watch it at 6:25 eastern. the news continues. i will hand it over to chris cuomo. thank you. welcome. we have new information for you tonight. here are the lies that flynn told the fbi. these notions that flynn was set up, we will show you the reality here in black and white. the redactions don't make a difference. i'm going to go one on one with a man who sees a lot in this memo and in the president's lawyers making a new defense about michael cone's illegal payments. what it is and what it should mean to you is coming up. the new report about russia's social media propaganda campaign to subvert our election. there's a lot in there. but there's a discovery that no one is talking about, the striking similarities between what the russians did and what the trump campaign did. i'm going to go one on one with a democratic senator on what

comes next. happy monday night. let's get after it. now we see, this is it, just came out a couple hours ago. it's the 302 that the fbi took down after meeting with general flynn back there in january of 2017. it's their written form of what happened in an interview. it's all here. people have been telling you that this was hidden, this was covered up because they didn't want people to know that flynn was set up. wrong. over and over during this interview, you will see that the general lied about his discussions with the russians. it's important to point out what it is and what is not in here. those of who you said, you will see, he was set up. bs. remember, after this happened, the much maligned mccabe and strauch didn't think he was

lying. mueller's investigators had to piece it over. you will have to find a new conspiracy. let's talk facts with a former federal prosecutor who has been on the front lines of high profile political cases. jeff sights, thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> you have had a chance to look through the 302. there are redactions. i don't find them as material as from the mueller people in the past, other documents. what's your takeaway? >> i think the biggest is that what the 302 tells us is that if you are going to talk, don't lie. it's something i have told my two daughters year after year. what we realize is that, if you elect to talk to the government, it's important to tell the truth and tell the full truth. >> mueller had come to the conclusion that the general was committed to a lie. here is the thing i don't get. help me understand this from your perspective as a prosecutor. they ask him really leading questions in here. one of them, he thanks them for. thanks for reminding me about that.

when you hear an fbi agent talk about a conversation that you know you had, why would flynn deny the same more than once? >> well, i think there are two important things to keep in mind. the first of which is that the government always takes an approach in which these interviews they start with the broad and go narrow. they tend to like to actually ask open-ended questions to give a person an opportunity to talk. they try not to lead people to certain kinds of answers. again, it goes back to the issue that if you are going to talk, that you then tell the truth. on the question that you are asking about, prompting mr. flynn -- general flynn to a specific topic, that's common, too. often when you start with a broad topic, you want to go more narrow, especially as it relates to the specific subject matter that's at issue. that's what i think was reflected here in prompting him to talk about certain of those topics related to sanctions as

well as the u.n. security council vote. >> i totally get it. interesting for the audience. even though i'm not an intel expert, it seemed obvious what they were prompting about. he didn't go with it. we have three interesting examples of the dynamics. the first one we will put up. this is where the fbi agents reminded the general -- okay. the interviewing agents asked flynn if he recalled any -- redaction -- with kislyak. he responded, yes. good reminder. you don't -- yeah. he has to know that they know what he talked to kislyak about. they may be forming it as a question. but he now knows they know. what do you take away from that? >> i think that's right. i think that really goes to the issue of when someone elects to

talk to the government, to an fbi agent and makes the decision he or she is not going to tell the truth, what's happening there is there is a feeling that he or she can fool the agent. i think that's what people often forget when people are confronted, witnesses are confronted with the opportunity to talk to agents and they are answering these questions, that for those who decide to talk, and those who decide they want to lie, they are trying to direct agents in a different way. >> it's interesting. flynn, by all the notice that we heard last week, jonot nervous, not defensivdefensive. example two, one of the two material false statements he made to the agents that he pleaded guilty to. put up this one. flynn stated his calls were about asking where countries would stand on a vote, not any requests of, hey, if you do this, that he didn't do it that way. again, they are asking him in the text of this -- that wasn't

the best excerpt. they say, do you remember talking to kislyak about which way they might go on anything? i don't know why that didn't trigger in the general's mind, all right, they know, they know about this conversation. they are asking these things. but he lies to them about that. he then admits the same. what goes into that decision, you keep saying when people decide to lie, this is why they should know they are at risk? what about the mindset of i'm going for it? i'm going to lie. >> well, some of it is that the feeling i think on some of the witnesses is that they think that if they give some kind answer that is yes and no or perhaps i don't remember, that will give them wiggle room to get out of making a statement to the government or making a statement that they potentially can get out of later. what i think is probably the most material out of all of this is that there isn't a question as to whether or not general flynn lied. this is something he admitted to. i think the question is that all

of this has come about based on what judge sullivan asked for is whether or not there was sp something else involved that suggested something else was at play in terms of the interview that happened. >> also, there becomes this question of, who knew? who did the general think that he was protecting by covering up what discussions he had? was he in talk -- they talk in this document, people find fascinating, that he was in the dominican republic. they talk about the doe palestini dominican republic like he is on mars. i have had okay time during and after hurricanes. i don't understand why it was so hard. it goes to the spirit of confusion on this matter. there were other calls made while in the mix. that may wind up revealing as well. i don't know it has to do with the redactions.

certainly, that's another piece of the puzzle for mueller to put together. while i have you, i don't want to waste your expertise. here is the new argument from the president's counsel. john edwards, my friends, we have already seen this situation play out in court. john edwards, same situation as the president and he was acquitted. as we see, there is no crime. your take? >> well, one of the things -- probably the most important takeaway from the edwards prosecution is maybe not necessarily the verdict and non-verdict. remember, it was an acquittal as well as a hung jury on the majority of the -- >> fec didn't bring the case. they used that also. you had to bring the case. doj prosecutors, not the fec. they didn't think anything was wrong. >> that's right. the reality is the fec is independent and operates separately from the justice department. that's how it should be. the fec has civil authority, not

criminal. that's the justice department power. one of the things i think that really is a takeaway from edwards as it relates to these set of facts we're talking about is one of the things that judge eagles ruled in the edwards case related to this notion of what a contribution is under law. as you have talked about before, it relates to this idea of what was the purpose behind the money itself that's at issue. in the edwards case, the question came up of whether or not the money that was, again, at issue in this case had to be the sole purpose purpose for in campaign. what the judge ruled in that case was that it didn't have to be the only purpose, the primary purpose. that i think is probably the most significant point that arises out of that case that could have implication here. >> you know what's so interesting is that the president's lawyer rudy giuliani stated the opposite yesterday as the outcome of the case. he said, that case showed you it's gotta be for the purposes of the campaign if it's not

about the campaign. that's what the case showed us. if you read the decision, the judge held the opposite. >> that's right. the other issue that will come up is the value of that particular ruling. as you know, a ruling from a particular federal district court doesn't necessarily have mandatory authority on any other district court judge. so that's going to be hotly debated. it's worth noting that the statute itself doesn't say one way or the other. it's left for the prosecutors and defense lawyers to debate amongst themselves. it's, in fact, a very real issue and a material issue. one of the things the judge talked about in the edwards case is that it's very rare in human nature for people to just simply have exclusively one purpose in mind, one reason. >> it's interesting that if you use a case as your defense, you better get the holding right and not say the opposite of what the judge did. i don't know what they are banking on. i guess they are banking on the

fact that people will do no homework. this was really helpful. we will get more. please come back and help us make sense of it legally and in terms of what arguments are going to be made. until then, the best of the holy days for you and your family. >> happy holidays. thank you. we now know how russian trolls came up with their novel social media strategy. we have the details of it in a new set of reports. what they did. but there's a new question we will lay out for you. why did trump's campaign make similar moves, next? if you have moderate to severe psoriasis or psoriatic arthritis, little things can be a big deal. that's why there's otezla. otezla is not an injection or a cream. it's a pill that treats differently. for psoriasis, 75% clearer skin is achievable,

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they work together doing important stuff. the hitch? like you, your cells get hungry. feed them... with centrum® micronutrients. restoring your awesome... daily. feed your cells with centrum® micronutrients today. we have the interview with general flynn and we know what he lied about and how and the whole situation. that's one piece of the puzzle. another piece. the republican controlled senate intel committee just put out some third-party research that provide our best evidence to date of what russia was doing on social media to muck up our election. here is what we know. the goal was clear, help trump. okay? and the russians used just about every social media platform

imaginable. the scope of the efforts unprecedented. here is really what needs more investigating. the tactics that the russians used were really, really similar to what we saw from team trump. prove it. okay. exhibit a, the senate's report shows that russia was targeting three groups to suppress the vote with ads like these. the senate focuses on the ads targeting african-americans saying they designed these to suppress the vote in that community. fine. now look at this article from bloomberg in 2016. they are yelling at me in the control room. you went too fast. what do we see? this was supposed to be the gold. that's the russians. a senior trump official was quoted saying, we have three major voter suppression operations underway. what were they? the same three groups.

african-americans, young women, white liberals. the russians were putting out ads like these and trump was targeting african-americans with an animation using hillary clinton's 1996 claim about super predators. see the similarity? the reason trump's people -- here is what they said. it will dramatically affect her ability to turn these people out. i'm not saying it's a crime. i'm saying it's uncanny, the symmetry continued right up until the end, in the days leading up to the campaign, the actual election, the russians went all in on what? allegations of voter fraud, warnings that the election would be stolen. sound familiar? of course it does. you were hearing the same thing from then candidate donald trump, tweeting about the exact same messages. what's the argument going to be here? can't be this simple. it won't be. they will say, they were just using the tools available to them. trump, the russians simply knew how to use social media better

than the democrats. remember this. steve bannon was a key player at cambridge analytica. they were brought in, jared kushner, why he picked them, why would they help out in the election. remember bannon and cambridge analytica had ties to russian oil and st. petersburg university. we know the russians took trump up on his offer to try to find hillary's e-mails. remember that? the goals and tab tick tactics russians and trump campaign were similar. that can be shown. we just did it. why were they so similar? that is for lawmakers or mueller to expose. it is a provocative question. we will talk with one of the key senators who put out that bombshell report today. what does he think about the flynn 302? did he know about it? what's of interest to him? what is he going to about this provocative question, the same

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democracy. the question has always been, find out what the russians did and stop them from doing it again. where are we on that? one of the people who will have a bigger say in all that is democratic senator from oregon ron widen. a pleasure. >> thank you. >> so let's deal with the central question, just in terms of the politics versus process. where are we in your estimation in terms of understanding what the russians did and having a plan that could be executed to make it less likely that it happens again? >> we have a long way go in order to protect the american people and protect the integrity of our elections. let me give you an example. facebook clearly was very slow to pick up on what was going on with instagram. the russians were targeting instagram because that was the pipeline for young people. that was where the voters were. that was where the swing voters were. the fact of the matter is the social media companies, the big

companies like facebook have got to be more vigilant and more aggressive going forward. >> senator, you know, you are a smart guy. i have seen you in the hearings. you know they can do better than they are doing. if you and i were online having a conversation about our favorite foul shooters from the '80s, we would get in all kinds of ads for throwback jerseys. they know how to monitor conversations when it suits them. whether it's zuckerberg or whoever, they shine you on or they seem to give selective attribution to why they do things. when are you going to drop the hammer and say, we know and you know that you have do better, and if you don't here is what's happening? >> i'm dropping the hammer on them right now with my privacy bill. this, of course, involves cambridge analytica, which was a key company in the story. what i'm going to see in my privacy bill is if the ceo at one of the big technology

companies lies to the federal government, like the federal trade commission, if they lie to the federal government about their privacy policy and how it affects their consumers, they would pay a big fine and also face the prospect of jail time. that is dropping the hammer, my friend. >> be interesting to see how that plays. i'm sure you have been talking to them about what their take is on the buildup to the bill. i will follow that. that's good to hear. senator, i just laid out that there is some really interesting similarities between what the trump campaign did and what the russian troll farms and accounts were doing on social media. do you believe that's just a coincidence, that it's about savvy use of social media and obvious messages, or is there something to the similarity? >> this is another question going forward, because the digital director before seems like he is going to be the guy in 2020. there's some real questions that ought to be asked about what he

did in his relationship with cambridge analytica. i come back to the fact that this highlights the need for a privacy bill like mine which has real teeth and real enforcement capacity. >> i'm all about that. we have to figure out in our society how we balance privacy with access and the reach that we want. it's going to be evolving. all the main players have to know they have skin in the game and they will lose skin if they don't play the right way. i don't understand why this question is not getting more play. the specific ads, the specific groups, the specific tactics that the trump campaign used, how could they have come up with the same parameters as russian troll farms? >> going forward, it better get more play. for example, just today the naacp said that there ought to be an investigation into how the russian targeted the african-american community. i strongly tonight stand with

the naacp. i will be telling our chairman we ought to respond affirmatively to what they want. >> if they are going to look into why they did it, why don't you look into why the trump folks did it? they wanted to suppress the vote, but to put our messaging that would keep african-americans at home. people can judge the politics. i'm not saying it's illegal. what a coincidence, they picked the same group and did it with the same messaging. >> there's a long history of, for example, politicians saying, i don't think we can get so and so to vote for our guy. let's try to keep the other people home. what is different now is the social media companies have an obligation. they have an obligation to take this seriously, to be more vigilant, to catch it early on. i will give you an example. if one of these companies has an address that says st. petersburg on it, or the company gets paid

in rubles, that ought to be a wake-up call. the social media companies didn't move in spite of that. >> that's something to be suspicious of. one more thing. have you had a chance to look at the 302 from michael flynn? >> i heard what your earlier discussion was all about. as a member of the intelligence committee, i can't get into specifics. let me just cut to the bottom line. mike flynn is a general. he is an adult. he pled guilty to lying to the fbi. period. end of discussion. i know we're going to have discussion in the press about these various documents and the like. to me, the bottom line is clear. they were talking about important matters like sanctions and kislyak. he pled guilty to lying. mueller has been a straight arrow, he has been method cical.

for me, that's the heart of the matter. >> let me push it one step. you can pretend like you didn't hear it. the ifb trick works very well for angus king. the idea of why would general flynn not take the suggestion from the agents that they knew what he had asked about? he is an intelligence pro himself. he let them refresh his recollection with respect to the vote on israeli settlements. thank you for that. thank you for reminding me. they tell him, did you talk about sanctions? did you talk about asking about what they would do? obviously, they knew. he lied. it raises the question, who was he covering for? what did he put a higher value on than the truth in that one instance? is that something that you guys are looking at? >> again, i can't get into stuff that goes on in the committee. let's just put it this way. in these kinds of things, there may be a host of possible explanations for flynn stirring

this up. was he tries to get a better deal with mueller? was he hoping for a pardon? who knows? i want to come back and -- the essence of your question is logic. here you have somebody who is an adult. he should have understood that he was lying to the fbi. it's a serious matter. for me, that continues to be the bottom line. >> why lie? we ask it here all the time. senator, thank you so much. best of the holidays for you and your family. >> thanks so much. here is a simple question. we have to get to it. if there's a shutdown, who wins? great debate next. ultimate feast time it'sat red lobster.r own pick four of ten favorites to create the ultimate feast you've been dreaming of.

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so this record of this interview with general flynn just came out tonight. some of it is redacted. there's this question that will drive you crazy. the general was an intel expert. he knows they knew what he talked about with kislyak. you can tell when you read this. why did he lie? then we have this other question. the shutdown talk. who wins when it happens? help me with this.

we will been told the 302 with flynn was hidden because it would show he was set up. it's nonsense. there's no indication of that in here. he was driving the train throughout the interview which explains why they didn't think he was lying. he was. he admits that now. why do you think general mike flynn, when he had to know as an intel expert these guys knew about his conversations, why did he lie? >> my guess is because he didn't recall or maybe had thought differently. there really is no reason to lie. you say he lied to protect someone. how are you protecting someone if they know the information? he knew that they -- i think he at some point references that they knew what he said, because he thought that they had that information. the only reason someone who knows the other person has that information and therefore you are not protecting anybody by lying, because they have the information, the only reason you do it is because you don't

recall or you recall it differently. that's the only thing that comes to my conclusion. it makes no sense for him do it for any other reason. >> he admitted he lied. it's -- >> that's a bigger story. you have the power of the federal government coming down on you. >> you say that when it's convenient. >> it's true. >> did you say that about bill clinton when he lied under oath? he had to. >> that's different. >> it worked to your advantage. that's all i'm saying. let me ask jennifer this question. he admits he lied. rick wants to say he had to. they were turning the screws on him. whatever. it makes you wonder, those calls he was making down there in the dominican republic, calls to mar-a-lago, conversations during the 18 days before they made a move on flynn and they have talk about the criminality that had been suggested to them by sally yates or anybody else. i wonder if he thought, i have to say this because there are more people involved. what do you think? >> of course. of course.

there was the question in the past couple days about who from his firm was going to go before the grand jury. it's all wound up in that. we won't know the answer to it fully until mueller's report is revealed. that so much of him trying to protect people he was working with, maybe his family, maybe his son. it's all bound in this. that's why he lied. it was to cover up. you don't forget stuff like conversations like that. especially with all of the stuff swirling around, you don't forget that. he was trying to protect somebody, trying to cover up. he was hoping, i'm sure, this would somehow not rise to an offense he would be charged with. >> do you know how many conversations these folks about these issues? to suggest that he is lying to cover up -- he knows they have the conversation. he is not covering up anything. this makes no sense. makes no sense at all other than the fact that he simply got it wrong. >> right. >> you don't know that.

>> he said it during the interview. they were prompting him about what he talked about. >> just to be fair about the conversation, i'm asking about it because it doesn't make sense to me. >> i agree. >> the president and rudy gee a giuliani, i get why he lies. they are getting ready for a publicity contest. rudy's actions and words and deeds make perfect sense in that context. they are never going before a judge. i guarantee you the answers were safe and open ended. they gave it all to him. you know why? they don't want trouble with him. with us, they will lie all day. now the tough one for you, jennifer. you will like this. i don't get what you democrats are on the shutdown. the president has boxed you in. it seems like you don't care about border security. he is saying, i will shut it down because it matters. you say -- play the current state of play. you will have the context and

the audience for my disposition. here is the state of play. >> we're going to do whatever is necessary to build a border wall to stop this ongoing crisis of illegal immigration. this is a very -- if it comes to it, a it, absolutely. >> there are not the votes for the wall in the house or the senate. he is not going to go get the wall in any form. >> i don't get the politics. it sounds like, he wants to build some brand-new wall. i get that was the original. you know they have moved off that. they call it a wall system mao. it seems like the democrats are saying, yeah, we're not into this border security the way he is. >> democrats are into border security. they want do to do it in a smar way. there was a 2006 act called the safe fence act or something like that that ended up covering a third of the entire border between the u.s. and mexico.

a study was out between stanford and dartmouth saying it was by far ineffective. the costs outweighed the benefits. it didn't reduce immigration. it was by .6% reduction. there are better ways to get at border security. this president, who has said repeatedly that mexico will pay for the wall and all that, the democrats came to him and they said, we have two offers to make. one is, pass the rest of the appropriations bills. we will make sure we pass them in the senate and the house. just put a continuing resolution, meaning keep the department of homeland security at the same level until we can figure out a resolution to the other issues, like daca, a permanent solution to immigration, like border security that actually works. he, so far, has been playing a bit of the drama queen and just dregging it o in dragging it out to the last minute. the republicans who came out today from meeting with him this

afternoon, john cornyn said, we have no idea what he wants. he hasn't given us a signal or plan. i think the democrats are in the right place. >> okay. rick, is it true when you hear from pelosi and schumer, they seem confident saying you don't have the votes for this new wall. you hearing that? >> i'm not hearing that. the reality is that the votes have been there in the past for a wall. schumer voted for a wall. obama voted -- go down the list. that's the thing the republicans have, is they have democrat after democrat who were in congress -- >> they should put it up for a vote. >> in the past, they have supported it. now that it's donald trump's wall, they won't support it. what we hate both parties -- they hate about washington, which is just an opposition for the point of opposing. it's a partisan block. >> it's not true. >> that's what's going on. >> it doesn't work. that's the point. you know what? >> are you suggesting -- >> from a perspective, two to

one, people will blame donald trump and the republicans for a shutdown. americans don't see this as a priority. 69% of americans say, this should not be a top congressional priority. >> cvp says they need the barriers. hold on. cvp says they need the barriers. the barriers are lep fhelpful. they say you are focusing on one aspect of a complex problem. >> he campaigned on it. the democrats don't want to give it to him. the american public knows that. >> hold on. he is responsible also because he is pitching it so that he can tell the american people, i got a brand-new wall. you know there's no new wall. there's a continuation of the types of fencing and different structures and technologies that they want in different places that they need fixed and added to. there's nothing new. there's no additional. right? it's just more of what we have. >> $5 billion for nothing new? >> that becomes a concern. >> if it shut down -- >> hold on. this is not a political argument.

just so you understand. i spend a lot of time reporting on this. i'm telling you, the idea of what we are told during the campaign, which is right where we see the big barrier fences and sometimes they put some extra kicker to make it tough to get over, that you see a new wall put in front of that, that's not true. those types of structures that we saw they had to put down and they need more, that's what they are talking about. the president sold it as something different during the campaign. he said, mexico is going to pay for it. you say, that was never relevant. of course not. he is responsible for making the wall into something it isn't. the democrats are responsible for fighting the idea overall. i think they are disadvantaged. make your point. >> you have made the point that the president has moved. because what the president has said is, we will put the money in, as you just described, in places that the border folks believe will be effective. >> as you said, democrats and

republicans have funded that. >> they are not funding it -- >> it's about more, not about new. >> it's about more. it has always been about more. more border protection. that is a key part of keeping the number of illegal immigrants out. >> i think the idea -- >> if you want to keep the number -- >> everybody wants -- everybody who is doing the job of keeping us safe, they say barriers matter. they say it's not a panacea. once you fix the walls, if nobody could get in illegally that way, you are now going to have more pressure on the ports of entry than ever before. the rules don't match the resources. there will be ugly situations. >> and, chris, what -- why aren't we looking at the cause of this? we end up removing help from countries that are the -- that are among the top five most violent in the world. who can blame people for wanting to protect their families and get out of gang-ridden violent murder-prone countries? >> i get it.

>> why aren't we figuring out how to get to the root of the problem and not just addressing a $5 billion symptom that is not effective? >> this is an area i would agree with you. you are absolutely right. this country, under the last three administrations, has ignored central and south america. bush did it for a reason. he was fighting a war. the obama administration let venezuela go to seed, nicaragua and did nothing. promoted the leftists who have been ruining the economies. you can say we should do something now. you gotta take responsible for disastrous foreign policy. >> look backwards when convenient. the president wants to pull more money. >> i blamed two republicans. >> i think it's tough for you to get people in your party that call themselves trump supporters to justify giving money to people that he has demonized. it's a tough sell. we will see. i appreciate the arguments on both sides as always. jennifer, rick, if i don't see you, merry christmas.

best to your families. >> merry christmas. i want to turn to something i shared on twitter. i will save the best part of the moment for the other side of the break. i will tell you what. it's all about the holidays, the holy days and it gave me one of the biggest ideas i have had, next. shaquem get in here. take your razor, yup. alright, up and down, never side to side, shaquem. you got it? come on, get back. quem, you a second behind your brother, stay focused. can't nobody beat you, can't nobody beat you. hard work baby, it gonna pay off. you got this. with the one hundred and forty-first pick, the seattle seahawks select. alright, you got it, shaquem. alright, let me see. coaching means making tough choices. jim! you're in! but when you have high blood pressure and need cold medicine that works fast, the choice is simple. coricidin hbp is the #1 brand that gives powerful cold symptom relief without raising your blood pressure.

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yeeeesss... quick, the quicker picker upper! bounty picks up messes quicker and is 2x more absorbent than the leading ordinary brand. hey look, i got it. bounty, the quicker picker upper. this boy wanted one thing for christmas and he got it. watch this. >> whoa. >> what is it? >> what is it? >> what is it? >> oh, my gosh. >> just kills me every time. i have watched it a dozen times. let's bring in don lemon. we have seen these before. they get me every time. these men and women give up

everything, their kids, they are waiting for them, they don't know whether they win they will the fear, the frustration. what a moment. >> you are a big wuss. that's why. i'm joking. how could you not cry with that? the only thing is that that is a brave kid. the moment i saw something crawling around in there, i would have been on the other side of the room until i figured out it was my dad. look at him. he is looking. he doesn't flinch. >> i love when they show up at graduations and they show up in the gym. i just love it. i love that these moments are able to be made possible. he is a bad ass. who knows how long he was in the box. i wouldn't have been able to handle it. i had an idea. >> do that with your family. >> why can't -- no. they would never open the box.

they would put it the ocean. the idea of these kids, active duty kids and veterans kids, they should be able to write letters, not just to santa claus, but to an organization that's called a grateful nation. they should be taught the rest of us owe them for what their family is about. they should be able to write for what they want. all we do is raise money for charitable efforts. nobody comes through. i did some checking on the local level, you will finds things where people help out kids of veterans. they are beautiful organizations. you will find them on a local level. there's not a huge one. that's not a huge one that does that. this kid, let's say he wanted a play station 4. his parents shouldn't think about getting it for him. it should be on us. write a letter to a grateful nation. raise money, that's all this money does, raises dollars. we say we support the troops.

we don't do a damn thing for them. we can't get their v.a. payments right. the one promise we give them is you will go to school. congress tries to school with their ability to pass them on to their kids. they don't get their payments. they won't have them until 2019. it's a joke. but what an idea that would be. i want to talk to big charities. we can't be in the charity business here. >> no. >> but they should do that, and i would definitely donate because why should these kids be denied anything with what their parents give up? >> i do think you're right. i do think there are organizations that do help out. >> they do, but not on a huge level. >> you're saying santa's list should be taken care of every single year. >> you've got toys for tots, many geared towards veterans, especially when someone falls in the line of battle, in the line of duty. i think it could be bigger than that. i think we have to start culturally reminding people that it's not just words because we're really getting there. this v.a. stuff, don, i'm

telling you, it's scary. what congress is ignoring, what they're not jumping up and down about, we're screwing these veterans, and nobody is doing anything about it. >> we should be doing more and talking more about it. i think the onus is on all of us to do more and to go visit the v.a. hospitals. and even the hospitals, like even st. jude's and shriners, what they do for kids, i think there's so much more we could do for this country. yes, you're right about veterans. yes, you're right. those kids' christmas lists should be taken care of every year. there is enough in this country. there is so much waste. we waste 40% of our food. think about yesterday the lunch you and i went to. we had pizza. we went home with more stuff. you probably put the pizza in your refrigerator. i put the extra pizza in my refrigerator. i'm probably not going to eat it. i'll go next week and look at it and probably won't eat it. there are families who are starving in this country, and it's not just me and you. we all do it. i think we could all be better. >> true. true. sadly, i went crazy on that

pizza last night about 11:30. i should have left it alone. >> okay. can i tell you a secret? so after we saw you, we went to town line. >> you went to a barbecue joint after that. >> we went to town line. after town line, we came back, decorated the tree. then we ordered chinese. >> what the heck? what are you, pregnant? >> what do you say? feed a cold, starve a fever? i'm feeding whatever it is. >> you took care of that. >> my appetite is out of control. so there you go. >> d. lemon. >> i'm a pig. listen, we've got a lot of good stuff coming up. you're right about that. let the show take care of itself. figure out a way to do that. somebody out there get in touch with chris cuomo. >> hit me on twitter. let's have a conversation about it. don, thanks, brother. i'll see you in a second. a grateful nation. take care of these kids. we all fall short. i talked about this a little earlier in the show. why is rudy giuliani saying

these things. we hear from lawyers all the time. he's making these crazy statements. he's never made a crazy statement. he's been preparing for something that people didn't realize, but we did. and we're right where we thought we were going to be. i got a closing argument for us that points the way forward, next.

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so former prosecutors and practicing attorneys, so many of them noticeably nonplussed by what rudy giuliani says. they see it as malpractice. he's laying out inconsistencies. a proper will feast on these. it doesn't have to rhyme, but that's their point. the president and his lawyers, however, they were never planning for a trial. they are preparing for political battle. they are planning to pitch you, not prosecutors. that's what they're doing. they want to cloud whatever is revealed to keep the country from a consensus about what it should all mean, especially for holding the president to account. that's why the president keeps tweeting and abuses the facts with seemingly reckless abandon, because that's exactly what he has. that's why his lawyers admit to

things that the president denies, and they keep defaulting to the idea that if it's not clearly a crime, then it's okay. why? because they're not worrying about mueller or being under oath in these efforts. the president chickened out of that a long time ago. his puffery about wanting to go at it with mueller in person, remember that? it's as real as his promises about mexico paying for the wall. in fact, both were made for the same reason. sounds strong, and i'll never have to deliver. listen to this. >> i have nothing to do with russia. to the best of my knowledge, no person that i deal with does. >> that was a bold-face lie. he didn't say that to mueller. you heard giuliani on abc yesterday, right? with all but a smile on his face. to mueller, he thinks back and listens, i think that we put it so that the communications with cohen about the russia deal, they went well into november of that year, of the election year.

wait a minute. that's completely contradictory to what the president just said. well, you don't think they know that? why would they contradict the president of the united states? because they don't care about the lie. because they think you don't care about the lie. that if it's not a crime, it's not obvious, it's not just collusion with russia, whatever that means, you'll be okay. he never paid a dime to those women. oh, wait, the payments? no, they were all paid back. he knew nothing about those payments. oh, wait, no. he knew, but he didn't direct them. kellyanne must have said it a dozen times. it's as irrelevant to the law as it is untrue. he knew. he directed. he wanted them paid. he knew about the scheme. he knew it was wrong. all the facts show it. so the president wants to keep clear one thing. give me the benefit of the doubt. we don't want to go through all this. hence the morass of mendacity.

they're banking on not being held to account because you won't know what to believe in large part because the president is going to keep lying to you and his lawyers are going to make it confusing, and they're good at it. this is why i have the president's lawyers on, to defend and test the notions. i may not do it well enough, but that's what my effort is, to let you see what it's about, to let you see through it, how they default to deflection, how they immediately demonize me for asking about their contradictions. this is just starting. that's why i'm saying it tonight. rudy made a big statement yesterday. he let you know they gave different answers to mueller than the american people get from the president. the report's not going to be the end. it's going to be the beginning of a political punch fest. and in the irony of ironies for all the investigates and all the hearings and gazillion pages of documents i'll read to you, you know what the deciding factor in all of 24 may be? the measure we like the least -- polls. lawmakers, especially gopers, are going to be desperate to see if you want them to be republicans or republicants when

it comes to impeachment. here's the good news. i don't like the polls, but i'm comforted it's on you. i trust you to smell b.s. and put the proper emphasis on things and put it in the proper context, which is everybody issing your interests. i'll be here to help you separate fact from fugazi, but know what game is being played. thank you for watching. "cnn tonight" with d. lemon starts right now. >> there's a lot of fugazi going on right now. >> there's so much fugazi. i'm waiting for bill fugazi to walk in right now. >> there is no hope. there are still people, the president didn't lie. he already told you he lied. he admitted to lying. then he said, if i did lie, it's not a big deal. >> that's what he says to us. >> yes. >> he didn't say that to mueller. you heard that from rudy yesterday. >> no. >> he and cohen were talking about the deal all the way through november. why?