A recap of the days news. Worthwhile listening to. I appreciate it, chris. This is cnn tonight. Im don lemon. A big show ahead. Not only is one of the president s long time friends flipping on him. He had a secret safe full of evidence. Donald trumps friends name is david pecker. David pecker is a publisher of the National Inquirer, granted immunity by the feds. He knew about Donald TrumpsHush Money Payments to silence women who said they had sexual encounters with trump. A friend of the president is telling vanity fair, and i quote, holy sh and you can guess the rest. This is more bad news for this white house. The bare knuckle tabloid
reportedly kept a safe pull of documents on Hush Money Payments and stories it killed, thats according to the associated press. So just days after trumps former fixer and keeper of secrets Michael Cohen flipped on him, were learning that david pecker has flipped too. Can you imagine whats going through the president s mind right now . Is it any wonder the president has flipping on his mind when he sat down with fox news yesterday . This whole thing about flipping, they call it, i know all about flipping, for 30, 40 years, ive been watching flippers. It almost ought to be outlawed. All of this has to be especially shocking to a president who, in spite of his own disloyalty, demands loyalty from others above all else. We could use some more loyalty. I love loyalty. Loyalty can be a wonderful thing. Loyalty is very important. Im loyal to a fault. Loyalty. You know, some of these people have like a 10 loyalty, meaning
if they sneeze in the wrong direction, theyre gone. Huh. A president who says this about the man he has been slamming pretty much from day one, his own Attorney General, Jeff Sessions. You know, the only reason i gave him the job, because i felt loyalty. He was an original supporter. And now, sessions is fighting back. Saying in a statement, and i quote here, while i am Attorney General, the actions of the Department Of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations. Thats a blow right across the bow right there. But you know what they say about this. Youre known by the company you keep. How often did your parents tell you that or how often do you tell your children that . Now some of the people donald trump has surrounded himself with for years are turning on him. Michael cohen. David pecker. Omarosa. Three people very close to him for decades. President trump may not have seen all of this coming. But he probably should have. After all, he is the man who made this a centerpiece of his campaign. On her way to work one morning, down the path along the lake, a Tender Hearted woman saw a poor, halffrozen snake. His pretty colored skin had been all frosted with the dew. Poor thing, she cried, ill take you in, and ill take care of you. She stroked his pretty skin and then she kissed and held him tight. But instead of saying thank you, that snake gave her a vicious bite. You know your bite is poisonous and now im going to die. Oh, shut up, silly woman, said the reptile with a grin. You knew damn well i was a snake before you took me in. So okay. So who should be reciting that story . Should cohen be reciting that story . Omarosa . Maybe pecker. Is the snake trump . Ponder that for a moment. I want to bring in now cnn politics editor at large chris cillizza, also Kristen Powers and ryan lizza. Good evening to all of you. Were going to get to all of that in just a moment. But ive just got to tell you, kirsten, you heard what i was just talking about chris about. Theres no way kellyanne was going to admit the president lied even though the evidence is right in front of her eyes. The tape says it. Theyre talking about a payment
to be made. How that payment should be made, and how they were going to do it. It didnt say i already did it, because the presidnt says i only new afterwards. Right. But as a complete baldfaced flat out lie, lie. And i dont mean the long island expressway. I got it. I think that i dont understand why anyone goes back to her expecting her to come out and Say Something other than what the white house line is. And no matter how many different ways you go at her, shes going to go going to come back with saying that often isnt true and play the victim and pretend shes being talked over because shes a woman and all these other things. And i just find it kind of a waste of time, personally. I know were divided. People are divided over these things, over whether these its worthwhile talking to her or not. But i just wish that she would
be a little more forthcoming and answer the questions and stop spinning. So chris, lets get to the other stuff that we have. This Potential Fallout for donald trump appears to be getting bigger with reports that the publisher of the National Inquirer, david pecker, the president s buddy, granted immunity by prosecutors in the cohen investigation. Thats huge. Yeah, i mean, look. Its easy to focus just on when cohen cut the plea deal, we focused on cohen and what he said. The Trump Argument is, this is Michael Cohen, you cant trust this guy. What any lawyer i talked to said was, theres a zero percent chance the Southern District of new york went just on Michael Cohens word about what he said as it relates to these payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen Mcdougal and Donald Trumps role in it. They corroborated it, right . This is prosecution 101. You dont just go with this one guy. If youre going to give him a plea deal, you make sure what hes telling you is provable and
can be corroborated. So if you follow that chain, you sort of had to suspect ami, american media, that david pecker is the head of, had some role in that because theyre central to Karen Mcdougal. We shouldnt be stunned but it does show that the guy who no one expected to roll over, david pecker, the guy who said i would take a bullet for donald trump, has now cut a plea. So, you know, you are starting to see these people who donald trump relied on for not just a year, not just every once in a while like he likes talk about with Michael Cohen, people who played central roles in his life before the presidency, have given up the goods. Now, we dont know all the goods yet. But theyve given them up. And just for the sake of truth so far, lanny davis told
me there is no deal. He just pled guilty. There is no deal for leniency or anything like that. None of that has happened. I guess it could happen in the future. So for the people who are saying he cut a deal and hes sort of bartering that against the truth, that is not the case at this point. So ryan, theres also this ap story about the safe, right . Does that mean these stories were locked in the safe, are they about to come out . Because no one knows where that information is. Mysteriously, it has vanished. The ap said some of the information was moved. I mean, part of this story that im fascinated with is, you basically have the Southern District of new york outlining a criminal conspiracy between peckers company, ami, Michael Cohen, and candidate donald trump. They decided to give pecker
immunity, right, but they decided to either prosecute or they were going to indict cohen and forced him into a plea agreement. So they obviously, for whatever reason, made that decision between cohen and pecker that cohen was the bigger fish here, right, they wanted to send him to jail but they were willing to give Pecker Immunity to sort of corroborate the tale of how the three individuals violated, allegedly violated Campaign Finance laws. And the third person is the president of the United States. Im fascinated with why did they pursue the Campaign Finance violations when they had cohen on tax evasion and on bank fraud, right . The only reason to do it, the only reason to go all out on the Campaign Finance violation, which lets be honest, the last time this argument was made was against john edwards and the
jury didnt buy the prosecutions argument, right . So these prosecutors in new york decided they were going to go after cohen on this issue for one reason and one reason only, i think, and that is because it implicated the president of the United States, and they thought it was very important to let everyone know that they believe the president was involved in a criminal conspiracy. The question now is, what next . What do we do with that information . What does mueller do with that information, what does congress do with that information . I want to read Something Real quick and i want to bring you guys back. This is from Karen Mcdougals attorney. To all media asking our firm to comment on National Inquirer publisher edavid pecker getting immunity, here is our official statement. Told you so. When we come back, a new legal challenge for the president , one you cant fire his way out of. Ep number 360 smart bed. It senses your movement and automatically adjusts to keep you both comfortable. And now, all beds are on sale. Save 50 on the new sleep number 360 limited Edition Smart bed. Plus, free home delivery. Ends saturday. To speak with dozens of actually customers of the aarp Auto Insurance program from the hartford. My cars do make me proud, so when the accident did happen, time stopped. But i was able to use my choice of body shop. They couldnt have really done anything any better. [announcer] join the millions of customers 50 and over who trust the hartford. [woman] call the hartford at to get a nonobligation quote or go to back now with Kristen Powers and ryan lizza and chris cillizza. The Manhattan District Attorneys Office is considering criminal charges against the Trump Organization, two Senior Company officials in connection with the Hush Money Payments to Stormy Daniels. How do you think the president will react to this . I dont think hes going to like it. Particularly because this will
be out of his purview of pardoning, because it would involve a state law. Whether its an individual or a corporation, and in this case it looks like they were involved in some pretty shady behavior in terms of, you know, accounting for these fees as legal fees and that Michael Cohen was submitting phony invoices, you know, to sort of cover up what had transpired here. Trump, this obviously hits very Close To Home for him, but most importantly theres nothing he can really do to try to, you know, influence it. Chris, apparently, though, the official they told the times that they cautioned that this is still in its earliest stages, okay . But they proceed with this probe connected to cohen. Wouldnt this be crossing the same red line the president set when he warned mueller not to get into his Business Dealings . Yeah, i mean, its a red line i feel like has been crossed. You know, donald trump was trying to say you cant ask about anything other than russia. I feel like were well beyond that at this point. And ill note, as ive noted, everyone on twitter always attacks, where is russia, why Isnt Russia Being mentioned . If you read the founding document that Rod Rosenstein put out establishing the Special Counsel, it says any other crimes that you come across. I medread it as much as possible, chris. It irks me to no end there it is, its up on the screen. The Special Counsel is authorized to prosecute federal crimes arising from the investigation of these matters. But listen, when they say, oh, wheres russia, theres no collusion, blah blah blah, so it doesnt mean anything, i always want to say to them, i scream at the television and say, do you remember how kenneth starr
started . It started with whitewater. Correct. And it ended with monica lewinsky. All of a sudden have the rules changed, because this is a president that you support . That is not how it works. Go on, sorry to interrupt. Not at all. Im glad im not the only one who yells at the television, thank you, don. Point two, yeah, number one, it says, authorized to prosecute any federal crimes you may come across in this investigation. Thats that. But i always say to people, how do we know . We dont know what mueller knows. He hasnt released anything. So the idea that well, these two things dont have to do with russia, okay, maybe they dont, but why should we assume its like saying i left the Basketball Game in the second quarter, im just going to assume that the team that was ahead won. We dont know, maybe they did. Manafort has nothing to do with it. But maybe he does. If theres a crime, we should just look the other way. No, thats not how it works. Paul manafort was convicted
by a jury of his peers on eight felonies and 11 of the 12 jurors would have convicted him on 18 felonies. So i dont know how thats the deep state or bob muellers fault. Come on. The deep state handpicked that jury. That was sarcasm, by the way. Ryan, i want to talk about Attorney GeneralJeff Sessions hitting back after the president said this. Watch. I put an Attorney General that never took control of the Justice Department, Jeff Sessions, never took control of the Justice Department. And its sort of an incredible thing. Jeff sessions recused himself, which he shouldnt have done. Or he should have told me. Even my enemies say that Jeff Sessions should have told you that he was going to recuse himself and then you wouldnt have put him in. He took the job and then he said, im going to recuse myself. I said, what kind of a man is this . Umm, a man who is following the letter of the law . Interview today, he believes the Justice Department should be a completely politicized weapon and shield for donald trump, which is a shocking thing for a president of the United States to believe, considering the oath of office they take. And what sessions did today, whatever you think of sessions on a whole host of issues, im sure we could agree and disagree with a lot of things sessions believes and does, but what he did today was really, really important in standing up, assuming he follows through. Its interesting, the same people who carted around Law Enforcement people on the campaign trail, lecturing protesters that they must respect Law Enforcement, is not respecting Law Enforcement. This is supposed to be the Law And Order administration. It doesnt seem to be that way. Kirsten, i want to talk about impeachment. Ryan did bring up that interview on fox. This is what he said about
a little ahead of themselves on it. I agree with you. I dont see a scenario, unless theres more information than this. Im just saying based on this, i dont see there would be any way to get the requisite votes in the senate to actually convict him. Kirstin is right, by the way, 67 votes, a super majority. So even if it democrats lets say they take back the senate, youre talking about 52, 53. We havent seen a super Majority Vote for anything in a very long time. To kirstins point, barring the Mueller Report i got to go, chris. Showing things we dont know about. Sorry. The president is sitting at the white house talking about impeachment only 20 months in. Thank you, appreciate it. When we come back, why the Manhattan District Attorney is considering charges against the Trump Organization. Pah that will never work. Little things can be a big deal. Thats why theres otezla. Otezla is not a cream. Its a pill that treats moderate to Severe Plaque Psoriasis differently. With otezla, 75 clearer skin is achievable. Dont use if youre allergic to otezla. It may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. Otezla is associated with. An increased risk of depression. Tell your doctor if you have a history of depression or suicidal thoughts,. Or if these feelings develop. Some people taking otezla reported weight loss. Your doctor should monitor your weight and may stop treatment. Upper respiratory tract infection and headache may occur. Tell your doctor about your medicines and if youre pregnant or planning to be. Otezla. Show more of you. The manhattan d. A. Tonight considering criminal charges against the Trump Organization in connection w