my time, every minute ♪ >> reporter: jeanne moos, cnn, new york. >> well, now, we'll give some extra time to anderson as a gift. you can watch us any time anywhere. anderson starts now. good evening. we begin keeping them honest with the white house's latest admission that raises serious questions about their credibility and honestly. last night, "the washington post" broke the story that pfs president trump who dictated a statement that donald trump, jr. released on july 8 when "the new york times" was about to reteal that trump junior met with a russian attorney. this is the statement that donald trump, jr. put out that the post says his father dictated -- now, the president's attorney, jay sekulow, has been saying the

president had nothing to do with that statement. he said the statement was worked on by donald trump, jr. and his lawyers and we know he said this because he said this on the tv, a lot. >> so he didn't have anything to do with the statement that don junior put out? >> no. the president was not -- did not draft the response. the president was not involved in the drafting of the statement. i wasn't involved in the statement drafting at all, nor was the president. the president didn't sign off on anything. the president wasn't involved in that. >> so if "the washington post" was right, the president's attorney was misinformed or not being accurate. the white house made the claim that nothing was inaccurate in donald trump, jr.'s original statement, even though it had to be updated several times when the e-mail chain was released. there was no mention of adoption in the e-mails, just dirt on hillary clinton. and also the white house confirmed that the president did weigh in on the statement.

>> the statement that don junior issued is true. there's no inaccuracy in the statement. the president weighed in, as any father would based on the limited information that he had. this is all discussion frapg fr of no consequence. he certainly did not dictate, but he offered suggestions like any father would do. like i said, the statement that was issued was true. >> to say donald trump, jr.'s statement was true is not true. if i said "jaws" is a movie about going to the beach on the fourth of july weekend, i guess that is in the movie somewhere, but is that an accurate statement of what the movie is about? it has a big gaping hole, it doesn't tell the whole story. on the point the white house is making 5b89 tabout the presiden weighing in, the story from the white house is he wasn't involved. now the story is, he weighed in, of course he did, he's the father. and they are still spinning the

story that this meeting was about adoptions. it's not the first time we've been told to move along, there's nothing to see here. little by little, as more information comes out from various sources, the story changes. today, sarah huckabee sanders said we're all wasting our time. >> everybody wants to make this a story about misleading. the only thing i see are the misleading stories about this russia collusion, and based on anonymous sources. i think that is -- if we're going to talk about misleading, that's the only thing misleading i see in this process. >> given how much the narrative has shifted until today about this one meeting at trump tower, i'm not sure the white house should be lecturing anyone on the media on misleading. there is an open fbi investigation whether anyone in the trump campaign colluded with russia. a special prosecutor has been named.

the senate is investigating obstruction of justice questions and other committees are looking at facets of this, all in a republican controlled congress. they haven't finished, we don't know what, if anything they'll find in the end, but they're real. and with all the cries of nothing to see here, only with missing pieces of the story to show up, they're going to need a bigger boat. jeff zell seny joins us from th white house. the white house was caught changing their story once again, but not admitting it, just call thing all a pr stunt by democrats. >> reporter: they were, and the reality here is, when i was sitting in the press briefing room with sarah huckabee sanders, she was saying that yes, the president weighed in, he added his voice to this first statement describing that meeting in june of 2016. she said like any father would. well, the one problem with that is, the president's lawyer, jay

sekulow has insisted the president was never involved in the writing of that statement or crafting of that. in fact, he didn't know about it. so today, the white house added some new information to this broadening picture. anderson, it's not just a news story, it's an investigation that's going on here. so as sarah huckabee sanders was trying to deflect, talking about the clintons, talking about russia, other things, they added some new information today acknowledging for the very first time the president indeed helped craft that statement. so he knew about that -- the shaping of that narrative about that all-important meeting on june 9 of 2016 in trump tower between his three top campaign officials and the russians. so that was a big development today, anderson. >> right now, the white house said hey, he weighed in. "the washington post" said based on their sources that he dictated it. i mean, i'm just trying to imagine like in a meeting when the president of the united states says oh, he throws in his ideas into the group think of the meeting.

i would think his ideas would tend to dominate any discussion of what the statement should be. it's not like they're all just spitballing and somebody is going to say no, mr. president, that's not good idea. >> reporter: his ideas certainly carry more weight. and this was all happening on air force one on july 8, flying back from germany. a lot of top advisers, including jared kushner, ivanka trump, others were in the president's office on air force one talking about all this. but the reason this matters is we heard senator lindsey graham, republican of south carolina, he's one of the republicans leading this investigation, he said look, every time they change their story, it makes us not believe them. so today, anderson, is a development that we'll remember going forward for the first time the white house saying the president was involved in that. the news stories will continue. there will be different news

stories. but investigators will mark this day. this is something they want to know more about, and they'll learn more about it as this investigation continues. >> jeff, thank you very much. joining us now is jonathan turley, and norman eisen. ambassador eisen, what do you make of the white house saying the washington post report is much ado about nothing, the president was acting in his capacity as a father but admitting he did weigh in on the statement which contradicts what the president's legal team had been saying. >> well, anderson, thanks for having me. you'll note that the white house did not reject the statement. if you look at mr. sekulow's parsing of it, as well. president trump's outside counsel, he also tacitly admits that something happened. i think they've got another self-inflicted wound over there, anderson. this is a president who is already under investigation for obstruction, and now he's

engaged in something which could be, we're not deciding it yet, but could be shaping a witness' testimony about a critical event. that is a violation of criminal law 101. you just don't do it because it can constitute obstruction or witness tampering. so they've got another problem on their hands. >> professor, should the president have been weighing in to craft a statement for his son, and also if jared kushner was in the room involved in this as well, is that appropriate? >> well, no, it's not a good idea. what the president did is he removed any crush space between him and this controversy. one of the things you try to do as an attorney for a president is to create some separation for the president, that critical crush space to guarantee that you have some range of motion as a controversy unfolds. in a blinding flash, the

president wiped that out by directly participating in what was a really bad spin. i mean, instead of spinning out of the scandal, they deepened the scandal, they prolonged it, which unfortunately is something of a pattern here. i have to disagree with my friend norm. this is not witness tampering. it doesn't even come close to that standard. you know, there wasn't any plan for testimony on this point. but more importantly, it doesn't meet the statutory definition. i have a kol lem column in the newspaper dealing with that charge. it just doesn't meet that crime. we have to be careful that -- everything the president does is not some perpetual motion machine under the criminal code. everything he does is not necessarily a crime. it can be ill advised or even moronic, but there is an effort to try to find crimes in everything that occurs here. there are serious problems here. there's a legitimate investigation going forward.

this was a remarkably bad idea. but i don't think we should start talking about witness tampering. >> ambassador eisen, what about that? >> well, there can be little doubt that even my friend jonathan won't deny that there's a serious issue here. we can agree to disagree on witness tampering. i'm with professor tribe on this. but there is serious exposure, anderson, under obstruction of justice. and there's a pattern. it's not an isolated incident, and nobody is eager to make these allegations. but it started with demanding jim comey's loyalty. asking comey to drop the flynn investigation. firing comey when he wouldn't follow through. and now this latest question, again, only a question, was the president engaged in a coverup? is this the latest step, an admitted misleading statement. i don't think jonathan disagrees that the statement is

misleading -- >> norm -- >> was this the latest step in that obstruction pattern. >> i do think the statement was misleading, you're right about that. but this was a spin. it happens in the city all the time. if you start criminalizing spins, half this city will be frog marched into a federal penitentiary. people like trump try to manage messages. that's part of the danger for people in this town two try to control messages and events. it's hard for a lawyer to restrain them and say the best thing you can do is nothing at all. you're making this a lot worse. but spinning a statement like that is not a crime. otherwise, most of what happens in the city is a crime. >> hmm. we have to leave it there. thank you both. joining me now is my panel. you heard the legal advice there, gloria, what do you

think? >> i think the president has a problem here. i think the statement was misleading at the very best. that's the best way to describe it. i think there are questions now that will being raised about whether what the president knew and when he knew it to use an old phrase. and did the president lie to his lawyer? i mean, this is a big question that we need to have answered, which is jay sekulow is out there saying the president did not touch this in any way, shape or form. he was not -- was not out there. and dealing with this. and now we learn that he so-called weighed in, or whatever that means. and i think this white house has a lot of questions to answer, because not only was the statement misleading, but the question is, what was the president doing, even weighing in on this? i mean, there should be somebody there to protect him from the legal problems that ambassador eisen says he might not face.

>> david, even if it doesn't enter the legal realm, just the fact that it does impact the president's credibility in the white house. >> no doubt. team trump took a credibility hit today in the face of jay sekulow, and it came from the white house podium. sarah huckabee sanders went out today and basically conceded that the trump team and his lawyer didn't have the truth in the initial telling of this. remember when sarah huckabee sanders first spoke about this, she didn't know. she didn't know if the president weighed in, she would find out and get back to us. today, she says he weighed in, "the washington post" reports he dictated. the large question here is, someone should explain, and i truly don't understand this, why is the white house pursuing a strategy here of drip, drip, drip, instead of marshaling all the facts and coming out with a complete story to your point about "jaws." like, tell the entire point of this movie now so we don't learn

something new every night and go back and say -- i think it's a significant problem. the other question i have is how did jared kushner allow president trump to dictate that statement? obviously, jared kushner's concerned about his own legal ramifications here. but how, since this entire thing started, with he and his legal team going back to discover the additional meeting with the russians, to reapply for national security clearance, and it all began with that e-mail. and jared kushner had all the facts. so now we do need to know, did president trump read that e-mail? because jared kushner, when he's sitting there on air force one hear thing statement being creat created, he knew the full facts. so how did he allow that statement to go through? >> what every legal scholar has said all during this is people involved in investigations should. talk about the investigation with other people involved in the investigation. so jared kushner discussing this

with president trump or at least having this conversation about this statement just doesn't seem like a wise idea. >> no. he should have been protected. the president should have been protected from this. i suspect he probably inserted himself into it, at least that's what it sounds like. there's a couple of problems. one is talking about how donald trump did insert himself. the reporting is that the instincts were to get all the information out and then donald trump inserted himself and no longer were they going to be truthful and get all the information out. that would suggest that he knew what the truth was and he told them not to do it. the other problem is that they're only coming clean now because they were caught, right? because they heard jay sekulow come out and say this over and over and they never said oh, actually that's not really true. what happened is "the washington post" ran a story, now we're hearing that the president weighed in. >> it's just like "the times" knew about the e-mails and were going to release them, and then don junior decided -- >> is there a credibility problem? >> i think this speaks to the

possible need here to segregate the communications ch s channel. sarah huckabee sanders should be answering questions about federal government stuff. this is a russia investigation thing, and i'm thinking it may be past time for them to segregate these questions and push them all off to sekulow or -- >> which they said they were going to do months ago. >> now we have sarah forced to answer these questions that contradict sekulow. so i would like to see them under new management, segregate the russian stuff. secondly, i'm not sure there's nothing much new here. the original "new york times" story pointed out this was drafted on air force one, the president was on air force one. >> "the times" said he signed off but sekulow denied it. >> my point is the original original reporting on this had it right to begin with. so if you're someone who believes there's a grand russia collusion conspeary, you're

going to read all the tweets about this. if you think this is b.s., you're going to dismiss it. i don't know that this story moves anyone from one camp to another. >> i kind of assumed that he was involved, which is perhaps a -- partly the reading of the reporting, and partly an indication of where my bar is listening to the white house. >> did you think sekulow wasn't informed? >> i don't know what the truth is there either. this speaks to an inability of this white house team to protect the president, to protect other staffers who were brought in on this. and look, it's bad judgment and the distinction between a legal issue and bad judgment is really important. and i think what should be disappointing, i think especially to trump supporters, is the part where they were going to be forthcoming about this allegedly. >> and also, donald trump, jr.'s attorneys talking to our justice correspondent said they were ready to give a more fulsome statement and didn't.

>> let me help my colleagues to the right on me, both on this panel and literally, attempt to unravel this pretzel. this is something we've seen from this white house periodically. the white house lies, then the facts come out, then the white house tells you don't worry about facts. what we know to be the truth is that this meeting was not about adoptions or russian adoptions. we also know that the president dictated that statement. what did we deduce from that? that the president lied. he lied and sent his own attorney, jay sekulow out on tv on "meet the press," on "state of the union," and he gave up his credibility because he lied, too. and to answer david's question, he asked a great question, why would you lie? when jared kushner knows what's in the e-mails, we don't know if donald trump read the e-mails or not, but why lie? because you don't think anyone else has that information.

they are novices. the way they handle scandal is purely elementary. maybe that's a travesty. >> we're going to continue this conversation next. we'll hear what donald trump jr. had to say last month about being transparent and whether anything else would come out. and also ahead, james clapper said recently that president trump was making russia great again. i'll speak with him coming up. americans - 83% try to eat healthy.

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the white house today admitted that the president "weighed in" in their words on the statement that donald trump jr. released about the trump campaign meeting with the russian lawyer being pitched as a way to get dirt on hillary clinton. "the washington pos the i want to look back at donald trump, jr.'s "hannity" on july 11 after he released the e-mail chain under pressure setting up the meeting because "the new york times" was about to publish it. >> i want the truth to get out

there. they're trying to drag out the story. they want to drip a little bit today, tomorrow. here it is. i'm more than happy to be transparent about it. >> this is everything? >> this is everything. >> it wasn't everything. three days later, weeks later we're talking about this. not because we want to drip this out, because y'all are dripping it out. we learned there were at least eight people in the meeting. the idea that this is all just a mediaconspiracy, that we're just dolling it out every now and then -- >> it's ridiculous. >> every day we learn something new, only because digging and getting people to talk. >> i wonder how much the lawyers knew. you have to ask whether jay sekulow, what he knew when he was saying everything.

>> why go on tv to discuss it when you're under investigation? but why go -- >> he wasn't getting press. >> but this is everything. >> i do think they don't understand if it's written down somewhere, it will be found. if you told another person, it will be found. that's just the way it always works. for some reason, they don't seem to understand that. they seem to think that they can control this, and that they can put out what they want to put out and everybody will walk away and leave it. and that's just not what happened. >> it's not the press doing drip, drip, drip on this, it's them. it's the trump team, because they give a little piece of information where they think that will be sufficient and this will go away. and then more facts come out. and another little piece of information. they actually perpetuate the notion of drip, drip, drip. >> the other thing i don't understand the way about the white house handles stuff is that all of their, you know, all their, move along, there's nothing to see here, is based on the idea that everyone is an

idiot and doesn't actually see what they're seeing. the idea that we don't know -- we know what those e-mails said. it departmeidn't talk about adon those e-mails, but today, sarah huckabee sanders continues to say this is a meeting about russian adoptions, which mean donald trump, jr. in his misleading said was not an issue during the campaign. so if that was the pitch, he wouldn't have had the meeting. >> even if it was about russian adopti adoptions, we know that's code for sanctions. if you think about this, there are a few things. as a hillary clinton supporter, we saw one trump campaign e-mail, and it was incriminating as hell. we saw thousands and tens of thousands of hillary clinton e-mails. what else is there? >> we'll never know with hillary. >> you saw tens of thousands. >> 33,000 of them, though. >> here we go. talk about conspiracy theorys. >> you brought up her e-mail. >> the second thing is the more important aspect is that with

everything that's going on around the world with north korea, with isis, with iran, how will you ever trust the words coming out of this president's mouth when the american public is going to need to trust him most? i mean, that's the question. you want to say that it's frivolous or you want to say that it's -- we're all looking for this conspiracy theory. what if i give you that? the fact is, we know the president misled the public. what happens when we need to trust him? >> i didn't say it was frivolous. i'm well on the record -- these investigations need to go forth and the best thing for the white house here is for all these things to wrap up and they found out there was no collusion. i have long stated and believed we're going to find out the russians absolutely meddled in the election. that doesn't mean they needed a colluding partner to do it. i think the president is enormously frustrated. you said, david, that this drip, drip, drips from them. well, the first story was a couple of anonymous stories. this washington post story has unnamed sources.

the president reads this, and is frustrated about unnamed sources. >> sarah huckabee sanders saying -- [ overlapping speakers ] >> he's frusz tratrated about t fact that there is not one named source from air force one -- >> my question is, if you're lying about stuff that is just stupid stuff to lie about, small stuff like i did weigh in, he could have said before, yeah, jay sekulow could have said the president was on the plane and consulted on the thing, but it was donald trump jr.'s statement. if you're lying about the small stuff, do you worry about that at all? >> i'm not sure this is a small thing. i do think we turned a corner, not in the media attention to this story and not necessarily in the global collusion theory, but this e-mail from donald trump, jr. was in black and white. this is what was going on here, and they were not telling the truth about it, which leads you to believe why are you not telling the truth about this?

they have bad judgment. they have very bad judgment. if exhorting the donald trump team to have better judgment and prudence -- >> let her finish. >> that's not the bar there. >> i'm just saying the truth. what do you want me to say? >> bad judgment -- >> do you want me to have my hands up here. you want it to be more dramatic. i've been exhorting the trump team to have better judgment and prudence from day one. i don't like many of their behaviors. but the distinction between a legal problem and that is important. and if exhorting them to do that changed anything, we would be in a different place right now. >> i want us to be able to trust the president. that's all. because democrats, republicans, black, white, south carolina, new york, it doesn't matter. there's going to come a point in time in this country where the president is going to say something that we need to hear and we need to be able to trust. so it's not about judgment, legality, it's about the fact that no one can trust the president. >> when he says believe me, i think you can trust him. [ laughter ]

we've got to take a break. up next, we'll talk to james clapper to get his thoughts on this and ant the credibility of the white house. what he thinks about this revelation today and how it affects the white house's credibility or lack thereof. we'll be right back. amd, he told me to look at this grid every day. and we came up with a plan to help reduce my risk of progression, including preservision areds 2. my doctor said preservision areds 2 has the exact nutrient formula the national eye institute recommends to help reduce the risk of progression of moderate to advanced amd after 15 years of clinical studies. preservision areds 2. because my eyes are everything. mikboth served in the navy.s, i do outrank my husband, not just being in the military, but at home. she thinks she's the boss. she only had me by one grade. we bought our first home together in 2010. his family had used another insurance product but i was like well i've had usaa for a while, why don't we call and check the rates?

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more now on the revelation from white house today. the president weighed in on his son's misleading statement last month on the meeting with russians at trump tower during

the 2016 presidential campaign. that is in contradiction to what the president's lawyer has been saying. in a moment, i'll speak with retired lieutenant general james clapper, the cnn national security about list to get his take. here's what he said recently about the russian meeting at trump tower at a security forum. >> i think the russian objective here was, one, to explore to see if there was interest in having such a discussion on offering up, of course, dirt on hillary clinton. and somehow, you know, at least create the optic or the image of at least ostensibly plausible deniability. this is typical soviet russian trade craft approach. >> general james clapper joins me now. general clapper, does this white house, are they credible in

their public statements? >> well, there's certainly a lot of doubt about that. what's happened most recently, i think just has the effect of casting more doubt on the credibility of what they say. i'm kind of on the same page with mike hayden here, because to me the greater issue is the assault on truth in this country, which in an extremist situation, could be pretty important to us. >> right. >> i worry about that, and what's the definition of truth? this has sort of a chilling orwellian aspect, with the minister of information putting out a set of facts which don't comport with ground truth. >> it seems when they are then confronted with actually what is true, they simply deny what is true and say, well, just sort of act as if everybody else is

wrong. i mean, saying that in this particular instance, which is pretty small instance, just saying the original statement that donald trump, jr. put out, that it is true. that's just not accurate. >> well, that's exactly right. i won't parse out the -- i'm not a legal scholar, i won't parse out all this. but to me the bigger issue is the image, the optic of a lack of faith, a lack of trust in what the white house says by this drip, drip, drip, and the daily drama of some other revelation, which sort of comes out halfway and then there's the back and forth in the white house press briefing. and this is i think a very regrettable pattern and a huge distraction to the country in light of all the other issues and problems we have to deal

with. >> so what happens when there is a national crisis and people need to know what is actually happening and to know that the white house is actually giving real information? i think back to, you know, what i read about the vietnam war, there was a problem with the military inflating body counts or the metric they used was self-reporting and ultimately just became kind of -- was false. >> well, i lived through the vietnam war, and i know exactly what you're alluding to. and this, again, smacks of that to a certain extent. and i do think it's tremendous problem for this country, it's very disturbing when even before an extremist situation you have doubts about the truthfulness and the credibility of what leadership in this country is saying.

and that's a terrible commentary. >> i want to get your take on just russia. i heard you say earlier or another time that donald trump is making russia great again. and also the situation in north korea. >> well, i was perhaps being half facetious about his efforts, his curiousness of russia, and trump personally. i don't quite understand it. i think what people have a tendency to forget is the tremendous threat that russia poses to us. they do pose an existential threat to us. they're embarked on an impressive modernization of their strategic weapons. they have the most sophisticated cyber capability of any adversary and they're in violation of the inf treaty.

they are not interested in helping. they are interested in undermining us and our system. so i don't understand that. with respect to north korea, i was heartened by secretary of state tillerson's statements about the need for diplomacy. i think that is the secret here. >> are direct talking with north korea -- >> yes, i would be an advocate for that. i gave a speech in seoul last month which i suggested that we give some consideration to opening up an intersection in pyongyang, much like we had in havana, to deal with a government that we didn't recognize. apart from the advantage of having an in residence diplomatic presence would help us understand what's going on in north korea. and importantly, be a conduit

for information to north korea. when i visited there in 2014 to bring out a couple of our citizens in hard labor, i was blown away by the degree of paranoia and the siege mentality that exists there. of course, when we saber rattle, all that does is heighten that paranoia in north korea. so i believe -- i'm very supportive of what secretary tillerson said about reaching out to them. because there's too much at stake here to do otherwise. >> general chapter, i appreciate your time. and i want to welcome you to cnn as a new contributor. >> thanks. up next, the white house still fielding questions about the president's comments to police last week, telling them to be "rough on suspects." america's top prosecutor attorney general jeff sessions is weighing in, as well. we'll have that when we continue. where, in all of this, is the stuff that matters?

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impact community police relations. here's what started all of this. >> when you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon, you just see them thrown in, rough, i dade please don't be too nice. like when you guys put somebody in the car and you're protecting their head, you know, you put your hand, like don't hit their head and they just killed somebody, i said you can take the hand away, okay? [ laughter ] >> today's white house press briefing, sarah huckabee sanders was asked again about the comment. bacari, sarah huckabee sanders again basically just said this was the president joking. >> i think as a country, we had this discussion last night, i think as a country we need to be less politically correct sometimes. it gets us in trouble. however, donald trump crossed a

line. there are many parents right now who fear their children going out, having encounters with law enforcement because they may not come home. many people who look like me are afraid if they interact with police they're not sure how that may go, whether or not they have one or two degrees or no degrees. so it's a very troubling statement when you see the leader of the free world condone that statement, when there are people actively, law enforcement, black lives matter, everybody trying to rebuild the system, which is rotten to the core, which is our criminal justice system. so i have a great deal of angst for him to make jokes about a matter that's not a laughing matter. and you know, he said it in new york, and i just can't help but think about eric gardner who was choked to death on the streets of new york. so we have a serious problem with police brutality. for the president of the united states to make a joke like that was out of bounds. >> i agree.

i think the tension between the police and the citizenry in this country is one of the most worrisome civil problems we have. but this reminds me a little bit when people were trying to foment outrage about the prisoners in guantanamo bay. if you live in trump country and you heard those sentiments expressed, you probably were thinking, i pretty much agree with the president on this. he was speaking about violent gangs. i initially red this and it hit me frankly wrong. i watched his comments several times. i think he was making a tongue in cheek remark, not to communicate policy but a sentiment, which is we're not going to coddle criminals in the trump administration. so through the political lens, that's the conversation he wants to foment among his supporters. >> i think it was in jest. i'm also a conservative who

thinks we do have a problem with excessive force and with fixing this communication problem between cops and communities. so it's a jest that would be wiser not to make. it's bad judgment to make that jest, as i mentioned earlier. but i'm more concerned about the policy side. i don't think this is a directive and we shouldn't act like it is. but it could be badly encouraging. i'm more concerned about where they are changing that policy on the criminal justice front. but as you were pointing out, the political correctness thing, i think politically he's sending that message. there's "washington post" piece saying president trump's reference to paddy wagons insults irish americans like me. >> i hear that. i hear scott's comment about guantanamo bay. this is something that's totally different. and i think that if this is something in trump country that people don't understand, maybe me and you need to have a sit down and a different conversation. i mean, maybe we need to go out

and sit down and talk to the families of these individuals like a tamir rice who was supposedly a grown man, but who was a 12-year-old child wild donald trump, jr. was a good little boy. maybe we need to sit down and talk to the families of keith lamont scott or alton sterling who didn't get the benefit of their humanity. so i understand that maybe there is a disconnect and maybe in this country we're talking beyond one another. but one thing whether or not it's scott jennings or somebody in trump country needs to have is a level of empathy for those of us that register that as fear. if you can have that level of empathy for an issue near and dear to my heart, i should be able to have that same level of empathy with you. that's all i ask. >> i agree with you. i think the tension that exists between police and our citizens in many communities is extremely worrisome. the president was speaking about violent gangs, and so if you're one of his supporters, and you're listening to that speech

and you hear him talk about the violent ms-13 -- >> and there are people who should get empathy who have experienced that. >> right. and then you hear the liberals come in and say oh, the president has mishandled this. [ overlapping speakers ] >> do you understand that some people look at me as being inherently dangerous because i'm a black male, do you get that? do you understand that? >> as i understand, you don't have to keep yelling at me. >> i'm not yelling at you. >> i agree with you. [ overlapping speakers ] >> i'm trying to tell you that the conversation he was having about ms-13 to a lot of people in this country was right on. did it help, was it bad judgment? maybe. it may have been bad judgment. maybe it didn't help. but there a political lens, you can see the two conversations he's trying to stoke on a lot of issues. it's the same -- [ overlapping speakers ] >> it's the same with the transgender ban.

>> he's spoken two conversations in this country. he says things and he wants certain people to react one way and other people to react another. he does it on a lot of issues. >> i just want donald trump to care about people who look like me. when he does that, maybe we can acknowledge that the president of the united states wants to fix the system, which we find to be oppressive and harmful to people of color. mary katherine ham is the co-author of "end of the discussion" which is out in paperback today. up next, a new lawsuit alleges the white house and fox news colluded on a fake story about the murder of a democratic national staffer, to shift attention from the russia hacking. details ahead. at panera, a salad is so much more than one thing. more than one flavor, or texture, or color. a good clean salad is so much more than green.

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explosive new allegations are coming to light in a lawsuit filed by a fox news contributor. the story begins last july when democratic national committee staffer seth ridge was murdered in what d.c. police believe was an attempted robbery gone wrong. his murder was spun into a baseless conspiracy theory alleging he was involved in the wikileaks dnc e-mail dump. this new lawsuit alleges that it was fox news who purposely cooked up that false story, with the white house input. more, that allegedly president trump signed off on. cnn's randi kaye tonight picks up the story from there. >> reporter: when democratic national committee staffer seth rich was killed, a conspiracy was born. caught up in it, this man. >> i do believe i was used as a pawn in this entire thing. >> reporter: his name is rod wheeler. he's a former d.c. homicide detective and fox news contributor. and now he's filed a lawsuit against fox news. wheeler claims he was used to help fabricate a story connecting the murder of seth

rich to the wikileaks release of thousands of e-mails from the democratic national committee. the idea being that rich was murdered by some sort of dnc operative in retaliation for the leaks. all of this despite the fact that police say rich's murder was the result of a botched burglary and that this is key, authorities had already determined that russians hacked the dnc e-mails and gave them to wikileaks. what was the goal? >> i think their goal, based on the e-mails and voicemail messages i got from ed putowski was to debunk this russian hacking narrative. >> reporter: ed putowski is a gop supporter and fox news financial commentator. the alleged goal to distract from the russia investigation was not only pushed by butowski but according to the lawsuit it was done in coordination with the trump white house, with butowski even arranging wheeler to meet with then-press secretary sean spicer.

spicer has acknowledged meeting them but said he was unaware of any contact involving the president. still, just two days before the article was published on fox's website, butowski left this voil mail for wheeler. >> hey, rod, it's ed. so, a couple minutes ago i got a note that we have the full attention of the white house on this. and tomorrow let's close this deal. >> reporter: hours later this text from ed butowsky to wheeler. "not to add anymore pressure, but the president just read the article. he wants the article out immediately." and according to the lawsuit, ed butowsky sent an e-mail to fox news producers and anchors encouraging them to push the narrative that russia wasn't behind the hack. it seemed to take hold. >> this issue is so big now that the entire russia collusion narrative is hanging by a

thread. >> reporter: according to the lawsuit, butowsky had also texted wheeler before the article was published saying, "the narrative in the interviews you might use is that your and malia's work prove that the russians didn't hack into the n dnc and steal the e-mails and impact our election." >> i thought it was horrible because what did that have to do with the murder of this guy that i was investigating? >> reporter: wheeler insists the fox reporter attributed fake quotes to him, one even suggesting he had information that there had been an e-mail exchange between seth rich and wikileaks. he called butowsky to find out why. >> one day you're going to win an award for having said those things that you didn't say. >> keep the award. let's just tell the truth here. >> reporter: in that conversation, was he basically acknowledging to you that, yes, it's true, you didn't say these things but they sound good and we're going to use them? >> that's exactly what he was saying. he knew it and ed knew it and so

did malia zimmerman. they knew i never said these things and i challenged them immediately. >> reporter: fox retracted the bogus story a week after it was published. fox news told cnn in a statement today that the accusations that fox helped to detract from coverage of russia collusion is completely erroneous and that it has no evidence that rod wheeler was misquoted. ed butowsky told cnn it was all just a joke. and today white house press secretary sarah huckabee sanders pushed back on allegations the white house played a role in this scheme. >> the president had no knowledge of this story and it's completely untrue that he or the white house involvement in the story. >> reporter: randi kaye, cnn, new york. >> randi got this statement from the attorney for rod wheeler who told her he wanted to depose the president. the attorney says, "we're going do litigate this case as we would any other. we want to talk to anyone who has information, that means the

president and sean spicer." joining me is brian stelter. this guy, wheeler, this private detective, he was on fox talking about this story, no? >> he was. he was part of the promotion of this conspiracy theory. the theory, of course, supporting the idea that the president had nothing to do with russia, and suggesting it was actually the dnc, maybe the clintons that somehow shared these dnc e-mails of wikileaks. it is all about fundamentally all about disputing the russia collusion idea. this conspiracy theory is popular in the swamps of the internet, but fox really promoted it in the middle of may thanks to wheeler, thanks to butowsky, thanks to this reporting. now wheeler is saying i was misquoted, i was misled, i was defamed. it's going to be a tough case, but it could be revealing. >> and butowsky, he's e-mailing people at fox telling them what angles to push? >> that's what this lawsuit shows and that's one of the most revealing parts. we actually got the quotes. there they were in randi's piece. very unusual at a normal television news operation, but maybe not unusual for knfox.

>> to have a democratic operative e-mailing people what they should be talking about. >> seems highly unethical. a lot of this about fox seems highly unethical. the trump pieces, trump white house pieces, they need more reporting. it is clear sean spicer was there meeting with these guys in the white house so at least there was some talk about this conspiracy theory in the white house. we know the president has promoted other conspiracy theories like wiretapping claims, things like that's. he's never brought up seth rich, however. i think fundamentally, anderson, this is about two competing realities, two alternative universes. we talk about it all the time. hereto think the russia story is a big deal that needs investigation or it's a hoax. similar on climate change. you either believe it's a pressing issue or buy into the denialism. the two alternative universes idea is coming through in this story. >> these are allegations being made, a lawsuit, people make allegations in lawsuits any time. it doesn't, you know, it could just be not true. >> we need more reporting on this and if it eververy and

depositi depositions, we will learn a lot more at that point. >> brian stelter, prooesappreci. thanks for watching "a.c. 360." the cnn town hall, "al gore: the climate crisis", starts right now. tonight, the climate crisis in-depth. >> every night on the news it's like a major haiku, the book of revelations. >> one of the world's leading voices on climate change, former vice president al gore. taking questions about the most pressing issue for the planet. his warning to president trump. >> what were you thinking? >> and his call to action. we're here for a special cnn town hall on the climate crisis with former vice president al gore. i'm anderson cooper. i want to welcome our viewers watching in the united states and watching around the world. consensus in the scientific community is clear. sea levels are rising. the oceans are warming. but there's not a consensus, at least among politicians here, what to do about it. now, 11 years after the release of a film