you need to be afraid for them. they're coming with false hope and in most cases norm to turn. they're dealing with a system that can't handle them and a president who wants them treated li likeants ants in a kitschen. now you know. congress knows. what are they going to do? if these numbers come true, you have to see the reality. i hope they don't. i hope the projections we showed you tonight are off. if they do come to fruition, congress, it is time to do your damn job. you know the president has been selling something else. i know that people don't expect anything better from the system right now. please show the american people they are wrong. do your damn job. address this situation. all right. that's my argument. i've got more time for you tomorrow. how about a bonus hour of "prime-time"? all right. another security clearance

firestorm is developing. first it was jared kushner. now it's ee advantagea trump. what does anthony scaramucci think about this? he works in the house alongside all of them. great guest to have on a night like this and we have him. also exclusive information on our southern border that is at a breaking point according to the people protecting us. we have to take a closer look. what they see, the help we should have and why it isn't there. evenly few republicans are objecting. we actually have one here willing to stand up for why it is wrong. what do you say? let's get at it. all right. we now know the president not only bypassed u.s. intelligence to get his son-in-law top secret

clearance, he insisted his daughter have it, too. that's our reporting. new from three sources tonight extra diblgts everything the president has been telling us. anthony scaramucci is here. >> good to see you. >> we'ving talked about this cycliccally. >> well -- >> he has the right but he wlied about it. why? >> well, i mean, i'm -- i don't know the answer to why he lied about it, so i can't tell you why he lied about it. i think it was strategy, bad tactics or it could have been a reaction to pressure. he could have been in several meetings where he toiled people don't give this to them. as a result of which he said go ahead and give it to them. he has a right to do that. >> yes. >> you know that. i think the recommendation would have been just tell the truth in the beginning. say listen, american people were voting for disrupting change. my daughter and son-in-law

worked with me during the campaign. ivanka specific worked for me at the trump organization and at "he apprentice," so she's coming with us. i think that was inside the bandwidth of him, who he is and who the american people voted for. lying about it probably was not the right thing by i haven't heard their side of the story since these allegations have been made. >> and you don't -- >> i think it's fair to say let's wait for their side of the story. . >> they won't put it out. >> they haven't said. >> thed say we won't talk about clearances. >> he has the right to do what he did. seems like we're in a gotcha. this is the kill shot on the president. . >> no. i'm not saying it's me -- >> no. >> recreates. >> he had the right to do that. >> right. >> at the end of the day.

>> that's what abuse of power is. >> my mom tells me i've got seven scoops of ice cream and five days later and say i had five scoops. it's a bad analogy. >> terrible. you no what you're mother would tell you? if you do it, own it. >> that's a bad -- jared and ivanka had the right to the clearances if they wanted. >> they -- >> yes, they did. >> no they didn't. >> the president has the right to give it to him. >> he has the rights to give it to them. they don't have the right to it. they had to go through the process. >> now -- we're debating semantics now. >> no, new york cito, no. they get vetted the way you are. the president says too bad. >> i think that's where the

fibbing came in. there was pressure on the president. there was some nepotism involved. they probably put pressure on him and that's why they wanted it to flow as a natural process. at the end of the day he had the right to give it to them. >> true. >> he didn't do anything wrong. i'm ok with it -- >> well, i'm not -- >> he didn't do anything illegal. >> did he do something illegal, no. did he lie about it? yes. that's why they're coming at him. the oversight. >> he's not -- >> political malpractice. you had one guy pretending the president hasn't told fibs or lies. i'm not that guy. >> had a cpap. >> i'm not going to tell you the guy hasn't contorted the truth and told fibs. he's done that. most politicians do do that. that's not an excuse to do it. >> i think that is the excuse.

people don't expect it from the system. >> i'm a supporter of his. i'd like to see him do well. i think by and large, ok, when you look at the -- this is the trouble with the situation, because with when you look at the style and look at some of the things you cringe at, say gee, i wish he didn't do that or say that. but you look at the totality of the policies and a let of things that are going well for the country. i'm a trained economist. you can look at the depth and the breadth of the economic experience and the american people are doing better. that's a wall street journal approval rating. >> absolutely. >> there's a lot of things he's doing well and the approval ratings are going up. he's like a phenomenon figure skater but there's some style points in a the judges are going to hit him on. i wish he would stop doing that. >> i wish he'd talk abostop doi

too. >> i brought up the wrong an jis. >> you did fine. >> to have the stock market where it is. to have the perception of the economy where it is, to have us go long, thank got, have nobody hurt us. >> uh-huh. >> he's not even close to 50%. i don't care what number you take. doesn't he get that the way he's -- >> feels pretty good. >> i'm sure he does. the 46% number feels good to me. >> i think it's -- >> because of how he is. if he asked me, i would say jeez, there's three or four things you could do stylistically. one of them is in situations like this, just say, hey, i'm the president. i'm doing it this way, that's the way it's going to be.

like it or lump it. >> lying is in style. >> if he said like it or lump it, instead of lying, i think his points ratings would go higher. i think he's got a 7 to 8% head wind as a result. if you call rex tillerson dumb at a rock on the twitter feed, that may feel good in the moment. you may not like what rex is saying about you. in my town on long island, ok, i don't want my kids to read that. that's not something i want my kids to see. you could get your approval ratings with those people hurt and they could slow down the voting for you. he got 52% of those white women to vote for him last time. that could hurt the people who genuinely like you and want to see you do better. the election is going to be on a

number of different things. who he's running against. we like so many policies but we're sore at his style. if you want to say it's not style -- >> i don't think it's style. i think it's going to be a referendum on him. if it's about policy it's going to be for the democrats to -- >> policy doesn't win re-election. >> i don't know about it. >> i think so. >> that's why we have the raise. >> in a rising economy. >> it's tough to beat a president in a good economy. >> true. >> i got a bee in my bonnet about what's going on at the border. i knew that the wall was a problem in terms of where the priorities lie. not that you want to build disbarriers, that's a political discussion. fine. there are outcomes and get judged by the electorate. i know there are bigger problems

that a wall can't affect us. now they're upon us. the president has not spoken about it. is that political malpractice? >> i don't think it's political malpractice as much as it is, it is surfacing right now and it's getting into the zeitgeist and i think he's becoming more aware of it. >> but he was told what the reality was. >> let's see what he does. >> get the wall, plmt -- >> lets give him credit. when the child separation policy got to his desk and it was inside the gearbox of what was going on, he reversed it. >> first he said it was good, it was a deterrent. >> it was monday -- the monday the volcano was eruptings, on thursday he turned it back. >> first, he said he liked it and he was pitching it as a good thing.

>> but once he fully understood it. come on, there's five million. >> you don't understand. do you have kids? >> when the stuff is on his desk that means there were 5,000 other people in the government couldn't make the decision. you know this plays for all day. when it got into his gearbox and he fully understood the magnitude of the problem, he reversed it. let's give him some time to understand what's going on here. i see the human crisis. i don't think it's a george soro sponsored thing. if moms, hundred miles, 800 miles, it's a humanitarian crisis. >> no question. >> we have to as a humane yoi and a people that has these great american values and this great american experiment, we have to handle it appropriately and we have to handle it without any level of callusness.

i'mi -- callousnessful. we can have a mass my litigation into the country. we can do it legally. we need to come up with a humane solution that is classically american that from a bipart san basis, all of us can be proud of. >> tomorrow we'll see what they do. thank you for being here. i appreciate it. >> always a pleasure. >> we're going to see ie advantagea trump called concerning her security clearance. is she going? now we've got this drama infolding in the west wing. what is the law, what is right? that's what cuomo's court is all about. look at those heavyweights, next. the way they subscribe to movies. we don't follow the naysayers.

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conventional wisdom says you can't make a 400 horsepower sedan, that's also environmentally conscious. we don't follow conventional wisdom. ♪ ♪ . >> back on the big news tonight. the ivanka trump security clearance. is the president guilty of special treatment for his family members? yes. is this an abuse of his family. let's gavel cuomo's court into session. barrett burger, jim schultz, thank you both. jim, you argue why this is an abuse of power -- no, i'm just kidding. barrett, you make that case. do you believe the president exercising his rights to give

security clearances as he pleases, can it be an abuse of power? >> i think so. this is just because you have the power to do something doesn't mean that you can do it corruptly. so whether it's firing employees, whether it's issuing pardons or whether it's ordering a security clearance, if you're doing something with a corrupt intent you lose your absolute ability to do it. i think it could be an abuse of power if the normal process was subverted or stantsed. >> where is the corruption? >> i don't know yet. what the reporting is suggesting is that the normal process was not followed. that should not be something that's political. with respect to security clearances more than almost anything else, this should be fully apolitical. this should be something that the career officials that do this every single day are really trusted with, can let their process play out and are given the autonomy to make these

decisions based on the facts before them. >> there are two theories. the first theory is that this is about paperwork. they didn't fill the paperwork out the proper way. especially in jared kushner's case, contacts with people that would make hairs on the back of the neck go up. so they slow walked the paperwork. the president got frustrated with it and he went ahead. the second theory is they had good reasons not to want to give it and the president overrode it. >> this is within the president's powers to grant security cleerpss. you've established this. >> right. >> at the same time, the president had jared and ivanka with him all through the campaign.

the president clearly relies on them and clearly trusts their judgment. he's probably thinking to himself, look, i know these folks better than anyone and it's within my power to make that decision. there was some reporting and who knows what's true and what's not as the staff said noed we're not signing off on this. >> mem oels. >> there may be memos. >> there are memos. >> ok. but it's not within their power. >> but it is. they were recording something that they found offensive and abusive of that power and recording the same contemporaneously and the president lied about it. >> what's congress going to do about it? >> why lie, jim? >> make security appearances -- clearances -- >> why lie? >> i -- rely upon sources and other things. >> memos. >> i have no are idea why he

told the story he told. if he made that decision himself he should have said so. >> right. >> no question about it. >> right. >> it doesn't necessarily mean it's not within his power. >> don't go for the low fruit. did he abuse the power, misuse it? barrett -- >> let me address that. if he felt comfortable with them that's within his power as the united states. he knew those two individuals better than anyone else. he can make that judgment. >> that's fine. although i'd like to know if he knew about the contacts of his son-in-law. hold on, jimmy. barrett, to jimmy's points, what are you going to do about it? what's congress going to do? >> that's the million dollars question. i want to address one thing. >> please. >> he probably does know these people better than most people. does not necessarily knmean he

knows all the things surrounding giving a skourt cleeshs. these people who do this arguably have much more information than simply, do you know this person, was she a good daughter, is he a good son-in-law. there are a lot more factors that go into this. >> he probably had the benefit of this information. you would think he had the benefit of that information. >> you would think so except the decision was already made that they were not going to get a cleerps and he chose to override that decision. why go against the advice you're going to be given? i understand why it would be a benefit. he wants them in certain meetings, see certain documents. i get he wants them to have clearance. i don't understand and i don't think any of us understand, what sfood inned the way of them getting the clearance? this was not some kind of huge uphill battle to get clearances.

this is not something you hear about every day people being rejected for no good reason. i think it raises a flag. chris, what happens next? that is the million dollars question. we know they've sort of said they will not -->> right. >> give documents to congress based on this, so i think this puts congress in a tough position right now. do they want to press this issue and take it to the courts ultimately as to whether or not they're going to challenge this. >> right. >> i think that's a tough challenge. >> i would make it the $9.99 question, because it's just one more example of this president doing things the wrong way and lying about what he does. is it a crime? no. could it be a political crime? we'll see, because that's obviously where the democrats are looking to build a case. jimmy, well argued. thank you. bart, always a pleasure. thank you for being on the show, counsel. a week after trump's failed summit with kim jong un, why

failed? because they left early. north korea caught rebuilding a missile launch facility. what do republicans say about it. so far, that. we're going to talk to one of them next. congressman thomas massey joins us next.

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. president trump has been desperate to get a nuclear deal done with north korea and with good reason. that is a good goal. but how you do it matters. he's held two peace summits. not had any real concrete steps except elevating kim jong un to equal footing with the president. and how has kim repaid him? satellite photos appear to show that kim jong un has begun rebuilding parts of a long range missile testing facility. implications? let's discuss. congressman thomas massey, republican on the house oversight committee. thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> nobody's surprised to hear that the north koreas are being shady and they're doing something that's per knishous or

shady. that's who they are. comment the presidents tells us they are no longer a threat. the nuclear threat days are over. pompeo tries to clear it up. gets it even more confused. why? >> i think the president has extended an olive branch instead of treating the korean leader a pariah on the planet, it brings them to the table. >> do you have concerns about dealing with a murderous despot this way now that you see how he returns the favor? >> i think you have to go to the table and talk to him and i think words like murderous despot, even though that might be true, it doesn't advance your agenda to call him that in a meeting or call him that on the national stage. >> if you ignore it, what do you

empower? what do you tell other bad guys around the world when you forgive the these atrocities like you did the putin and mbs. what do you think about kim? i'm going to do whatever i like, he's just like me. >> no, i don't think that's the message the president is giving. we've got just about every sanction we can have on korea now. the change that's going to pressure their leader to change is actually going to come from the people themselves as they learn more about how society in an advanced civilization lives, they're going to quantity those lifestyles, too. i think the pressure's going to come from within. the president has to be there to give the dictator an opportunity when he feels that pressure from within and feels the pressure from china to comply with normalized world standards, i think the president has to be this to receive him.

i'm glad he's having talks. i was with congressional delegation last year. he visited korea. we went to the dmz and the u.n. building where the talks would happen. it doesn't takeh korea off the . gentleman that's true. >> even though it's troublesome that he's building a long range missile site, if that's true, the danger is present and it's there now. >> let me ask you about the oversight concerns the congress has. what do you think of the ambitions? >> am businesses of? >> of your committee. >> of the oversight committee? they were trying to lay a cornerstone in the foundation of impeachment against the president. >> they say no. >> what was the purpose? they had cohen in there.

it was somewhat of a circus. the question i asked cohen, by the way, based on his opening testimony said when he made payments to ms. cliffords didn't think about whether it was right or proper. i asked him if you were the president's lawyer and you didn't know whether it was legal or not, how did you advice the president. he basically said he was a fixer and not so much a lawyer. i think that somewhat exonerates the president. if your lawyer isn't giving you good legal advice, is it possible to knowingly violate the law? >> a hundred percent. i think it's pretty obvious that the president knew what he was doing and he knew why he was doing it. whether people like you put pressure to make a move on him, that's different. we're talking about political ramifications here. >> i've never seen an fec report

that discloses a payment for hush money. in fact, i think it would be illegal if he used campaign money for it. that's just my opinion. i'm waiting for somebody to show me a report that they pay hush money. >> they don't put it in there. you don't just fail to disclose it. it was how it was engineered. i've said this many times on the show. i do not see a prosecution ending this presidency, i don't see it. if the democrats want to go down the road of impeachment, they have to have a buy in. >> there's one other thing that michael cohen said. i had him restate it to me. a lot of times he said he acted on what he thought the president wanted and not what the president told him. i asked him to repeat that and he did.

if they were trying to lay a foundation for maybe a conviction of the president. maybe they were going fishing. i think they didn't catch any fish in our hearing the other day, and i think cohen came across as the least credible witness we've ever had in the oversight committee. >> polls put it about 50/50. the president takes the biggest beating in polls than any politician i've ever seen when it comes to credibility. lucky for him, the american people, especially those who support him, have almost zero percent of expectation of you guys acting with integrity and that's a sad commentary. >> we didn't get to call the witness. if you want integrity, i suggest you don't brie michael cohen to the hearing room. >> i invite you back to discuss what the committee does. what you think about it and what you don't. >> absolutely. thanks, chris. >> be well.

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. the white house once again resist ends, define in the face of demands from house democrats for documents showing how the trump administration goes about its security clearance process. the presidential counsel blasted it as being overly intrusive. but elijah cummings countered. >> i want the american people to understand that when you cannot get information, you cannot be a check. >> is that what this is about? is it about a check or is it harassment? great debate and two perfect

guests. young ma. young, starts with you. >> well, the white house has every right to negotiate how it wishes to cooperate with the committee and if the white house counsel said in his letter congress cannot simply demand everything and anything. there has to be some sort of relationship to how the information it seeks is going to actually help its legislative task. according to the white house congress has not made that clear to this white house. so the white house has every right to push back. white house is in the path of all push-back against these things. it's doing what is simply religion. >> what do you think of that? do you believe, mr. dyson this is about the democrats overreaching? >> not at all. i think chairman cummings was

exactly right. you have to check by having information. when ms. ma makes the legitimate point that other white houses behaved similarly, extend that. this white house has not acted the way other white houses have acted. there's suspicion created. there's a web of lied that have been spun by this white house at every level from the very beginning. the congress that is empanelled now it has a responsibility to make sure what's going on is clear, fair, and reasonable in order to make sure that they are the balance and the check to what is going on in the executive office. they've got to will their legislative authority. >> i usely go with mountain of men dasity because it's il lit ra active. when you look at the pretty of the matter, nobody should be arguing whether or not the

president he had the right. the question is did he do it the right way? did he lie about it as the reporting suggests. why did they handle it this way. legitimate questions? >> sure, they're all legitimate questions but let's not confuse these questions with the law and i think the white house counsel's letter to the committee has made very clear that there is case law in case saying clearly that it's fine for you to ask for information but there has to be some relationship to how you intend to legislate. congress is there to legislate, not to enforce the law. congress has always deferred to the executive when it comes to national security issues such as granting security clearances, and i know you keep saying that the president having the prerogative to grant a clearance to somebody is a distraction. you know, i think it's kind of funny you keep saying that because it actually goes to the heart of the issue.

this is actually what he is able to do and it's not -- >> how you do it matters, because if i want to come after you for abuse of power, the underlying premise -- >> it's within his power to do. >> you can do it any way you want under any circumstances and it's ok? we know the answer to that is no, don't we? >> it's up to him. he can grant a security clearance to ivanka and jared whenever he wants to or to anyone else. >> unless -- >> so -- should he have -- and let me also back up a little bit mpl. >> please. >> right now we're basing our entire discussion on reporting from the new york times. >> yes. >> and we don't actually know for sure if these sources are reliable. >> that's why the oversight is doing their job. >> is that correct? i have no objection to you asking the question. i think that's -- >> that's journalism. >> on what the president and in general what politicians are doing. >> right. >> but is this something for the

oversight committee to do it? the white house didn't say they won't cooperate. they just object to the intrusive and cumbersome way they've been asked to. >> dies op, make the argument about why this is legitimate oversight? >> well, first of all, it's oversight. that's their realistic goal and their ostensible purpose. if lawmakers agreed on everything, it wouldn't be a-count every argument. mr. mcgann wrote a memo to say hey, i don't want any part of this. mr. kelly wrote the same thing. we have the very evidence adduced by the very people protecting the president saying they've got to protect themselves first. if they don't, they will be complicit in this mountain of mendacitc, this web of lies. we see that donald trump is

being in one sense facilitated by people who are complicit in this very mendacity. what do the facts say? facts matter. truth matters. what actually happened makes a difference. empirical means that which can be false fight or verified through the sentence. the legislative process is saying let us apply what we have against this test case. if the president says no, let's see if he says no. but if we don't know, we don't have the documents we don't know what we're dealing with. >> this is a good back and forth. young, good to have y >> federal deficit is getting fat. why? in part because of the tax cut. in part because of our fiscal

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t-mobile will do the math for you. right now, when you join t-mobile, you get two lines of unlimited with two of the latest phones included for just one hundred bucks a month. ful. right now the economy is looking strong, but you have low employment and tax revenue plummeting and government spending is going up. now, what does that give you? it gives you a big fat deficit for the first quarter of the 2019 fiscal year. now, here's the political confusion. when you think republican, very often you think fiscal

responsibility. trying to now it's the opposite. why? catherine rampell, three questions. help me. you're the one with the intelligence on this. first four months, fiscal year '19. federal deficit, $310 billion, up $176 billion year-over-year. why? >> there are a few things going on. one of course as you mentioned is the tax cut. despite what was promised, the tax cuts sadly did not pay for themselves. wouldn't you know? we cut taxes, and tax revenues fell. so that's snake oil, still not working. but it's not only on the tax cuts. it's also on the spending side. so we had this grand bargain that democrats and republicans came to last year in which they decided they were going to increase funding for each other's pet projects, particularly defense, but not only defense. so you saw a big increase in defense spending. the country's also getting older, so you have more spending

on medicare, for example. so that's part of it as well. and also interest rates are rising, which means that the interest payments on the debts are also going up. all of that debt not looking so cheap anymore. >> so the sell was, listen, if you cut the taxes, they will invest more, they will pass along more. individuals will benefit as workers. they'll also benefit as recipients of more cash in their pockets from the tax cut i'm giving them as well. they will spend more, and that will offset the decrease in revenues by increase in spending. >> right. >> what happened? >> the same thing that's happened every other previous time that we have tried this strategy. it did not pay for itself. we had a nice -- >> meaning that you needed to offset spending to anticipate the cut in revenues. >> meaning that the idea is that if you cut taxes enough, that will increase investment. that will increase the number of people who decide to go work and the number of hours that they work, and that in and of itself,

that additional economic activity will increase the tax revenues that roll in, right? so the rate may fall, but the amount of activity that you see, the amount of growth that you see, it will offset it. that's not actually what happened. again, we have seen this argument made, this snake oil sold many times before, and it turns out never to actually to bear out. >> so tax cuts are not as good as they sound in general. they've got to be targeted. they've got to work the right way and at the right time. gotcha. unemployment. thread this into it for me. historically low. historically low unemployment and a high deficit. do those two go together? are they supposed to be anathema? what is this? >> no. this is highly, highly unusual. so if you look at the past 70 years, basically the entire post-war period, the business cycle and the deficit moves in tandem. it kind of looks like this, and in the last few years, it looks like this. and what's happened is essentially the two things have

decoupled. the reason why deficits and unemployment moved in tandem, why they were always sort of in sync for so long is what you could expect, that when the economy is good, people are making more money. they're paying taxes on that money, right? so tax revenues should be going up. on the other side of the ledge herb, y er, you should find fewer people need food stamps, fewer people need unemployment benefits, other things like that. you don't have as much red ink spilled. beyond that, you know, there's this idea that when the sun is shining, you fix the roof. that when the economy is good, that's when we can sort of try to be a little more fiscally responsible than we would need to be than if we're about to see the economy implode along the lines of what we saw ten years ago during the financial crisis. instead, the sun is shining, and rather than repairing the roof, we are blowing a much bigger hole in the roof, right, because we are increasing spending. we are cutting taxes. we are putting ourselves in a

much less fiscally responsible situation than we need to be for the next time there is a recession. >> growth is up. >> growth is up, but, again, normally you would expect that when growth is up, tax revenues would be up, and the opposite has happened. so this is historically anomalous. we've never seen this before. the only times when we have seen that decoupling that i mentioned was in times of war, was during the vietnam war or the korean war. that's when you saw, okay, look, we had to spend a little extra money because we were fighting a war. you can't make quite the same argument now, you know. we don't have the same mass mobilization, even if we do have troops abroad. >> catherine rampell, well argued and well answered on the three questions. thank you very much. >> anytime. >> good to have you. all right. so it's a big day tomorrow for president trump's -- really it's more than just kirstjen nielsen. i was going to say for his point woman on national security, but it's more because you had the head of dhs. you've got the head of cbp, and

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to save 30% on all the medications we carry. so go directly to petmeds.com now. big day. i think you're going to get something you're not used to tomorrow in front of congress. you're going to get the truth. you're going to get homeland security secretary kirstjen nielsen -- i know she's controversial but she's going before a house panel, and i've already made my case about what's really happening at the southern border, but it's based on their data about what they project is going to come. and it's not about a wall. and it's not about a bunch of marauders. but this hearing is going to be a big step because once congress gets the data -- i don't know why they don't have it already. but once they get it, they've got to act because this is a real problem, and they're not ready for it. then you've got the white house facing backlash over reports that president trump pushed officials to grant his daughter a security clearance. and unlike what was just argued to you, just because you have a power doesn't mean you can exercise it any way you want,

right? if he pressured people to give clearance to jared kushner, isn't it a legitimate question asked, why? we'll see tomorrow. and i'll see you as well. thank you for watching. "cnn tonight" with erin burnett, aka, the upgrade in for d. lemon, starts right now. >> oh, it is so true. sadly, he's probably not even watching. >> no. he passed out long ago. >> he's a lightweight. all right. have a good night. >> you too. and to all of you, welcome to tonight. this is "cnn tonight." i'm erin burnett in for don lemon. multiple sources telling cnn that president trump put pressure on two former top aides, chief of staff john kelly and white house counsel don mcgahn, put pressure on both of them to grant security clearance to ivanka trump. the president's daughter and senior adviser. so now it's not just jared kushner. it's also ivanka. now, kelly and mcgahn were against the move