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Don Lemon Tonight
Governor Kasich Awaken by the Clear Abuse of Power; Too Late the Hero, the Damage Has Been Done; Rudy Giuliani Doing Every Effort to Score for Trump Against Joe Biden; CNN Exclusive, Rudy Giuliani Pushed Trump Administration To Grant A VISA To A Ukrainian Official Promising Dirt On Democrats; Will Republicans Come Out In Favor Of Impeachment; State Department Probe Of Clinton Emails Finds No Deliberate Mishandling Of Classified Information. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired October 18, 2019 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: -- echoes Putin's sentiments. Russia hates ISIS as much as we do. Fact. Ninety percent of Russian air strikes in Syria haven't targeted ISIS or terror groups. They've hammered anti- Assad rebels help him prop up his regime. These are things to be on the lookout for. We'll be doing it. Stay with us.
Thank you for watching. CNN Tonight with D. Lemon starts right now.
DON LEMON, CNN HOST: You call that a bolo? You call --
CUOMO: Be on the lookout.
LEMON: I know. But saying that -- you know, I'm messing with you, but saying you need to be on the lookout for Trump not telling the truth or spinning or lying something, that's like the call is coming from -- it's right here. You don't have to look for it. It happens every --
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: But parroting these foreign leaders.
LEMON: That is crazy.
CUOMO: It's not just not telling the truth, it's not just not telling the truth, it's parroting their points.
LEMON: Just in the however long -- I think it took you like 15, 20 seconds to read that, I just thought of some things.
CUOMO: At the most.
LEMON: Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: God forbid I be late. LEMON: Yes. He said the Kurds were happy. OK, that's not true. It is
good for civilization. That's not true. He said it was an amazing outcome, talking about what the vice president went over and did and what he did. He said it was a ceasefire. The Turks call it a pause. He said -- and then he said it was a ceasefire and a pause, and there was more fighting.
CUOMO: They kept bombing.
LEMON: Just this morning.
CUOMO: Yes.
LEMON: So.
CUOMO: Here's what I need to know. Maybe you have the answer. That would be great.
LEMON: OK.
CUOMO: Why did he do it at the time that he did it in and in the way that he did it? I get wanting troops out. I get that whole argument. After that call with Erdogan, after Erdogan met with Putin, why did the president do this this way with all the resistance that went along with it? That's what we need to know.
LEMON: Well, if I could answer that question, I would not be sitting here. I would be on an island somewhere, you know, like Jeff Bezos or something because I'd be able to predict everything. But I do have a notion, an idea if you really want to know the truth, maybe you should start with Nancy Pelosi, who says all roads lead back to -- where?
CUOMO: Russia.
LEMON: Or who?
CUOMO: Yes. I think it could also just be a function of Russia knowing how to capitalize. But I have to tell you, the money running through these two guys' accounts --
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: Erdogan playing him like a fiddle, but go on.
CUOMO: Right. But the money running through these guys' accounts that Rudy was messing with, them getting all this money from Russia, maybe some of that was going to him whether he knew it or not. That's some shady business, but I have to tell you. Here's the difficult part --
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: That's your buddy. Where is he? Why hasn't he been on your show?
CUOMO: Rudy Giuliani?
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: I don't know. It's not going that way.
LEMON: That's your bolo right there.
CUOMO: Be on the lookout for him to come.
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: Be on the lookout for that guy. Missing person.
CUOMO: Look, I would love to give him the opportunity to put all these different questions to him and let his answers get out there so --
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: -- we understand these things because my concern is this. Impeachment is debatable, OK?
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: It is a political decision. Seeing this for what it is and that it was wrong and that it was an abuse by this president is not debatable.
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: And I just don't understand. Look, I had a faithful congressman tonight from Texas, Don, and he's saying this stuff that I can't believe he believes. Ukraine just saw Trump as a great corruption stopper from how he cleaned up the swamp. So, he said, sure, I'll help you. Here are a couple of cases that I know about.
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: I mean come on.
LEMON: As they say --
CUOMO: I don't know. How do they say?
LEMON: I was just -- I can't -- because it starts with a cuss word. But I can't say, but you know what just got real. It's been real for a while. Listen, I think that there's no way people can believe that. I think that it's got to be some sort of talking points that they're being fed that they feel they have to say in order to keep their position or not to --
CUOMO: That's sad because they could have it both.
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: They could say he shouldn't have done it. He's got to learn from this. It was wrong.
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: But I don't think you should remove him from office.
LEMON: You got -- it's you know, cognitive dissonance. You can't -- you can't -- my gosh, that means I was wrong all this time, so you have to continue to do it. You get sucked in kind of like what Comey said. All of a sudden you realize that hey, I'm playing along with all of this, and none of it is true and accurate.
Speaking of, I got to go because I got to talk about someone today who is a Republican, who is speaking out against this president. Talk to you later. Have a great weekend.
CUOMO: You too, pal.
LEMON: This is CNN Tonight. I'm Don Lemon.
As I said, there is this major break in Republican ranks on the question of impeaching president Donald Trump, and that is coming from John Kasich. As you know, he's a former Ohio governor.
Now, saying the president should be impeached because of the admission -- and it was an admission. Go back and read the transcript or look at the tape. An admission by Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, that there was quid pro quo with Ukraine, holding up military aid in return for investigating Democrats.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN KASICH, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: But if you're asking me if I was sitting in the House of Representatives today and you were to ask me how do I feel? Do I think impeachment should move forward and should go for a full examination and a trial in the United States Senate? My vote would be yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[22:05:01]
LEMON: This is big. This is big. Even though Kasich ran against Trump for the Republican nomination back in 2016, he's not a supportive of the president, he has said repeatedly, repeatedly until today that he didn't believe Trump should face impeachment because he didn't see a clear quid pro quo.
Want to know what else he has to say? Stay tuned because he's going to join me in just a few moments to explain in detail his change in position. And you want to watch because we've gone back and forth about this on this show, pretty heated discussions. You don't want to miss it. It's coming up.
Let's talk about Mick Mulvaney now a little bit more. It's now put a lot of Republicans in a very uncomfortable positions by saying this at the White House yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MICK MULVANEY, ACTING WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: Did he also mention to me in the past the corruption related to the DNC server? Absolutely. No question about that. But that's it. That's why we held up the money.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To be clear, what you just described is a quid pro quo. It is funding will not flow unless the investigation into the Democratic server happens as well.
MULVANEY: We do -- we do that all the time with foreign policy. I have news for everybody. Get over it. There's going to be political influence in foreign policy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: That is what's known as a quid pro uh-oh. Or a quid pro ra- roh. Or a quid pro no. Because he said it right there.
Sources say that White House officials were stunned by Mulvaney's remarks, that they're, quote, "not helpful right not." Well, they got that right. Democrats are expanding the impeachment inquiry at lightning speed now, calling in a lot of current and former officials to testify.
Mulvaney immediately tried to walk it back, walk back his remarks, saying that he didn't say what he said, that he didn't admit to a quid pro quo when he clearly did. President Trump is said to be angry about it. When asked by CNN's Jim Acosta about Mulvaney, a clearly annoyed Trump gave a five-word answer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Mr. President, do you want to clarify what Mick Mulvaney said yesterday? Was the --
(CROSSTALK)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I think he -- I think he clarified it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: That was it, and that's all he would say about Mulvaney. Republicans on Capitol Hill are being forced to address his admitting that there was quid pro quo, or as the president says, pro quo.
Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski saying, we don't hold up foreign aid for political purposes, period. And these congressmen saying this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. FRANCIS ROONEY (R-FL): Well, yes. Whatever might have been gray and unclear before is certainly quite clear right now.
REP. ADAM KINZINGER (R-IL): I think it's significant, and it's concerning. I remember sitting in foreign affairs committee and hearing that we were suspending this aid at least temporarily, and I was flabbergasted.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Well, and it's not just Republicans in Congress who are starting to speak out about the lies, the distortions, half-truths, misstatements, spinning. All of that defines President Trump and his administration.
Republicans are starting to speak up and others. Others are voicing their real concerns about what Trump is doing to America.
The former Defense Secretary, James Mattis, remember he resigned last year and has mainly remained silent since then. Well, he said this just last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMES MATTIS, FORMER U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: No. Lincoln went on. It was not the for aggressor we must fear. It was corrosion from within, the rot, the viciousness, the lassitude, the ignorance.
Anarchy is one potential consequence of all this. Another is the rise of an ambitious leader unfettered by conscience or precedent or decency who would make himself supreme.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: General Mattis made those comments a few hours after retired Admiral William McRaven said this on CNN.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAM MCRAVEN, RET. FORMER HEAD, U.S. SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND: So when you take a look at what the president has done, he has undermined the intelligence community, the law enforcement community, the Department of Justice, the State Department.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: And Anthony Scaramucci, the mooch, remember he was very defensive of this president at one time. He's a longtime Trump supporter who is now a vocal opponent of the president. He said this to me just this week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: What will eventually happen is the criminal activity will be so great that the GOP -- and there will be 20 plus senators who will say, OK, I can't take this anymore, reminiscent of what Howard Baker and Barry Goldwater did in the '70s and called Richard Nixon and said, look, no mas, you got to go. And so that will eventually happen, and that's the reason why he's pressurized.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[22:09:56]
LEMON: One very powerful Republican leader, probably the most powerful, who has been willing to take on the president is the Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, until now. He has come out publicly against the president's decision to withdraw troops from Syria, allowing Turkey to attack the Kurds.
Much more on that straight ahead. You want to stay tuned. And as always, there is Rudy, Rudy Giuliani, the president's lawyer.
CNN reporting exclusively tonight that Giuliani was trying to get a U.S. visa for Ukraine's former top prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who was pushed out of his job in 2016 at the behest of western leaders, including then-Vice President Joe Biden. Doing that for failing to aggressively pursue corruption.
Well, Giuliani has told CNN that Shokin promised to reveal dirt on Democrats, including Biden and his son. But when the State Department denied Shokin a visa, Giuliani tried to bypass official channels and get President Trump to approve it. Vintage Rudy Giuliani. The one-man shadow foreign policy show.
Shokin never did get that visa by the way, but that didn't stop Giuliani from trying to get Ukraine's government to dig up dirt on Democrats.
The New York Times reporting that back on May 9th, that Giuliani was planning to travel to Ukraine to push for inquiries beneficial to Trump. That was a full two and half months before Trump's July call where he asked Ukraine's president to look into the Bidens.
And then let's go back in the time machine, not too far back, but back far enough for this exchange with Chris Cuomo where Giuliani admits asking Ukraine to investigate the Bidens.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: You never asked anything about Hunter Biden? You never asked anything about Joe Biden --
(CROSSTALK)
RUDY GIULIANI, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S LAWYER: The only thing I asked about Joe Biden is to get to the bottom of how it was that Lutsenko, who was appointed --
CUOMO: Right.
GIULIANI: -- dismissed the case against --
CUOMO: So, you did ask Ukraine to look into Joe Biden?
GIULIANI: Of course, I did.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: I love that. Can we play that sound bite one more time, please. Please, please. Thank you, Danny.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: You never asked anything about Hunter Biden? You never asked anything about Joe Biden --
(CROSSTALK)
GIULIANI: The only thing I asked about Joe Biden is to get to the bottom of how it was that Lutsenko, who was appointed --
CUOMO: Right.
GIULIANI: -- dismissed the case against --
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: So, you did ask Ukraine to look into Joe Biden?
GIULIANI: Of course, I did.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Of course, I did. It's another admission followed by denial followed by admission followed by denial. That's where we are right now. So, it's like an admission sandwich. There's like a denial on top. It's like denial is like the bread. Deny. And then admission is the meaty part. And then another denial. Stale bread too. A stale denial. We're going to get into all of that in the next two hours.
But up next, John Kasich on why he is now saying that President Trump should be impeached.
[22:15:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: In a major switch, the former Ohio Governor John Kasich, a Republican, now says that President Trump should be impeached. He's here to tell us how he came to this decision. He's also the author of a new book. It's called "It's up to Us: Ten Little Ways that We Can Bring About Big Change."
Governor, thank you so much. I appreciate you joining us. Listen, I know that you didn't come to this decision lightly. I know it was a tough decision for you. You take this very seriously. What changed?
KASICH: Well, what changed basically was Mulvaney basically saying, the president's chief of staff, saying that there really was a quid pro quo. That we're not going to release this vital military aid to Ukraine, which is under incredible pressure from Russia, we're not going to release it unless they engage in a political investigation.
I don't mind in an administration where a president saying I'm going to withhold aid for some public policy reason. But you don't do that to try to pressure somebody to do your political work. That is absolutely inappropriate and particularly to a country like Ukraine, which really teeters because of the pressure from Russia.
And then, Don, you know, as we have talked over the last few weeks, the tweets from Sondland and Taylor and Volker, these diplomats, and the fact that one was asking, is there a quid pro quo, and then there was no answer.
And then this idea that we may have a shadow State Department operating in Ukraine and frustrations that are being expressed by people who were on the ground. All these things added up.
But the final straw for me was what Mulvaney said when he said, yes, it was quid pro quo. We did want to make sure -- we did want to make sure that we would not give the aid until they go and investigate this server that existed, they think, in 2016.
LEMON: Yes.
KASICH: That is not appropriate, and I have to tell you, you know how hard I've wrestled with this. This is a sad --
LEMON: I know.
KASICH: -- sad, sad day for me. It's terrible. I don't like this stuff.
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: Listen, we wrestled with the letter. You said, you know, there's two ways or different ways you interpret it. I said that there wasn't. Listen, I'm not making a judgment on impeachment. That's up to people like you, and people like you should be making that judgment.
You have a very big voice, and you have the experience to do that. I just want to listen to that moment that changed -- you say that changed your mind, and then we'll talk after. Here it is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To be clear. What you just described is a quid pro quo. It is funding will not flow unless the investigation into the Democratic server happened as well.
MULVANEY: We do -- we do that all the time with foreign policy, and I have news for everybody. Get over it. There's going to be political influence in foreign policy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Yes. So, listen, I said letter. I meant the transcript. You knew what I was talking about.
[22:20:03]
KASICH: Right.
LEMON: You also say Energy Secretary Rick Perry was significant to you as well.
KASICH: Well, he resigned. I mean, it's all bizarre and we wonder whether somebody is trying to make him out to be a scapegoat. There's so many things, Don, that are surrounding all this, and I've been watching it intently.
You and I have debated it. I have asked myself, what is the appropriate thing to do because, look, you know, at the end, removing a president of the United States or voting for impeachment to do that is a very big deal to me. It's just not some political thing that you just throw away.
I must tell you, though, that I believe that the Democrats should take a vote in the House of Representatives on the impeachment inquiry, and the reason they're not doing it according to sources -- news sources in the New York Times, they're afraid of the political ramifications. Baloney.
Let's get all the chips out. Let's have transparency. Let's give some rights to the minority, and then let the chips fall where they may because in that way, I think that we can have some sense of a bipartisan solution here or a bipartisan consensus, I should probably say.
LEMON: Well let me jump in and ask you this because you said that they should have political courage, right? Do you think that others should have political courage because I think that that's what you're doing right now? Others in your own party, other Republicans should have political courage and come out and state how they feel about this, or what's going on with them?
KASICH: Yes. Well, look, I mean first of all, many of them haven't even had an opinion that what he did in that conversation was wrong, which is astounding to me.
LEMON: You've always said it was wrong.
KASICH: Yes, absolutely was wrong.
LEMON: You said it was wrong.
KASICH: Absolutely. And secondly, none of them have called for an inquiry. None of them. It's just -- it's amazing to me. And, look, I don't really want to get into disparaging them or lecturing them.
But you got to ask yourself if there is a president -- let's make it hypothetical. Let's make it not a Republican, not a Democrat, a hypothetical independent president who he finds out is withholding vital military aid to a country until they do an investigation that involves his or her politics, how would we think about that?
There are guardrails in terms of presidential behavior, and one time you asked me, I believe, whether this was -- you know, whether he had violated, you know, the power that he has.
LEMON: Right. KASICH: And I said at the time I thought that he had by doing this,
but I was waiting for what I thought would connect the dots and lead me to believe in my conscience that this was enough. And frankly this is enough for me. And it's a terrible day for me to have to do this.
LEMON: Yes. Well, as I said, I know you don't take this lightly. Just to be clear, though, what about the -- you said that he should be impeached. Do you believe that he should be removed from office in this process?
KASICH: Well, let's just -- let's take things a day at a time and slow down here.
LEMON: You want to see the evidence first.
KASICH: Well, I want to see what the articles of impeachment are.
LEMON: Got it.
KASICH: That the Democrats are going to deliver. And, look, let it get over to the Senate, and let them do their job. But we have a long way to go before that happens. There's going to be plenty more witnesses, and maybe it will become clearer and clearer that you can't look the other way on this. So.
LEMON: So what would the other thing be? Would it be censure because obviously you think that the evidence shows now that this was wrong, right? You said that. And you think he should be impeached.
KASICH: I'm saying if I was in the House, don -- if I were in the House and I had a vote --
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: You would vote to impeach.
KASICH: -- I would vote to impeach and to move it forward.
LEMON: Got it. Got it. Now, does a quid pro quo, is that the only evidence you see?
KASICH: Well, we've got a long way to go. And like I say, these text messages where it appeared as though they were questioning one another, well, do we withhold this aid, to me, that's the thing that bothers me the most.
This is as much as I feel terrible about what's happened in Syria, this is not an impeachment revolving around Syria. This is resolving around something that a president should never do.
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: An abuse of power.
KASICH: An abuse of power. LEMON: Listen, this is the Majority Leader Mitch McConnell came out
with an op-ed strongly criticizing Trump's decision to withdraw from Syria.
He says, 'Withdrawing U.S. forces from Syria is a grave strategic mistake. It will lead the American people and homeland less safe, embolden our enemies, and weaken important allies. Sadly, the recently announced pullout risks repeating the Obama administration's reckless withdrawal from Iraq, which facilitated the rise of the Islamic state in the first place."
Is this the issue that is hurting the president the most when he needs Republican support more than ever?
KASICH: No, there's no question because here's who lost -- here's who lost. We lost. Here's who won. The Russians won. This butcher Assad, who is running Syria, wins. The Turks win, and now we're actually going to sanction them, which means that we not only let them get in there, but now we're punishing them so we lose on -- we let them in there, then we hammer them the other way, so we gain nothing.
[22:24:58]
Iran gains because they have more power through their proxies. And finally, Israel loses. Now, we shouldn't be there forever, but there was an appropriate way for us to disengage, and this was just a terrible mistake, and it was done, you know, on the back of a hunch and a simple phone call.
LEMON: OK. Let me ask you, let me ask you this.
KASICH: Yes.
LEMON: You spent 18 years on the House armed services committee.
KASICH: Right.
LEMON: OK. So, I just want you to listen to how President Trump is describing the Turkish attack on the Kurds, and I think this goes into what you're saying. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Sometimes you have to let them fight. It's like two kids in a lot. You got to let them fight, and then you pull them apart.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: How do you feel when you hear the president --
KASICH: Yes.
LEMON: -- make that comparison after the recent chaos he created where our allies are dying?
KASICH: I -- you know, this book I wrote says we have to put ourselves in other people's shoes, and we have to think about the misery that we're seeing over there. We have people trying to find someplace to live where they can protect their family. We see people under incredible pressure. We see people who have died
as a result of this.
This is not a simple schoolyard fight. This is a matter of life and death for many people in a part of the world, and with the Kurds, as Mitch McConnell said, an ally who risked themselves, who shed blood fighting ISIS and getting ourselves in a position where we could vanquish them from the earth.
So, this is not to be compared to some schoolyard bullying. This is serious business that involves the loss of flesh and blood and tragedy with our children too.
LEMON: John, what do you say to your Republican colleagues or folks in your party who may be teetering and trying to make a decision, struggling with a decision as you are?
KASICH: You just got to look yourself in the mirror and talk to your spouse and look at your children and figure out the way you want to be remembered. If you're going to be -- you know, you can't be remembered because you were red or blue. You ought to be remembered because you wore red, white, and blue.
LEMON: What do you say to the president if you had a chance to speak to him?
KASICH: Apologize.
LEMON: If he's watching.
KASICH: Admit you were wrong. You know, say this was wrong. And, you know, I remember when Bill Clinton was not impeached, when he was exonerated in the Senate, he had a press conference and apologized for what he had --
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: Impeached but not convicted.
KASICH: Yes. Impeached but not convicted and he had a press conference and apologized to the American people. The American people will accept a lot. And maybe if the president apologized and said, I'm sorry I did it. It was a terrible mistake. I shouldn't have done it. It could change a lot of things. It could change the way so many of us feel.
LEMON: John Kasich, thank you.
KASICH: Thank you, Don Lemon.
LEMON: I appreciate it.
KASICH: See you soon. Bye. LEMON: Guess what book I'm reading? I'm reading John Kasich's new
book. "It Is Up To Us: Ten Little Ways We Can Bring About Big Change." We'll be right back.
[22:30:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: So here's the breaking news. Career diplomat George Kent telling congressional investigators that Rudy Giuliani asked the State Department to grant a visa to a former Ukrainian official who Joe Biden pushed to be removed while he was vice president.
Kent telling Congress that after the State Department did not grant the visa, Giuliani then appealed to the White House to have the decision reversed. The visa was never granted, but Giuliani previously told CNN that he wanted to interview former Ukrainian Prosecutor Victor Shokin in person, because the Ukrainian promised to reveal dirt on Democrats.
Let's discuss now. Max Boot is here, author of The corrosion of conservatism, why I left the right. Amanda Carpenter is here as well, the author of Gaslighting America, why we love it when Trump lies to us.
Good evening, one and all, Max, I mean, it seems like Giuliani was trying to use the power of the U.S. federal government to dig up dirt on behalf of his client, which is the president of the United States.
MAX BOOT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST, COUNCIL FOR FOREIGN RELATIONS: Yeah. I mean, I have to agree with John Bolton here when he was quoted as saying that Rudy Giuliani is a live hand grenade and he keeps going off.
LEMON: He is going to blow all of us up he said, right.
BOOT: Right, exactly. Unlike most hand grenades that only go off once, Rudy seems to go off repeatedly. This is just the latest eruption of many. I mean, what he was doing was just so, you know, highly fishy. I mean here is the president's personal lawyer, who by the way is working for no money, and he needs money. We know that Rudy needs money because he is in a very costly divorce case, right?
LEMON: Yes.
BOOT: And so, if he's not actually taking money from Donald Trump, what that suggests is that he is trying to monetize his relationship with Donald Trump with his shady dealings with all of these eastern European oligarchs and we know he's surrounded by crooks. Four of his associates have just been arrested, and, you know, he got like half a million dollars from one of those guys, Parnas.
So, you know, the fact that President Trump would turn over America's policy in Ukraine towards somebody -- over to somebody like Rudy Giuliani, who has no government position.
LEMON: Yes.
BOOT: And is so shady, involved in so many deals that cannot withstand scrutiny. I mean, that tells you all you need to know about this administration.
LEMON: Amanda, I want you to weigh in because when he said he's trying to monetize, I heard an agreement from you.
AMANDA CARPENTER, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. I was kind of laughing in my head, because I was just thinking he was so desperate for money, he took half a million dollars from a company called Fraud Guarantee, which was run by the people that were arrested recently at Dulles Airport, not to be confused with the other associates that were arrested at JFK Airport.
[22:35:00]
But I mean, I feel like we need a whole three-hour special to go into everything that Giuliani was doing on the side while working for free for the president because it so complicated, but when you just boil it down to the basic problems that are presented by Rudy Giuliani acting as personal lawyer slash shadow secretary, he was getting lots of access to this administration.
And, listen, according to the ethics laws, it's not illegal for a civilian to ask a public official to do something illegal. You can ask for whatever you want. The problem comes on the official's side. Those are the people who are going to get in trouble for doing what Rudy Giuliani asked to do that shouldn't be done. That come -- brings to mind people at the State Department who entertained these requests for a visa for the Ukrainian who was going to ship off political dirt potentially.
Rick Perry, who as we remember, Donald Trump told the energy secretary that he needed to talk to Rudy Giuliani about Ukraine. I mean that is such a huge red flag there that the energy secretary is being told to talk to the president's lawyer. At that point Rick Perry should have said, nope. I'm out of here.
And not only that, Giuliani was getting private meetings at Department of Justice in the criminal division. And so all those people, you have -- they have to be asked, what were you doing? So just think the only reason we know about any of this is because of one whistleblower. There were tons of other people, human witnesses who were seeing Giuliani ping pong around this administration.
LEMON: And didn't say anything. All right, stand by, Amanda. Stand by, Max. Both of you.
You heard John Kasich say that he is now for impeachment, and he is not the only Republican speaking up. Are we at a turning point for the president and this Party?
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[22:40:00] LEMON: Amanda and Max are back with me now. Amanda, you first. You
heard John Kasich. He's changed his mind and is now calling for impeachment after Mick Mulvaney admitted there was a quid pro quo with Ukraine, tying aid to an investigation of the DNC server in 2016 and the election interference. One Republican Congressman, Francis Rooney from Florida is also saying it's troubling. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. FRANCIS ROONEY (R-FL): Whatever might have been gray and unclear before is certainly quite clear right now that the actions were related to getting some of the Ukraine to do some of these things. It's certainly very, very serious and troubling.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: So with the White House admitting this and then walking it back, is this a turning point for Republicans?
CARPENTER: We're starting to get there. Listen, this has been a major week and a lot of Republicans rethinking their support of Donald Trump as we've seen not only from John Kasich and Representative Rooney, but Mitch McConnell publishing an op-ed in the Washington Post today, calling Syria a grave mistake is a big deal, as is The New York Times op-ed from admiral McRaven.
I mean, these are people making pretty big, bold statements. And I understand there's a lot of pushback from the left saying it doesn't go far enough, but you kind of have to take people for where they are. John Kasich came before the camera on CNN today and made a pretty major announcement, and I was pretty frustrated to see later in the afternoon people say, well, why doesn't he support removal right now?
Well, you know what? Let Republicans take a minute to let the gravity of the moment sink in, because the combination of the admission of the quid pro quo from the White House podium and the Syrian disaster that is unfolding before our eyes, we really -- everyone just needs to just reflect on that.
LEMON: Yes, and he didn't say --
CARPENTER: We're not going to throw out the president right now, but give it a minute, you know?
LEMON: He said, I want to see the articles of impeachment. I want to see the evidence. I think that is pretty fair for where he is in this. Max, you know, when talking about the Ukraine, you know, Mulvaney, the admissions here, Mulvaney said get over it. You said don't get over it. We can't get over it because it's criminal activity.
BOOT: Yes. I mean, I can't get over it, and this is really outrageous, this White House strategy of trying to normalize the president's misconduct and pretend, quote, everybody does it. It's normal. It's OK. Get over it. No, no, no. This is not normal. This is not right. This is not something that previous presidents have done. You know, misusing foreign aid to try to pressure a foreign country into helping the president's re-election campaign?
I can't get over that, or a president actually saying that he's going to hold the G7 summit at his own hotel so he can profit from his office. That is as blatant example of corruption as you can possibly imagine. I can't get over that. I also can't get over the fact that the president has betrayed and insulted our Kurdish allies and claims to have reached this great deal with Turkey, which is entirely one- sided in Turkey's favor.
So, you know, we can't accept the attempts by the White House to normalize this wrongdoing, which is grounds for impeachment and removal.
LEMON: I got to run. Last word. I got to run Amanda, I'm sorry. I'm out of time. Thank you very much, both of you. We'll be right back.
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[22:45:00]
LEMON: The Washington Post reporting tonight that a State Department investigation of Hillary Clinton's emails found no deliberate mishandling of classified information. The controversy overshadowed the 2016 election, and Clinton herself cited it as a major factor in her loss to President Trump.
Joining me now is CNN's Fareed Zakaria, the host of Fareed Zakaria, GPS. Fareed, it's a fascinating story and I just want to read to you from the Washington Post. OK? It says a multi-year State Department probe of emails that were sent to former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton's private computer server concluded there was no systematic or deliberate mishandling of classified information by department employees. That is according to a report submitted to Congress this month.
The report appears to represent a final and anticlimactic chapter in a controversy that overshadowed the 2016 presidential campaign and exposed Clinton to fierce criticism that she later cited as a major factor in her loss to President Trump.
In the end, State Department investigators found 38 current or former employees culpable of violating security procedures non involving material that had been mark classified, in a review of roughly 33,000 emails that had been sent to or from the personal computer system Clinton used. Wow. What's your reaction to this? Is it vindication? What is it?
[22:50:04]
FAREED ZAKARIA, FAREED ZAKARIA GPS SHOW HOST: Well, it's complete vindication, because it's actually a much broader review than James Comey. This is now actually looking at all the people who work for her. All the e-mails that she received. So, you know, it's a multi- year investigation. Remember, this is essentially the same conclusion James Comey came to. Which was while she had been careless, he used the word, I think, extremely careless o some issues. There was nothing that would constitute a case that he could prosecute
in terms of having violated security procedure or laws. This is now saying neither did any of her associates. So, it's what's sad about this is that it has been possible to imply that there was something sorted about all this. Just as it was possible to imply that with her role in Benghazi, even though after actually investigating it after five separate investigations they could find nothing wrong.
Here you have at now, two serious investigations. One by the FBI. One by the State Department that have found nothing wrong. And yet, you know, just last night at the rally, Donald Trump can't let it go.
LEMON: Yes. At the rally last night, he was saying hope they find the 33,000 e-mails and, you know, on and on. And the crowd is loving it. And cheering. When it's all just a conspiracy theory. And yet and still President Trump is still looking for that 2016 crowd strike server in Ukraine. Which is a fabrication and held up aid over it.
ZAKARIA: But what is sad about this is that we are -- you know, we have gotten to a stage where there's possible to gin up this kind of -- this idea of corruption. This idea of, you know, the swamp. To make these charges. Even after they have been conclusively proven to be false. Even after they have been many investigations that look into it. And makes you despair about the state of our democracy. the state of our, you know, citizenry where, how many times does something have to be investigated and disproven until you realize that this is simply a smear tactic? Not something real.
LEMON: I just want to add -- just a little bit, if you can go on and talk about this. Because, is this a cautionary tale for the 2020 election to not be distracted by conspiracy theory?
ZAKARIA: Well, look, it all begins with John Kerry and the swift boating. If you remember in that case in Kerry, recently talked about it. What happens is they start to see the stuff on social media, all the major news channels. All the major newspapers run front-page stories pointing out this is all false, but the Kerry campaign decides we don't want to give it more oxygen. So, they let it go. And it goes viral on social media. And Fox then picks it up. And as you know, the swift boating essential became one of reason John Kerry lost.
Now you see it with Trump. You know, what we are seeing is a kind of extraordinary ability to create a, you know, a rumor. And then turn it into a fact. And then turn it into something that discredits somebody all on the based on nothing. When you have authoritative investigations that prove the opposite of what you're saying.
LEMON: Fareed, let's turn now to Syria. I want to play the president today describing what's happening in Syria.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're doing very well with Turkey. We have ISIS totally under guard. You have the Kurds who we're dealing with and are very happy about the way things are going. We're in a strong position. (END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: That couldn't be further from the truth on what's happening on the ground.
ZAKARIA: Well, it is also so vague that it shows you the president doesn't actually know much about the details of what happen. So, Mike Pence, basically did a (inaudible). He went to Turkey and he gave President Erdogan everything he wanted. Just to explain what Erdogan ended up getting out of this deal was that the United States has now agreed to withdraw its troops.
It has agreed to allow Turkey to establish what appears to be a prominent sphere of influence in Northern Syria, in a place where which it will then use to drive all the Kurds that it doesn't like out of that area. They used to live there, they used to have positions there. It would to that buffer zone all the Syrian refugees that it doesn't want to put which is going to cause chaos there, because they are not Kurds and they are entering a Kurdish area.
And it has forced the Kurds to have destroyed all their defenses. So they are defenseless, entirely at the mercy of Turkey and Assad. This is exactly what Turkey wanted. They wanted the Kurds on the defensive in a position where Turkey could essentially engage in ethnic cleansing or even genocide, if it wanted to.
[22:55:17]
Whereas, Assad has them at their mercy as well. The United States had been maintaining this buffer zone for the Kurds, for itself for five years easily. With a few hundred troops. Extraordinarily strategic use of American power. And Mike Pence went to Turkey and gave it all away. As they said, this is Mike Pence behaving like Chamberlain. This is our kind of farcical version of Munic.
Farcical because it's not as serious, but it's as tragic. It's as much of a betrayal of allies. It has already resolved in a quarter of a million people being displaced of ISIS prisoners being released of war crimes being committed. And all because the president one day got up and decided that he wanted to be nice to Erdogan and again, get all these troops out of there.
LEMON: It's got to be the last word. Thank you very much for that, Fareed. I appreciate it. Watch Fareed on Sunday, Fareed Zakaria, GPS.
The biggest headline in all of the new developments you may have missed. A look at the week in the Trump impeachment inquiry. That's next.
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