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Second-Tier Player In President Trump's Impeachment Inquiry Says He Has Information On A Top-Tier Player And Now He Wants To Testify; President Trump's Personal Attorney, Rudy Giuliani, Says He Isn't Afraid Of Getting Indicted; President Trump Again Defended Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher; Trump Blasts Inquiry As A "Hoax" As Democrats Press Ahead; Joe Biden Talks To Don Lemon About New Candidates In Race; CNN's Kate Bennett Releases New Book On Melania Trump. Aired 4- 5p ET

Aired November 23, 2019 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:00:33]

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York.

Breaking news now and first reported right here on CNN, a second-tier player in President Trump's impeachment inquiry says he has information on a top-tier player and now he wants to testify.

Lev Parnas, an indicted former associate to President Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, says he wants to tell Congress that the ranking member of the House intelligence committee, Republican Devin Nunes, not only has personal knowledge of meetings to discuss efforts to dig up dirt on Joe Biden, but that Nunes himself met with Ukrainians in person and talked about that very thing.

Devin Nunes is the top Republican on this committee now investigating potentially impeachable offenses committed by President Trump. And he is a leading very vocal critic of the entire process, calling the hearings bizarre and a circus and a kangaroo court. Nunes passed on commenting to CNN about this new reporting but did tell an extreme right-wing Web site that the entire report is quote "demonstrably false."

The connection between this new accusation and the White House is Rudy Giuliani who worked with Parnas in pushing democratic corruption in Ukraine. And in an interview, Giuliani says he has no reason to doubt Devin Nunes and also said he's not afraid of anything bad coming down on him because he says he has quote "insurance."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUDY GIULIANI, PRESIDENT TRUMP'S ATTORNEY: You can assume they talked to him early and often.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

GIULIANI: And have a very, very good relationship with him and all of these comments which are totally insulting, I mean, I have seen things written like he's going to throw me under the bus.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.

GIULIANI: When they say that, I say he isn't, but I have insurance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Meantime, we are learning new details of an orchestrated effort by the White House to connect Rudy Giuliani with secretary of state Mike Pompeo right as Giuliani was pushing for an investigation of the Bidens.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond is at the White House with this part of the story. What have you learned?

JEREMEY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That's right, Ana. Well, according to documents that have been leased by the state department in a freedom of information act request, the White House helped arrange a call between the President's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and the secretary of state Mike Pompeo.

Now what's more interesting about this is the timing of this call. The call that the White House helped organize between Giuliani and Pompeo took place a day after Giuliani passed along information to the state department that included allegations about Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. These allegations related to wrongdoing in Ukraine for which, again, there is no evidence to back any of those allegations up. And it was also about Marie Yovanovitch, the ambassador who a couple of months later would be ousted from her post in Ukraine.

Now Rudy Giuliani was asked about this earlier today on FOX News. Let's listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you think it's appropriate for the White House to be helping coordinate your efforts to investigate the Bidens and Ukraine --

GIULIANI: Who says they were doing it?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you think it's appropriate for the White House to be --

GIULIANI: well, I don't know if it's appropriate or not, but they weren't doing it. First thing is the White House wasn't coordinating anything, so the answer to that is no. And that's a false premise. Second one is, what?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Didn't the White House arrange calls with you and secretary Pompeo? GIULIANI: No. I'm capable of making my own calls. I actually know

how to use the phone. Mike -- of course I'm not going to discuss my conversations with the secretary of state.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DIAMOND: I apologize, that was from one of our own CNN colleagues speaking with Rudy Giuliani earlier today.

And despite Rudy Giuliani's denials, again we now have these emails that show Rudy Giuliani's assistant emailing President Trump's then- assistant (INAUDIBLE) to organize this call with the secretary of state.

But what this really does is put a finer point on secretary of state Mike Pompeo's involvement in all of this. The secretary of state has really tried to stay as far away from this Ukraine scandal as possible. Despite that, though, beyond this email with Giuliani, we also know earlier this week from multiple officials who testified that Mike Pompeo was, indeed, in the loop at key moments of this effort by the President and his allies to pressure Ukraine to carry out these investigations.

The U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, in particular said that Mike Pompeo was in the loop throughout - Ana.

CABRERA: Jeremy Diamond at the White House for us. Thank you, Jeremy.

Max Boot joins us now. He is CNN Global Affairs Analyst and "Washington Post" Columnist.

Max, you have Pompeo talking to Giuliani about these unfounded claims regarding Biden. You also have the ranking of the House intel committee. Devin Nunes, allegedly meeting with shady characters in Ukraine. Neither of these new developments were previously reported or disclosed. What do you see as the significance of this?

[16:05:17]

MAX BOOT, SENIOR FELLOW, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Well, Ana, I think you're seeing the scandal continue to unfold despite the devastating testimony that you heard from 12 witnesses over the course of the last week and a half. There are still more that we don't know. And I think we are continuing to learn more. I think we would learn a lot more if there was any chance that people like Giuliani, Mulvaney, Bolton, or President Trump himself would actually agree to testify under oath.

Now they all claim to be innocent. They all claim that this is all nonsense, it's all untrue. But if they actually believe that and if they think that their testimony will exonerate the President, why don't they deliver that testimony under oath? Instead what you are seeing is what we have been seeing for a long time is this continuation of leaks and -- and digging by news organizations to bring out these damaging facts. CABRERA: And even when the facts come out, you still have Republicans

buying into conspiracy theories. I mean, we even have, you know, new reporting about the U.S. intelligence officials briefing Congress members about Russia try to frame Ukraine for its own election meddling in 2016, and yet now we have all these people who are experts testifying under oath saying the same thing. Republicans -- and the Trump administration seemingly are just falling into Putin's trap.

BOOT: This is a dark day for the United States and for somebody like me, Ana, who is a lifelong Republican to hear the party of Ronald Reagan repeating the disinformation of Vladimir Putin, this is truly something I never imagined could possibly happen.

There is so -- such a dark and dangerous day for the United States that, you know, this is a storyline that the Russians put out there to distract attention from their own attack on the 2016 election, and now the Russian disinformation is being repeated by President Trump, by Devin Nunes and so many others, even though we know it's false. Even though you heard the testimony from Fiona Hill and others, you are hearing what the U.S. intelligence community head concluded. It's completely at odds with this. And so, you have to ask why do Republicans keep repeating Russian propaganda? This is just incredibly nefarious.

CABRERA: On the issue of impeachment you write in an op-ed for the Post this week, in a sane world, Sondland's testimony would have ended the Trump presidency. But Republicans have made clear that their devotion to Trump is irrational and, like other religious faiths, not subject to rational reputation. Without an actual tape of Trump ordering a shakedown in Ukraine and maybe even one with Republicans will not be shaken in their cult-like devotion to the President. How does this President maintain such an iron grip on this party?

BOOT: That's a great question. That's something that I'm struggling with all the time. The fact is that he does, he still has about the -- the support of about 85 percent to 90 percent of Republican voters. And because he has the support of those voters, he has the support of their elected representatives in Congress. Even those like Will Hurd or others who have acknowledged that what the President did was improper. Yet they somehow refuse to go to the next logical step to say that it's impeachable. They refuse to draw the logical conclusion which is that it's impeachable even the ones who are retiring.

To me it's astonishing because, yes, you know, Trump has done a few things that Republicans like, but he has also trashed all sorts of Republican principles. And more importantly, he has trashed the rule of law, he has cow-towed (ph) to dictators, debased the office, he has violated the public trust. This is not something Republicans would have tolerated if -- imagine if this were Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton doing this, they would have been had conniption and rightly so. And yet, Donald Trump it seems there is no limiting principle in terms of what he can do. He can literally shoot somebody on 5th avenue and Republicans don't care.

CABRERA: Let me read you a tweet from Dan Rather following the hearings. The question is not whether the GOP will abandon Trump, we know the answer. The question is whether the country will abandon the GOP. You left the Republican party since Trump took office. You wrote a book about it actually, "the corrosion of conservatism: why I left the right."

What makes you different from the Trump base and these Republican lawmakers who seem to be with Trump no matter what?

BOOT: That's a great question. I mean, I'm not sure that I am that unique because you saw the same thing happen in 2018. A lot of Republican-leaning voters, a lot of moderates and independents who support Republicans in the past, all of a sudden voted for Democrats.

So I think there's actually a larger kind of never-Trump Republican number of people out there than the White House would like to admit. But it is very dismay be for me to see how many Republicans are willing to swallow their principles because I don't think I have actually changed that.

I still believe in pretty much the same things I believed before Donald Trump came along, including things like the importance of character which is what Republicans were saying when they were impeaching Bill Clinton. And now all the sudden when it's Donald Trump who is a thousand times worse than Bill Clinton ever was, character no longer seems to matter to Republicans. So I think, you know, it's just dismay for me to see how few Republicans have maintained any degree of consistency in this Trump presidency.

[16:10:23]

CABRERA: Max Boot, I appreciate your perspective. Thank you so much for being here.

BOOT: Thank you.

CABRERA: Breaking news, new escalation in President Trump's back and forth with the Navy's top brass over ousting a Navy SEAL with "The New York Times" reporting top military officials are threatening to resign.

President Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, says he isn't afraid of getting indicted. Why? Because in his own words, he has insurance.

You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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CABRERA: President Trump's former or I should say current personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani is again offering a cryptic warning today as questions about his role in the Ukraine shakedown deepen. Now CNN has reported in the past that federal prosecutors in New York are investigating Giuliani's financial ties to a couple of associates, Lev Parnas, Igor Fruman who were indicted in September. There is also a counter intelligence element to this probe. But

today, in an interview where Rudy Giuliani was already asked if he was afraid of being indicted, here is his stunning response during his appearance on the President's favorite network when asked if he was still counsel to the President and actively speaking with his client.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[16:15:05] GIULIANI: You can assume that I talk to him early and often.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

GIULIANI: And have a very, very good relationship with him and all of these comments which are totally insulting.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

GIULIANI: I Mean, I have seen things written like he's going to throw me under the bus.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.

GIULIANI: When I hear that, I say he isn't but I have insurance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: CNN Correspondent, Josh Campbell is a former FBI supervisory special agent is here with us now.

So Josh, we just heard Rudy Giuliani say I have insurance. Some of his allies are saying there is a big joke. But is there any way to not interpret that as essentially a threat to the President?

JOSH CAMPBELL, FORMER FBI SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT: No, it certainly seems that way. You know what's so fascinating about the past few days is we have people associated with the President who are seemingly talking to him through the media. You had ambassador Bolton now with his, you know, twitter issues, now tweeting at the President, his favorite medium.

And now here today, recently, we have Rudy Giuliani especially -- essentially talking to the President through his favorite network, FOX News. And it's hard to listen to that, the so-called insurance that he has without interpreting he has some kind dirt possibly that the President might not like.

Again, this is fascinating. We heard the President say positive things about Rudy Giuliani, but again, if you are Rudy Giuliani and this is just, you know, analytically speaking here, if you are yourself under criminal investigation as we've reported, you are probably going to try to look out for number one before anything else.

So for him to say, look, you know, I'm obviously a fan of the President, I stay allied with him, but I have this insurance, should give the White House pause. Only they know, you know, what exactly took place. But this is not something that you typically see at least in politics.

CABRERA: Would the President have some insurance in that he has attorney/client privilege over whatever Rudy Giuliani may have.

CAMPBELL: Potentially. I mean, if it turns out that there is an exception that if a attorney is involved in criminal activity, then that washes this, you know, idea of privilege. We don't yet know, you know, what prosecutors are going to go after or what Congress is going to do as far as pushing the envelope to gather information about what, you know, Rudy might know.

We'll have to stay tuned and wait and see. There are a lot of unanswered questions. But again, a fascinating turn of events where you have this person so closely tied to the President now publicly saying, that look, what ever transpires, just know that I have in my back pocket the so-called insurance policy.

CABRERA: Meanwhile, we have been reporting about newly revealed state department documents that show that the White House helped arrange a phone call between Giuliani and secretary of state Mike Pompeo the day after the President's personal lawyer handed over materials that apparently had something to do with unproven claims about Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. Now, we know how high up this has gone. Do we need to hear from Mike Pompeo?

CAMPBELL: Well, he is certainly one of the key witnesses in this entire scenario. And what is so fascinating is that if you just look at the response to secretary Pompeo from a lot of folks who we have seen these ambassadors and former ambassadors testifying, a lot of people wondering why isn't the state department coming out robustly, including leadership, robustly defending the men and women of the state department.

And now new information that we -- has come to light that we continue to glean from our is that it appears the secretary of state himself may have been involved in these key discussions. So that helps possibly answer that question about why you haven't seen this robust defense because they may have known what was going on all along.

But again, if you are a member of Congress trying to get to the bottom of what happened looking at the key witnesses, secretary of state Mike Pompeo certainly one of them.

CABRERA: And now one of those members of Congress has been implicated in the heart of all of this. And that's Devin Nunes, the ranking member on the House intel committee. We have the reporting today that he allegedly went to Ukraine trying to get dirt on Joe Biden and was speaking with Ukrainians.

This is something that has never been I did closed as he is part of the -- never been disclosed as he's part of the investigation, part of the members of Congress speaking and asking witnesses questions. Does this just go to show that there's a lot more investigating that needs to be done?

CAMPBELL: Yes, certainly. I mean, this is a bombshell in the sense that you have Devin Nunes, Republican from California, who has certainly been a bulldog defender of the President from the beginning, throughout the Russia investigation, and obviously now.

We now know, and this seems like, you know, decades ago, but Nunes was involved in the so-called midnight run to the White House, if you'll recall, during the Russia investigation where he went and actually briefed, gathered information from the White House, held this press conference about alleged abuses by the intelligence community, and then went back to the White House to brief the President and others on what he found which actually cost him his chairmanship for a period of time as House ethics investigators determined, you know, whether or not he broke any rules.

They ultimately cleared him. But certainly someone who's closely allied with the President who is not surprising now to see that he's actually going to bat and, you know, attempting to try to unearth some of these, you know, what folks determine to be conspiracy theories.

But as you go back and look at the questioning over the last, you know, week, with these impeachment hearings where you have him trying to get to the bottom of what happened, it certainly would have been helpful for the public to know that he himself was on the ground trying to gather information. And, you know, again, everything comes to light eventually.

It is an interesting turn of events. So you have this person, the minority leader of this impeachment committee, the intelligence committee, now so closely involved in trying to get to the bottom of the conspiracy theories. You know, again, he -- he probably would say himself, look, I'm a defender of the President, I'm trying to get to the bottom of things.

But from the larger perspective it certainly is -- at least raises questions about what he is the doing. Is he gathering the facts or is he trying to, you know, do whatever he can to paint the picture that the President is subject of some kind of abuse by the intelligence community.

[16:20:30]

CABRERA: Josh Campbell, good to have you here. Thank you so much.

CAMPBELL: Thank you.

CABRERA: Breaking news, new concerns from the military top officials after President Trump tweeted he won't allow them to oust a Navy SEAL from the elite force.

You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:24:39] CABRERA: There are signs of growing tension among Pentagon brass this afternoon after President Trump again defended Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher. The President had already reversed Gallagher's demotion which he received after his conviction for posing with the dead body of a teenage ISIS fighter in Iraq. Gallagher was acquitted of murder, however.

On Thursday, the President tweeted that the Navy would not be taking away Gallagher's trident pin which is the pin worn by SEALs. That suggests the President wants Gallagher to remain a SEAL even though the Navy secretary supports the review of Gallagher which is now under way.

But in the last hour, CNN learned that defense secretary Mark Esper and joint chiefs chairman Mark Millie have raised a flag about the tweet with the White House. An administration officials tells us quotes "there is extreme concern over decision being pulled from the Navy."

I want to bring in retired army lieutenant general Mark Hertling.

Mark, wow, all these developments, the back and forth. Obviously members of the military I would imagine would have a hard time speaking up against what is coming down from the commander in chief.

[16:25:46]

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, they won't, Ana. They won't speak up specifically about the issue. But really what this boils down to is an element of trust. Trust in the command structure, trust in the civilian military relationship, trust in a commander. In this case, admiral Green, to do the best in establishing standards and levels of discipline for his unit. That's what this is all about.

You know, it's one thing for the President. And he certainly can give this order, first of all, let's set that straight. He can give any order he wants. And any order he gives should be obeyed. What the Navy is saying, though, is now he is not only inserting himself in the decision-making of the court-martial and what the penalties were and absolving chief Gallagher of those things, but now he's getting into unit responsibility, commander responsibility. It's admiral Green's requirement to make sure all of his Navy SEALs meet the standards of what is arguably the world's best fighting force, the Navy SEALs.

And he's been given a tough task because, as you recall, there's been some problems within the Navy SEAL's infrastructure in the last couple of months with some abrogation of standards and responsibility and authority. So all of this boils down to does -- does admiral Green, does secretary Spencer believe that the President trusts them to do the right thing in certifying who is going to wear the SEAL trident. That's a long explanation, but the best I got.

CABRERA: General, a short time ago the Navy secretary, Richard v. Spencer denied a report suggesting he's ready to quit over this controversy. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD SPENCE, NAV SECRETARY: Contrary to popular belief I'm still here, I did not threaten to resign. But let us just say that we're here to talk about external threats and Eddie Gallagher is not one of them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: General, the Navy secretary may not be going anywhere, but clearly, we see frustration at high levels. How rare -- and you touched on this earlier, but how rare is it for a commander in chief to get so directly involved in a matter like this, and given a lot of it's been through tweet, how do you think that's interpreted?

HERTLING: Yes. It's not good, Ana. And it's extremely rare. I got to tell you, I spent 38 years in the military, I have never seen someone threaten to resign. And in fact, the secretary of the Navy said, you know, he basically said I didn't threaten to resign. No professional will threaten to resign.

They will just simply say I can't follow that order, or you have lost confidence in me, so you need to replace me with someone else, what secretary Mattis did. You don't go into your boss' office and throw it on the table and say, hey, I'm threatening to resign unless you do things the way I want you to. That's not the way it's done.

But I will tell you that inside the command ranks of the military we are seeing this kind of cancerous action contribute to some disconnects within the civil military design. And that's troubling to me. We -- we have developed the best military in the world over the last 30 years. I entered an army that was in bad shape after Vietnam. I was a young second lieutenant and saw what an army could be when it's not in good shape adhering to standards.

It's much better now. And I'm concerned that these kind of actions are going to actually chip away at those standards and discipline and actually -- actually harm the civil military relationships that we depend on in a democratic society.

CABRERA: Even though Gallagher was found innocent of murder, he was convicted of posing with the dead body. Are we supposed to expect people with any kind of conviction on their record to be part of such an elite force where trust is presumably valued among all else?

HERTLING: Well, not only was -- did all those things happen, you are right, but remember as part of the case, it was Gallagher's shipmates, his fellow SEALs who turned him in.

CABRERA: Right.

HERTLING: If he continues to keep that SEAL trident, he goes back in the unit that will -- and it will create a tension between those who turned him in and said, hey, this guy was dishonoring what our oath is and what we are supposed to do as military professionals. And he is right back in the middle of those folks. And admiral Green's got to find him a job.

[16:30:00]

All that becomes problematic. So you are asking the commander of the SEALs to take this action without discussion from the President, just say, oh, yes, sure, we can incorporate him back in our ranks when we've already determined that he does not meet our standards, that he doesn't have the discipline required to be a SEAL, and his

CABRERA: Right. When they thought they were doing the right thing by reporting --

HERTLING: Exactly.

CABRERA: -- what they had seen, had transpired.

Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, I appreciate it very much. Thank you.

HERTLING: Thank you, Ana.

CABRERA: With two weeks of bombshell hearings behind us now, Democrats are huddling behind closed doors to decide next steps in whether to impeach President Trump.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: With two weeks of explosive public hearings in their rearview mirror, Democrats have turned to their next stage in the impeachment inquiry, deliberations.

This, as the president blasts the party and the man leading the charge, House Intel Chairman Adam Schiff. This morning, Trump calling the inquiry a hoax and claiming that the polls have turned very strongly against impeachment.

[16:35:11]

So where do we go from here?

CNN's Manu Raju explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MANU RAJU, CNN SENOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The House Democrats are planning to take the impeachment deliberations behind the scenes and expect the deliberations to be intense and active over the next several days, including next week, the Thanksgiving week, a holiday week in the U.S. in which the lawmakers are going to be gone on recess.

But staff, members of the key committees, as well as members of the -- of Nancy Pelosi's staff will discuss exactly how to move forward.

And the first thing they're going to do is finish a report that is being written right now by the House Intelligence Committee along with two other committees, detailing the findings of this investigation that has been going on for roughly seven weeks.

Now this investigation, of course, is focused on the issue of Ukraine, the president's handling of relations with that country, and whether or not he withheld security assistance for that country, roughly $400 million of security assistance, as well as a key meeting sought by the Ukrainian government in the White House in exchange for an announcement of investigations that could help the president politically.

The focus of the likely articles of impeachment that are expected to come out will focus on abuse of power by the president, while potentially focusing also on bribery, as well as obstruction of justice, interruption of Congress.

There's debates about how to structure that. Obstruction of justice, for one, there's discussion about whether or not to include the episodes of obstruction that were laid out in the Mueller report that showed the president allegedly trying to interfere with an investigation into his campaign.

Nancy Pelosi has wanted to keep it focused narrowly on the Ukraine issue, but there's a discussion about making it broader.

The report that will be released in the coming days will ultimately serve as the basis of those articles of impeachment that will be considered by the House Judiciary Committee likely in the first week and first two weeks of December.

And at that point, that committee will vote on those articles of impeachment, then it will go to the full House, which could vote then by -- before Christmas to make President Trump just the third American president in history to get impeached.

Then afterwards, it would go to the Senate, led by Republicans, and that Senate trial could take several weeks, could take two weeks, could fake four weeks. There's still discussions about how to structure that.

Right now, both sides agree on this, Republicans are unlikely to convict and remove the president from office. So all this, at the end of the day, may ultimately be up to the voters about whether President Trump should stay in office.

Manu Raju, CNN, Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: Thanks to Manu.

Don't forget to join Anderson Cooper for a look at the impeachment testimony. "THE IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY, IN THE WORDS OF THE WITNESSES" airs tomorrow night at 8:00 here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:41:38]

CABRERA: Billionaire Michael Bloomberg appears to be one step closer to formally launching his Democratic bid for president. The former New York City mayor making a massive TV ad buy for $37 million. Those ads will roll out over the next couple of weeks.

That accounts for more than what the entire Democratic field has spent on TV advertising in the race so far, excluding fellow billionaire, Tom Steyer.

Bloomberg's entry, perceived by many as a slight to the moderate Democrat who once sat on top in every poll, Vice President Joe Biden.

Our Don Lemon spoke with Biden exclusively about that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: I want to talk to you about staying in shape because there are some folks who have recently got in this race. They don't think you're in shape, and they say they got in the race because they don't think you're in shape. One of them is Mayor Bloomberg.

JOE BIDEN, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES & DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Come on.

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: Go on.

BIDEN: Come on.

No, I'm saying, come on. I'm -- I welcome the competition.

LEMON: He's saying that -- someone in his campaign said -- or someone said, specifically, he has specific concerns about your ability to carry this through to the finish line.

What do you say about that?

BIDEN: Watch me. Watch me.

The idea that I'm not in better shape than Mayor Bloomberg, physically and otherwise? Look, this -- Trump is so bad as a president and so corrupt as a president that everybody in America who's ever been involved in politics, especially if they have a billion dollars, thinks they can beat Trump.

LEMON: Yes.

BIDEN: Maybe they could.

And so what do you have to do? I'm the guy sitting at the top of the pyramid. I get it. I'm a big boy. Never complain, never explain.

LEMON: Well, Deval Patrick is there, too. He doesn't have a billion dollars.

BIDEN: No, he doesn't. But I noticed they showed him the other day.

He went down to -- he went -- anyway, he went down to Morehouse, and there was -- had all these hundreds of seats, and no one showed up. LEMON: Yes.

BIDEN: So, look, I like Deval. I really do. He's a good guy. And he's a solid guy.

But I think this is about deciding who is ready on day one --

LEMON: Yes.

BIDEN: -- to unite this country and demonstrate that they could. And, number two, who in fact can be ready on day one to be commander-in- chief?

LEMON: I've got to read this.

BIDEN: Sure.

LEMON: You talked about President Trump. This morning, this is what President Trump said about you on FOX News, and I quote here, all right, he said, "Well, I don't know if Joe can make it mentally. He is -- he's off. There's no question about it. I don't know if he's going to make it mentally. If he gets -- if he gets through it without cracking up."

What's your response?

BIDEN: Mr. President, I can hardly wait. I can hardly wait. You're a serial liar, you're corrupt, and I know you think yourself the handsomest and smartest.

Look, Mr. President, you made a botch of the job. And so I'm used to bullies. I'm used to bullies. I'm ready. I'm ready.

And look, I think it's appropriate for people to look at all of us and decide, are we in the physical shape, well we in the mental shape, are we based on age. It's all appropriate. But all I can say is watch me.

LEMON: Listen, people are concerned about whether you have lost a step, right? You know what happened in Detroit. I was one of the moderators in Detroit. And you stuttered on stage. There's an "Atlantic" article about that, you overcoming that as a child. Have you overcome --

BIDEN: Yes, I've overcome in. Look --

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: Is that part of the issue?

[16:45:04]

BIDEN: No, I don't think so at all.

One of the things that is part of the issue is when you get friendly attacked by people who have just got finished saying nice things about you earlier.

And it's -- you got to be careful. You got to be careful how you respond on stage -- and they're not debates, as you know. I mean, this is a joke. They're not debates. These are one-minute assertions.

And so what I find myself doing, and I'm not doing it anymore, is sort of pulling back from countering attacks.

And I just think that -- I just think that it's important that you get an opportunity eventually, to narrow down the field.

When you have 10, 12 people on the stage and you're sitting there for two, three hours, and you know, 80 percent of the questions directed at you are direct attacks, understandable, I get it.

How do you respond to a bright woman who looks at you and says, you know, you didn't really care about, you know, black folks? You -- what do you in bussing, et cetera.

LEMON: How do you respond? That's a question to you.

BIDEN: The question to me was I didn't want to do it at the time. The position is exact same as mine was. Take a look at it. No difference in the positions.

And the idea that -- what was able to happen is you turn around and say, but -- but I, I am this, I am that. And you can't understand. Well, it's -- it's a little delicate how to respond to that.

LEMON: But let's get back to the whole issue. Donors are concerned about that, whether you've lost a step, they're concerned about your cognitive abilities.

The "Atlantic" article made a good case for some of the reasons that you, you know, may not be as -- come up -- say the wrong words sometimes or are unable to complete your thoughts sometimes. But you don't believe that that is an issue. You don't believe --

BIDEN: No, I don't. Why am I --

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: No one should be concerned about that?

BIDEN: No one should be concerned about that. Why am I so far ahead in the national polls? Why am I so far ahead here? Why am I so far ahead in Nevada? Tell me, why. If everybody says the people are thinking, people are thinking, OK, the pundits may be thinking, but that's not where the people are.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: More from Don Lemon's interview in just a few minutes.

Also this hour, first lady, Melania Trump, a woman of mystery. But a new book goes inside the East Wing to reveal clues about her life, marriage, and even her wardrobe, next, live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:51:19]

CABRERA: Whatever your political leanings, it's hard not to be fascinated by first lady, Melania Trump. She's a former fashion model who shies away from the spotlight. She's an immigrant who speaks five languages but seldomly speaks publicly.

What do we know about President Trump's third wife? We are about to learn more from a new book, "Free Melania: The Unauthorized Biography," set to be released December 3rd.

And the author is none other than CNN White House Reporter, Kate Bennett, who covers the first lady for us. She's joining me in New York.

Kate, good to have you with us.

(CROSSTALK)

CABRERA: This sounds like a great, great read.

There's so much mystery surrounding Melania Trump. And the title of the book, obviously, sort of a take on the meme "Free Melania," the hash tag we see sometimes that suggests she's somehow unhappy in Washington, a captive first lady. Any truth to that?

KATE BENNETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Quite frankly, the easy answer is no, there's no truth to it. In fact, part of the reason I picked the title "Free Melania" and put the comma after free, is I hope to think she's probably the most free person in the Trump orbit in that she can do and say sort of anything she wants.

She can talk to the president however she wants and not be faced with the repercussions of, you know, Twitter shaming or nickname or -- you know, be fired.

And she can approach the role of first lady in a way that she wants to which -- you know, has been quite frankly a little bit lower profile than most recent first ladies.

But she hasn't done any campaigning. She's not on the trail. She doesn't have a steady stream of policy initiatives. She's not taking a lot of trips. She's not doing a lot of public speaking.

In a way, she's sort of able to make of this job that she never really saw herself in, to be frank, whatever she wants of it. And in that way I think she's quite free, and she's happy living in the White House.

CABRERA: She is happy. That's one of the maybe misperceptions or misconceptions of who she is and what she's doing there and how she feels about it all.

BENNETT: Right.

CABRERA: Do we know how she feels about her president husband?

BENNETT: Yes. I mean, people would be surprised to know perhaps that she is a very strong influence on her husband. We all remember a few months ago or actually last year when she called for the firing of one of his West Wing aides by saying she doesn't deserve to be in the -- in Trump's administration.

She weighs in on most news. She watches a lot of t. She's on the phone with the president throughout the day.

And I think politically her leanings are a lot more like his than people might imagine.

You know, people saw her wearing that white suit to the State of the Union, she's signaling the resistance --

CABRERA: Right, right.

BENNET: -- is she trolling him on Twitter.

I think she doesn't mind -- she's very smart. I always say there are no Melania Trump coincidences. I think all of those things are planned and thought out.

But if you ask her, did you wear the white suit, to sort of bring up Hillary Clinton or suffragette, she would say, no, not at all.

I think there's always a little something there. She's very savvy in the way that she works the media. She understands a lot more than people might think because we don't see her as a smiling presence. We don't often hear her voice. So it's a lot of guesswork, a lot of nonverbal cues.

CABRERA: What do you think is the biggest misconception or misperception?

BENNETT: I think the one thing is that she's unhappy and that she doesn't want to be first lady. I think, again, it was a surprise, it was a role she didn't see herself in. But I think she enjoys doing it.

I think the things that she does enjoy about the role, perhaps different from her predecessors, I don't think she's looking to make any big changes in policy or affect a sweeping social change.

[16:55:00]

I think she's fine sort of with her helping kids thing and doing the -- the events, the state dinners, the Easter egg roll, the holidays coming up. She is involved in those activities in a way that most recent first ladies aren't.

I think people would be surprised to know she's not off in some bedroom crying her eyes out because she's hearing about Donald Trump's alleged infidelities.

I think they've been together for 20 years, people sometimes forget that. She has somehow formed a way of handling her marriage and staying in it. And -- and being -- doing something she never saw herself doing in a way that she doesn't bend her own personal personality or her values.

CABRERA: Kate Bennett, this sounds like a really interesting read, especially because she's so mysterious. You have so many great details weaved into the narrative.

Thank you so much for sharing it with us this afternoon. Good to have you with us.

BENNETT: Thank you.

CABRERA: Make sure you -- again, the book is "Free, Melania: The Unauthorized Biography," due out December 3rd. Check it out.

Former national security adviser, John Bolton, has a book coming out. And he's again teasing he has a lot to say, announcing today that he's now formed a political PAC and a whole lot more.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Ana Cabrera, in New York.

[16:59:54}

CABRERA: We begin with a weekend of fast-moving developments in the impeachment battle. Ukraine and an new politician's name in the mix.

After nine witnesses and some 30 hours of public impeachment testimony, Democratic aides will spend Thanksgiving week preparing their report, which they believe makes the case for the impeachment of President Trump.