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Don Lemon Tonight
Matt Gaetz Under Federal Investigation; Some GOP Calling for Matt Gaetz's Resignation; Sen. Joe Manchin Wants to End Division in Both Parties; Floyd Family Satisfied with Experts' Testimonies; Experts Say Drugs Has Nothing to do With George Floyd's Death; Daily Beast Found Gaetz's Pandora's Box; John Boehner Slams His Own Party. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired April 08, 2021 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: Ten o'clock. Time for the big show, CNN Tonight and the big star, D. Lemon.
DON LEMON, CNN HOST: So, we're going to get to business right now. But I didn't like what you did earlier. Should I tell everybody?
CUOMO: OK.
LEMON: So, I am minding my business today and Chris said, hey, did I just pass you? Was that you I just passed on the beach? He texted me. I said, no, I'm in the city. What are you talking about? He goes, are you sure, are you sure it wasn't you? I said, no, I'm in the city. And then he sends me a picture of this giant black seal on the beach. You, you know what. I think that was the only time you got me. That was good.
CUOMO: Felt good.
LEMON: Yes, I bet it did.
LEMON: All right. So, we needed a laugh, considering all that's going on, don't you think?
CUOMO: Man, I'll take any one than I can get. Any laugh I can get. I'll tell you what. We had some big developments today. Obviously, you have the hypocrisy down in Texas of the governor saying we need a sanctuary for guns when really, we need a sanctuary from guns. You have a shooting right after he says it.
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: You have in the Chauvin trial. This is the critical phase.
LEMON: Damning.
CUOMO: Substantial causal factor.
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: The prosecutors have to show that what Chauvin did caused the death of Floyd and caused has a specific meaning under law in every state, but specifically in Minnesota. It doesn't have to be the only reason he died. See, that's the problem for the defense here.
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: What about the drugs?
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: What about the drugs? Even if you want to argue that they may have somehow weakened Floyd from a medical perspective, it doesn't matter.
LEMON: Right.
CUOMO: He could still have been the substantial cause of Floyd's death. That was big. The Venmo that the Daily Beast has with Matt Gaetz, we don't have it yet --
LEMON: But now they are calling on him to resign.
CUOMO: Well, look --
LEMON: Adam Kinzinger is saying time for him to resign.
CUOMO: Look, here's the thing, that's politics, OK? You don't know that any of this is true. And the Venmo, look, the political bar is here. It's underneath where they can see me right now, somebody to resign.
LEMON: Right.
CUOMO: That's politics.
LEMON: But criminal --
CUOMO: Criminal is up here. What were the Venmo is for?
LEMON: Yes. But I think it was something just before the show we talked about it just for a moment as you were getting ready to go. If you -- they don't offer you a deal unless you have something.
CUOMO: No. I got to tell you, good thing it's just you and me so nobody else will hear this. I was getting this wrong, too. We kept saying he may cooperate, he may flip. He may flip.
LEMON: No.
CUOMO: We had the wrong tense. Now we know --
LEMON: He flipped.
CUOMO: He already cooperated. You don't get a plea deal unless you have already made what they call a proffer, which is a nice way of saying a give to the authorities of something they find of value. And yes, it may also be in the deal that you've got to keep doing certain things and they want other things.
But he has already given it to them. And where do we see that? Well, in this coinciding of them going after Greenberg and then they start investigating Gaetz for the same things. How did they get to Gaetz? Has to go through Greenberg.
Now on what the Daily Beast is reporting, this moves Matt Gaetz from the court of public opinion category of nothing into something.
LEMON: Something.
CUOMO: He now has something to explain with more than a blanket denial.
LEMON: Well, it's a very big -- it's very big allegations, and then you have this Greenberg character. But and there is still intrigue with it. And that's why --
CUOMO: A ton of intrigue.
LEMON: That's our lead story.
CUOMO: People will play politics with it, but this is first indication we have, he has a plea deal, that means he has been working --
LEMON: He's been working, yes.
CUOMO: -- with prosecutors.
LEMON: So here we go.
CUOMO: I'm sorry about what I did today, d.
LEMON: No, no. It was funny.
CUOMO: It was too easy a shot. I know you are sensitive about how you look, especially your shape.
LEMON: I needed the laugh, since I know that you're dealing with your weight problems. That's OK. I mean, it's fine. There's nothing wrong with that.
CUOMO: You know what --
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: So, projection is --
CUOMO: Everybody says it.
LEMON: Projection is real.
CUOMO: It's one more reason for you to have kids. LEMON: Thank you, sir.
CUOMO: Give you an excuse for having a dad body. I love you, D. Lemon.
LEMON: Thank you. I love you, too. See you later.
This is CNN Tonight. I'm don Lemon.
And we have, as I've been saying, huge developments, huge developments in the DOJ's, by the way, the Trump DOJ, right, this is where this started. Now it's the Biden DOJ, but this is where this all started, the DOJ's sex trafficking investigation of Trump supporting Congressman Matt Gaetz.
As I just tell Chris, Adam Kinzinger calling on Gaetz to resign tonight. There's a tweet that he put out moments ago. And then you heard a Daily Beast reporter tell Chris that a hold of the Venmo payments from the congressman to a local official, and then hours later payments that add up to the same amount to three young women.
[22:05:07]
Again, we'll have to see if this all plays out, how it all plays out. He didn't speak with any women who received the payments, the reporter meaning. And I should point out that there is no conclusive evidence that this was for sex. None of the three women in the Daily Beast mentions were underage.
And while Joel Greenberg has declined -- has been, excuse me, has been indicted on federal charges, including for trafficking, his connections to Gaetz on these matters are still to be established. Gaetz is denying all of it. Greenberg, a friend of Gaetz, who could face decades in prison on 33 federal counts, including identity theft and sex trafficking of a minor, said to likely strike a deal, a plea deal, which could mean a whole lot of pressure on Matt Gaetz. Or in the words of Greenberg's attorney, this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FRITZ SCHELLER, ATTORNEY FOR JOEL GREENBERG: I'm sure Matt Gaetz is not feeling very comfortable today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Probably not. And that's not all. The feds are looking the trip that Gaetz took to the Bahamas and whether women were paid to travel for sex with the congressman and others which could be a federal crime. A lot more on the to come on the investigation tonight.
All this is happening as Senator Joe Manchin in the spotlight as a crucial 50th vote for Democrats in the Senate sits down for a CNN exclusive explaining why he says Congress can't go this way and Democrats and Republicans have to work together.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D-WV): January 6th changed me. I was clear with everybody. I never thought in my life, I never read in history books to where our form of government had been attacked at our seat of government, which is Washington, D.C., at our capitol by our own people.
Now the British did it, but not Americans. So, something told me, wait a minute, pause, hit the pause button, something is wrong. You can't have this many people split to where they want to go to war with each other.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: But the problem and the reason why they want to war is that they were led there by a big lie. And that big lie led to a bigger lie of voter suppression. And Georgia's Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan said it. It all goes back to the big lie from Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LT. GOV. GEOFF DUNCAN (D-GA): This is really the fallout from the 10 weeks of misinformation that flew in from former President Trump, and really, you know, I went back over the weekend to really look where at this started to gain momentum in the legislature and it was when Rudy Giuliani showed up in a couple of committee rooms and spent hours spreading misinformation and sowing doubt across, you know, hours of testimony.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: You have to start from the beginning, and you have to start with the truth. He is exactly right. Well, politicians can't go on this way. The country can't go on this way. Where did it start? Who is responsible for it? Hold who is responsible for it to account. It's not a both sides thing.
One side spread the big lie and then allowed it to happen and it's now pretending that it didn't happen. So, Joe Manchin, make here you hold that side accountable because we cannot go on this way. You're right.
So, the reality of the situation, as I said, something needs to be done. And what's on table now is the Voting Rights Act, which the fact is will never, ever happen if Republicans have their way. Just look at the evidence of what they are doing right now.
They want the big lie that led to the insurrection to live on. That is happening on a devastating day, in the murder trial of the officer who kneeled on George Floyd's neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds. Devastating to listen to. And potentially devastating to the defense's case.
Anybody who watched that video of Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd's neck knows what they saw. A man having the life squeezed right out of him while he cried out over and over and over, I can't breathe. And today, an award-winning expert on exactly that, on breathing, had
jurors on the edge of their seats, hanging on to every word as he described in chilling detail what happened in George Floyd's last moments.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARTIN TOBIN, PULMONOLOGY EXPERT: At the beginning you can see he is conscious. You can see slight flickering. And then it disappears. So, one second, he is alive, and one second, he is no longer.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Devastating. Devastating. Devastating. We have seen the videos and the pictures so many times. I'm haunted by them. Are you? But we have never seen them like this. Never seen them like this. He knew it would happen though, but that was even more real than I had anticipated having done this for decades.
[22:10:09]
An expert explaining moment by moment how George Floyd struggled with all his might just to get air in his lungs. While police pressed him into the ground. Now I'm going to play a longer version of that, OK? So, you can hear it the way the jurors did. Here it is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOBIN: You can see how he is moving his hip to try and rock the right side of his body to try and get air. You can see him again pushing down in the street to get air in. And through his movements of his hip, you may miss, but he is having to use all of his entire spine to just try to get air into that right side of the body.
Keep in mind, the left side is nonfunctional from the way they have manipulated him and pushed him into the street. So, he is constantly, he is trying cranking up his right side of his body. You can see it right there, to try and get some air into his right side of his chest.
He is making repeated struggling movements. He is moving again, the hips, because he is using his spine to try and get them, those muscles, to move air into the right side of his chest. And he is again trying to use his right arm and he is unable because of the chain, the small chain linking it over to the left side. He is trying to push down on that right arm into the street to try and help him, but he is unable to do it because of the chain on the handcuffs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Hard to listen to. But that's what a human being does when the breath is being squeezed out of them. The defense trying to raise doubts here. Questioning why there weren't bruises on George Floyd's neck. And Dr. Tobin had well, a very human answer to that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: There was also a reference made to the absence of bruising on the neck during autopsy?
TOBIN: Yes.
UNKNOWN: Does that make any difference to you whatsoever?
TOBIN: No, because obviously, I got to -- whenever I go to church, I sit on a hard bench. I don't get bruising of my buttocks when I leave. So, I wouldn't expect anything in terms of that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: And then he went on to demolish the defense theory. He said somehow it was George Floyd's pre-existing conditions that killed him at the exactly the moment a police officer was kneeling on his neck.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: You were asked quite a few questions about Mr. Floyd's pre- existing health conditions?
TOBIN: Correct.
UNKNOWN: And remember he cited a number of those?
TOBIN: Yes.
UNKNOWN: Do any of those conditions have anything to do with the cause of Mr. Floyd's death in your professional opinion whatsoever?
TOBIN: None whatsoever.
UNKNOWN: And again, what was the cause such that those conditions don't matter?
TOBIN: The cause of death is a low level of oxygen that caused the brain damage and caused the heart to stop.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Well, he went on to say even a person with no pre-existing conditions would have died as a result of what happened to George Floyd. And then there was a police surgeon who poked holes and another of the defense theories. Testifying that drugs had nothing to do with George Floyd's death.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAM SMOCK, POLICE SURGEON, LOUISVILLE METRO POLICE: He is talking. He is not snoring. He is saying, you know, please, please get off of me, I want to breathe, I can't breathe. That is not a fentanyl overdose. That is somebody begging to breathe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Science. The defense is trying to convince jurors not to believe what they saw. What we all saw with our own eyes and heard with our own ears for 9 minutes and 29 seconds. But what we heard from the doctors today could be devastating to their case. Hard to watch and hear, I know, but this is the news. We got to play it for you.
It had to be devastating for George Floyd's family to hear all of this. I am going to ask his cousin what it was like for the family today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BENJAMIN CRUMP, ATTORNEY FOR FLOYD FAMILY: It is clear what killed George Floyd was an overdose of excessive force.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[22:15:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: A renowned pulmonologist delivering incredibly powerful testimony in the Derek Chauvin trial, saying George Floyd died from a lack of oxygen caused by the force used against him.
Dr. Martin Tobin forcibly refuting the defense's argument that drugs or health problems led to George Floyd's death. He also described how Floyd was desperately trying to breathe while Chauvin had his knee on his neck.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOBIN: From the right image, you see he his knuckle against the tire. And to most people, this doesn't look terribly significant, but to a physiologist, this is extraordinarily significant because this tells you that he has used up his resources and he is now literally trying to breathe with his fingers and knuckles.
You can see that Mr. Floyd has his face rammed into the street because he is using his face here to try to crank up his chest. He is actually using his forehead and nose and his chin as a way of trying to help him get air into the right side of his chest.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: As I said, devastating. Devastating. Devastating. I want to bring in Tera Brown now, George Floyd's cousin and director of the George Floyd Foundation. Tera, thank you so much for joining us. Man, that was -- I hate to ask you, but seeing that and reliving that, what does it do to you?
[22:19:57]
TERA BROWN, GEORGE FLOYD'S COUSIN: I've literally cried just about every day since the trial started. As you could imagine, it's hard to watch, and it's worse than what we even thought, just having to watch that, and then, you know, the explanations of how certain things happened, it's just, it's devastating to watch. LEMON: He is talking about the last moments that your cousin was
trying to breathe, and all the difficult days in this trial to date, was this the hardest?
BROWN: This was one of the hardest. The first day was hard. The third day was extremely hard. Today was one of the hardest for sure.
LEMON: Yes. So, he went through how George Floyd was doing everything that he could to get air. Very difficult to watch. And just yesterday the defense was trying to use George Floyd saying, you know, I can't breathe as an argument against him. But, you know, we and the jury can see what happened with our own eyes here and we can hear him with our own ears.
BROWN: Yes, and today I thought today's Dr. Tobin's testimony today was outstanding. Because it confirmed what we all know and we knew what we saw, and so it was really good that he gave us his opinion, but it was really outstanding the way he explained how he came to those conclusions. And he did it in such a way that people like me could understand exactly what that means.
LEMON: Yes.
BROWN: Like it was break.
LEMON: Yes, because the jury was taking notes, watching closely. The jury was even touching their necks. What did you think when you saw that and when you hear, you know, about the note-taking and all of that?
BROWN: That's very important because that tells me that they were engaged and they wanted to understand what it was that he was explaining to us. And so, for me, that was -- that was amazing. I was happy to see that they were taking notes and they were very engaged today.
LEMON: Yes. Well, I mean, that is really the key, right? The key is going to be the cause of death. So, I think that the testimony today is probably some of the most important, if not the most important, testimony that will happen during this trial. It also took aim at the defense's argument that George Floyd's pre-existing conditions or drugs led to his death. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JERRY BLACKWELL, PROSECUTING ATTORNEY: Do you have an opinion to a reasonable degree of medical certainty as to whether a person who had none of those pre-existing health conditions, a healthy person, would have died under the same circumstances as Mr. Floyd?
TOBIN: Yes, a healthy person subjected to what Mr. Floyd was subjected to would have died as a result of what he was subjected to.
BLACKWELL: You are familiar with the way people die from fentanyl?
TOBIN: Yes. Very. BLACKWELL: Do they or do they not go into a coma before they die from
a fentanyl overdose?
TOBIN: Yes, they will.
BLACKWELL: Was Mr. Floyd ever in a coma?
TOBIN: No.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: How do you think the prosecution is doing to stop the attempts by the defense to make it seem like your cousin is on trial here?
BROWN: I think that they are doing a very good job in that aspect because they want to keep bringing up the point that there were drugs in his system and the testimony today made it very clear that what caused his death was the excessive force that was used, and you know, restraining him and leaning on his neck and even on his back.
There is no doubt in my mind that people understood it the same way that I did. It was explained very well that the drugs had nothing to do with the cause of his death.
LEMON: Begging and pleading. I can't breathe. He is telling them that he can't breathe and doesn't care. We are expecting the defense to start introducing their witnesses next week. We know what their strategy is. I'm sure you guys are preparing. Can you prepare for what's coming next?
BROWN: I thought I was prepared for what we've had to deal with since this trial started. You know, I am optimistic. I'm trying to, you know, be prepared for it. But as best we can. I just -- it's more than, you know, you could possibly imagine to have to deal with that.
LEMON: I can't. Tera, thank you. Be well. I appreciate you appearing.
[22:25:03]
BROWN: Thank you.
LEMON: Thank you. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Lots of stories we are following tonight from Congressman Matt Gaetz's deepening problems. The Republicans sacked on voting rights and President Biden's executive actions on guns being followed by yet another mass shooting.
Matthew Dowd is here. Let's discuss with him. He is the former chief strategist for President George W. Bush. Matthew, thank you. Good to see you.
MATTHEW DOWD, FORMER CHIEF STRATEGIST FOR PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: You, too, Don. LEMON: Man. Boy, we got a lot to talk about. So, you are in Texas
where there has been another horrific mass shooting just hours after President Joe Biden called gun violence an epidemic and an embarrassment. The Texas Governor there, Greg Abbott, tweeting just hours after Biden's announcement today, calling it a liberal power grab to take away our guns. He went straight for the knee jerk political reaction, didn't he?
[22:30:05]
DOWD: Yes. And what makes it even crazier, Don, is on the same day that happens, a tragedy, and again more gun tragedy in Texas. The House Republicans committee passed voting restrictions today. So, on one hand we are sort of advocating ease of -- ease of access to guns, and on the other hand we are creating restrictions to voting on the same exact day, which makes this whole situation completely bizarre when we should be doing the reverse. They are, you know, making it harder to get, harder to vote, easier to get guns.
LEMON: I want to stick with guns just for a second and then I'm going to talk to you about voting rights and Joe Manchin and then what he fells, how he feels about the filibuster. But on this issue of guns, the president's executive order tightens these restrictions on ghost guns, the kind that you assemble yourself.
Congress has to act for real reform here. Biden says that there is public support for common sense laws to stop gun violence. There has been public support for a long time. Again, he is exercising bipartisanship by doing things that have the support of a lot of Americans, not just Republicans. Will that catch on?
DOWD: Well, it's caught on with the American public. As you know, there is a super majority in the country, Republicans, Democrats, and independents for common sense gun reform.
LEMON: Yes.
DOWD: And I'm a gun owner. I own five rifles. The majority of gun owners not only in Texas, but around the country, support these gun reforms. And so, the public is already all for it. They have been pushing it. We've seen races as we talked about before, the Georgia race, other races decided on this issue, on people that were for gun reform.
The problem is Washington, D.C., and the Republican Party in Washington, D.C., has stood firmly in the minority on this. But Biden is riding the wave of public sentiment on this. We just have a democracy that's broken.
LEMON: Let's talk about what I just mentioned. Senator Joe Manchin telling CNN tonight he supports President Biden's actions on guns, but he won't get rid of the filibuster. Not even for voting rights. Here it is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNKNOWN: Some progressives think that you are standing in the way of significant changes the president could make on voting rights because you don't want to get rid of the filibuster. Other changes that they could make --
(CROSSTALK)
MANCHIN: Well, maybe --
UNKNOWN: -- on gun reforms. Has your problems --
MANCHIN: Well, they can with all these changes if they try to work towards the middle. You can't work on the fringes. You just cannot work on fringes. We want fair, open, secured elections. And what Georgia has done some things which I thought were atrocious, OK?
But I'm also been a secretary of state and I've been a governor and I know the tenth amendment. I know my rights as far as states' rights. I don't think there should be an overreaching, if you will, federal elections.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: So, OK. All right. Help me understand something here because I'm trying to get it. Because he calls what happened in Georgia atrocious, but a similar set of bills is underway in your state in Texas. He is saying you got to work towards the middle and that you can't work with the fringes. How is voting rights a fringe issue? That's not a fringe issue.
DOWD: No. And you know, I think Joe Manchin, I understandably he is a Democrat in a red state like West Virginia and so he has to take a balance on this on what he does. But to me, he is making the exact wrong argument on this on the filibuster. The filibuster isn't helping create places where you can reach common sense consensus --
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: It is creating the problem.
DOWD: The filibuster is actually --
LEMON: Yes.
DOWD: It's creating the division in this country. And he, I don't think, fully understands the history of the filibuster, which was really used by segregationists throughout history in order to block rights not only for African-Americans but for many people of color in this country.
And so, the filibuster -- the idea that you can't change a rule because it's some sort of rule is what was allowed unjust -- we had a Fugitive Slave Act in this country. And so, the idea is like, well, that's the law, we got to do, we will go along with it. At some point justice demands a change in rules or a change in procedures to get to a just position. And when we have in this country today the majority of the country
supports access to voting, easier access to voting, the majority of the country supports an increase in the minimum wage, the majority of the country supports common sense gun reform, none of which is happening and the primary reason why it's not happening is because of the filibuster rule.
And so, if he really wants to do what the majority of the country wants, he would be getting rid of the filibuster rule and negotiating with other Democrats on what they want to do.
LEMON: I think this whole idea about, you know, that it's -- I just think what he's -- his ideas are outdated about what is balanced and what is not, what is fringe and what's not fringe. Wanting -- wanting common sense gun laws, that's not fringe.
[22:35:02]
Wanting people to have access to -- as many people as possible to have access to the voting booth, that's not a fringe issue. I don't know why he is comparing the people who are on the right who want all of these crazy fringe things that are saying, you know, he said, we want -- we want our elections to be secure.
This was the most secure election in American history. So, what is he talking about?
DOWD: You know what, you know what, Don? One thing that I think we have, and we can have a longer conversation one day about the myth of American history and the myth of America and so many people is misunderstanding about who we are and what we've done in our country and we could have a much broader conversation about that.
But the understanding of where we are in the country today, if you -- the freedom house, which is a bipartisan or nonpartisan group that ranks democracies in the world every year. They investigate rank democracy. You know what we're ranked in the world as a democracy? Fifty-eighth. America is ranked 58th as a democracy in the world. And you know the number one reason? Our dysfunction. Our dysfunction that doesn't allow us to accomplish stuff that we need to do in the 21st century.
And it's time we abandon all these old rules. It's time we actually, in my view, we look at the Constitution and see what is in the Constitution is impediments to our democracy and do the things that the majority of the country wants. The reason why people don't trust Washington is because Washington isn't didn't doing what they want.
LEMON: Yes. Yes. And that's working for the people. Before you go, I've got to talk about Matt Gaetz. Republican support for Matt Gaetz has been practically non-existent. Republican Matt -- Republican -- excuse me, Adam Kinzinger calling for him to resign. Read the tea leaves here. How long can he hang on?
DOWD: I mean, I think the Republicans -- we had a president that, what was it, 26 or 27 women had valid allegations of sexual harassment or sexual abuse against the president, he got nominated and he almost won a second term? he got re-nominated.
So, I think the only way it keeps going -- the only way it stops and Matt Gaetz ultimately resigns or is removed from the House is if the criminal prosecution of Matt Gaetz proceeds. He is not going to resign because of how the Republican Party has supported people that are basically Neanderthals throughout this whole thing. It's going to take a criminal prosecution in order to get Matt Gaetz to be removed from the House, in my view.
LEMON: Matthew Dowd, thank you, sir. Always a pleasure.
DOWD: Thanks, Don. Always good to talk to you.
LEMON: The feds now investigating whether women were paid to travel to the Bahamas for sex with Congressman Matt Gaetz. And breaking tonight, the Daily Beast says that they have some new evidence. Stay with us.
[22:40:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: The Daily Beast saying that they have new evidence in the Matt Gaetz investigation and there is another development that could spell big trouble for the Republican congressman who is being investigated for sex allegations, for allegations of sex trafficking and prostitution.
So, an attorney says that Joel Greenberg, a Gaetz's associate, who is a key figure in the investigation, is likely to strike a plea deal and cooperate with federal prosecutors.
I want to discuss now. Harry Litman is here, he is both a former U.S. attorney and a former deputy assistant attorney general. So good to see you. It's been a minute but we love having you.
HARRY LITMAN, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: Thanks, Don. You, too.
LEMON: So, listen, let's talk about -- a reporter from the Daily Beast telling Chris earlier they obtained Venmo records showing payments from the congressman to his friend Joel Greenberg and then payments from Greenberg to three other women, three young women. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOSE PAGLIERY, POLITICAL INVESTIGATIONS REPORTER, THE DAILY BEAST: What we have are Venmo payments that show payments from the congressman to this local official and then hours later payments that add up to the same exact amount to three young women, one of whom later turned out to be a porn star. And all of these women are extremely young.
CUOMO: Extremely young, meaning what?
PAGLIERY: Well, one just turned 18 about six months before that happened. But let's talk about what these receipts actually show. Are you familiar with the Venmo app? When you make an online payment, you have to do two things. You have to pick who you are going to send this to, how much, right, but what it's for. You list what it is for. And that's key to understanding what we have here.
Because what we've obtained are Venmo payment records that show that late one night in May 2018 the congressman sent two payments to Joel Greenberg, this local official. The first payment is $500. It says test. The second payment is $400 and it says hit up and then it names a girl. Now we chose not to name her yet. But just seven or eight hours later Joel Greenberg makes three payments totaling $900, including one of them who was named by Matt Gaetz.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: So, the Daily Beast points out that there is no conclusive evidence that it was for sex and none of the three women were underage. And the reporter, Jose Pagliery, didn't speak with any of the women who received these payments. Gaetz denies ever paying for sex or having slept with a 17-year-old, OK. So now that I got all of that legal stuff out of the way.
LITMAN: Right.
LEMON: I just had to make sure. What do you think?
LITMAN: So, and I'll add one little detail. These were public records before and they disappeared from Gaetz's records just this week. What do I think? I think it's really clear that Gaetz and Greenberg were sort of partners in crime, kind of the biggest jerks in a rich kid's fraternity and there is sex floating around and pictures and drugs, ecstasy and weird payments.
[22:44:55]
What exactly does it add up to? I think it's hard, Don, to say right now. That's why they have been investigating for over eight months. Are there underage sex partners? Again, hard to say. But here is the most important fact.
The DOJ and the defense attorney stood up in court today and said there is going to be a plea deal. That just wouldn't happen casually. That couldn't happen, in fact, unless it's gone all the way up to Merrick Garland, who's approved it. And what does it mean to say there is going to be a plea deal? It means that the department has concluded that whatever Gaetz has done, it's as bad as Greenberg has done. They are not going to have a less culpable person cooperate against a more.
And that they've concluded warts and all, and Greenberg that is a lot of warts, they can still make the case between Greenberg and some of the female victims. So that was just sort of said blindly in court today. But if you read between the lines and know how the DOJ works, they've left a little room to wiggle out, but it's clear that everybody expects Greenberg to cooperate against Gaetz and we have a whole sort of lurid series of different kind of potential criminal activity.
LEMON: Greenberg's attorney today. Listen. LITMAN: Right.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCHELLER: I think that Mr. Greenberg, if he accepts a plea or a plea agreement, that, one, it will show the sense of remorse, which he does have, and a sense of acceptance of responsibility. Number two, I think he's uniquely situated. I'm sure Matt Gaetz is not feeling very comfortable today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Well, so I want to get your response to that.
(CROSSTALK)
LITMAN: It may happen.
LEMON: But let me just tell you, Greenberg faces 33 criminal counts including allegations of stalking, wire fraud, creating fake I.D.s and sex trafficking. All right. So, they wouldn't be willing to work out a deal with Greenberg if he didn't have something big and verifiable to offer?
LITMAN: That's right. Big. And it really has to be bigger than what he has done. He does have all of those counts, Don, but they are three different indictments. Here we are focused on the second. The sex trafficking. But DOJ guidelines say don't cooperate down, even if you've got a big scalp, a congressman.
Some people could cheat on that maybe, local young prosecutors who want to make a name for themselves, but not Merrick Garland. And at this stage you can be certain especially with no deputy attorney general yet confirmed, this has gone all the way up to him and he is confirmed and agreed with the basic judgment that Gaetz has a lot of baggage and a lot of crimes and that they think they can make the case.
Again, a little room to wiggle out, but they just wouldn't say that to the court unless they were really expecting it. May 15th is the golden date. That's when they are going to come in and finalize the plea agreement. If everything goes bad, he'll go to trial in July. But everybody is expecting him to come forward and that's based on things that his lawyers have already told the Department of Justice. That spells big trouble. We don't know exactly the letters, but it spells big trouble for Matt Gaetz.
LEMON: Why would his lawyers say that? Were you surprised his lawyers said, he is probably not feeling two comfortable? I was surprised. I couldn't believe that, that he would say something like that.
LITMAN: Yes, in fact, not so smart because, remember, in court they didn't say who the cooperation would be against. In general, at that press conference he was sort of bobbing and weaving and didn't seem ready.
LEMON: Yes.
LITMAN: But he told us, and in fact, you know, it would have been a strong guess already, I had guessed it, many others had, but he confirms it. Matt Gaetz, it's not feeling too comfortable. What does that mean? And we know, by the way, all the facts as they are coming out have all these kinds of hijinks and, you know, really, really sort of lurid criminal details involving falsification perhaps of records and of campaign finance stuff.
These two, who were apart for -- they were not allies. They didn't -- they weren't close together. Their relationship was the grossest sort of frat boy criminal stuff of sharing partners. Greenberg was the one who went online, procured them for Gaetz, maybe for third parties. Again, not sure of the specifics, but it is not pretty.
LEMON: Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.
LITMAN: Thank you, sir. Good to be with you.
LEMON: John Boehner ripping into Trump, lashing out at Congress, taking on the Republican Party. All of the bombshells coming out of his book, next.
[22:50:00]
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LEMON: Former House Speaker John Boehner is throwing some punches in his new book going after Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and the party he once led.
Here's CNN's Brian Todd.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There was a time when John Boehner tread lightly when it came to Donald Trump.
JOHN BOEHNER, FORMER U.S. SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: The president is probably the most unique person we've had as president. But the fact is he's president.
TODD: Consider that chapter closed. In the former House Speaker's new book "On the House," Boehner rips into the former president, accusing Trump of inciting the January 6th attack on the capitol. Quote, "perpetuated by the bullshit he'd been shoveling since he lost a fair election."
And he skewers Trump for being petty and bullying. Boehner writes of a time he went golfing with Trump before Trump ran for president. And aide to Boehner he writes, mistakenly introduced their two golf partners by the wrong names. At the end of the round when Trump found out he'd been calling the two men by the wrong names the entire time, Boehner writes, Trump got into Boehner's aide's face, quote, "Trump shouted, what are you? Some kind of idiot? You want to know how to remember somebody's name? You f-ing listen." [22:55:08]
DAVID SWERDLICK, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: That example of the golf outing really shows the contrast between the two men in terms at least of temperament. President Trump was mercurial, undisciplined, immature, self-centered.
TODD: A Trump spokesperson responded to Boehner's account by calling Boehner a, quote, "swamp creature." And suggested Boehner's criticism was motivated by his business ties to China. Boehner writes that he once told then Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid to go f himself at a White House meeting.
He recalls an incident where fellow Republican Congressman Don Young got so angry with Boehner over Boehner's criticism of earmarks that Young held a ten-inch knife to Boehner's throat just off the House floor. Young told Politico, Boehner's account is mostly true.
In the book excerpts, John Boehner shows a particular detestation of Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz who Boehner already spoken derisively about for years.
BOEHNER: Lucifer in the flesh. I get along with almost everybody. But I've never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life.
TODD: In the book, discussing the rise of the Tea Party while he was speaker and younger Republicans who were less interested in cutting deals with the Democrats. Boehner writes, there's nothing more dangerous than a reckless a-hole who thinks he is smarter than everybody else. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Senator Ted Cruz.
SWERDLICK: What he detested about Senator Ted Cruz was this dramatic histrionic style that wasn't about legislating but about scoring points in the media and eventually, that is what led Boehner to move away.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TODD: We reached out to Senator Ted Cruz's office for a response to Boehner's book. They referred to us a tweet from Senator Cruz implying that Boehner is obsessed with Cruz. Cruz did joke about Boehner's criticisms of him at a conservative conference in February, asking an audience who is John Boehner? Don?
LEMON: Brian Todd, thank you so much.
An expert testifying in Derek Chauvin kept his knee on George Floyd's neck for more than three minutes after Floyd stopped breathing. That and what else you need to know from today's testimony. That's next.
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