Transcripts For CNNW CNN Tonight With Don Lemon 20190403

Thats the way to do it. This is the way you get congress to act. Hes going to do this, did the same thing with the shutdown. Brinksmanship is dicey, when its based on lies and deception, its more of a gamble. It is. Thats whats going to happen if you close the border. Thats why we have to track it. But, you know what . It works. With some. It works. There are a lot of people who believe there are so many i mean, its exhausting to go through not half the country. Most people well, he still has a lot of folks and he had enough who believed a lot of the lies before the election to make him president. That is enough. And he continues to do it because what does it do . It works. Im a great businessman. I cant confirm the conclusion. I hear your rationale. I respect it. What do you mean by that . Because i dont see how he wins again with the numbers that he has right now. I dont see it. Have you seen what the democrats are doing . Well, listen, you cant beat somebody with nobody. We know that. But, you know, im saying thats one of the practicalities of politics, but what im saying is well see where they have to be. Theyre nowhere in their process, and, you know, its going to be ugly. Thats the way those processes are. It was the same thing on the republican side the last time. But he had a simple task as a president which is to build off your base. He hasnt done it. So that would be my concern for him if i were working on his team. He won without having that big of a base, anyway. Right . He played the electoral game, whether some people are doing research on it now, calling it an electoral fluke. Call it what you want, the man is the president of the United States. Yes, he is. But they believed enough of the lies and he told a lot of them before the election. Hes told more afterwards. They believed enough for him to be president and it doesnt matter to them. Have you seen the stuff that Alisyn Camerota does in the morning on your old show . She did it with you on new day. When you get those focus groups on. Well, many people say i dont really care. I dont care who they are, i dont know how the panels are selected. Theres a reason i didnt do them. What im saying is this, theres no question the people buy into what the president is selling, i get that. Its unusual, you come into power, cut taxes, cut regulations, say all these things, you get lucky a lot and still dont grow your base. Its unusual, don. Im telling you. It is. Imagine if the economy wasnt in the imagine if the former president didnt set him up for this economy. I wonder where wed be. Imagine if people didnt see the economy the way they see it. Imagine if they saw it the way Donald John Trump used to see it. Dont give me the unemployment number. Give me the underemployment number, he used to say. What kinds of jobs . How many hours . What is their quality of life . Those metrics are not great right now. So hes benefiting in a lot of different ways. Im just saying i point out the lies when they are instructive of a tactic because i dont want my audience to be played for a sucker. I agree with you, im just saying its exhausting. Every time he says something, every time he has a press conference, you have to fact check everything because lets get after it, brother. Lets get after it. My point is you cant just let it sit there. Were going to talk about some of that in my open. You did it in your closing. Were going to to it in my open. Its good to see you back in the studio looking fresh and handsome as ever. You like my new look . Whatd you do . Im kidding. Nothing. I wear the same thing every night. All right. Ill be watching. Did you go get a little work . Im going to. Thats where i was. Thats whey i was on the border. You get work cheaper down there. I hear its cheaper down there. You took the words out i brought you something. See ya. Obviously it didnt work. Thank you, chris. Ill see you later. Yeah. He didnt spend any money on that. Money not well spent. It did not work. This is cnn tonight. Im don lemon. The president said something absolutely outrageous tonight. I know. I know. But this is really something. Okay . Go along with me here. President trump encouraging Congressional Republicans to this is a quote, to be paranoid about elections and implying that the midterms were somehow rigged. Were going to watch those vote tallies, you know, i keep hearing about the election and the various counting measures that they have. There were a lot of close elections that were they seemed to every single one of them went democrat. If it was close, they say the democrat theres something going on. You got to hey, you got to be a little bit more paranoid than you are, but we have to be a little bit careful because i dont like the way the votes are being tallied. I dont like it. And you dont like it either. You just dont want to say it because youre afraid of the press. What a sore loser. Yeah, i said it. What a sore loser. If you dont like the way the election went, then just suggest there was something wrong with the vote. I didnt win, theres something wrong. What a thing for the president of the United States to say. Refusing to take any blame for his own partys losses in the midterms. And accusing democrats of cheating. Without a shred of evidence to back up the latest conspiracy theory. The president was not done. Not by a long shot. The man who seemingly never met a strong man he didnt like saying this about chinese president xi jinping. I was in china making a speech. President xi, who is a strong man, i call him king, he said, but i am not king, i am president. I said, no, youre president for life, and, therefore, youre king. He said, huh, huh. He liked that. Maybe it is a little tongue in cheek. Who knows. The president for life, a king . I think we know which of the two leaders really likes that the thought of that one. And it comes on a day this president was working really hard to distract the American People from the Mueller Report. The report he really, really doesnt Want Congress to see. Anything thats given to them will never be good enough. You could give them the more documents than theyve ever seen and it would never be good enough, so i think its somewhat of a waste of time. Waste of time . Waste of time . Waste of time for congress to do its job . Waste of time for the American People to see the report that they paid for, the report that youve paid for . When so far, theyve only seen the attorney generals summary of the principal conclusions of the Mueller Report. And lets remember, this is the report that confirms the intelligence communitys conclusion that russia attacked our democracy by trying to influence the 2016 election. You got to wonder what the president is so worried about. After all, he hasnt let a day go by without insisting hes been completely exonerated. Even though thats not actually true. Mueller said his investigation did not establish that anybody on the Trump Campaign conspired with the russian government, but he explicitly did not exonerate President Trump of obstruction. Still, it was less than two weeks ago that the president said that he wouldnt mind if the public saw the report. My, how things have changed. Does the American Public have a right to see the Mueller Report . I dont mind. I mean, frankly, i told the house, if you want, let them see it. Let it come out. Let people see it. Mr. President its up to the attorney general, but it wouldnt bother me at all. Up to the attorney general. Wouldnt bother me at all. Mr. President , the attorney general said today that he intends to release the Mueller Report in full to congress and to the public. Do you agree with that decision . Do you want the white house to take a look over it . I have great confidence in the attorney general, and if thats what hed like to do, i have nothing to hide. If they do vote out the authority for subpoenas, will the white house fight those . Well, i think its ridiculous. We went through two years of the mueller investigation, so theres no collusion. Theres no obstruction. And now were going to start this process all over again . I think its a disgrace. Didnt even take him two weeks to do a complete 180. But we all know this is a trick that the president has played before. Do you remember when he said that he wanted to sit down with mueller, answer the questions under oath . We all know how that worked out, or actually, didnt work out. Would you be willing to speak under oath to give your version of those events . 100 . Are you going to talk to mueller . Im looking forward to it, actually. To reach a higher standard, you would do it under oath . I would do it under oath. Mr. President , would you like to testify to special counsel robert mueller, sir . Thank you. Sure, i would like to. You would like to . I would like to. I would like to speak because weve done nothing wrong. I would love to speak. I would love to go. Nothing i want to do more. I would love to. Nobody wants to speak more than me. In fact, against my lawyers because most lawyers say never speak on anything. Are you more likely to sit for an interview now . My lawyers are working on that. Ive always wanted to do an interview because, look, theres been no collusion. Is that your final position, that theres going to be no sitdown interview and nothing written or in person on obstruction . I would say probably. Probably. I mean, i can change my mind, but probably. All right. So, look, its all part of a pattern for this president who, according to our Fact Checking palace at the washington post, chris and i were just talking about it, he says its tedious. I say its exhausting. Whatever. According to the washington post, hes made 9,451 false or misleading claims in his first 802 days in office. Hes up to 22 a day over the past 200 days. So is it any surprise that he would flipflop today on the border after threatening on friday to shut it down . Is it your intention, sir, to close the border this week, and what would it take to not close the border . Well, i havent made that intention known, and im ready to close it, if i have to close it. Okay. Then just moments later, this. If we dont make a deal with congress, the borders going to be closed. 100 . So he hasnt made his intention known, but if congress doesnt make a deal, the border is 100 going to be closed. Which is pretty much making his intention known. And then theres what the president tweeted, of course, tweeted today about puerto rico. Okay, claiming the island with well over 3 million american citizens got 91 billion in aid after hurricane maria. Well, that is not true. Actually, as puerto ricos governor points out, the island got 300 million in work projects, which is a far cry from 91 billion. And puerto rico is still struggling to recover from that devastating storm a year and a half ago. A year and a half later and theyre still struggling. So the president s not telling the truth there either. Ive said this before, youve heard me, if you lie about anything, you will lie about everything. Even the little things, especially the little things. Like what the president said today about his father, fred trump. My father is german, right . Was german. Born in a very wonderful place in germany. I have a great feeling for germany. Its not true. The president s father was born in new york. Its not the first time this president has falsely claimed his father was born in germany. I have Great Respect for germany. My fathers from germany. Both of my parents are from the eu. Both my parents were born in eu sectors, okay . I mean, my mother was scotland. My father was germany. Huh . Thats about where someones father was born . Where have i heard that before . Oh, yeah. I want him to show his birth certificate. Why . Theres something on the birth certificate he doesnt like. If he wasnt born in this country, which is a real possibility. Im not saying it happened. Im saying its a real possibility. A lot of people do not think it was an authentic certificate. Many people do not think it was authentic. His mother was not in the hospital. There were many other things that came out. How many times do i have to say it, that you really cant make this up. The man who trashes president obama with birtherism, slurs Elizabeth Warren as pocahontas for claiming some native american heritage, doesnt even bother telling the truth about his own lineage. Doesnt do that. I stick with its exhausting because no one wants to keep pointing that out, the lies, but thats our jobs. We have to. So today we asked the white house why the president would Say Something so clearly and easily proven false about where his own dad was born. No response. When you lie about anything, youll lie about everything. Like what he says about the Mueller Report, completely exonerating him. The president never misses a chance to claim the Mueller Report exonerates him, so why doesnt he want the American People to see it now . Thats the question for dan rather, next. These folks, they dont have time to go to the post office they have businesses to grow customers to care for lives to get home to they use stamps. Com print discounted postage for any letter any package any time right from your computer all the Amazing Services of the post office only cheaper get our special tv offer a 4week trial plus postage and a digital scale go to stamps. Com tv and never go to the post office again when you rent from national. Its kind of like playing your own version of best ball. Because here, you can choose any car in the aisle, even if its a better car class than the one you reserved. So no matter what, youre guaranteed to have a perfect drive. [laughter] vo go national. Go like a pro. See what i did there . Even our pets know to go because its the easiest way to save 30 on all the medications we carry. So skip the search and go directly to petmeds. Com now. Hey uh, what did i come in here for again . Diapers. Diapers. Okay. Yep. Oh, sorry. Yep. No, the cart. Yeah, i almost hit a woman. The House Judiciary Committee planning to vote tomorrow to authorize a subpoena for Robert Muellers full report without redactions. President trump who had said the report should be made public now calling the move by the committee, his words, ridiculous and a disgrace. Here to discuss is dan rather. Dan is the host of access tvs the big interview. John dean is here as well, former Nixon White House counsel. Im going to get to john in just a moment. I want to start you, mr. Rather. Thank you for joining us. Both of you gentlemen, by the way. So what happened to the president saying that the report should be released, he has nothing to hide . If it completely exonerates him, as he has falsely claimed, what is the big deal . The big deal, i think, we can only speculate, because he has done, as you put it before, a complete 180. So if the report completely exonerates him, as he continues to claim, why is he resisting having congress, never mind the public getting the shot. I think we need to back off what we call on television the wide shot here. All we know about the report is i think its 42 words the attorney general has told us. 42 words out of somewhere between 300 and 400 pages. Now, one can speculate, its clear speculation that one reason President Trump has reversed himself is that members of his staff were telling him, look, this is good news, were good thus far, but dont get too far out there because there are things in the report, there are could be things in the report that will be contrary to your best interest. But, look, you know, we need to ask ourselves who are we as a people . What have we become and what are we becoming . Where are we headed . You have the president today, he lied, i hate to use the word, but he lied its tough when youre talking about the president of the United States. It is, still very tough. But he lied about puerto rico, saying weve sent 91 billion there, which is not anywhere near the amount of money that weve sent there. But, you know, he takes the attitude if he lies often enough, enough people will believe it to keep him in Good Standing for this president ial term and put him well positioned for the next president ial term. But time and time again you see his use this technique which he says i have nothing to hide. Well, if he has nothing to hide, why havent we seen his tax returns . About the Mueller Report, i have nothing to hide. Well, if he has nothing to hide, if it completely exonerates him, which is not true. We know that already, even from the 42 words we know about. But if it exonerates him, he should want it out there for everybody to see. So let me ask you, then, a similar question, so then what is going on, you think, inside the white house . You think theres a sense of panic about the Mueller Report . Do you think people are telling him maybe youre overselling this a little bit . Because as you point out, weve only seen a few dozen words from the actual report, and, listen, maybe theres nothing in there. Maybe, you know, its a glowing report about him, but, you know well, we already know there are things in there that he will not like on the question of obstruction of justice. He was not exonerated on obstruction of justice. We were told, we accept that on a matter of conspiracy with the russians in which he or anyone close or anyone was involved or collusion, word he prefers to use, very clear, the report exonerates him on that. On obstruction of justice, it says directly that theres some evidence that he did and some evidence that he didnt. Didnt. Yeah. Now the attorney general has taken it upon himself to make the decision, well, that being the case, i, attorney general barr, a supporter of President Trump, of course, says ill make the decision. And i think congress is saying that they should be allowed to make the decision, they want to see the evidence from this report. Let me bring in i want to bring in john dean now. John, listen, the house intelligence chairman thinks mueller will have to testify. Heres what he told wolf. I think it is inevitable that bob mueller is going to have to testify, and i would presume that he may testify before multiple committees. The Judiciary Committee will be predominantly interested in the criminal side. Were interested in how this investigation began, and it may even be ongoing. We dont know. And that is this began as a counterintelligence investigation over concerns that the president or people around him may be compromised, wittingly or unwittingly. We dont know if thats even going to be a part of the Mueller Report. John dean, i mean, you know, youre no stranger to having to testify before congress. Is schiff right, though . Will we see mueller testify on capitol hill publicly . I dont know if it will be public or not, but if hes in front of the intelligence committee, its more likely to be a closed session, but if he goes in front of the Judiciary Committee, its more likely to be an open session. I think that the congress and the house is playing it very smart right now. Theyre sending subpoenas for this information. They may have to subpoena witnesses as well to back it up. I you know, i dont have a lot of faith that mr. Barr is going to be opaque and transparent with this report. His criteria for redaction is gives him a lot of latitude, and i think that theres going there will be challenges all the way along and this will probably end up in court to get sorted out, and maybe not before 2020. John, and another question, and yet with all of this as you pointed out, the house judiciary chairman jerry nadler told wolf that it may or may not be necessary for mueller to testify. Are you surprised by that . Well, i am. You never know. Some of these you know, i cant believe that there would be any reason that mueller would be reluctant to do so. I think hed want to stand behind his report and his work and i think, particularly on the counterintelligence area, hes had a lot of license there and those reports are seldom open, though, don. Theyre always closed. So, dan, listen, we also heard from the president today, he accused some people of treason for even launching the investigation. Treason. What do you think of that . Well, i think we need to see it in the context in which its said. This president says all kinds of outrageous things, and i would consider this by any objective analysis outrageous and also dangers to begin accusing one another, our fellow americans, of treason. Particularly when it involves you, something you have or have not done personally. This is not the kind of language that were accustomed to president s using. President trump uses it because he does think it reinforces him with his base that hes not afraid to call people out, so forth. One can only hope that the public at large, and i do have great confidence in americans in the audience, see this for what it is, that hes on the one hand playing defense because the Mueller Report on the central, most important thing about conspiracy with russia did exonerate him. So hes playing offense on that. Then hes playing defense about what else may be in the report, the whole question of obstruction of justice and playing defense on a lot of other fronts, including this news of possibly closing the border which, by the way, could be really important in terms of negative effect on the economy. But hes a master, and one has to give him credit, even if its begrudging credit, sort of a cunning master of running a very strong offense using words, even words such as treason, when it benefits him, but then playing fierce defense on the other hand. Yeah. And thats one reason hes president. Hey, john dean, i have to go, but if you can quickly give me your response on this, id really appreciate it because the former fbi director, james comey, talked about a. G. Barr on Christiane Amanpour saying he deserves the benefit of the doubt and have nadler saying, listen, hes an agent to the president. What do you say to that . Does he deserve the benefit of the doubt as comey said . Well, i think theyre being smart and starting the process of sending out subpoenas and they can meanwhile give him the benefit of the doubt. Yeah. Its a good backup plan. All right. Gentlemen, thank you. I always appreciate having you on. Thank you, don. How a Democratic Texas congressman, a Democratic Texas congressman who ran on health care and flipped his districts in the midterms, how will he react to the president s false claims about rigged elections . Im going to ask him. Congressman colin allred responds, next. You see a small satellite. 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President trump speaking tonight at the National Republican Congressional Committee dinner talking about his partys loss in the 2018 midterms, implying that republicans lost in the midterms because of election rigging and saying he didnt like the way the votes were being tallied. And republicans need to be more paranoid. Well, heres the truth. Democrats won the majority in Congress Fair and square and won campaigning on issues that are really important to the American People like health care. Joining me now is one of those democrats who won in november on that platform. Thats democratic congressman from texas, his name is colin allred. Thank you, congressman, for joining us this evening. I appreciate it. Yeah, thanks so much for having me, don. So what i just said about the midterms and the president what the president said. Lets listen to that moment. Were going to watch those vote tallies, you know, i keep hearing about the election and the various counting measures that they have. There were a lot of close elections that were they seemed to, every single one of them, went democrat. If it was close, they say the democrat theres something going on, fell hey, you got to be a little bit more paranoid than you are, okay . Look, all these beautiful people. These beautiful republican congressmen and women. But we have to be a little bit careful because i dont like the way the votes are being tallied. I dont like it. So i have to ask you because youre one of the democrats elected in 2018 who helped flip the house to democratic majority. Hes implying that your win wasnt valid. Is that how it feels to you . Well, i dont know what the president is trying to say there, but i know that its extremely dangerous when the president of the United States is questioning our democratic institutions. We need to be strengthening them, restoring as much confidence as possible in the entire process. Thats one of the reasons why i was a cosponsor on hr1, which as you know, don, is a sweeping prodemocracy, proVoting Rights, anticorruption bill that we passed in the house. I would like to see the senate take it up and for the president to sign that to help restore confidence in the entire system. What does it say, congressman, that the president of the United States is spouting conspiracy theories about elections across the country, though . Yeah. Well, im a Voting Rights attorney, and i can tell you that some of these theories have been used for a long time to try and restrict access to the ballot for a lot of americans. And so we have to be very vigilant about that and make sure that were expanding Voting Rights, that were getting as many people as possible involved in our system. Our problem in our country, we dont have enough people voting and need to do something about that through democratic processes and avoid questioning the results of elections. So i want to talk about health care now because the president talked about delaying his Health Care Plan until the 2020 election. Listen to this. I wanted to delay it myself. I wanted to put it after the election because we dont have the house. So even though the health cares good, really good, its much better than when the plan comes out which well be showing you at the appropriate time, its much better than obamacare. So tonight at the republican dinner, the president insisted that republicans could win on health care, saying that they should not run away from it. Is he right . Well, i dont know what the politics are of this. What i understand and know for sure is that this is the number one issue that people in my district, really across the country, care about. That we need to be working together to strengthen our health care system. Thats why i was proud to lead today a resolution in the house to condemn this administrations attacks on the aca and its attacks on people with preexisting conditions, trying to invalidate the entire law through court. In they couldnt do it through the process of congress when they had it for two years. They had the house and the senate and the presidency, so now theyre trying to do it through the courts. This is something i know concerns a lot of americans. They dont want to go back to the bad old days. I want to put up something that really shows the stark reality of the situation that were in. An estimated 88 billion, americans borrowed that to Cover Health Care costs last year. 65 million adults said they had a health issue but did not seek treatment due to costs. Thats according to a new survey released just today. Do you think the president appreciates the crisis that so Many Americans face when it comes to health care . Well, clearly not. If hes saying that he has a secret plan, hes going to wait until after an election to present, if he has a plan that will help lower costs and expand coverage for americans, its his duty as president of the United States to try and advance to right now. To try and take care of some of the families who are dealing with issues right now. I talk to folks every single day in my district who have something going on in their Family Health care related and theyre concerned about the costs of it, theyre concerned about the costs of appropriatpr drugs. We should be doing it right now, not waiting until after an election. Congressman, thanks for your time. Thank you so much, don. Were getting a look at fundraising totals for some of the democratic president ial candidates and the candidate in the lead just might surprise you. Well tell you whos ahead, next. Directly to petmeds. Com. Because its the easiest way to save 30 on all the medications we carry. So skip the search and go directly to petmeds. Com now. So the president is out tonight trying to rally republicans for the fight ahead in 2020. That as 3 of the 16 Democratic Candidates who want to run against him are releasing their fundraising totals. Okay . Here are those totals. Senator Bernie Sanders leads the pack with 18. 2 million. Senator Kamala Harris is in second with 12 million. South bend, indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg rounds out the top three with 7 million. So we have more totals and people to discuss. Maria cardona, john aravosis, and matt lewis. Good evening to one and all. So good to have you on. Buenos noches, don. Its all pretty good. Nothing to sneeze at. Maria, when you combine Bernie Sanders money with the fact that hes doing so well in the polls, is it fair to say hes the frontrunner at this point . I think you would have to say that at this point, don. Look, its incredibly impressive the fundraising haul that he was able to get in this time around. I think he has surprised a lot of people thinking that maybe his time had passed, but when you bring in this kind of money, especially from small dollar donors that you can go back to again and again and again, that is very, very impressive. And clearly from a name recognition standpoint, he was in the polls second only to joe biden. So he should take advantage of that now because clearly its still very early. Its april 2nd of 2019. Theres a long way to go. But he is in a very good position as it stands right now. Listen, thats a lot of money. I mean, not to discount that, but he did have the advantage of having built a platform. Thats right. During the last election. Matt lewis, i love the title of your piece today. You wrote, youre way too woke for your own good, democrats. So you think the democrats are already doing real damage to their chances of beating trump. Explain. Yeah. Youre not alone in that, but go on. No, look. Saul alinsky, the radical chicago organizer, rule for in his rules is hold the enemy to their high standards, and in this case, democrats are holding themselves and each other to high standards. Its the basically imposing progressive politically correct social justice orthodoxy on each other so you have it in the case of joe biden, arguably the most the toughest competitor to go up against donald trump. The guy that could maybe win pennsylvania and michigan is facing these me tootype scandals. Bernie Sanders Campaign is unionizing. Of course, hes had his own scandals, his campaign, not bernie himself. You have Elizabeth Warren swearing off high dollar fundraising. Even though she cant compete with bernie or beto in terms of the low dollar fundraising. So basically you have ideology and Political Correctness driving their strategic decisions. I think that for, not to use a politically incorrect term, but handicaps them not only in the primary but potentially this chance to defeat donald trump. Okay. So, john, lets talk about your piece. Its in the daily beast, all right . I like your title as well. The insanity of democrats attacking buttigieg for not being gay enough. You say, this seems like an attempt of writing him off as another white guy. Standing in the way of more diverse candidates. Its the oppression olympics at its worst, and the battle to prove that one community is more discriminated against than another, we tear each other apart rather than unite in common cause. So explain to me more, what do you see happening here . Well, okay. Youve got what matts talking about and what im talking about which are two sides of the same coin, okay . Democrats care about diversity. We care about sexism. We care about racism. We care about homophobia. We care about workers rights. Everything matt said is something you can laude the democrats for. Because were actually trying to you know, we care that joe biden had a couple of hiccups. Joe biden will explain him and people will decide on their own. Thats not a bad thing. I think sometimes, i point it out in my daily beast piece, that things can go a little too far. With Pete Buttigieg, you had some people saying even tonight on twitter i had some people saying, it doesnt matter that hes gay. Hes a white man. It negates his experience growing up gay and negates the discrimination we experience growing up. It negates the experience that all gay people im guy as well, experience growing up. That bothers me. It can go too far and get to the point where sometimes i think on the left, sometimes well beat up kind of on each other and say, my oppression is more than your oppression. Sometimes . And thats well, no, maria doesnt do it, i dont do it. Come on, lets be honest. Maria, you represent the democratic side on this show and pointed out during the last election and even now, i feel in many ways the democrats and one candidate in particular may have done more harm than the president to hillary clinton. It was just surprising for me to see democrats beating up on each other so much, and then, okay, even at the convention, the republican convention. Remember, no republican liked donald trump. Not one of them. They all talked smack about him. At the convention, what were they doing . Trump, trump, trump, trump, trump, build a wall, build a wall, trump, trump, trump, trump. Right. Democratic convention, there were people as shes giving her speech yelling, bernie. Yeah. My producers and i were looking around going, what on earth is going on . Take it away. No, absolutely, i couldnt agree with you more. Sometimes we are our own worst enemies. Im hoping that we learned from that situation, don. What youre seeing now, i agree more with john, i think, obviously, than matt, because right now were in the very early stages of a very robust primary with a lot of candidates. These are the things that are going to come up, but i think that what matt is pointing out is something that goes on more i think in the fringes of our party where people are more interested in the, sort of the pure progressivism than in what a candidate can do to beat donald trump when in reality what weve seen in poll after poll of most democrats and most progressives in all of the states is that they actually care more about a candidate being able to beat trump than being true to every single progressive issue that they care about. So i think that we will get to the right point, and in terms of what john said, i agree that we are having the right conversations about joe biden and even about beto. Those are good conversations to have, and, frankly, republicans should try it out sometime. All right. Fair enough. Great segments. Thank you. Great segment. Great articles. Thank you, all, very much. Thanks. Thanks, don. So we all know the president loves to play golf, but my next guest wrote the book on President Trumps golf game and according to him, shocking. The president cheats. A lot. We can go down this what do you think . Woo yeah its good its refreshing. At northwestern mutual, this is what our version of Financial Planning looks like. Tomorrow is important, but shes only seven once. Spend your life living. Find an advisor at northwesternmutual. Com. They have businesses to grow customers to care for lives to get home to they use stamps. Com print discounted postage for any letter any package any time right from your computer all the Amazing Services of the post office only cheaper get our special tv offer a 4week trial plus postage and a digital scale go to stamps. Com tv and never go to the post office again can we talk . We used to play so beautifully together. Now we can barely play anything. Even cards with the girls. If you have bent fingers, and cant lay your hand flat, talk to your doctor. It may be dupuytrens contracture. Your hand is talking. Isnt it time you listened . There are nonsurgical options. Take the first step. And learn more about dupuytrens. At factsonhand. Com so President Trump spent 177 days at a golf club since becoming president. Thats about a fifth of his entire presidency. Now, many president s have a love of golf, but none of them own and operate golf courses around the world. So he gets to spend a lot of time there. This president even held an event at a golf course during the 2016 campaign, and according to a new book by my next guest, he is sport writer rick riley, the president is a huge cheat. No okay. Stand by. I want you to listen to this. This is how riley puts it. Quote, to say donald trump cheats is like saying Michael Phelps swims. So according to caddies and associates, the president cheats shamelessly, brazenly, even making up his scores in front of the people he is playing with. He claims to have a handicap of 2. 8. That would be better than gymnastic nicklaus, winner of 18 major golf titles. The president claims to have won 18 Club Championships. Well, riley did an audit of these championships and it turns out that 12 werent actually Club Championships but senior or super Senior Competitions met for players 60 and older. And as for the other six, riley could not find definitive proof that he won any of them. Two of the competitions took place at clubs that werent open yet. He claimed to have won a championship at trump bedminster on the same day that he was playing at trump philadelphia almost 80 miles away. Now, listen, this is about more than golf. This says quite a bit about the president. He plays golf like he, you know, like the rules dont apply to him. He does a lot of things like that. He lies about his golf game the way he lies about things large and small. He has made 9,451 false or misleading claims since he took office. That is according to the washington post. Thats at a rate of about 22 false claims a day over the past 200 days. As ive said before, you lie about anything, youll lie about everything. Rick wilson. The new book is called commander in cheat. Rick wiley riley. Rick riley, commander in cheat how golf explains trump. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. You say golf is like bicycle shorts. It reveals a lot about a man. It does. And what this book reveals about him, youre going to want to take a shower afterwards because the amount of cheating is incredible that he does, and he does it in front of people. He trains his caddies to cheat for him. He kicks his ball out of the rough so many times, he has a nickname, pele now. He won a tournament from 87 miles away. Like he play trump philadelphia, his course, and they were playing a tournament at trump bedminster, and they go who won the tournament. They said 74. He said i shot 72 today so give it to me. You smile and said you wanted to talk about this before we go on. He claims to have a handicap of 2. 8. Thats better than jack nicklaus. His handicap is what . His handicap is 2. 8. Jack nicklaus is 3. 5. Who are you going to take in a bet . By the way, i dont know. Do you play golf . No, i dont. So to get a handicap, you got it turn in 20 scores. For me it takes about four months. Its taken him eight years to get those 20 scores. We know he played 66 times last year. He posted twice. So hes just cherry picking his best scores so it looks like 2. 8. But these not a 2. 8. In fact, i said it all day today. Ill bet him 100 grand, if hes at a 2. 8 and im a 5, i will bet him 100 grand i can beat him, but he cant use his cheating caddies. He cant go to his course, and he has to have a rules guy follow him, same as me. You claim that his issues about golf you said it correlates with his policy decisions. You think it might be why he holds a grudge against puerto rico . Yes. Explain. People dont realize he went into a deal in puerto rico with a golf course there and made it worse. He said he was going to get them a tour stop. He never did. Play went down. So they said, were going to fold. Were going to go bankrupt. He said, no, take out a loan with your government. I promise this will work. So they took out this 32 million loan, and then it didnt work after the first couple months of that loan, so the trump boys just left and left them holding the bag. So when puerto rico happened, was it that different than what he did to them on the debt . No. He turns his back on people. He says hes going to pay you so much, he pays you 10 cents on the dollar to build his clubhouses, to build his course. He breaks so many promises. You know theres a course in ireland. You know he got us out of the Climate Change agreement, right . Meanwhile he owns this course in ireland, and theyre suing to put up a seawall to protect his course from Climate Change. It says it right in the lawsuit. Yeah. So when it helps him, he believes in Climate Change. When it doesnt, its a hoax. Im glad you mentioned that because he made this outrageous claim that windmills cause cancer earlier tonight. Check this out. If you have a windmill anywhere near your horuse, congratulations, your house just went down 75 in value. And they say the noise causes cancer. Im compelled to say theres no science that proves that windmills cause cancer. You know what this is about. Its actually related to golf too. He has this course in aberdeen scotland, and he built this ridiculously expensive course, and he tore down the sand dunes and he wanted to charge 300,000 for people to join it. He couldnt get that. Then they started putting up these power windmills and he sued the government, and he said they give you cancer and they kill birds. In fact, they dont do anything. And he lost the lawsuit, and then he sued again, and he lost and had to pay all the expenses. So he hates windmills, and now hes telling the world that they give you cancer. Like what . So what gives . The way someone plays the sport honestly really tells you a lot about their character. Were joking here, but it does tell you a lot about their character. I was close with Arnold Palmer. He would only get in a business deal if the guy played 18 holes with him first. I asked him once, why . He said because he cant hide who he is over four hours. If hes going to lose his temper, hes going to do it out there. If hes going to cheat me, hes going to do it out there. If hes a good guy, im looking forward to being in business with him. I think Arnold Palmer would be rolling in his grave. Thank you so much. The book is called commander in cheat how golf explains trump. It explains a lot. Well be right back. Directly to petmeds. Com. Because its the easiest way to save 30 on all the medications we carry. So skip the search and go directly to petmeds. Com now. To save 30 on all the medications we carry. So go directly to petmeds. Com now. This is cnn tonight. Im don lemon. We begin this hour with breaking news. The president of the United States falsely implying tonight that republicans lost because last falls midterm elections were rigged. Elections in which democrats took back the house of representatives in a big blue wave. Heres what he told a group of Congressional Republicans this evening. Were going to watch those vote tallies. You know, i keep hearing about the election and the various counting measures that they have. There were a lot of close elections that were they seemed every single one of them went democrat. If it was close, they say the democrat theres something going on. You got to hey, you got to be a little bit more paranoid than you are, but we have to be a little bit careful because i dont like the way the votes are being tallied. I dont like it, and you dont like it either. You just dont want to say it because youre afraid of the press. Well, lets