operated by ethiopian airlines crashed killing all 157 people on board including 8 americans. that's two deadly crashing in five months. today several airlines around the world grounded the plane. that does it for us. i'll hand it over to chris for cuomo primetime. >> thank you. i am chris cuomo and welcome to primetime. we have the man on the other side of the infamous hush money payments. attorney keith davidson. represented stormy daniels, karen mcdougal and others. he cut those deals to help bury the news of president trump's alleged affairs. he is here and he has new information this evening. the time line, the intentions, the president's awareness, he knows and he is willing to be tested. >> also tonight, speaker pelosi just said something that's going to make a lot of democratic jaws

drop. words she never said to the press before. what they mean for holding this president to account. plus the real deal about these boeing jets that went down months apart. why hasn't that model been grounded here in the united states? what the faa is saying and we have a formal federal investigator to give us the inside scoop. what do you say? let's get after it. >> you know the president has been implicated in a felony by his own lawyer. the question is why and how much can we trust as true? let's ask the man on the other side of the hush payments. keith davidson. worked hand in hand with cohen in the deals to pay off stormy daniels. welcome to primetime. >> thank you, chris. >> people are going to say why now? why now? >> it's an easy question. i've been involved in cooperating with the southern district of new york.

once the house judiciary committee sent out their request that's been abandoned. >> they were looking at the payments and going after michael cohen but it was also about the depth of the contacts. to the outside, the reporting, it was like, well, i don't know. maybe davidson just papered the deals and this was transactional. how much contact did you have with michael cohen? >> it's tough for me to say? hundreds of e-mails. >> hundreds of different types of contacts. >> i provided 1,500 pages to the southern district of new york. >> now you didn't deal directly with the president? >> no, the only one i ever dealt with in the trump orbit was michael cohen. >> one of the things that i'm

hoping that you can help us establish, you have done lots of deals like this and you were dealing with the attorney. >> yes. >> but what was your sense of the role and the awareness and the intentions of the principal. in this case donald j. trump candidate. do you think this was cohen freelancing? >> i don't know. i was never once left with the impression that michael cohen had independent authority to act and make decisions. >> meaning that you would say to him, here's the number. he never said okay, good we're done. and he always said let me get back to you. >> he was going back to somebody to seek authority for whatever it was we were discussing and the second thing is that he told me repeatedly really that he answered only to donald trump.

>> i want a sense of did it jive with how you thought the relationship was working on the other side of the transaction. here is the president and his attorney about a deal with you. >> i have spoken to allen about how to set the whole thing up with funding. and it's all the stuff. all the stuff. >> people didn't understand what this meant and then overtime, what we have been able to piece together is you were not the only lawyer. you were not the only person representing people of interest to donald trump and now president trump and they were trying to put together a transaction to get all the stuff from the parent company of the national inquiry just in case david pecker took another job or

left. >> or got hit by a bus. >> god forbid but if something happened to him. did you understand it to be the same? this wasn't the first time they had ever done it. they knew how to dot it. >> oh, they know how to do it. there's a long history of -- its well-known that there's a long history of donald trump and people around him entering into nondisclosure agreements with agrieved parties. >> another key element is why it happened when it happened. >> it was on you and your clients. now was the time to strike because he was in a campaign and he had to cover up it personally and didn't want his wife to know. what was behind the timing from your perspective? >> what you're really talking about is a john edwards defense and why that fails is the affair

happened in 2006. we have to look at the time line. >> which one? >> both. >> let's talk about stormy daniels. it's been publicly reported that the affair happened in 2006. in 2011 was my first interaction and it was through a phone call with michael cohen and that was because a website called the dirty.com had published a small piece on the blog that reported donald trump having an affair with stormy daniels. >> he called you? >> he called my client. stormy daniels then manager and berated her. i returned that call. and as soon as he picked up the phone on the other end, he jumped down my throat and was extremely aggressive on the call. so that's important because the time line happened 2011.

>> why didn't et get done? >> there was zero interest. they knew about it when he announced to be president in 2016. they knew about it when he became the republican nominee. they did nothing to settle the case. they knew about it well into september. and it wasn't until what in all of my hours in sitting down with the southern district of new york and when everybody i see is reporting on this story for the last year the one thing that people are missing is you cannot talk about the stormy daniels payment without talking about the "access hollywood" tape. >> why? >> because stormy daniels settlement came a day or two after the "access hollywood" tape aired and there was very little to no interest for the year's proceeding "access hollywood" to resolve this case in anyway, shape, or form and it wasn't until immediately after the "access hollywood" tape that

there was a rush to settle this case. >> was it a rush because stormy daniels or you said oh, now there's an opportunity. now they're going to have to worry about these types of stories. let's go back to them now and see what they want to do. did your side motivate the urgency? >> no, because if you recall, it's been publicly reported that there was two settlement agreements. one was executed in, i think, early october, i recall and michael cohen did not pay. there was no funding on that first deal. that's again very strong evidence that the southern district of new york relied upon in their prosecution of michael cohen. >> why didn't they pay? >> they didn't pay and we

cancelled that settlement agreement and then there was a gap in time where nothing happened and it wasn't until the day after "access hollywood" that the case ultimately did resolve. >> and when that "access hollywood" came out, who called whom to say it's time to finish this? did you call him and say do you want to pay me now? or did he call you? >> he called me. >> he said we want to get rid of this now? >> yes. >> did you get a sense that this is something that occurred to him or that there was planning on the other side of the situation? >> i don't know the answer to that question. >> i was left with the distinct feeling and impression that he did very well. >> did you suspect this could be a campaign finance violation? they shouldn't be doing this? >> in my role representing my client, i stayed in my lane. two consenting adults have a right to contract in anyway they see fit. their motivation to settle this

claim was not my concern and i never really went there. >> why wasn't the check just coming from somewhere else? what was your understanding? what was the frustration from your perspective? >> this was a period of time after the election but before the inauguration that there w was -- it was once he realized he wasn't going to washington and he was dispondent. >> to a lawyer he was doing a deal with, he talked about whether or not he was going to go work in the white house? >> yes. >> he says the opposite. he says he never wanted to go to washington. he couldn't go to washington. that he had to convince the president, i know you need me. have to stay on the outside because we won't have the same privileged relationship if we go

in? you said not true. >> i think they could both be true. there's two different time periods. the time after the election and before the inauguration. it was clear that he was heart broken that he wasn't going to washington. he was extremely animated about that. then there was a time much later where he said he had the perfect job. >> did you make any record of those conversations where he said he didn't want to go to washington? why would i ask that? now it's material to whether or not he was telling the truth to congress. other than your recollection was there anything at the same time? >> no, but i have sat down with federal agents and toll them what i just told you. >> but you have no independent proof of it from your own word. >> that's correct. >> not to impugn your credibility but you're only as good as you can show very often in these situations.

that's why i asked. >> i'm sorry to interrupt. then there was a period in 2018 where he loved it because he reported to me his consulting business was fantastic and things were good for him on the professional side and he was glad he wasn't in washington and handcuffed by federal salaries. >> so there are a few more things. >> one of them is one of the big moments in this, on the intrigue side, was when stormy daniels said that somebody came up to her and physically made a threat. this wasn't when you were council. this was in the latest iteration of stormy daniels, you know things about this. i want to ask you because again this is all about figuring out what do we know is true? stick around one more block. >> yes, thank you. >> appreciate it. so there is more to know and again, you can't get closer to the deal than the man who made

them. all right. we'll dig in and get the answers that we can, next. ♪ ♪ this simple banana peel represents a bold idea: a way to create energy from household trash. it not only saves about 80% in carbon emissions... it helps reduce landfill waste. that's why bp is partnering with a california company: fulcrum bioenergy. to turn garbage into jet fuel. because we can't let any good ideas go to waste. at bp, we see possibilities everywhere. to help the world keep advancing. ♪

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keith davidson, thank you

for staying another block. >> thanks. >> we were talking in here about what's the truth versus the stories that are just out there. i asked you about campaign finance. you said it's not where my head was. i was trying to get the deal done. however, was there any discussion ever with cohen about the sensitivity to the campaign and what this would mean for the campaign and how to get it done? you talk to somebody that much it's going to start to bleed into just a reporte with the guy. was that part of the dialogue? >> that audio tape you played at the beginning of the show, you have to understand who michael cohen is and he's a pro. been doing it for a long time. he's very good at staying in his lane and listening to that audio tape this is a guy who knows whatnot to say. >> true, but you don't remember him saying to you i got to get this done. this is going to sabotage the candidate. nothing like that? >> nothing. >> now that's relevant because

the argument is they all knew what they were doing for the campaign. he had no duty to disclose. it would be a little dumb to do so but i wanted to know. however. being paid back wound up being something that bled into your conversations with him. that was never discussed. >> never. >> but eventually you did get some conversation about the payment to you and where it came from because reimbursement wound up coming up. how so? >> it was in that period that we discussed after the election and before the inauguration where he reached out to me and stated can you you believe after everything i have done, after everything i have done for that sob that i'm not going to washington and he didn't even pay me back. >> when he said he didn't even pay me back, did you say for what? did you know what he was talking about? >> well, yes, i knew he was

talking about stormy daniels. and then did he tell you i paid that money. not him. >> what did you think of that? >> i didn't know what to make of that. i thought he was probably a very good soldier. >> but what sense -- because usually the principle pays let alone when it's a billionaire. an alleged billionaire. at the time you just thought well this is the way they handled things? or did it to you speak to his secrecy? >> no, what it spoke to me, they had a very unique relationship. at that time he had one client, the trump organization and he was in essence general council for that organization and it spoke to their level of closene closeness. >> what's your sense on the who knew? we now know that you hear i'm working with other people in the office, that was about the whole basket of transactions, all the stuff that they call it with ami

but to your knowledge, did people at the trump organization know what he was doing? >> not to my knowledge. >> you never heard that name? >> never. >> or anybody else in the trump organization. it was always just cohen talking about cohen? >> exactly. or about the big guy, the boss but never in terms of knowledge or anything like that. i think he's a pro at staying in his lane. >> credibility counts. davidson, what is he doing? why are you representing all of these people? how do you represent stormy daniels, karen mcdougal, somebody else that made allegations about the president? why do you wind up representing all of these people? >> i have developed a niche practice in los angeles and a lot of these cases come to me. these two cases came to me from two completely different sources. former clienlts that kn former clients that knew them. >> do you have a problem with trump? are you out to get trump?

>> no. i'm not out to get him. i'm not out to hurt him. i'm the son of a fireman from the northeast. i'm a democrat so the narrative that i was somehow working in coordination and cohorts with trump and colluding to round up all of his dirty laundry is just -- it could not be further from the truth. >> storemy daniels says you too some of her money. how do you defend yourself against charges that you put yourself first before your clients? >> it didn't happen. i have no idea what she's talking about. it didn't happen. the truth matters. >> so you never took her money? >> no. >> you never took more than she was supposed to get? >> never. >> did you talk to her about that allegation? it came from her. >> no. >> why not? >> she never brought it up to me. no one ever addressed me. there's current litigation and that's nowhere in the litigation and i have no comment or no understanding of where that comes from at all. >> why would those clients fire

you? -- >> if you did nothing wrong. >> i think you're assuming that i was fired too. >> okay. fair point. >> were you or not? >> there was a drifting apart. it was never an actual firing. with storeny daniels. i negotiated a deal. i had an inherent contract. she would lose certain legal arguments. >> explain that to me. i don't understand. >> so you draft a deal and she says i want to get away. so what? >> well, there's certain arguments that one could make in the contract. it wasn't well explained to me that this or that happened. i've now become a witness in a case and i couldn't represent her to get out of the contract. >> is it true that the allegation that someone came up on her in a parking lot is something that you have

knowledge of and that you know it was made up just to create attention? >> i have no knowledge of anything and i can tell you this, chris, that there is still and will be for the rest of my days attorney client privilege that has not been waved. >> i understand that. >> and i can't get into either what was told to me or what wasn't told to me. >> can you stand by the credibility of that allegation? >> i can't comment on the it. >> do you think that proof will come out? >> i think it's a nice true but respectfully i can't answer that question. i can't confirm or deny what was told to me or what wasn't told to me. >> just to bring us back to where we started, you have dealt with some shady types in doing these kinds of deals but you have never been through anything like this.

what have you learned? >> it's been a heck of a year and the interesting thing too with these deals is they're all negotiated prior to the #me too movement and they were common place. i've negotiated hundreds of deals like this. but to come in and analyze something that was done prior is just very interesting. >> except the two we know aren't me too at all. they were consenting individuals that wound up getting paid to keep it quite and not alleged abuse from the hand of the man involved. >> that is fair. but it does involve nondisclosure agreement which is is a huge argument in the me too movement. >> that's true. women should not be silenced just with money when they have legitimate agrgreivances. thank you very much.

>> thank you, chris. >> here becomes the big question. you have two different types of accountability that will come up because of this. michael cohen is going to jail? part because of his role in these payments. what legal exposure is there for the president? what political exposure is there? because remember, everything davidson just told you, he told the feds. so we'll take it to cuomo's court. plus news on the political threat to president trump. you're not going to want to miss, next. biopharmaceutical researchers. pursuing life-changing cures in a country that fosters innovation here, they find breakthroughs... like a way to fight cancer by arming a patient's own t-cells... because it's not just about the next breakthrough...

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a personal payment to the extent that he even knew about it. that's what the president wants you to believe when it comes to paying off daniels and mcdougal and yet another party is saying the opposite. did anything that we heard change the equation? not just so much for us but for the people doing the investigating? because they know this already. it's new information to us. spoke to cohen 100 times. we didn't know it but they did. let's bring cuomo's court in session. what stood out to you in terms of that reckoning from the attorney who was part of the transaction? >> well, the bombshell piece of information here is the timing. we have been hearing for awhile that the motivation for paying stormy was not to influence the campaign or to help the

campaign. it with was to avoid personal embarrassment and on that front i want to point out that rudy giuliani is stating the law incorrectly. it doesn't have to be the only reason. it just has to be a reason. >> people can google that. if they want to figure it out for themselves. now edwards was acquitted. now ken can argue well and he has before. who says that's precedent. the judge in the case says it doesn't have to be the main reason. it doesn't have to be the only reason. it just has to be a reason that you did it. for the campaign. continue. >> so the "access hollywood" tape being the precipitating factor after this affair happened ten years before, after they knew it could have come out five years before but did nothing about it, that adds to the motivation here and i just want to add like as another piece of this puzzle that, you know, is related, that is also the day that "access hollywood"

tape, the day that wikileaks released it's dump of dnc e-mails. >> consequence. >> consequence or not. >> but we don't know that they have anything to do with. >> an hour later. but the point is is that this changes the focus and does benefit the campaign. you can see there's a clear benefit and also just because ken isn't going to let me speak if i turnover the mike, one more thing -- >> he's being very patient. >> we knew when mueller indicted cohen that he had the receipts. he had corroborating evidence. they were not going to rely only on michael cohen and i think what we're seeing is an independent coroborator of what he was telling them. >> the only thing you have to give davidson on the issue is when did this deal become real for cohen/trump is why would he

lie? it doesn't matter to him. if the "access hollywood" tape came out and he picked up the phone and called cohen and said you better pay me now, no harm, no foul. that's his job. assuming that they called him and said it's time to get this done, we can't have any more information like this, we're too close to the end, what does that mean to you? >> well, certainly, the pressure spike at the "access hollywood" day was like nothing i have ever seen in a presidential campaign. it was massive. they didn't want more information coming out. i actually think the most striking thing listening to mr. davidson is here is a guy who caught negative attacks. he sat there and denied you any hint of his impressions and his attorney client privilege.

and the quality of respecting the obligations of the attorney is much higher with mr. davidson than michael cohen. we heard it here tonight. i was impressed by that. >> one of them also accepted responsibility to go to jail and then decided to turnover all the information they had and tell a whole new story. character analysis aside, if they came to agreement because of the "access hollywood" tape and they wanted to get this deal done because they had an outstanding contract with him that they never paid on, does that connect the president to a felony? >> i don't think any more than it did before. i think everybody knew and i have certainly said on your show that the president was trying to

avoid this information coming out. but the pressure in his life would have always been higher. >> it would have been embarrassing since 2011. >> of course. >> he never did anything about it until the pivot point in his election. but let me ask you this before we're out of time here. one thing that we keep leaving out because of this new very low level is the president lied about this persistently. and doesn't that have to matter on some level. >> this matters at a basic transparency and accountability level. >> the purpose of campaign finance laws is to promote transparency and allow the voting public to understand where the money supporting their candidates is coming from.

he not only concealed that but then went in front of cameras and said he had no idea whether this was paid and that was a lie and we know in so many other areas he was lying also. this is not allowing the public to create an informed voice. it's undermining people's exercise of their vote. i think as just a basic democratic principle it matters. >> i'm just saying as a sitting president he kept lying about this. and with respect to on going matters that are being investigated. ken, appreciate the analysis as always. thank you. >> question everybody is asking, these planes, five months apart. both go down. they're new. is this about the plane?

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had i have waited a day, i would have had stage iv cancer. planned parenthood saved my life. text titlex to 22422 to learn more. tonight boeing is insisting that the 737 max 8, there's different versions of that 737.

you can't put them all in the same basket, but they're saying the one that just crashed is a safe airplane. ethiopia's crash there, 157 people on board. all gone. the flight data recorders have been recovered but we don't know what made that plane fall out of the sky. comes just five months after this same model of this new plane crashed. boeing says it's working on a software update to make an already safe aircraft even sa r safer. several carriers around the world have grounded the jets. so obviously people who have a degree of sophistication here have concern. all right. two governments have done the same thing. not this one. let's bring in jeff, former faa director of accident investigation. thank you. >> good evening, chris. >> all right. panic, fear, five months two

airplanes, same type. both new, must be the airplane. can you endorse that speculation at this point? >> no not at all. just because you have two data points that are five months apart doesn't mean there's a straight line between the two of them. there isn't nearly enough known about the ethiopian accident and there isn't enough known yet about the lion air accident. >> i can only speak for the united states and this was certified in the united states. been flying, the basic certification model for six decades and -- >> well, help me understand that. that's an important distinction. so the united states is different in that it doesn't just have the airplanes within it's carrier fleet.

when you say they certify the airplane, what does that mean and what does that give you in terms of comfort? >> well, so the federal aviation administration certified the boeing 737 in the early 60s. boeing has upgraded it periodically with engines and glass cockpit and technology. >> have they certified the max 8? the one that went down? >> yes, they have. because it had newer engines slung differently on the wings and upgraded cockpit those differences were taken into account. >> so you want to know more about the pilots involved and less about the plane. why? >> i want to know about a lot of different things. not just the pilots. i want to know about the

mechanics. how was this airplane maintained. in order to find out how it died you have to find out how it lived. who touched it? who flew it? who put a wrench to it. i'm not saying that the design is off the table here but investigators look at everything. the man, the machine and the environment that the airplane flew in before it had the accident. >> and you're saying at least one of the pilots involved see some concern about what their credentials were. >> from what i heard in the press the first had 200 hours of flight time. the captain was experienced and the airline itself has a good reputation but that is one thing i picked up that i thought was unusual. >> boeing saying they're upgrading the software.

that's something that they didn't have to say. what does it mean that they're disclosing that? >> that's interesting. boeing talked about that after the lion air accident. because in the lion air accident, this system that is a software change to the older 737 is a point of interest so i guess they felt come petroleumed to say we're not ignoring the issue. it's a safe airplane and in fact we're learning from the first indonesian accident from five months ago and we're already enhancing the safety to sure that up in case it had anything to do with that accident. >> a little suspicious. you say you're upgrading something and the plane is falling out of the sky. the idea of the black box and

answers. when do you think we'll know? >> presumably they located both. that's good news. it depends on what shape they're in and where they decide to send them for the download of the data. all things being equal with no real destruction or damage, probably within the next 24 to 48 hours investigators should have a clue about what happened. >> good. forgive the lack of sophistication in this lack question but this is a time of year where people are flying their families. if they hear they're going to be on a 737 max 8 should they stay home? >> i wouldn't stay home. until the federal government says there's something unsafe about it. the flying publish should have confidence in it. >> you did the job.

thank you very much. >> be well. >> president trump spent his sunday on the links. surprise, surprise. we never had a president golf as much as he does and the only reason it matters is because of how he bashed president obama in saying he will be too busy to golf. nobody has ever golfed more. but, but, there is something that we have to tell you about about the president's golf that doesn't surprise me at all. but d.lemon, he's tickled. we'll tee it up, next. pardon the interruption but this is big! now with t-mobile get the samsung galaxy s10e included with unlimited data for just $40 a month.

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the way you triumph over adversity. and live your lives. that's why we redesigned humira. we wanted to make the experience better for you. now there's less pain immediately following injection. we've reduced the size of the needle and removed the citrate buffers. and it has the same effectiveness you know and trust. humira citrate-free is here. a little change can make a big difference. humira can lower your ability to fight infections. serious and sometimes fatal infections, including tuberculosis, and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems,

serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. ask your doctor about humira citrate-free. here's to you. >> all right. we all know how much this president loves golf. i have no problem with that. the hipocracy of him saying he would be too busy to play. people say he is good at the game. in fact, he wins tournaments. he has gold plaque that commemorate has triumphs. 2018 -- wait, 2018? he didn't play in the tournament last year. so what gives? turns out the president won in title in a gamble.

a reported 9 hole winner takes the title challenge against the real winner. the president was so proud of it, it seems, that he added it to his championship role. not a big deal but indicative of the man that we call our president. d. lemon. did he earn the title? >> yeah, the same way he earned the time magazine thing. >> the truth is often good enough. he won all those championships. why lie? you're already good. >> chris, we had this conversation. the good thing, look, i don't know, but i do know, i'll be honest, i do know some of his friends who have played golf with him and he says he doesn't cheat, they say something different. >> no, i've heard many people say that he cheats when he plays but i've never had anybody tell me he can't hit the ball and he

doesn't score well. they all say he plays to low handicap. but he just lies. even when you don't need to. >> it's consistent with his personality. he cannot help himself. it's his own reality and we were trying to figure out when we were talking about this, the guys in the studio said it was happy gilmore with the golf game because it was the boss but there was another movie -- >> the adam sandler movie? >> but there was another movie where there was an office tournament and they were like doing like sack races and whatever and at the end they were like what are you doing? you can't beat the boss and they tackled him at the end to throw it to the boss. >> definitely not caddie shack. >> i think that happened a lot here. >> >> i love when he says well, we're waiting. what a great movie. >> i'm looking somewhere something that someone sent to me about you -- no, no, no.

it says -- it's not bad. oh, glad to have you back. chris c. doesn't quite work without you. >> i said it must be bad. you said no. that's good? >> they were joking. they were joking. >> it certainly made you laugh. i definitely missed you, and i do love working with you. >> i know. i missed you too, and that's all people said. get back. i miss the chemistry between you and chris. chris is holding it down. it's good that he's there, but you got to come back. you got to come back. >> i love seeing you live your best life and all the creative ways you could use the dogs to hide your body. >> listen, you didn't have a point until about a week ago. i ate my way through vacation. it was so good. >> no, you look good. >> but speaking of, now that i'm back, so you know this r. kelly thing went down. >> yep. >> so you know the guy in the video where he stands up and he starts to yell and whatever, and the guy walks in, his crisis

manager, darryl johnson? >> yes. >> darryl johnson is on tonight. >> great guest. >> he's going to talk to us about what happened in this interview. also, there is some new news in the r. kelly story that he just gave to us, and he's going to give to us during this interview. >> very, very good. it is must-see tv. d. lemon. >> look at that. >> what are you going to show? >> that's my muscles. that's my vacation muscles right there. >> they got some cal amine lotion for that. you see his big head wobble. >> you are a you know what. see you? >> can't even see his ears. all right. some of the biggest stars over at state tv are taking another page right out of this president's playbook. i know. it's a shocker. they just can't say they're sorry tonight. here's what i don't get. why would you ever expect the trump train to want to take any blame? i have an argument for you that's so simple, anybody can make it. next. ♪

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♪ would you like it anyway? the latest inisn't just a store.ty it's a save more with a new kind of wireless network store. it's a look what your wifi can do now store. 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. so when the president started with the fake news b.s., i knew it was going to have an impact. this president has a keen ear for what to say to play on people's fears, to stoke anger. and people are very suspicious of many things, including the media. so i went out against it early. it was so damaging, so ugly and

intentional, such a slur, i said it was like the n-word for journalists. wrong. after i said it, family and friends started calling, reminding me of what i knew and screwed up. the n-word carries a legacy of violence and murder and prejudice that is so profound in disrespect that being called fake could never carry that. what i said was wrong and hurtful. and if i knew that, i should own it and apologize. i didn't hesitate. i apologized because my intention was to protect something that mattered, and this did the opposite. but i didn't want to disparage african-americans or the legacy of slavery, the opposite if anything. i didn't want to increase any divide. so that takes me to what's going on right now in the media, chasing after tucker carlson and pirro, the latest provocateurs on the trump train over at state tv. they should apologize for what they said about every minority group they could target collectively, though carlson is the main mouth.

apologize. are you kidding? they're not going to apologize. stop asking. they want to press the divide. they want to attack what most want to protect. and ironically, you give them attention for doing something wrong, and they use that attention to say it more. and ironically, use your negative attention to play the victim. big boy will say the left is coming at me. it isn't nice. at the same time he would strip away the sensitivity toward those who are actually victimized. hypocrisy often goes hand in hand with harshness. few bullies can withstand what they dish out to others. listen to what carlson says. he would vote for a presidential candidate who said, it's these lunatic muslims who are behaving like animals, and i'm going to kill as many of them as i can if you elect me. iraq is a crappy place filled with a bunch of, you know,

semi-literate primitive monkeys. the congressional black caution exists to -- he says this about a tv shoft. she seems extremely c-y. as for jeanine pirro, here's a tate. >> which according to the koran, 33:59, tells women to cover so they won't get molested. is her adherence to this islamic doctrine indicative of her adherence to sharia law, which in itself is antithetical to the united states constitution? >> you know what they're doing. this b.s. is currency for them. they get paid for this. the base likes their heroes to be base. they've seen this president make it to the white house by in part doing the same thing. a lot of this stuff coming up, at least about carlson, is from years ago when he was desperate for attention. here's the test. would he say the same things today? no, no.

he's too busy playing the victim. he'd only say that he was naughty, but he wouldn't repeat them tonight. why not? come on, big man. read the list of all the things that you said and do it again and show that you mean it. come on. you're not more about the money now than you are about the truth, are you? he says apologizing to the mob costs people their jobs. what a coward. why don't you repeat what you said if it's not such a big deal? you're not going to apologize. he's being treated unfairly by those criticizing the same. give me a break. see this guy and the others for what they are. if you mean it, own it. don't just protect your money and your fame or infamy in your case. apologize if you want, but that takes character. that is strength. that is integrity. own that you did something wrong. people who just say ugly things to get attention and jump up and down on the fault lines in our society, you don't have any of these virtues. you are a victim, though.

not of others. of yourself. know that. thank you for watching. "cnn tonight" with d. lemon starts right now. and i must say, you were one of my friends who said, n-word, fake, wrong. correct it, and i did. >> you remember that conversation? >> 100%. and you told me the right advice because you cared about me and you cared about me setting it straight. so i did exactly that because i cared about the impact. i cared about not being divisive when i was trying to do the opposite. that's not the case with these cats over there on state tv. they prey on the division. it's their currency. that's why he won't repeat the same things that he used to say, don. if he was what he says he is, a truth teller, not afraid of the lefty mob, you're not going to make me -- then he would say them again right now, but he won't, because he likes that money and he likes that platform he has. that's the truth. >> all you have to do is when you're listening to that, if you just do