primetime. >> thank you, anderson. i am chris cuomo and welcome to primetime. it's friday and i have new information for you. federal investigators talked to michael cohen about the president's business and i don't mean person. the president said don't mess with my money and now they are doing exactly that. cnn learned investigators have spoken with cohen to learn, in part, about insurance policies and claims at trump properties as well as other business practices. why cohen? because the president is right. he really wasn't just a lawyer for him. he did lots of work on the business side. cuomo's court has the answer to why this could be worse than mueller for the president. speaking of the special counsel, tonight is the deadline to file his last major pleading in the longest running case of his russian interference probe. how did paul manafort's crimes fit into the wider russia investigation? we may learn tonight on the our watch. so don't go anywhere. that could come any minute.

we also have new information on when mueller plans to drop his final report. it's a big night. so let's get after it. >> a lot unfolding. it's immediately gavel cuomo's court into session. welcome to the show. good to have you for the first time. >> thank you. it's great to be here. >> neil, are you good? are you hearing me okay? >> john, i'll start with you. you get to go first. so the new reporting we have is yes they want to know about the president's business practices in the southern district of new york. insurance claims. the new york times had that and left it there. we have advanced it to how did they use insurance at the companies? how did they file? how much did they coffver? how much did they claim? how much did they recover versus how much they spent on those claims? was it done legitimately. pretty specific questioning. what does it mean to you? where could it lead? >> this seems to be part of the

broader investigation into the trump organization and how it was doing business and as you said in the lead into the show, this is separate from the mueller probe and whether there was a conspiracy with the russians. we'll see that report hopefully next week or in the week following and that's going to focus on a different thing. i think you're probably right. if there's going to be something that's going to continue to dog the president, that's going to give people in congress grounds to conduct oversight, potentially even impeachment, it's going to be things coming out of the southern district of new york and unfortunately it centers around this guy, cohen, that is a convicted liar and has been doing, sounds like he was kind of a bag man potentially for the president. unfortunately, i can't tell whether he's telling the truth. he's trying to reduce his sentence by claiming that trump ordered him to pay off women. that the trump organization it sounds like is committing insurance fraud. who knows? >> but you have the special counsel that worked with cohen that said he was credible and useful and you guys deal with

liars or people that lied all the time. you just need the corroboration. when i was first developing this today, i was like, they're going to find out they cheated on their insurance policies? that they took money that was more than what they have to spend on it. a lot of people do that. but then i was thinking a lot of people cheat on their taxes also and don't go to jail for it. michael cohen is. if they choose to prosecute you then you have to explain those actions. how deep could this go in your opinion? >> i think it could go deep. i 100% agree with that. i'm not sure i'll be saying this much tonight but i agree with everything he just said. that's that it poses a real threat to the president. i also think that the mueller one and the russia one does as well but the kind of thread that ties both of these together, chris, is the lying. constant lying about whether it's insurance, whether it's dealing with russia, whatever,

tr trump is like a grand master of all of this and you know, john is right, he attracts liars around him. he's like a magnet for liars whether it's cohen or flynn orman fort or all of these people and once the southern s district starts looking into it, they'll find damaging stuff. obviously the president is entitled to the presumption of innocence and so on but the southern district already uncovered lie after lie and found most importantly, remarkable, only time in 40 years that the prosecutors have said a president, a sitting president ordered the commission of federal felonies. and they have said that back in november. >> so john, they say -- the president said don't mess with my money. is there a line at which you think it would be okay for the attorney general to say, look, this is a sitting president. you want to take up these kinds of prosecutions about his past life, about all of these other actions, do it after he has

served his term? >> i think this is one where you and neil and i disagree. i think the constitution gives congress this job. if the president is unfit for office, if he has made bad policies, committed maladministration, political crimes, that's what congress's job is to investigate that and conduct impeachment proceedings. i don't think it's a job for a special counsel. i think that's become a distraction for the real constitutional route. however for the crimes that the sdny that are occurring before trump was president, i think the sensible things for the courts to do is to delay that until after the presidency is over. we didn't do that with president clinton. there's a case called clinton versus jones which says let the process work through, but the supreme court also said but we don't want those investigations to interfere with the president's ability to do his job. >> neil, counter point. >> so two things, if john is right that this is a job for

congress, the logical consequence that follows is mueller, the southern district, all of their information has to be given to congress so they can evaluate impeachment. it would be the height of putting someone above the law to say oh, you can't prosecute through the executive branch and then congress you can't impeach because we're going to hide all of this information from you which is why every scholar that takes john's position which is a sitting president can't be indicted also says the remedy is impeachment and that's a role for congress. and the second thing is is for crimes like the southern district ones which go to lying and cheating to win the election in the first place, i'm not sure that the prohibition on indicting a sitting president applies because what that would incentivize is if you cheat a lot and lie a lot and commit a lot of crimes, enough to win an election then you get a delayed or get out of jail free card and that can't possibly be the law. >> now on mueller, let me use

your own case against you neil, given what he was asked to do, he's not just a general fact finder, although that's the way i determine the first line of rosens terks rosenstein's memo. but even if you want to fold that into ultimately he is a prosecutor and looking for prosecutable items then this report could be thin, neil and in that case, they'll be left with a lot of unanswered questions for congress, i guess they have to subpoena mueller, have him come in and tell him the parts of the story that he didn't put in the report and proceed. >> i think that's exactly right, chris and in an op-ed i wrote in the new york times today i outlined that point. trump has been hoping for a short concise report but that might be the worst thing for him because that will then just move the entire ball game to congress and there is precedent from watergate to have all of the

special counsel's materials and investigation turned over to congress, including grand jury information and other confidential information. >> for grand jury information, john, he would have to go to the a.g. he'd have to get a court order for that. it's attainable but you guys should be on the same page about that, right? if there's a thin report and questions left unanswered and suggestions of hallways that weren't walked down mueller could get subpoenaed and you wind up with a whole new round of exploration. >> i always thought trump made a serious tactical mistake by attacking mueller and questioning his ethics and trying to delay the report. the best thing that could happen for trump is that the mueller report makes a lot of things public, that's a thick telephone book -- i don't know if people know what telephone books are, but they used to be really thick books. a telephone thick book that lays out everything he says found if decided not to indict the

president and didn't find conspiracy to commit federal crimes. everything he said that clears the president will be helpful. so i agree with neil, ironically, trump has been doing things to make the report shorter. that's going to give congress a lot more space in any kind of impeachment investigation. >> last thing, do you think this manafort pleading, assuming it comes tonight, he has a midnight deadline. do you think this is going to be the definitive tale of why this guy matters in the probe as opposed to his previous life and what he was doing to cover any debts he had? give me a quick answer? >> i don't think it will be definitive but it will tell us a lot. this manafort worked for 143 days for the campaign and he lied to mueller but he's been caught red handed. >> nobody wants 14 scaramuccis. >> one is enough. >> he gave sensitive polling

data to the russians and that, you know, that's the crowned jewels of the campaign and the question, you know, you and i have been talking about this a lot, why lie so much about russia? we have a little suggestion that it's about a pardon. that the prosecutors, mueller's team think he's been angling for a pardon. if we hear anything more, that's the part that would be real news tonight. always a pleasure. thank you for making him a unit of measure. we're awaiting the manafort memo and you know, you heard these guys. they're experts. they look at these things all the time but if you want to talk about mueller, the man winds up being an instruction in his methods. so our next guest wrote the book

on mueller. what's his guidance on what this report would look like? what mueller would want to achieve and how likely is he to go as far as this process does? next. [knocking] ♪ ♪ memories. what we deliver by delivering. was a success for lastchoicehotels.comign badda book. badda boom. this year, we're taking it up a notch. so in this commercial we see two travelers at a comfort inn with a glow around them, so people watching will be like, "wow, maybe i'll glow too if i book direct at choicehotels.com". who glows?

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>> all right. we're on mueller watch. the manafort sentencing memo. we have seen them before but this is the one that's supposed to show the connecting of the dots between what manafort did and why it matters specifically to the russia investigation. whether it's criminal or counter investigation. now who better to ask than the man that wrote the book on robert mueller, garrett graff. there's the book. there's the man. well, the suggestion that this is the one. this is where they have to lay it out. what is the suggestion about what the special counsel would need to show about manafort in the pleading we're waiting for? >> this is an opportunity to present a theory of the case. what we have seen so far in so

many manafort documents is simply the what. we have seen the actions. the financial transactions, the records, the evidence, but we haven't actually seen why. why was he giving that polling data? why was he traveling to madrid to meet with him? what were the conversations? what was the role that paul manafort was playing in that june 2016 trump tower meeting? why was paul manafort working for free in the midst of the trump campaign as he was tens of millions of dollars in hoc to russian oligarchs. what was going through his mind? that's what we might end up seeing in this sentencing memo, at least as best as the mueller team understands. >> and of course we know that there are redactions.

if we don't see it on our watch, it's probably because the court needs to negotiate the actions. then we get to the report. you have been following this very closely, do you believe we are done until the report? this memo comes out on manafort. this is a big enchilada for him. next comes the report. nothing in between. >> it's hard to say. john and neil were talking about this very thoughtfully a few minutes agato -- >> but they're not journalists. i always turn to a journalist when i really need something. >> everyone in america hears of the mueller report and thinks of that telephone book sized definitive be all and end all report. that's not necessarily what we're going to see from mueller. in part because mueller doesn't necessarily control what ends up getting turned over from the attorney general's office to

control. so what we have seen mueller do throughout is that every indictment he has brought, every court filing is more detailed, more inciteful and better informed and more narrative than we need for the underlying criminal charges. it's why we refer to these as speaking inindictmedictments. they have a role beyond proving the criminal case. one of the things that i would imagine mueller is thinking at this moment and his team is thinking is further indictments, if they can bring them, further court filings if they can make them, that's the only way that mueller controls what is made public and when. so i think that there is a lot of bread crumbs that bob mueller has left us in these court documents over the last year, year and a half really. and he wouldn't have let them

for us. he wouldn't have left this level of detail unless he has another move up his sleeve. >> thank you very much. i'll bring you back as soon as we learn more. >> steve king's racist remarks made him a political pariah. either you stand against it or you don't. did you hear what he said about king today and the sad words he had about a guy that wanted to kill a bunch of us. they say a lot, next. (client's voice) remember that degree you got in taxation? (danny) of course you don't because you didn't! your job isn't doing hard work... ...it's making them do hard work... ...and getting paid for it. (vo) snap and sort your expenses to save over $4,600 at tax time.

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a get your questions answered by awesome experts store. it's a now there's one store that connects your life like never before store. the xfinity store is here. and it's simple, easy, awesome. >> here's his response to the coast guard lieutenant accused of plotting a domestic terror attack. >> i think it's a shame. i think it's a very sad thing when a thing like that happens and i have expressed that but i'm actually getting a very complete briefing in about two hours. >> do you think you bear any responsibility for moderating your language when it comes to

that. >> no, i don't. i think my language is very nice. >> you just think it's sad. imagine how he would feel if his name was on that list. he also had the opportunity to condemn steve king, the congressman under fire for defending white nationalism but listen to what president trump said when asked if king should seek re-election. >> i don't know anything about the situation. when did he announce that? >> today. >> i have not seen it. he hasn't told me anything. we'll have to take a look. i haven't spoken to him in a long time. i haven't been involved in that. >> has the president ever known about anything that isn't good for him? that's the makings of a great debate. i understood it when he was against islam. islam hates us. islam is bad. i don't want to hear about white terror even though it's the biggest problem we deal with from a terrorism perspective but

he's not running that game anymore. why is he so shy about going at this problem? >> i think we have to segment different manifestations of his allegedly being shy. for example, you'll recall during the campaign in 2016, i think it was nbc news that was trying to get him to talk about david duke and he pretended like he didn't know david duke and people criticized him for that. i thought it was a brilliant move. he didn't want to give more oxygen to david duke. >> it's like if you said something dumb tonight, which you won't, he'd say, i don't know him. how do you say his name? what is it? you can't go to it every time. every time somebody says something that's bad for you, you can't pretend you don't know what it is and who they are? >> in certain circumstances he does not want to give more oxygen in the room to a group of folk that are irrelevant. you know history and know that there was a time that the kkk

had tremendous political power when half of the united states congress was loyal, a part of, or intimidated by them. our country has changed dramatically since then and these so-called white extremists are irrelevant and that's why trump doesn't want to give them more oxygen than they deserve. >> what's your take? >> he's inarguably correct when he said there was a time that the klan was far more powerful than today and they have been marginalized but they're coming back. when david duke was running for governor in 1991, george h.w. bush, the republican president disavowed him. that's what we're looking for today. anti-defamation league says 50 of our fellow americans were killed last year and politically motivated violence, which is really terrorism. terrorism is the use of violence or threats to achieve a political end. all 50 were murdered by far

right wing terrorists. it happens on the left. steve scalise was targeted because he's a republican. the man that shot him, shot him because he was a republican and that was awful. but the president needs to speak out especially against the right because some of them seem to be inspired by him or at least effected by him and he needs to be our national leader and put a stop to that. just tell those people to stop. >> you know i'm not coming at it from a personal perspective. i was on the guy's list. a lot of people were on his list. if i spent my time with that ax to grind, i'd have nothing else to do on the show. that's all we'd talk about. i just see it as low fruit for the president. i see these as layups. steve king, what do you say? he's out. i don't want anything to do with him. the people can decide in iowa but i don't have time for that talk. not i don't know who he is. not i'm not paying attention. it just boggles my mind and then we wonder why people with these

ugly ideas seem to think they have a friend in this president. don't you get it? >> let's be careful here, when president obama was in power, he invited black lives matter and some other far left wing groups to actually come to the white house to organize for future endeavors. almost essentially to replace established civil rights organizations like the naacp and other organizations out there so let's be careful and fair and balanced. there's an element of anti-semitism. there's an element of anti-white bigotry within the democratic party. and heres a case where you have people that are actually elected that say some horrific things about jews. horrific things about the country and about whites. so we have to be fair and we have to be balanced. >> wait a minute. i hear you. i agree with you and we have discussed it on the show. the democrats have to take care of their own laundry with this stuff. you have to own it. he's about a lot of ugly thoughts and you shall be

rejecting those. fair point. but how does that help the president not talking about white supremacy. >> look -- >> do you know what i'm saying? >> i do. i applauded him when he did not give oxygen to david duke, but you're right, he does need to from time to time come out and say very clear voice that he condemns that stuff. quite frankly, american nationalism which i believe is a legitimate philosophy and is not racist and should not be confused with white nationalism. >> but that's the only way that nationalism has been used historically? if you and i were trying to figure out how to invoke this new sense of patriotism and i said let's go with american nationalism, hopefully unless we were both drunk we'd agree that was a bad idea, you know? i want to bring back the nazi party but in a good way. >> there's no doubt that historically there were elements of the america first movement that were anti-semitic and

anti-black and the like but that's a clear distinction from those within the republican party and independents. by the way, a lot of blacks that are american nationalists, regardless of color, but america firsters -- and agree or disagree, but you should not automatically label that bigotry. and to your point, though, chris, if trump comes out and condemns those white nationalists and condemns neo-nazis then it's easier to distinguish that. >> i get an amen on a friday night. that's my only point. just take away from the oxygen from the argument. you want to call yourself america first, great. i guess he's doing that to even the odds in the next race. let me give you something. i'm a nationalist. and i believe in america first. let's see what you can do with that. with that history lesson, but he doesn't take the low hanging fruit. is it just because he despises the question so much? it bothers him that it's a

gotcha in your mind. >> i can't get into his head. i don't know. i hope he's listening though because it's good advice. in 1984 a racist burned a cross in the yard of a maryland family, african american family that moved into a white neighborhood. ronald reagan saw it in the newspaper and that day said we're going to maryland. they went to that family's house. >> it's a no brainer. >> look at charlottesville, august 12th, 2017. >> that was a no brainer. >> our president on that day uttered the six worst words a president has uttered in my lifetime. very fine people on both sides. i was there a day or two after that attack and she hadn't even be buried yet and our president could not condemn actual nazis the way ronald reagan condemned the klansmen. we had scores of actual nazis marching through charlottesville and a woman was murdered allegedly by one of those nazis and our president wouldn't speak out against it. he called it very fine people.

>> that's one of the things i have never gotten. some of the other stuff i get. i've grown up around mr. trump most of my life. i get some of this as his personality and he believes that if you fight the media, you win nine times out of ten. that if you just keep fighting back, it will go away. they'll move on to something else. and he's have a great track record with it but on the bigotry stuff, i just don't get it. who gets in his ear and says, hey, these confederate flag people, take it easy on them? we need them? who is saying this stuff to him? who is giving this idea that he motivates with some of his choices? the guy he wanted to beat tim cain in virginia, he's a bigot. he's from queens, new york. that's the melting pot where he's from? where does it come from? >> i think he should pick out certain circumstances to come out clean and clear on the record and distinguish the

neo-nazi crowd and the far right wing element from what his movement is all about, particularly when you consider, depending on the polls that you look at, he's getting increased popularity due to the economic renaissance that's taking place. >> he has a lot of upside. you start at 8, you're going to do pretty well, you know. >> but near 20% of the black vote and democrats can kiss it good-bye in 2020. >> paul, by the way, it's good to see you. it's tough to get paul. >> i'm, easy, are you kidding? >> i'm taking the next jet to new york city. >> thank you very much. you're always welcome on set. >> okay. >> have a great weekend and thank you. when we return, corey is in the house and joining us as we await mueller's last shoe to drop on the campaign chair that replaced him.

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we know manafort's dirty

dealings continued while he was firmly in trump world. the president's people insist all of the stuff about manafort has nothing to do with him. is that still true? let's bring in corey that lead the campaign before manafort came in. he's the co-author of trump's enemies. welcome back to primetime. >> thanks for having me back, chris. >> first, paul manafort was doing shady stuff during the campaign he shouldn't have been doing. >> 100% agree. >> why do you think he took those meetings? the two that we know about? >> look i think that it's very clear. paul manafort was in debt, tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars to russian oligarchs. he knew he would never pass an fbi background check to get into the white house so he needed to use his position at the campaign to try to show to his friends overseas that if donald trump was elected he would be able to

have influence with the incoming president of the united states. >> and the president knew that was his situation. so is he culpable? >> the president nor i had any understanding of paul manafort's fiscal woes. >> you i'll give you. >> we didn't know. >> you i'll give you because that's when you met paul manafort but as we both know, the president has known paul manafort for decades and decades and as a kid that grew up in new york politics, i know who paul manafort is and was and everybody knew what he did for his money including the president. fair point? >> paul manafort worked for the reagan administration and when paul was referred to the campaign, it came by someone that was a trusted friend of the president. we now know that paul was not honest. but one of the very first meetings that i ever did with paul manafort was with the

former senior government official who vouched for the work that paul had done during the reagan years. so look, i didn't know about his financial background. the president didn't know about it. >> i'm not saying you knew. >> but he'll spend the rest of his life in jail. >> the president has known him since the 80s. he met roger stone first. roger stone helped him meet paul manafort. they worked together as you now know. he knows who paul manafort is and was. for him to deny knowledge of what the guy was about seems odd. >> well, you know, chris, i was there the first time then candidate trump saw paul manafort in what would have been march of 2016 and they introduced themselves as they had never met each other. the president said it's nice to meet you. paul said it's nice to meet you. if they had a relationship back in the 80s neither one of them acknowledged it. there was three people there. i was one of the three people when they met for the first time. >> there's photos of them.

look, i'm just saying that part doesn't make sense. but let's leave that there. that's one aspect of this. now you get into a what did he do? they believe. we have to see the proof but they say he gave polling data to the russian guy with the connections. okay. then it turns out that the russian trolls that were trying to manipulate message start targeting the same places and faces that the trump campaign did to a certain extent and that leads you to connect a to b and say i wonder if that's what they did with the polling data. if so, how bad do you think that is? >> i think it's terrible. i've been very clear. if anybody tries to influence the election through outside influences, they should be in jail, which is where paul is. let's be clear. paul's motivations for joining the campaign, even as a volunteer were so that he could curry favor with the russian oligarchs that he owed tens of millions of dollars to so they didn't kill him. he joined the campaign for

donald trump to come on board as what he called the delegate hunter to secure delegates to the convention but what we know is paul was selling his relationship to people overseas to make sure he had a life when the campaign was over. >> that is mueller's suspicion from what we have been able to piece together and i think enough time has passed. to be honest, we never talked about this during the campaign, but i am never putting you out as a booster of paul manafort. you have been very clear. you always stayed in your lane because you were part of the campaign and i respected you for that. but you don't hear me lumping any of this manafort stuff on you because i know where you have been on manafort all along. that's part of our relationship. i don't take cheap shots at you when you don't deserve it. this president had a bunch of people around him, not talking about you, but who lied about russia related matters, did things they shouldn't have done,

seemed like they were open for business and either he knew and he was okay with it. i'm not saying it's a crime, but it's not good leadership, or he had no clue who he had around him or how to judge character? which is it? >> i asked the president about it specifically. he said i was never a washington guy. i was a new york guy and when he came to washington d.c. he freely admits there were people around him that should have never been there and there were people in that campaign that should have never been there. paul manafort, rick gates, roger stone. some of those people -- >> his son and his son-in-law went to that trump tower meeting. his son-in-law was on the phone with flynn and his russian friend setting up subsequent meetings. these are his people whether he likes it or not? is he just not aware of who he has in his life? >> i can tell you when i look at the people that surround him whether it's them, these are the people that should have been

there from the very beginning. he needs people around him that he can trust. >> at least cohen he didn't leave him disgraced with the feds on he has behind. maybe they had a policy disagreement. that's okay. that's okay in politics. you guys aren't like minded. one of you has to go and it's not going to be the guy that got elected. that's politics i've seen that my whole life. a second topic, i'll use it as my closing. human trafficking. the president says it's a big deal. i never liked the argument because i spent too much time on the issue and i know that bringing kids across the border is not the problem. it's not the problem. the problem is right here at home. 2-thirds of the population of the kids being trafficked are american citizens. a lot of them are minorities and being shopped around. then acosta as the labor secretary, a judge says he did the wrong thing in what should

have been a sex trafficking case against epstein. a guy that trump knew. robert kraft, that's his buddy. he gets hooked up in this trafficking ring. maybe he didn't do it. the president has a chance to speak out about trafficking from there. he doesn't touch it. he has the real issue at home he's never mentioned. his buddy gets caught up in it and he doesn't talk about the victims but he says it's all about trafficking at the border. what should i believe? >> it's a terrible tragedy any time these children are taken and used as pawns. it's a disgusting thing and we need to do a better job to identify children early so that if they're taken into these rings we can find them whether there's an identification program, but moreover, securing the border is part of the answer. we need to have a better law enforcement area working with the communities and when we find what we did today and what bo bob kraft has been accused of

but not convicted of and is innocent until proven guilty is that that ring that was going on clearly was using women that had no access to transportation or meals or ways out as basic slaves. we need to do better as a community to make sure those places can't stay in business. >> agreed. it would have been great to hear that from the president of the united states today. but i'll take it from you. after all, it's friday night. be well. i'll see you soon. >> thank you. >> breaking news on another front. r. kelly just surrendered to police on sex abuse charges. you saw pictures of him earlier leaving a recording studio. another day of reckoning for another entertainment titan. is time up for the singer-producer after decades of scandal? i think that last part should mean the most. let's discuss next. ♪ tear up ticket. find the cat. [ meowing ] mittens! make it rain. [ cheering ] [ singing opera ] change the music.

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book now at choicehotels.com. >> we have new video of r. kelly surrendering to police. he was handcuffed. he didn't say anything. he is charged with a 10 count indictment of ago grevated sexu abuse. >> it's a class 2 felony with a sentencing range of 3 to 7 years per count. >> all right. now the sound i want to get for you, we're trying to work on different elements because this

is breaking right now. what the police just said there, that's what we expected. what we didn't expect was kelly's lawyer, we believe, to take to a microphone to say that all of the women are lying. now that's an unusual thing to hear from an attorney. let all the evidence come out. you'll see at the end of this that it's a more convoluted story and there's a narrative for their client to make it through but i want you to hear what this attorney just said. >> do you think these women are lying? >> yes. >> all of them? >> i think all the women are lying, yes. >> now that is unusual to hear and it also sets a very high bar for this defense. if convicted, 70 years is the max, okay? now he denies. he has always denied. let's bring in don lemon. i'm trying to get michael

avanati. he was called out as saying there's been all of these people getting involved. that's not what he says. he says he has women considered in this indictment coming down. two things for you. >> doesn't he have a videotape? >> he does have some type of evidence. trying to figure that part out. this has been a long time coming with r. kelly. he ain't bill cosby, but this is years and years of similar stories that his stardom helped him get through. >> well, yeah, and listen that video that you're talking about, the evidence it mirrors the alleged attacks that he was arrested for in a child pornography case in 2002. he was 35. he was acquitted six years later on that. so this has been a long time coming. it's been an open secret in some circles. there's been frustration about these young women not being taken seriously. the culture has now changed. many of them probably after that

case in 2002 said, you know what, i don't want to come forward. nobody is going to believe me and r. kelly is still going to go on to be a star and i'm going to be the person that lied about r. kelly. i think that has changed now. you said it's not bill cosby, but who knows? >> that's a fair point. i don't like to get beyond what we know. >> let's not get ahead of ourselves. >> i agree with you. you're right. >> but he is in better shape having it play out here than in public. in public you get all of these questions, what's the right standard? do you believe they come forward? if so, how much? we're all mixed up about what to believe and whatnot? the pendulum swings back and forth but in court we know the standard. >> can i say something? to have someone say i believe all of these women are lying. >> all of them? every single one of them. >> then you have the smollett case coming out saying this is some sort of cover up by the chicago police department. this unusual defenses that are coming out of chicago, it's

going to be very interesting to watch and i have to tell you chris, i kept watching the news, i was traveling today and i had to do some speaking things and other business before work and i kept looking at the e-mails and i said, if this day ends with r. kelly on the run in i don't know what i'm going to do with myself because there's been an avalanche of news. i said to myself, self, r. kelly is on an interstate running somewhere. by the time i get into work, i'm done. i'm glad he -- not to make light of it, but i'm glad he turned himself in. >> he's doing the right thing because that's where he's got the best chance. you know, the system is an adversarial system, and they're going to have to make a show of proof. and we know what it is. we know what it means, and we know how that system works. but the idea of a lawyer coming out and saying, they're all lying, that's a lot of arrogance. don, i got to take a jump. >> listen, i know you're an

attorney. i'm going to out-lawyer you tonight because i have so many legal cases and so many people who are going to break it down, it's going to make your head spin in a few minute. >> it may, but i'm a little dizzy from the meds i'm on, but you will never out-lawyer me. so something happened today that further exposes the farce that the president has been peddling to you on the wall. it involves one of his best friends and a human trafficking operation that a wall could never have stopped. it's facts first. it's worth it, next. -ah, the old crew! remember when we all used to go to the cafeteria and just chow down midday?

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the political right tells you that the border fight is about safety. it's a humanitarian crisis. just look at the human trafficking. the president tells you the truth about it all the time. >> they nab women. they grab them. they put tape over their mouth. they have tape over their mouths. tying up women, putting tape on their mouth. they tie up women, taping them up. women are tied up. they're bound. they have women in the back seat of the cars with duct tape all over the place. >> there's only one problem. it's not true. it's a hollywood illusion like the scene from the sequel to sicario. you remember this? the president and his partisan pals sell you the image to convince you the wall will save these victims. but it won't because while he's right that trafficking is a problem, they're not coming across the border on foot. most were born here. this isn't playing with stats.

it's an obvious truth, and i'm not cherry picking some article for proof. i did a documentary with a team that spent months tracking the problem for hln, our sister km, across the country. and with professionals who spent years trying to stop this, and with victims who endured a lifetime of abuse. none comes from south of the border in a car kidnapped. their traffickers were b.s. gigolos and dealers who played on vulnerable women with big proms and big feelings and then a big horrible reality they couldn't escape. two-thirds of the women who are trafficked in this country are american citizens, girls and boys. the rest are foreign-born, but they come to the u.s. legally on visas. traffickers trap them once they land. the human trafficking legal center has a database of over 1,400 trafficking indictments that go back a decade. google it. the president says kidnapping and duct tape is the norm. i just showed you that.

out of 1,400 cases, 25 involved kidnapping. how many involved duct tape? one. another incidence of why lie? why create a phony problem when you have a real one staring you in the face in your own country? why? because it doesn't motivate your border sell? probably. and maybe because you don't like where the real trafficking is going to take you, like to jupiter, florida, just a couple miles north of mar-a-lago. that's where his buddy, billionaire patriots owner bob kraft was arrested for allegedly soliciting sex at a strip mall today for 79 bucks an hour. take a listen. >> our concern in this investigation centers around the possibility of victims of human trafficking. >> that's what they call prostitution in many places now, trafficking, because of the age and how the people got there. now, bob kraft says he's innocent. i'm not here to condemn him. let the system decide that. but when the president spoke about it today, no word about the young women who were definitely involved in the

trafficking ring, not by him. listen to what he said. >> well, it's very sad. i was very surprised to see it. he's proclaimed his innocence totally, but i'm very surprised to see it. >> surprised by what? a rich old guy allegedly paying for sex? please. what gets me is the hypocrisy. all the talk about a wall to stop trafficking but no word for the actual victims of the scourge. so let me get it straight. the president is all in about how anyone south of el paso is a threat, but nothing about what's happening here in our cities to a disproportionately minority population. and odd that he's willing to shut down the government to help stop trafficking, but no problem with his labor secretary alex acosta. he handled the jeffrey epstein case. yeah, that guy. google him too. all the young women who were allegedly abused. it was a complex trafficking case, but now a judge says acosta broke the law by concealing a plea deal from the underage victims. here's what the president said

about that. >> i really don't know too much about it. i know he's done a great job as labor secretary, and that seems like a long time ago. >> check me on this. has the president ever admitted to knowing anything that's not good for him? what women payments? what contacts? what meeting? who's steve king? epstein who? oh, that was a long time ago. it was 2008. but it seems like a moment ago to all those alleged victims who believe they were denied justice. not a word for them from this president. and still he's selling you that he cares about trafficking. he cares so much that he has acosta as labor secretary, whose job includes overseeing the country's labor laws including, you guessed it, human trafficking. the wall is not about human trafficking. it's about trafficking in the politics of persuasion. big talk, big lie. the proof of his real concern for trafficking, you saw in his reaction to these cases i cited. never a word from him about the

kids being trafficked all over this country, americans who might as well be walled off from this president. thank you for watching. "cnn tonight with don lemon" starts right now. busy night. >> as you were reading that, this came to mind. if you care about what celebrity liar -- and you know what i'm talking about -- you got to equally care about another celebrity liar. a lie is a lie, and a liar is a liar. so you can't say one -- oh, this is awful, this is terrible, which it is. and then say, oh, but he lies because people force him to lie. you know what i'm saying. >> i know what you're saying. >> if you're going to care about one liar, you've got to care about the other. is a rich old guy paying for sex? of course he's not going to say about that because he's a rich old guy who has been accused of paying for sex. >> another layup. i was arguing with niger innis. why doesn't he call out