rupert Murdoch ordered the removal of a story about writer E. Jean Carroll's sexual assault allegations against the President Trump.

Joining me now, CNN's Chief Media Correspondent, Brian Stelter and also Rick Wilson, he is the author of "Everything Trump Touches Dies."

Gentlemen, good evening. Brian, so I want you to break this down for us. It was one of Rupert

Murdoch's lieutenants who made the call to scrub this article. Tell us about that.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yes. They had published a story on Newyorkpost.com. Then the story was mysteriously deleted. This happened a few days ago, Don. The question has been who took this story down and why? What was the political motivation?

Apparently, there was one. It was Col Allan, who is the editor in chief, a longtime Murdoch associate who has been brought in to make sure the Post is Trump friendly. Our colleagues Oliver Darcy and Marianne Garvey published this scoop on CNN.com revealing that it was Allan's decision, which makes you think they were looking to protect Trump.

It's really interesting how this book, it's not even out yet this book by E. Jean Carroll, it's really a remarkable book about so much more than Trump. Trump is just one of the many men that she talked about in this book.

But of course, the news is about Trump. She's getting, I think, the right amount of attention today after a strange weekend where there wasn't enough media coverage devoted to her account, her allegation. And yet outlets at The New York Post, outlets that support President Trump, they're keeping very, very quiet.

LEMON: I want to talk to you about something else. "The Washington Post" has a new piece out on Fox News' Jeanine Pirro.

STELTER: Yes.

[23:30:00] LEMON: It's called the judge who speaks Trump's language, and we're learning this new detail that she was blocked from a position in the administration. Tell us about that.

STELTER: But she was looking for a job in the Justice Department. She was in talks about a job and that she believes Jeff Sessions blocked her from it. That's the reporting from the Post, that Sessions intervened to make sure that she didn't get a job in the DOJ. So, maybe it's a coincidence, but maybe not. She went on the war path against Sessions right on television, of course in line with President Trump's talking points. Here's a little bit of what Pirro said on Fox after being rejected for the job.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEANINE PIRRO, FOX NEWS HOST: What, ladies and gentlemen, is unmistakable in all of this is that the single most dangerous person to the agenda of President Trump, the Republican Party and ultimately to all Americans is the attorney general of the United States himself, Jeff Sessions. The man has done nothing to make anyone responsible for the blatant corruption, the unmistakable perjury, the in-your-face obstruction of our laws that we've seen play out every day.

(END VIDEO CLIP) STELTER: The Fox-Trump TV feedback loop in action, but in this case, it was because Pirro had these private talks, you know, these private talks behind the scenes. It's a very explicit example of how loyal she is to Trump, but how some of these Fox hosts are actually going out looking for jobs, auditioning on the side, very unusual and very unsettling behavior. It's not the kind of thing you see from newsrooms, but of course people like Pirro, they're talk show hosts who are supporting the president.

LEMON: Ah, Rick Wilson, weigh in on this. What do you think of this conversation and what role does Pirro play in the president's world, in Trump's world?

RICK WILSON, REPUBLICAN POLITICAL STRATEGIST: As Brian correctly pointed out just now, there is a Fox-Trump feedback loop and it is this incredibly recursive relationship between the two of them. They stroke his ego and he strokes their ratings. It goes back and forth over and over again.

I was struck by watching that one clip of Jeanine just now. She's a marvel of subtlety, isn't she? It's elliptical how she approaches all these problems. You know, she might as well be the North Korean TV host with the pink dress on who screams about the glory of Kim Jong-un all the time. This is pure, unadulterated propaganda, and it's quite astounding.

Look, I get that it's profitable. I get that Rupert has, you know, a property over there. He's not going to burn down stockholder value. But this is not journalism anymore and the night side of Fox has become so far in the tank for Trump and so much of a one-sided singular mouthpiece that, you know, folks who oppose him don't appear on their network, views that could possibly hurt him don't appear on their network.

The Jean Carroll story in particular, there are two options here. Either they're so inured and so worn down by the overwhelming pile of accusations against Trump about sexual impropriety and sexual assault and a variety of behavior that is, you know, frankly unacceptable for a president, or they know about it, understand that it's real, and just going to cover it up for him. Either of those two options, I think, falls very far short of journalistic responsibility.

LEMON: Yeah. Hey, quickly before I let you go, Brian, I want to talk about these text messages between the former Trump campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and Fox news host Sean Hannity released on Friday. How did people get access to these?

STELTER: Another example of the feedback loop. This is coming out in court documents. We're seeing Hannity and Manafort privately texting. Here's an example of Hannity talking with Manafort. Manafort saying, they would want me to give up DT, Donald Trump, or family, JK, Jared Kushner. I would never do that. Hannity says there is nothing to give up on DT. What did Jared Kushner do? Manafort says, nothing, just like I did nothing. They want me to make up -- you know what -- on both. Of course, Manafort, a convicted felon now, is serving federal prison time. But there is that relationship, that really cozy relationship even off the air that has no relation to journalism. And yet Hannity tries to play a journalist when it's convenient for him. That's really the real problem, I think.

LEMON: Gentlemen, thank you so much. I appreciate it. We'll be right back.

WILSON: Good night, Don.

[23:35:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Eighteen of the richest people in America calling on the 2020 presidential candidates to tax them more. In a letter sent to each candidate today, they say, "We are writing to call on all candidates for president, whether they are Republicans or Democrats, to support a moderate wealth tax on the fortunes of the richest one-tenth of the richest one percent of Americans, on us."

Signers of the letter include financier George Soros, Facebook co- founder Chris Hughes, and Abigail Disney, a documentary filmmaker and the granddaughter of Roy Disney, who was Walt Disney's brother. Abigail is here now. Abigail, thank you so much. Good to see you.

ABIGAIL DISNEY, FILMMAKER, PHILANTHROPIST, AND ACTIVIST: Thanks for having me.

LEMON: Why do you want to pay more taxes?

(LAUGHTER)

DISNEY: It sounds crazy, doesn't it? But it's pretty plain. It's right there in sight for everybody. We are not paying our fair share, and we have not been for a really long time. In fact, the last bit of tax relief relieved a hell of a lot of people that didn't need relief. So it's time that we start speaking up and saying that we don't want any more tax benefits. We really want to see a healthy society.

LEMON: Let's talk about the knock on this, right? So, this is a knock on the wealth tax, which Elizabeth Warren has been promoting on the trail, by the way. Is that it would be too difficult to calculate and wealthy people can always find ways to shelter assets. Is that true from your perspective?

DISNEY: That's absurd. That's always the knock. First of all, wealthy people have a perfectly easy time calculating their wealth.

[23:40:00] They do it every single day. So that's absurd. Second of all, to say that you shouldn't pass a law because people will skirt it is -- why do we pass any law? Obviously, we enforce it. So this is just kind of a dodge.

LEMON: OK. I have your letter here that you wrote. You wrote this letter back in April. You write that an op-ed calling out Disney CEO Bob Iger for being paid 1,424 times the median pay of the average Disney worker. Why is income inequality so important to you? DISNEY: It's huge. It's the game-changer that we are living in right now because we're creating a super class so far above the vast majority of people that they don't share the same planet anymore. Forty-seven percent of American people can't cope with $400 emergency.

LEMON: Explain that, though, when you said "don't share the same planet." I don't think people get that.

DISNEY: Well, that's what I'm talking about. I don't think that the people who are on their private jets or living in incredible riches can even begin to digest what it means to not have $400 for emergencies. I mean that's just couch cushion money for them.

So, we've stopped sharing the same reality. We don't stand in line with everybody else. We don't wait patiently like everybody else. We've sort of short-circuited all the social processes and created kind of a parallel universe that we live in. And that is not good for solidarity. It's not good for opportunity. We've eroded all the paths to the American dream that my grandfather and great uncle took.

LEMON: Yeah. Here's what the Walt Disney company -- here's how they responded. Under Iger, the company has added 70,000 jobs, increased returns for shareholders by 614 percent, and the stock is trading at historic highs. They highlight their charitable giving and employee wages and benefits. Is that a dressy issue that you have with this company?

DISNEY: No. Every time they push back on me, they push back on me by pushing sideways because they don't want to talk about the central question, which is if your revenues are so great and if everything is so hunky dory, why are people on food stamps? Are they not part of the same wealth-generating process that you're part of? I would argue they are co-creators of value inside that company.

So, I have no quibble with a large compensation package for people at the top as long as people who work for him in a year of record profits are not relying on food stamps, rationing insulin, sharing housing with other people because they can't afford their own. This is absurd. And how you sleep at night when you go home with what translates into about $22,000 an hour, when the people at $15 an hour, you know perfectly well can't make ends meet, I don't know how they sleep at night.

LEMON: You know, I have to ask you, that you're also the executive producer of a star-studded reading parts of the Mueller report being streamed online tonight.

DISNEY: Yeah, right now.

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: What is the goal of the event?

DISNEY: Well, the goal is just to sort of put flesh and bones around all the abstractions in the report. We feel that, like, if people hear people say the actual words that are reported there, it will start to be a little more real. They can sink their teeth into it. I know most people haven't read it. Frankly, I haven't read it. It's too long. I don't have time. So --

LEMON: But you've read parts of it.

DISNEY: Yes, I have. And it's horrifying. And people need to hear it. It needs to be real for them.

LEMON: Thank you, Abigail.

DISNEY: Thank you so much.

LEMON: Thank you. Thanks for coming on. We really appreciate it.

DISNEY: Pleasure.

LEMON: The president calling off the deportation raids he was threatening at the 11th hour, giving Congress two weeks to make an immigration deal. But can they get it done that quickly? I'm going to ask Congressman Henry Cuellar.

[23:45:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: President Trump retreating on his threat to ramp up deportation raids on thousands of undocumented families in 10 cities after a personal appeal from House Speaker Pelosi. Here she is describing that phone call.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), HOUSE SPEAKER: When I spoke to the president, I said, "Look, I'm a mom. I have five kids, nine grandchildren. And children are scared. You're scaring the children of America, not just in those families but their neighbors and their communities."

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LEMON: The speaker now needs to work on hashing out a deal on the border that the president will accept. Joining me now to discuss is Congressman Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat who represents a district that shares just over 200 miles with Mexico. Representative, I'm so happy you're here. Thank you so much for doing this.

REP. HENRY CUELLAR (D-TX): Thank you so much.

LEMON: So after the president called off the ICE raids, here's what he tweeted. He said that doing -- about doing at least the request of Democrats and says that he'll start up deportation again unless there is a deal. Are Democrats working with the White House or Republicans on a deal?

CUELLAR: Well, you know, right now, the only thing we're focusing on is to make sure that we get the emergency border supplemental. We're going to vote on it in the House. We will get it passed. Then we've got to work out any differences between the House and the Senate. I live in the border. I don't go visit once in a while. I live in the border, so I talk to the men and women that do their job, and I will tell you that they're running out of money and we have to get this border supplemental. If that's what the president is talking about, that's the deal that we want to focus on.

LEMON: The president doesn't have a great record of being truthful. If he's not negotiating in good faith, why do you think he called off these raids?

CUELLAR: Well, you know, first of all, I want to thank Nancy Pelosi for doing her job in a masterful way, number one.

[23:50:02] Number two, I have to be quite honest. Look, I've been on the appropriations for Homeland for many years. They don't have the resources to "deport" millions and millions of people. They don't have them. And second of all, with the resources they have, a lot of those agents were taken down to the border to handle the surge. So, first, they don't the overall resources.

Number two, a lot of the personnel got taken to the southern border. So, when the president said that he was going to deport millions and millions of people, it was not correct at all.

LEMON: He set a deadline for July 6th. Can you get a deal done by then, congressman?

CUELLAR: Well, again, if he's focusing on the border supplemental, yes we can. I hope we can do it this week. If he's talking about something else, then all he's trying to do is use (INAUDIBLE) on us by saying, oh, I was going to deport millions of people. I put the burden on the Democrats. The Democrats were not able to come up with a deal, and he is trying to put the blame on us.

I mean, we've seen this process that he does, these things that he does on everything. We saw it with the tariffs on Mexico. We see it with other situations across the world. He will come up, put a hard ask or a tough thing that he's going to do, he will pull back, and then try to claim victory whether it's a victory for him or not.

LEMON: Just tonight, HHS says some 249 children will be moved out of an overcrowded border facility in Clint, Texas. This comes after lawyers visiting the facility flagged reported unsanitary conditions like a lack of soap, toothbrushes and diapers, as well as hungry children. What happens next?

CUELLAR: Look, we go to understand there are different types of facilities. The first facilities people are put in are by the border patrol facility, a processing where they are supposed to keep people there for 72 hours. As I mentioned, I live in the border, so I have gone and seen them so many times. Those facilities are not equipped to handle thousands of individuals.

So yes, they're not going to have the resources and that's an issue that we need to look at. Remember, we're not talking about detention centers. We're not talking about shelters that health and human services run. We're talking about the first step which is the border patrol processing. Men and women are trying to do their best. We need to provide them the resources.

LEMON: Your colleague, Jim Himes, is joining a number of Democrats calling for impeachment. Here's what he says got him to that decision. Watch this.

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REP. JIM HIMES (D-CT): What pushed me over the edge amongst other things was two weeks ago when the president said absolutely not to a subpoena which was looking for answers to the question of why the administration has chosen to put a citizenship question on the census, something that we know is designed to tamp down the counting of people of immigrant heritage.

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LEMON: So, you said that you are a no on non-impeachment -- on impeachment, I should say. Is the record of stonewalling by this White House making you rethink that?

CUELLAR: Certainly at this moment, just like Pelosi and other members are, we want to let the process work. We want to get the committees to provide the oversight that we need to do before we get to the impeachment. I know the politics. We know what is going to happen. Even if we impeach, we know that Senate is going to go ahead and get this over quickly and then the president is going to turn around and say, look, I was cleared, the Senate cleared me on this.

So, again, I understand the politics. I know the chess game that we are looking at here. But is it troubling, what the president is doing? He is stonewalling himself and not allowing witnesses, not providing information. Yeah, that is disturbing to me, of course, but I would rather let the process work itself and just like Nancy Pelosi and other folks, we'll let the process work and then we will take it from there.

LEMON: Representative Cuellar, always a pleasure. Thank you, sir.

CUELLAR: Thank you so much.

LEMON: We'll be right back.

[23:55:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: There are more than 30 million stray or feral cats living in the U.S. They often suffer outside facing disease, toxins and predators. Well, this weeks' CNN Hero saw stray cats every day walking in his Queens, New York neighborhood, but didn't know how to help. Then he learned about Trap-Neuter-Return or TNR. It is what it is called, Trap-Neuter-Return. Now, he spends nearly 40 hours a week trapping these cats, getting them fixed and changing their lives. Meet "Paul the Cat Guy."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PAUL SANTELL, CNN HERO: My main focus is Trap-Neuter-Return, TNR, and rescuing, grabbing cats off the streets, saving lives. That's one. With TNR, this is the last generation that has to suffer outside.

Come on. Come one.

Now, I probably fixed and returned at least a thousand feral cats in about four and a half years.

A lot of time, people ask me, do you love cats? I like them but that's not really why I got into it. You want to save lives. This is the greatest feeling in the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Well, see how Paul does his work and see more adorable kittens, go to cnnheroes.com. And while you're there, nominate your own hero. Thanks for watching. Our coverage continues.