get to vote on some of the stories that we cover. get all the details. watch it weeknights at 6:25 p.m. eastern. watch it on facebook.com/anderson cooper full circle. news continues. i want to hand it over to chris for cuomo primetime. >> thank you. i'm chris cuomo and welcome to primetime. why are we only now learning about the details of another secretive sit down with the u.s. president and putin and once again learning from russia? new information emerging that's raising lots of concerning questions tonight. don't take it from me. even his intelligence chiefs are publicly breaking with him, directly contradicting what the president has been telling you on what we should fear most. we all know 20 is going to be a brawl. we saw some haymakers thrown by kamala harris last night. we know she can throw punches,

but is she too aggressive on policy? too left to beat president trump? another rising star in her party is here. cnn's newest commentator andrew gillam joins us. let's get after it. all right. the 2020 candidates jockeying for position to take on president trump. at the head of the heap right now, kamala harris. she got the big spotlight in the cnn town hall and she did a good job in the first official week of her candidacy. you saw her making her case for why she's the best one to go toe to toe with trump. she layed out her left of center positions, but is also going hard with a policy that the two steps farther left than anything any centrist would ever offer. will it work? here's a taste. >> correct me if i'm wrong. to reiterate, you support the medicare for all bill. initially co-sponsored by bernie

sanders. i believe it will totally eliminate private insurance. so for people out there that like their insurance, they don't get to keep it? >> well, listen, the idea is that everyone gets access to medical care and you don't have to go through the process of going through an insurance company. let's eliminate all of that. let's move on. >> ambitious. eliminate private insurance. what does andrew gillam think? democratic nominee for florida governor but now a new title. cnn political commentator. >> hey, man. good to see you in person. thanks for having me. >> always a pleasure. just to get something out of the way, if you are here, does that mean for 2020 you have made a decision to watch? >> absolutely watching, man. one i'm proud to be here but two, i'm looking forward to what i think is going to be one of the most diverse fields of democrats to compete for the presidency ever. we're going to have a great

exchange of, i think, ideas between vastly different individuals who may or may not differ greatly on the policy. but i think what we're going to be looking for not only as a party but i think as a country are candidates that we can believe in. folks that get out there and i think connect with people in a way that they can see themselves reflected and importantly are not donald trump and better than that will cast a vision of the future of where we want to go as a country and not litigate the issues of the past. >> you saw in the governor's race the need to be more than just anti-trump, policy matters, where does it put your party? what does it mean? so with kamala harris, what did you like? >> coming off of what i thought was a pretty spectacular launch, i want to applaud senator harris for jumping straight into the arena. doing a nationwide town hall

meeting and not getting softball questions. she was pinned down on a number of pieces of policy that over the course of this race she will be called to defend. she will be called to add further explanation. she showed herself to be nimble and listened well and responded honestly. i don't know what else we would want to ask for from our nominee. >> got to judge the ideas. one of the things about coming out of the box is one, you're one of the first. first impressions. you don't get a second chance to make a first impression. policy wise, she has to own what she's doing on health care. >> sure. >> that may be the defining non-bs issue on the campaign. you say to people, medicare for all. what do you think about expanding access? the more you start talking about medicare meaning you lose what you have, the numbers start to

flip so you'll see it's positive on that. as you build in more but you don't keep, but you don't keep, but you don't keep and when you get to where kamala harris was is all of those, the majority of the country who gets it through the employer is gone. is that too tar? >> there's a lot of ways to skin this. when i was working for governor of the state of florida i talked a federation of states where we might come together and use the collective bargaining power of the states to get better rates and prices. >> one of the things that is clever about that is no state, you could argue not even the federal government can take the transition cost. >> that's right. >> but if you create a cooperative you might.

harris doesn't have that in her plan. >> i fully believe anyone running for president of the united states needs to be able to put forth a proposal of what they're going to do to ensure 39 million americans who today don't have access to insurance too many of us are concerned we may be one illness away from bankruptcy. the reason i had to throw it out as an idea as candidate for governor in the state of florida is we weren't hearing any real solutions. >> it's the money. >> it's the money. >> bloomberg made a strong point today which is, this is expensive. the transition costs to go from private to public, you would need transition costs in the trillions and the mechanism that

makes that okay, there's one social, one financial. the social is you're doing the right thing. financial would be, well, overtime costs will come down, but as we know politics doesn't get settled for the long-term. it's usually for the short-term. he's warning people stay away from it. >> first of all, we're looking for candidates that have big vision. right now health care costs take up about 18%, almost 20% of gdp. that's a huge segment of the american economy. when we talk about the cost of health care, we almost never talk about the savings that are associated with expanding access to more people. for those that are hitting senator harris on this, put forth your plan. how do you propose to cover more people and how do you plan to pay for it. >> give her a chance to engage on it instead of just

criticizing it. harris has to take the opportunities. >> she'll have to take them and every candidate will have to put forth their plan. it's not enough to rip away at what is being proposed by one candidate. we need to see what is all on the table, and at the end of the day, i think the people of this country want to know what are we going to do to reduce costs and expand access for more people and get everybody covered. right now, for those that are not covered, we're paying for them because they're showing up in emergency rooms which is the most expensive and least efficient form of care. it would be my judgment that we pay smarter rather than more expensive and least efficient. >> so there's a marginal aspect to that. an incremental aspect to it and we'll see if that winds up being where the party lines up, but that was a very ambitious start. as you're here now, you shy away from nothing. they dogged you with the ethics investigation when you were mayor and taking it into the governor's race. they found cause to continue to look.

no solid findings. what do you want people to know about your position on that? >> first of all, although the race for governor took 22 months and a lot of energy spent on these kinds of issues the politics continue. they will determine that i have acted in complete compliance with the law. what i think people know about me in my state which is why we came within a rounding error is they believe me to be honest. i have been forth right, i tried to level with people squarely and that's the only way to go. >> you're considered a big deal in your party. good to be here. >> good working with you. >> you're always welcome on the show. you may not want to come, but you're always welcome. >> i'll be here. >> welcome to the cnn family. so it was a big deal today. listen to this, we got this rattling read out today on the greatest threats to america from

the people that know the best. the president's intelligence chiefs. what did they not talk about? take a guess, our southern border. why? why would they go and say things about the sitting president that they have never heard from them before? we go to somebody who did the job who is going to tell us what's going on, next. you know him. ♪ hey, saved you a seat.

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a new financial times report tells us that trump and putin spoke for about 15 minutes and did discuss a number of foreign policy issues and then here's the key part. with no aids or u.s. translator present. this news drops on the same day that the president's top intelligence chiefs publicly

contradicted him on russia, iran, north korea, and other key national security issues. these are two developments we have never seen this way in a presidency before. perfect guest for tonight. thank you for making time. >> sure. >> you have been in these briefings. you have seen this happen. first the russia news. the idea of a united states president going into a meeting with the russian ruler, let alone putin, without anybody else, without even an interpreter or a translater, how rare. how do you make sense of it? >> well, you know, the president can do whatever he wants anywhere, any time. i'd have a couple of questions. number one is a question of execution. the president makes decisions. he doesn't execute decisions. if he decides to do something in syria, if he decides to do something related to russia in eastern europe, if he decides to do something related to russia on sanctions, who executes that? the president doesn't, who was supposed to act on the decisions

the president made? there were other decisions. let me give you one specific one. the second one i would make. did the president tell the russian leaders something, an adversary that was the russians before he told an ally. the president talked about extracting the united states from syria. did he express to putin that the united states was going to with draw from syria before he told the turks. i don't know the answer to that. >> nobody does. >> we shouldn't be asking that question. >> that's right. that's the point. he doesn't have to tell me but he should have his own people in there and that leads to the curiosity. then the other development. the intelligence chiefs. you have been in these meetings and you have seen these hearings and briefings. the idea that is border was at

the top of their list, not new. it rarely enters into it. what is new is the president making it a crisis, but what is also new is give me context. the idea of the intel chiefs going in there and saying, hey, the sitting president, he's wrong. >> boy, this is a painful moment i was there and we made a mistake. the mistake was saying the american people whether they elect a democrat or republican, the american people elected that person. our responsibility is to report the facts but also to support the president elected by the american people. back before the iraq war i think we went too far toward saying maybe if the president said he's a bad guy, we should give him the evidence to say that and people including vice president chaney cherry picked us. today was a great moment for the american people including the american intelligence community. they said look, we got burned before the iraq war. we were too far out supporting

american politicians today. the facts were the facts. we're going to tell them heres the deal and if it differs from what the president says, so be it, chris. >> that's interesting. i respect your candor about back then and i remember it well. the country went bad on the media for awhile and we were talking about it being fake and the american people were told that we were compromising our troop in arms way by reporting this way do you think this is making up for lessons learned in the past or do you think they perceive a specific need in countering what this president is putting out there? >> no think it's either. let me make this real simple. intelligence doesn't make policy. intelligence informs policy. you can tell the president the russians are affecting american elections because they're interfering with facebook and twitter. the president could do whatever he wants. you could tell the president, look, the north koreans have not

eliminated a single missile or ounce of nuclear material. the president could do whatever he wants. you can tell him there's thousands of isis fighters in iraq and syria, he can do whatever he wants. >> they did it in public. >> you mean they haven't told him in a briefing in the oval office? >> i'm not saying they haven't. >> i'm sure they have. >> this part i don't get. i've never heard this before. >> my point is what they're saying is especially after getting burned on iraq, we're going to tell the truth t. if he chooses to offer an alternate truth to the american people, that's what he can do and that's who they can vote for but we're going to say here's the facts. if he wants alternate facts, vote for him. that's not our problem. >> but that's the new part. i've never seen that before. >> that's correct. >> this is new ground to see them come out and counter a sitting president. thank you for the candor and for the perspective.

always a pleasure. all right. i want to go back to the big race that we started the show with. we are seeing immense enthusiasm already, certainly among democrats. this is an election that they believe is exisential. that means being anti is a big piece of what they want. what else will it take? you heard kamala harris take a position for medicare for all here on cnn that goes very far and is not going to be easily a point of consensus. critics are pouncing, but is there also an advantage for her in where she is right now? it's a great context for a great debate. let's have it, next. ♪ ♪ our new, hot, fresh breakfast will get you the readiest. (buzzer sound) holiday inn express. be the readiest.

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>> 2020 race is off and running. the first real dust up is going to be over this massive idea on what to do with health care. you'll talk about many talking about medicare for all. kamala harris is taking heat from republicans as well as

schultz and bloomberg that are on the outside as business men. they're saying that last night her support of getting rid entirely of private health insurance is too much. let's debate what this means for a very crowded field. we have van jones. perfect. thank you, gentlemen. good to have you both. so van, i liked what gillum said. he's a smart guy and he wrestled with this issue in florida and i remember testing him on it and he was like, look, i know the transition costs are big. you need medicare for all for the people that don't get insurance through their employers. we have to figure that out and then the cost savings. that's as far as he would go. the idea of getting rid of private insurance, is that ambitious or too much? >> she's not saying get rid of private insurance for stuff you need insurance for. for instance, you need insurance for stuff you aren't certain about. for instance, fire insurance. you aren't certain if your house

is going to catch on fire, so you need insurance. farm insurance. crop insurance. heres one thing you're certain about, you are going to get sick. you are going to die. you don't need insurance for that. you need health care. she is saying that -- it never made since is saying you're going to have an insurance program. fdr did this as a deal to appease his critics but in europe they have health care. they don't have health care insurance. they have health care and she's trying to say let's do that here. is that too far for the american people? i don't know. nobody can explain to me, i know why you need insurance for your house burning down because you're not sure if it's going to happen. why do you need insurance for something that everybody is already sure about? and that's the argument. >> so coverage, people need

coverage. how do you pay for it. you saw her idea and it makes you very happy. >> listen. those countries in europe, they're called socialist countries. >> no, they're called our allies. >> van, listen, mandatory care, that's aspirational but getting there as chris pointed out with the numbers that you showed early, people don't want to pay for it. listen, free things are great. everybody likes free until you ask them are you willing to pay for it. i agree. health care cost should not be the highest. you walk in a emergency it's higher than if you walk in a clinic, that's ridiculous, but that doesn't mean we need to scrap the whole system and close down private health insurance companies and make the government run it all.

republicans believe the free market does things better and democrats believe the government does it better. it's a simple debate. >> the democrats believe the free market does a whole bunch of stuff better and should do it well regulated and fair to the people and fair to the planet but there's some stuff the free market does not do well. it does not provide public education to kindergarteners very well. that's why we have a public education system. >> it does not provide for fire. it does not provide for police. >> doesn't take care of dangerous prisoners well. the private prison sector. they only do well with the low security and maybe medium security. that's why we do that as well. >> it's a debate -- >> let me ask each of you a tough question, okay? the tough question for you, van, is, now, let's say you were to do that. let's say your party gets behind this model is one of if not the

largest employer in this country. you would be sweating millions and millions of jobs that you'd have to find a place for in that industry. if you got rid of private health insurance, you would have a lot of people looking for jobs. >> well, first, what kind of jobs are you talking ability? there's layers and layers. when you're trying to deal with your health insurance company. >> true, but they're somebody's job. >> those are great jobs but look at the jobs that we aren't filling in health care. we need a massive expansion of the number of people that are nurses, especially for the elderly. we can't do it on the basis of what we have right now for millions and millions of people. you may lose some bureaucrats. i'll trade in bureaucrats for nurses any day. >> you're talking about putting on layers and layers with the government run health care. >> medicare is the most efficient and the most -- >> go ahead. i hear you on that. i get you about the

transferability. >> dave, tough question for you. by getting rid of the mandate, you exposed the problem with health care. you didn't fix it. you exposed it. if you don't have the pool as big as we can get it. if it's just guys like us or you and me it's going to be expensive. if we don't have the young guys in there and by getting rid of the mandate, you created a problem. the costs are running crazy. this administration has done nothing about them. >> listen, republicans have a failure of ideas here. they are -- i am of the fix it don't trash it school, right? the overly ambitious republican congress should have tried to tweak what the obama plan does, not throw it out. there's lots of common sense things that can be done and you don't have to scrap the entire system. i think there's this false

choice of either you have completely government funded health care or a completely private system. there's in ideas that fall in the middle that are very viable and unfortunately it's an incredibly political issue as you note and the sides can't come together. >> van, last point to you. >> yeah, well, listen, everybody knows immigration is an important issue. donald trump took out the most extreme position, the wall, the wall, the wall. and now at least we have to talk about the issue. i think when you take a strong position and a fashion gnat position the way that she did, it moves the debate in your direction. i have not heard her layout how she would get there, what the transition time is. she has plenty of wiggle room if she wants to but i am proud you have democrats out there with strong answers for strong problems. >> someone is going to come to her left. no one is going to -- primaries aren't run to the senator, they're run to the fringes of the party. >> if democrats run to the aid

of people that need to see doctors and need to see nurses that can't see them now, keep running. keep running. >> i'll tell you what, here's what we all agree on. >> no reason to be creating crisis because we have plenty of real ones and the cost of health care is hitting people all over this country. >> and smart people can sit down and solve this. this could be solved. >> that's true about a lot of things and politics often gets in the way and creates, shall we say, a wall. >> false narrative. >> all right. i love you guys. thank you for making my show. >> we love you back, chris. >> we love you back. >> not guilty. that was roger stone's moment. seven criminal charges in the russia probe. he says, no way, you can't get me. the acting ag got some eye pops when he suggested that mueller is almost finished. why is he talking about this? what did he mean by review? what is going on with this probe? what is the right way for these

things to be handled? oh, boy, do we have a great guest to do that tonight. the man that did the job of attorney general joins us next. when did soup become this? at panera, we treat soup differently. with vine ripened tomatoes, signature cheddar, simmered to perfection. with big flavors, not artificial ones. enjoy 100% clean soup today. panera. food as it should be.

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>> the president is now putting distance between himself and roger stone. he didn't really work for the president on this campaign when it mattered. his longest political associate. well, his comments added fuel to a bipartisan push to make everything that ends up in muller's final report public. always good to see you, sir. >> good to be with you. >> he would have never ent herred a plea of guilty. >> not on arraignment. >> that's exactly for sure. that would have been very odd. so, the idea of just, in general, what's happening here, let's start with something that i need your help with because you did the job. when mueller gives his report as it says, a confidential report to the ag or acting ag or

whoever gets it, what review is allowed before it goes anywhere else? >> they authorize a public release of whatever can be publicly released. that's the determination of the attorney general. when it's given to the attorney general, it's a confidence shl repo -- confidential report. also if there's any recommendation that the ag thinks he shouldn't follow, then he has to report to congress about what those recommendations are and why he's not following them. so there's built in transparency. >> there's things being done now. prosecutions being handled now. so that is principally going to be the responsibility of the new attorney general when he's confronted as he will be in a couple of weeks. >> now barr said my main influence is to get the people as much as i can.

do you think that happens? >> some people are going to raise questions no matter what he does unless he disculoses every comma and semi-colon. >> also you have congress as a check. those committees are going to get whatever he puts out. >> what he might conceivably do is delay the release of the report until the lawyers or whoever is mentioned in the report and criticized have a chance to look at it and file a statement of their own responding to it so that you don't get one side before the other. >> could take a long time? >> not necessarily. he can give them a week or four or five days. >> that doesn't change the report. it just adds on to it. there could be an appendix. so i get that. then you have whitaker saying i think it's going to wrap up

soon. you wouldn't have said anything. why would he say that? >> i don't know why he said it and that may have just been his offhand observation. i don't know what it's based on. >> he said it was just fully briefed. >> yeah. but i wouldn't put a lot of stock in that. >> why not? >> he's been fully briefed but the question of whether that's reasonable is based on the briefing he got. >> i want you to own the decision on this issue about his meetings with vladimir putin. make the case for why it's okay that he keeps meeting with this man and does things to conceal it. not just from us but from staff. how is it okay? >> thanks but that case can't be made. >> you must make it. that's why you're here. >> well, if you got somebody that will apply thumb screws,

maybe you'll get it. but there's so many reasons not to do that that it's hard to know where to start. >> the idea, we all lived through helsinki. it's not the first time he did it. twice he denied his own intelligence people and sided with putin. and the russian side released it and he had nobody with him. >> you had no view of what happened at that meeting. any deal that's made, if a deal was made, isn't provable from our side. it's maybe provable from theirs, but not from ours. and then there's suspicion about whether something was discussed relating to deals or whatever which people have raised before. >> it's from the russians. so who knows how true it is. but they did discuss syria and not long after the meeting the

president took a position to pull out troops. right or wrong, it's just about the timing. to tell our adversary before we tell an ally. >> if it happened. >> if it happened. if they discussed syria and what was discussed was a disclosure. it was before he told members of our own military. >> now my early defense of this proposition, a few meetings ago used to be well, maybe this is just his thumbing his nose at the media and saying, no, you guys made too much of everything i do with this guy. i'm not going to let you know anything. but i can't make that case anymore because he keeps it quite from his own people and it's happened too many times and the question becomes maybe i don't have any proof of a crime. maybe mueller doesn't have any proof of a crime, but why do they keep lying about russia and concealing things around russia? the way the president and people around him do if there's nothing to hide?

>> i used to have a client that would lie when the truth would do. it may be that it's that. he's just playing games. i don't know. i'm not going to speculate here. but it is from a policy standpoint a disaster. >> look at roger stone. this has nothing to do with the president. it can't have nothing to do with the president. forget about the obvious that it's his campaign. >> it actually can have nothing to do with the president. >> it's his campaign. >> that indictment suggests the nonexistence of a conspiracy. >> how? >> two ways. you know the paragraph that everybody said to go ask assange what to have if it was released? if it was a conspiracy -- >> you're talking about to satisfy the criminal definition. >> yes. >> but that's not my standard. i get it that it's yours.

>> but it's mueller's standard. that's what he was sent to do. >> for a crime. >> yes, but he's also looking for coordination and proof of content. >> not at all. >> it's right in the mandate. >> no, the mandate was to investigate criminal violations. >> that is in there under the main statute but the actual directive says to look for proof of coordination or contact and i'm just saying let's say there's no crime, there's no conspiracy. what i'm saying is if you knew that your guy was going to assange to try to get the wikileaks information early to help your campaign and you told us you never knew anything about it, that's political malpractice and that's something that could spark political action against you. >> it's not a legal standing. but it's a political standard. >> what are you looking for? the mandate. i've put it on the screen many times. you're right that that section

60 says you're looking for crimes in this area. >> i'm talking about the letter. >> the letter says look for -- i'm telling you -- i'll bet you lunch, it says look for proof of coordination of contact. the idea that it has to be a felony to be wrong doesn't pass political muster. >> you don't appoint a special counsel to look for anything other than defying crimes. >> if it's the case that the president's guys were trying to get an advance to help their campaign of russian ill gotten gains and he knew about it and lied to us, it's a big deal. >> it's a big deal, the question is whether it's an impeachable deal. i don't know that it is. >> understood. that's going to be about political and what the people want. >> but the stuff in there gisting that they were looking for, or that he was asked, in t stone talked about getting information that could have only been on hillary clinton's server. we never got that. >> that's always the case. they were searching for other communication for a reason, the feds. because based on that indictment, they have all the

proof they need already to make a case against him for false statements. so i wonder what else they were looking for. >> the false statements things are kind of beside the point. the point is conspiracy and there's no proof of that. >> he wasn't charged with it either. >> correct, nobody has been charged with it yet. >> that assumes that the only thing that matters is if a felony was created. if there wasn't a felony, then it's okay. >> it's the only thing that matters to the special counsel. >> not to the american people. >> always a pleasure. >> i always seem to lose and i feel good about it. >> i appreciate you helping the audience. these are complex things and you help us through see the chaos. thank you. >> it's wintertime and it's cold. in some cases, really cold. how could there be global warming if it's so cold outside? that's not me. that's the president. that's what he said and now here comes science, next. ♪ just got a job as a lifeguard in savannah ♪ ♪ i'm 85 and i wanna go home ♪

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>> a polar vortex. that's cold air recirculating in one area. it's gripping much of the north and it means record smashing cold. look at the numbers on your screen. holy moly. so the president sees this and it prompts him to tweet the following. in the beautiful midwest, wind chill temperatures are reaching minus 60 degrees. the coldest ever recorded. in coming days, expect it to get even colder. people can't last outside even for minutes. what is going on with global waming. please come back fast. we need you. i give him points for hell and global waming and spelling, that's extra credit for this president. so we'll assume we know what he's talking about. facts first, climate change hasn't gone anywhere. weather and climate. okay. you have to separate those a little bit in the analysis.

you can google it. even his own government agency had to correct him. the intel chiefs weren't enough. quote, winter storms don't prove that global warming isn't happening. let's bring in d.lemon. this is an argument that -- you should have been in shorts an bermudas. still global warming. that's a nice hat. >> it's for kevin. it's for my trusty floor director here. here you go, buddy. >> the guy that looks like wolverine? >> yeah. they call him hugh jackman. >> this is an >> this is an argument i should be having with chacha. >> i think that's why it's important to refer to it as climate change. people think, it's got to be warm and if it snows -- i don't

think he understands, in the hospital only did you say that noaa is saying the president is wrong, his own intel community is saying that he's wrong. here's what they say. this is from the intelligence community. in a written assessment of worldwide threats, the u.s. intelligence community laid out the potential security challenges posed by climate change including threats to public health, historic levels of human displacement, assault on religious freedom, and the negative effects of the environment -- of environmental degradation so the intelligence community is saying that he is wrong about it. i don't think he understands it, because maybe he just doesn't you said the science and doesn't want to believe in it. >> he thinks that there is some raw value is being contrary. that if you go against what they say, that somehow, you know, you're striking a blow for the regular guy who doesn't want to have it put upon by all of these big brother arms all the time. that's his best defense and it's a terrible one. >> well, maybe he's just playing to a crowd. maybe he's just reading the room

and he understands that his folks don't want climate change to be real, so he's trying to reconfirm their beliefs already. it could just be that simple, because it would be stunning that anyone who has any knowledge in any education, that they wouldn't believe in actual science and scientists. >> stunning is the word. what's the big sell for your show tonight. >> that's part of it. how much time we spent fact checking this president. not only on issues like global warming or climate changing or what's happening in north korea, in isis, in russia, on and on. >> we have a lot of folks talking about that. that is a good part of our show and i think people want to tune in to see it. >> 100%. talk to you in a second. >> see you. it's cold in here, man. >> give him the cold shoulder. so the president has a bad habit of diminishing global threats. russia is another prime example. but the big one is the one you hear us talk about often. i have new proof for you of the

same suggestion. why do you keep showing so much deference to just this one leader from russia. why are there so many lies about something that doesn't matter. the latest evidence, next. [ doorbell rings ] janice, mom told me you bought a house. okay. [ buttons clicking ] [ camera shutter clicks ] so, now that you have a house, you can use homequote explorer. quiet. i'm blasting my quads. janice, look. i'm in a meeting. -janice, look. -[ chuckles ] -look, look. -i'm looking. it's easy. you just answer some simple questions online, and you get coverage options to choose from. you're ruining my workout. cycling is my passion.

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if you did nothing wrong, then why aren't you telling me the truth? that's what we tell our kids, right? so they know to just come clean. you know the drill. well, the president apparently does not. so why all the secrecy around russia and putin? here's the most recent example. the g-20 in buenos aires. we were told, there'll be no meeting because of what the russian navy did to the ukraine. okay. but, they did end up talking over dinner. no word to us. now, a russian official tells financial times that the leader spoke for 15 minutes and they talked about syria. why does that matter? 19 days later, trump stunned everyone by announcing a withdrawal of u.s. troops from syria. now, the two first met at the hamburg g-20 in july 2017, when trump took away his

interpreter's notes. that night they met again at this dinner. trump signals to putin from across the table, then they talk. the only other person in the conversation? putin's translator. and then there were the big wtfs. where the president did something we have never seen before. after meeting with putin in november 2017, our president took the word of an enimical power over the word of his own intel agencies about election interference. he told reporters then, every time he sees me, he says, i didn't do that and i really believe that when he tells me that, he means it. he was admonished by the media, elected officials on both sides of the aisle and his intel folks, so of course he doubled down on a dumb move. july 2018, he meets with putin in helsinki, no one there but interpreters. even now some of his own people are still in the dark about what happened. and then afterwards, the president of the united states

said this. >> all i can do is ask the question. my people came to me, dan coats came to me and some others. they said, they think it's russia. i have president putin. he just said, it's not russia. i will say this. i don't see any reason why it would be. >> i was there. world media and locals in helsinki stopped me and shook their heads. so, look, just put it all together. first potus told you there were no contacts with russia by his campaign. there were dozens. how did he not know? next, he said, there was no collusion with anyone around him and russia. then his kid met with a known russian government operative to get dirt on clinton with his son-in-law and campaign chair. he says he didn't know about the meeting. then they all lied about potus drafting this statement about the meeting. how could he have not known? then his two oldest advisers, manafort and stone, he's known them close to 40 years. they get accused by mueller of

mixing with the bad guys. and the word from the white house? didn't know. why does putin demand such deference and secrecy from and by our president? the lesson we all learn as kids looms large here. if the president has nothing to hide, why lie? why did the president and those close to him keep lying about russia-related matters? what did the president know about all that happened around him and for him? we need to know. and whether the attorney general is whitaker or barr, no matter what they told the president to get the job, they will hopefully remember that they work for all of us, not just the president. thank you for watching. "cnn tonight" with don lemon starts right now. >> but not even good lies, right? not even like sometimes plausible ones. just, you know, like, well that's so outrageous, maybe it's true.

i mean, you know what i'm saying? >> i think -- you know, i was talking to mike mukasey, the ag under george w. bush, and it is an interesting theory that i don't know what's more frightening, that they're not telling the truth because they're hiding things that they know they did that they shouldn't have done, illegal or not, or, or, more frightening or just as frightening to me, he's so piessed off that we chase hi about this, that he lies about these meetings, that he conceals stuff about these meetings just to spite us for asking the questions. either one is really frightening. neither is a crime. both would be political malpractice and unbefitting any president. >> you know some people are just not capable of telling the truth, right? >> yeah, but usually they're in very snug-fitting clothes and getting medication around the clock. he gets no such benefit of defense. >> no