chris? all right. anderson, thank you very much. i am chris cuomo and welcome to "prime time." the president said out loud on video tonight there is nothing wrong with taking dirt from russia on an opponent and he's open to doing so in 2020. he's also bucking his own fbi director about disclosing any foreign interference. so much for all those denials about any willingness to enable interference. we're going to get reaction in a moment from a candidate vying to go up against president trump next year. senator michael bennet from colorado is here. now another question, do admissions like this from the president provide even more ammo for impeachment? we're going to ask former democratic party leader howard dean. and is anyone really stunned to hear the president's latest declaration? when someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time. credit to maya angelou, but, boy, is he a living lesson in this regard. we have an argument for all you disbelievers. let's get after it.

here's what we know. russia attacked our last presidential election. mr. mueller says the trump campaign welcomed the help, and after all the denials, the president just said he would welcome any help again. >> should he have gone to the fbi when he got that email? >> okay, let's yourself in a position. you're a congressman, somebody comes up and says, hey, i have information on your opponent. do you call the fbi? >> if it's coming from russia you do. >> i've seen a lot of things in my life. i don't think i've ever called the fbi, in my whole life. you don't call the fbi. >> the fbi director says that's what should happen. >> the fbi director is wrong. >> your campaign this time around, if foreigners, russia, china, someone else offers you information on an opponent, should they accept it or call the fbi? >> i think you do both. i think you maybe want to listen. there is nothing wrong with listening.

if somebody called from a country, norway, we have information on your opponent, oh, i think i'd want to hear it. >> you want that kind of interference in our elections? >> it's not interference. they have information. i think i'd take it. >> while a lot of people are upset by what this president just said, it may be exactly what a lot of democrats needed to hear. we have a very fitting guest, one of the president's 2020 rivals, senator michael bennet of colorado. he's on the intel committee that met with don jr. today about exactly this issue. welcome to "prime time," sir. >> thank you, chris, for having me. >> what's your reaction? >> my reaction is that this is weak and pathetic. this is what he's been doing since the beginning of his presidency. even before he was president he said, wikileaks, if you're out there, send me the stuff. russia, if you're out there, send me the stuff. now he's actually president of the united states and he's effectively inviting foreign interference in our elections. he has never held putin responsible for what putin did.

and he stood next to putin and said i take his word for it. every single western democracy is under attack from russia and the president of the united states needs to be somebody who can stand up, not just for america but for our allies as well, and he's failed that test. again. >> does the statement from the president today shed light for you on what his motivations were and those around him during this 2016 campaign? a lot of which was captured in the mueller report. >> of course. he's a cheater. and what mueller showed is that, you know, he did everything he could to try to obstruct justice. he doesn't care how he wins as long as he does win. you know, i think more important than that, he doesn't care what's happening in the average lives of americans or what's happening to america's place in the world, which is a real tragedy. >> well, if it does inform your thinking about what his motivations were, and it sounds like if he was about this type of behavior, he was certainly abusing the office, why is it that you believe that impeachment is not the right move? >> well, i think we need to have

a process to lead us to a conclusion, and importantly to lead the american people to that conclusion. i've said for weeks that my reading of the mueller report is that he committed impeachable offenses but we have to have a public process so that we can air this out for america. >> but isn't that impeachment inquiry? i'm not pushing for it. i'm saying isn't that what you're saying without saying it because you're worried about the downside? >> well, i think we may have a semantic difference, so i'll accept your description of it for the purpose of this discussion, but i think that just as they did in watergate, we need to have a series of public hearings and then reach a conclusion and we need to manage this process in a way that does not inadvertently lead to the re-election of donald trump or make it easier for him to be re-elected. we can chew -- walk and chew gum at the same time, but we need to do both those things. if we impeach trump or don't impeach trump and that leads to, you know, the disaster of his being re-elected we will have failed at doing our job.

if we can do it and ensure that he only has one term then we've done our job well. >> when people in your party hear what the president said, you already have basically 2 out of 3 of them who feel that you guys already should have started an impeachment inquiry. are you concerned that they'll say, so, bennet and these other people who want to be my leader, they didn't want to do what we put them there to do, which is hold him accountable. they didn't want to do their job for whatever political analysis reason they have. why should i vote for him now? >> i think doing our job is making sure that donald trump is a one-term president. as i've said over and over again, i think he committed impeachable offenses and they should start a process. >> i'm with you. senator, it's an interesting analysis, you could argue and please feel free for push back, your job is not to make sure he's a one-term president. unless you run as the nominee and now it's your job because you're running for it. as congress it's not your job to make sure he's a one-term president. your job is to do the work of the people and the constitution

says to hold the executive to account. do you feel you guys are doing that right now? >> i think we absolutely need to do both, but i think we also need to understand that this government has been basically tyrannized by these guys called the freedom caucus and mitch mcconnell for the last ten years. we keep losing to these guys. we have a climate denier in the white house. we have a guy who doesn't believe in freedom of the press, the rule of law, an independent judiciary, who won't turn over stuff to the fbi he should turn over to the fbi. he's completely lawless unlike any other president we've ever had and we need to win in the end in order to not just beat trump, by the way, but to make sure that mcconnell and the freedom caucus can't immobilize our federal government. don't have a veto on climate. a veto on health care. a veto on guns. and we, to be honest, over the last ten years, i think, have been less strategic than they have been about how to deal with

this stuff and we keep losing to them as a result. >> so you see the danger from outside. how about the danger inside? bernie sanders certainly a formidable challenger for the ticket. he made a pitch today that he believes should define your party. here's a sample of it. >> dr. martin luther king said, and i quote, "call it democracy or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all of god's children." >> now, he can define it any way he want, and to be fair i invite the senator on the show all the time to have this discussion. it's up to him to take the invitation. but every time he says the word socialism, doesn't it trigger the same kind of cringe that hearing the president say i'm a nationalist does? it doesn't matter how you define it, the word has implications. >> it certainly does. martin luther king said it in the quote you just read, you can

call it democracy or you can call it socialism. let's call it democracy, american democracy. fdr never called himself a socialist. bernie sanders will never call himself a democrat. i think roosevelt was a democrat. i agree almost completely with bernie's diagnosis of the problem. i'll say it this way, there are 180,000 families in america that are the top 0.1%, they control the bottom 90% which is 90 million americans. we have the largest income inequality since 1928. as a former school superintendent i know our school systems are reinforcing the income inequality we have rather than liberating people from it. we have a serious channel on our hands. >> right. but it's about the solution, senator, and what the senator seems to suggest is give a lot more money to government and let them take care of these things and that scares a lot of people. >> yeah, so, i mean, i have a

proposal, for example, that would dramatically increase the child tax credit in america. it would reduce childhood poverty by 40% and it wouldn't add a single federal bureaucrat. my proposal to have a true public option instead of bernie's plan to take insurance away from 160 million people that have it, these are the things i think we can stand for, and when bernie says it's either trump or democratic socialism, that's a completely false choice. and to overcome mcconnell and to overcome the freedom caucus, what we need is a broad coalition of democrats, democrats, independents and republicans, and that means we need an agenda that appeals to the -- to the american people and unites the american people. why do we want to choose a vocabulary that divides people? >> right. >> we should unite people and we should talk about the issues bernie's talking about. you know, he's right about what he's saying about income inequality. >> right. but words matter, to your point, senator, and the words you use are going to define you, not

just the ideas behind them. let's do this. i make this promise to everybody who comes on who is in the race right now. as issues of the day come up that need to be addressed by those who want to lead us, we will reach out to your team to invite you on. the people who take the invitations are the people who get the time on the show. you will be invited back to talk about what matters to the american people. senator michael bennet from colorado, thank you. >> that's the important question, chris, not a debate about these labels. what matters to the american people, health care, jobs and climate. thank you for having me. >> 100%. be well. so, the president thinks he would take foreign help if offered it in 2020. and he would think twice about telling the fbi about it. could those words one day come back to haunt him? and by one day i mean soon. we're going to bring in a former deputy assistant attorney general. what is the law? what is right? next.

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>> yeah. >> that he didn't know that he was receiving value potentially wrongly from a foreign actor, but clearly his father doesn't help that case, does he? >> and, chris, in legal terms he barely escaped being indicted for this. so, no, his father -- his father doesn't, you know, doesn't help there. okay. so there is all the campaign finance violations. look, if you're using computers, there's wire fraud questions. if you know what you're doing and interacting with a foreign government, you start getting into the realm of espionage and national security offenses and then computer hacking and other sort of computer offenses, too. so there are a lot of things that are implicated when you start talking about taking the aid of a foreign government in our federal election system. and the president's just opening the door to that. look, i'd like to say it's shocking at this point. >> it's not shocking. be honest. it's not shocking. >> no, it's not. >> i don't know why anyone would pretend it is shocking. how many times does someone have to show you who they are and how they feel? let me ask you this. i need your help with this. george stephanopoulos says the fbi director says you're

supposed to report it. he says he's wrong. now interesting here, though, elliot, there is no law that says you must report it, but with the clearance and the office he has, there is a different responsibility. there is a nuance here. >> right. absolutely. let's use an instructive example from 2000 when the gore campaign just got a package on its front doorstep of not even foreign intelligence but about the bush campaign. they immediately called the fbi because something seemed kind of fishy about it. that's what you do and that's when you're behaving properly. >> the president did not see that as a proper analog. he dismissed it. >> here's the thing, someone spent a year in jail over that and we're not even talking about interacting with a foreign government. this was just a loyal american support who are apparently wanted to bring down george w. bush. the right thing to do here, even if there isn't a law on it, is to immediately notify the authorities. the question gets back to sound judgement, chris. >> something else i want you to switch hats for a second.

>> okay. >> now you're working as a lawyer for a congress member, okay? >> yeah. >> and they're on the fence about impeachment and you hear him say what he says today. how much fuel to the fire does that give to walking into their office and say what else do you need to hear on abuse of office? this informs about why he did and said what he did in the last election. you got to make a move. >> exactly. impeachable offenses don't require the reasonable doubt standard which is kind of what saved donald trump jr. if he's behaving poorly and abusing his constitutional oath, absolutely this becomes impeachable. look, the president seems to be sort of this walking obstruction of justice machine every time he opens his mouth. he's either obstructing justice or tiptoeing up to the bounds of what's lawful. and statements like this can absolutely come in, either in a criminal proceeding or in an impeachment proceeding as indicating his intent that this is what he intended to do back then. it's almost like an ongoing scheme that he continues to keep perpetuating.

i'd like to say the president ought to shut his mouth. i know we're not going to get that, but we can't expect sound judgement from this president anymore on any of this legal stuff, chris. >> well, let's see. it's been working for him so far. elliot williams, thank you very much for being with us to help us make sense of this. be very clear, i'm not saying to you or anybody else that the democrats should be impeaching, i'm saying that they should figure out what they think is the right thing to do and articulate it to you and then do it and stop going back and forth about what they're going to do and what the process should be to get to a point where they can make a decision. they need nothing else. they know what they need to know to make a choice on which way to go. they should do that. that's my point. now, the president didn't say he did take information from a foreign agent. remember that. because i see that getting spun the wrong way. he just said he would. so controversy or nontroversy? how big a problem politically is this for the right? and another question we're not going to escape tonight, is there a boogeyman for the left as well?

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we have van jones and rob astorino. van jones, this is a problem because? >> it's a problem because it sounds to me like the president of the united states is literally asking for foreign help. i mean, if you -- listen, he didn't learn anything. he was mad at the mueller report. hey, i'm being investigated for doing all this bad stuff, he's literally admitting to the stuff he would do right now, most of the stuff that caused the mueller report to happen in the first place. he's admitting right now that he's open for business for foreign governments. i just can't imagine how any self-respecting conservative republican would say this is great. i hate to say this, but if barack obama had said, hey, listen, let me know, anybody in the world, you got dirt on my opponents? i don't care where you're from, if you're from kenya, please, send me an email right now. there would have been tea party people marching in the streets by the millions. this is so far over the line, but i'm sure the republicans are going to shrug. and defend it.

>> do you defend it by taking it too far. exhibit a. >> kamala harris running for president just tweeted this, china's listening, russia's listening, north korea's listening. let's speak the truth. the president is a national security threat. rob astorino, reaction? >> oh, here we go. >> uh-oh, he's invoking the mother's name. never good. >> i thought you would like that one, cuomo. >> go ahead. >> hey, van, i have not heard, not today in anything i've read or seen on tv or listened on the radio, i haven't heard anything from for the democratic candidates about what the president might do. by the way, i think his comments were wrong. i don't think he should have said that and shouldn't do it. nobody should do it. but that's subjunketive, whether he would or wouldn't. we know definitively that a presidential candidate did do it because hillary clinton did -- and her campaign and the dnc

paid for a foreigner's information on her opponent. so it's already been done. and this is the double standard and hypocrisy that we're seeing today of the, oh, my god, he has to be impeached. we don't even have an investigation into how hillary clinton did this or why she did it and the democrats are saying don't do that investigation. >> van? >> i don't -- i cannot believe that it is 2019, almost 2020 and you guys are still on the what about hillary bandwagon. i'm not even going to -- >> let him answer, rob. >> it's central to the discussion we're having. >> here's the deal. hillary clinton's not president of the united states. >> it doesn't matter. >> it certainly does matter. >> nope. >> let me finish. come on, man. hillary clinton is not president of the united states. she did stuff on the campaign trail politically and otherwise that i disagreed with and criticized at the time. the problem is that where we are now is we're going into a new election cycle, and the president of the united states has a great opportunity to say -- to say, listen, i do not like

the mueller report. i don't like the way democrats have been behaving, but i'm going to be a guardian and defender of american democracy. i don't want interference. i don't want cheap tricks. i don't want information. let americans decide american elections. that would be a great opportunity. he is missing that opportunity and i think that, you know, i agree with what you just said. it's wrong for him to do that. i don't want to talk about hillary clinton anymore, but i want to talk about america's elections being at risk and more at risk than they were yesterday. >> let's be very honest. for all the talk about russian interference, the least energy has been spent on stopping it the next time and that is inexcusable. when people start wringing their hands, oh, no, it's happening again, neither side is doing anything about it. some are trying. klobuchar running for president tried to work with one of her republican colleagues. mcconnell wouldn't even put it on the floor. you know who didn't want to hear this today? >> who? >> don jr. that man avoided an indictment because mueller and his team believed he didn't know what he was doing was wrong, but this

president's admission, yeah, i know you think it's wrong but i don't and i take the information because that's how life works, if that had been said before, how do you think don jr. would be looking today? >> it's interesting, you know, you can disagree with the president, and i do on this. and i don't want -- i don't want the president, i don't want any of the 24 candidates running on the democratic side, a senate candidate, i don't want anybody to be tempted and to take information and to use it. but the president is right when he said you don't think they're going to or would? if one of the candidates -- let's just say somebody -- >> this is not -- >> hold on a second. >> this is not a viable argument. >> hold on a second, chris. >> the fact that people do things the wrong way does not justify our president condoning this. >> you're right. i'm not arguing with you on that one. if one of the candidates had the, quote, golden ticket. within that envelope is the information that will take down trump and make you president, please, if you don't think

they're going to open that envelope or leak it to the press, which is exactly what happened with hillary. >> hold on a second. al gore, you want to go back in history or whatever, al gore got information and turned it in. i mean, we do -- we do have people in our country who have an honorable track record. >> good for him. >> al gore got information that was ill-gotten and he turned it in. so i don't think we should say just as cuomo was saying, just because there are some people who have low, low standards. you can't raise kids that way. other kids would cheat. i guess if my kids cheat it's okay. >> i'm saying it's been done. >> that's the same thing as saying it's right. you're saying other people would do it. that's how it works. >> who did it was hillary clinton and nobody wants to have that discussion. >> it's just not apples to apples, rob. >> of course it is, chris. >> of course it is not. we don't have any proof that russia as a government came and said here's value for you on donald trump, and you can pay us for it if you like. we have the opposite proof,

which is that they came time and time again with things they thought would help trump and put it out there and his people around him were only too eager to try to get more of it. >> that's not what the mueller report said. >> it said exactly that. >> the mueller report said it was completely low-level people hardly connected to the campaign. >> his son. >> and nothing was gotten out of it. >> his campaign chairman. >> what mueller report did you read? >> no collusion is nowhere in the report. nowhere in the report. >> no conspiracy. no conspiracy. >> that's a big difference. >> case closed. >> because this behavior is collusive behavior. hey, yeah, let's work together. give me what you have. it's not a crime but it's wrong. van, your point? >> i don't know what mueller report you read. let me just say a few more things since we're talking about it. i have actually -- was impressed to hear biden over the past couple of days trying to remind americans of what the standard is supposed to be. how we're supposed to act. i've almost gotten acclimated to all this nonsense and crazy stuff. i got a little bit verklempt listening to -- guys, it matters how we are.

he said the thing about -- i'm not a big biden fan so i'm trying to give him some credit. he said it's not the example of our power, it's the power of our example, and i think that's true. the power of the example of the president to tell the whole world, to tell children and students who are listening right now, hey, listen, yeah, i might tell the fbi, but first i want to get the dirt. that's just how the world works. he's making the world worse by saying that. he's driving down the standards by saying that. >> all right. we got to end it there, van. >> he's not just adapting to the standards, we're actually adapting downward because of those things. and they're wrong. >> here's the good news, the people are going to decide what they want the standard to be. that's what an election is about. congress has a john to do, too, if they believe they have enough to hold someone to account, that's their job, not to figure out what the best political process is for. they'll do their job, the american people will do theirs. hopefully we'll get somewhere soon. van jones, rob astorino, appreciate the arguments, as always. >> thanks, chris. all right. to impeach or not to impeach, look, for people who are sitting on the fence, what the president said tonight did him no favors

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the president's got no qualms about foreign help. that's clear and it always has been. the democrats, though, have plenty of qualms about impeachment, and rightly so. my next guest knows plenty about running for president and the political implications of this. howard dean, welcome back, sir. >> thank you for having me on. >> always a pleasure. need the insight. >> what a night. >> what a night, indeed. look, as i was saying, much to the chagrin of my team, i'm not surprised by this. how many times does somebody have to show you who they are? his son is lucky the president didn't say this when mueller was still looking at him, because i think it would have hurt the argument that don jr. had no idea that having this kind of meeting and taking this kind of information was wrong. obviously that would have been a tough thing to do because they would have needed to know the facts before they had the conversation.

what i'm asking you is this, for the democrats that are on the fence, what else do they need to hear to make a decision about what they think is doing their duty here? >> the way i look at it is, what's the easiest way to get rid of trump? what's the most likely way to get rid of trump? if you think mitch mcconnell is going to put his country ahead of his power, you are wrong. so we are not going to remove trump from office by impeachment at this point. now, could we build a case? yes, i think adam schiff and jerry nadler are trying to build a case. >> isn't that their job? >> to build a case? sure. that's what they are trying to do. >> aren't you supposed to do the job out of conscience and not consequence? >> i think you're supposed to do the job -- i think you're supposed to do the best job you can to be the most successful you can, and right now building the case is much more important than prosecuting the case because we can't win with a right-wing senate that is in the grip of donald trump and not the people of the united states of america. >> but don't you win if you

bring out the truth, not just in the pages of the mueller report, because let's be honest, people aren't going to read it, but giving them the faces and showing them the places that make clear and plain what was done and what wasn't done. >> and that's actually exactly what they're doing. they're going through this process to get trump and his cronies in front of the judiciary committee to answer questions. >> right. but the way they're doing it now, they're getting stymied all over the place because they're not at maximal power. >> they're not at maximal -- so your argument is they should start impeachment proceedings so that they can be at maximal power. we don't know that. >> my argument is if that's what they think their job is they should do that and stop not doing it because they're worried about the political consequences. whether they do it or not is their call. >> i look at it a different way. >> please. >> their job is to get rid of donald trump who is a threat to the nation, the best way to do that is the best way to do that. you might be ready to proceed with impeachment proceedings, it's not going to work.

let's build the case carefully so that the american people can get rid of him a year from november. >> all right. you have that case. now you have another case being made, what are the strengths and weaknesses of democrats. bernie sanders is out there explaining what democratic socialism. let me be very clear to the bernie bros and sisters about -- i invite the senator to come on and have this debate what it is and what it should be called and what it means. he has to take the information. all i can do is offer it. every time he says the word socialism, it's bad for your party and he keeps saying it, tries to define it. it's like how people get upset when the president calls himself a nationalist. it is a word that is tainted. >> chris, i don't agree, and i'll tell you why. we get 70% of the under 35 vote, we get the vast majority of people of color and we get most women and i don't think socialism is going to have one effect on our base. i believe that stacey abrams has the right strategy here. the best way to win elections in

this era is to get your base out and vote very heavily, which is what trump's doing on the other side. so i don't think the word socialism matters to anybody who wasn't around before the soviet union collapsed. i think it's a meaningless word. yes, the right-wing oldsters are using it. their base thinks it's not meaningless. that's not our base. >> if you get the same people out in the same places last night, you lose again. thinking about those people who you could peel off from who you didn't get the last time? >> i actually don't think so, chris. i don't think it's about peeling off the people in the so-called middle of the spectrum. it would be nice to get them and i think they're probably sick of trump so we may get them. the way we're going to get this is the way we picked up 15 seats in virginia and 40 seats in the house, hopefully soon to be 41 in north carolina, by getting out our base. getting out our base. we have to excite the base. >> all right. one more question that goes to this idea of the base and what that means. left versus center-left, as you

know, i don't have to tell you, you're the guru, 80% of your party identifies as center-left. that making joe biden more appe appealing. so, political correctness. i had bill maher on last night. no friend of the president. likes to caucus with the democrats but will call you out when he needs to. he says political correctness is killing you guys. the heart of this country doesn't want to walk on eggshells. here's how he explains it. >> i think a lot of this far-left political correctness is a cancer on progressivism. i don't think you can under -- overestimate how much people have been choking on political correctness and hate it. >> your take? >> what is political correctness? >> well, to him it would be defined, without speaking for the man, as hyperattention to what is said and what is done through a lens of punishment that is beyond what is practical. >> i think i still don't

understand, but i will say that our party won 40 seats in the last election, five of them were extremely smart, thoughtful women who are on the left. the other 35 were people in the middle of the country in places like oklahoma and texas, orange county, california, middle -- middle of pennsylvania. our party is moving towards the center. it's the country that is moving towards the left. average person in this country thinks medicare for all is a really good idea. now, we can get into the details of which plan they prefer, which is never a good idea during an election. >> well, they think getting coverage is great, but it's about what it costs, you know, that is going to have to be debated and ultimately negotiated. >> that's true. i actually think the key is actually, i mean, medicare's a much less expensive system than private health insurance. i think the issue is can you get people to give up their private health insurance? i think if you try that, they're going to say no. you have to give them the choices of that. >> public option. >> public option is the way to

go there. i'm not going to get into this argument with all the different people running for president. they're all going to have their same idea. i think our party's in decent shape. i think we need a strong nominee who isn't going to be obsessed with donald trump. the one way we can lose this race is if a year from september, we're talking about donald trump, we're going to lose. trump will make himself the issue. we have to talk about health care, the economy and things that really matter to average people. >> right. and i think maher's point was remember when obama talked about the republicans and said they have a circular firing squad. that's what he's talking about with political correctness, if your own party is attacking each other over smaller and smaller issues. >> that's true. i totally agree with that. >> that's where i think he's going. howard dean, let me tell you, i love to try to test the boundaries of where things are, and you are great at explaining to the audience why the party sees things the way it does. thank you, sir. >> thanks, chris. all right. speaking of political correctness, it seems it may have, may have affected keanu

reeves in an interesting way and it's actually working in his favor. i'll explain with d. lemon next. ♪ ♪ acqua di giò. absolu. the new sensuality. giorgio armani. what's going on? it's the 3pm slump. should have had a p3. oh yeah. should have had a p3. need energy? get p3. with a mix of meat, cheese and nuts.

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star for decades, but now the internet has found a new reason to put him in the spotlight. he's posing with women without actually touching them. the first fan to point it out joked, quote, keanu ain't taking no chances, a likely reference to the me too movement. kind of. although that shouldn't be seen as a negative thing inherently. d. lemon, is this about reeves being hyper-pc? is he afraid of me too or is he just being respectful? >> i think it's the first. i think it's, you know, it's tough to say, but i do think that there are people who will approach you and set you up or realize later that they can get some money from you or harm your career, and i think that he is being careful. i've worried about it. you don't? >> i do worry about people doing things that are wrong. i don't worry about me too

because i see me too as a good thing. i know you do also. the idea of -- the reason we needed it, the reason you need political correctness -- >> i'm not talking about the real allegations. >> that's right. that's what i'm saying. we need those things because for too long things have gone unanswered and people have been silenced and victimized, but you do have the opposite extreme of that, people seeing it as an opportunity. now, he hasn't said why he's doing it. could be that he's not so crazy about touching people. it could be a lot of different things. >> yeah, well, even now i've started to ask people, you know, they'll come up to me and say can i get a selfie, i'll say may i hug you? it's weird. you know me. you're worse than me. you're a bigger hugger and kisser than i am, right? >> it's true. >> it is true. sometimes i'm like, chris, stop. >> no, you've never said that. ever. >> we're being serious here. i think -- i think -- i commend him because what he's doing is lowering the possibility of a false allegation, which -- which

would diminish the importance of the real allegations, the people who come forward with legitimate allegations. >> that's good. good take. >> so i think that's a good thing that he's doing. whether it's doing it because he doesn't like to touch people or he doesn't want to be part of that. because even just an allegation can be career ending. just an allegation. >> no question. let me tell you this. let's end on a positive. do you know how old he is? 54. he looks amazing. >> yeah, i wish i had those genes. >> wow, he looks really good. >> he's a year older than me. hey, listen, i have the former general counsel for the fbi on who's going to talk to us about all this -- should you go -- he's going to talk to us about the president's comments. was he right or was he wrong? >> you need the analysis though so people get it. thank you very much, pal. talk to you in a second. look, if a foreign adversary

wants to help president trump win reelection, he thinks he would take the help. totally unabashed about admitting it today. why are you surprised by this? why is the internet bubbling up with can you believe it? can you believe it? listen, i have an argument for you. just, please, give it a listen and let's know what is obvious, next.

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hey! i live on my own now! i've got xfinity, because i like to live life in the fast lane. unlike my parents. you rambling about xfinity again? you're so cute when you get excited... anyways... i've got their app right here, i can troubleshoot. i can schedule a time for them to call me back,

it's great! you have our number programmed in? ya i don't even know your phone anymore... excuse me?! what? i don't know your phone number. aw well. he doesn't know our phone number! you have our fax number, obviously... today's xfinity service. simple. easy. awesome. i'll pass. all right. so let's just be clear about this. the president said he would take information from russia or china about an opponent in the next election. here it is. >> your campaign this time, if foreigners, if russia, if china, if someone else offers you information on an opponent, should they accept it or call the fbi? >> i think you might do both. i think you might want to listen. there's nothing wrong with listening. if somebody called from a country, norway, we have information on your opponent, oh, i think i'd want to hear it. >> you want that kind of interference in our elections?

>> it's not an interference. they have information. i think i'd take it. >> i think he's right. i think he would take it. why is it always norway with him? but are you really surprised? when reminded that his fbi director said he should alert authorities, he said the fbi head was wrong. you saw the mueller report conclude that his campaign knew that russia was trying to help and was eager to get that help, right? nowhere in the report does it say no obstruction, or no collusion. but it does say that about his campaign wanting the help. it also says that the favorable response to the offer of information from russians almost got his son charged with campaign finance violations. he was in front of the senate intel committee about that again today. so why would this president say this? because he thinks he can, period. remember, you who support the president, you acknowledge in polls he's got low credibility, low integrity. this is not about ignorance either, he's plenty smart and even more savvy.

the truth is, he does not care about your rules. he never has. housing, laws, contracts, taxes, he does not play by your rules and he doesn't think what he is doing is wrong because he is doing what he thinks is right for him. that's his one rule. do what is good for me. the sooner you get that the sooner you'll get that what he is saying today, while arguably an endorsement of illegal behavior and certainly wrong, none of that affects his judgment about what he should say and do. that's why the best he could muster about whether to follow the law or his own interests when it comes to information from a foreign power the best he'd come up with was i guess you'd do both, meaning do the right thing and the wrong thing. and of course as we all know you can't do both.

he knows that too. we've seen his role for himself so many times. pay people, admit it, lie, always, to anyone about anything you need to. attack institutions. courts, fbi, if they don't give him what he wants, sure. what about broader implications? broader than his concern for his own interests? doesn't exist. show his taxes? forget it. they're going to have things that will make him look less than he says he is. security clearance procedures, please, he wants his family in there and he'll do what he can to get it. forget proper channels. russia interfered. do something about securing the next election. why? he thinks it's bad for him. makes him seem illegitimate. insult opponents like they were on the opposite side of a bar rooting for the wrong team. of course. decorum, irrelevant if it's in his way.

he wants to win. he knows the way to win is by showing the other guy or woman is a bum. remember the scene from when he was first in office? pushed the prime minister of montenegro out of the way. of course it was rude. he doesn't care. he wanted to be in front. how many times does he have to show you who he is? today me may have said the wrong thing at the right time. because he basically said that he would do something, accepting value during a campaign from a foreign source, and while that might not be a crime if he did it, it certainly shows a willingness to abuse his office. it may shed light on what he knew was right and wrong in the last election and why he said and did what he did to arguably stop the truth about it from coming out. and why does that matter? because there are a whole lot of democrats, i would suspect, who will take that as a challenge to

try to stop him. and he may have just given a lot of people on the fence a motivation to jump on to one side. thank you for watching. "cnn tonight" with d. lemon starts right now. >> so you said it might not be illegal. i just want to read it to you. you're an attorney. this is a federal elections commission, a law on foreign interference in u.s. elections and it says commission regulations prohibit foreign nationals from directing, dictating, controlling or directly or indirectly participating in the decision-making process of any person with regard to any election-related activities. >> that's a lot of legalese in there. the basic rule is they can't give you anything of value for your campaign, and information can be of value. i'm saying it may be illegal because, i've got to see the quid pro quo, see what the information is, i've got to know if it was of value. what i'm saying is the president made it clear that he's open for business, and that is an abuse of his office and that is something that is worthy of being look