don: i agree with that 100%. betty: you said it. [laughter] don: i will.tiyear seen is xi's power.on into peopleoval of a lot of that he has accused of corruption could well be true, but at the end of the day, the consolidation of power reminds me a little bit of the guy in singapore and maybe mao in the prc. it works really well when they make the right decisions and it works badly when they make the wrong decisions. it is a long-term concern to me form of government is changing rather rapidly. haidi: i don't how that would be considered -- i see your point. it is a net positive. if you don't care about the shift away from collective governance, it is policy for investors. don: exactly. it is a good news, bad news story. dictatorships are good if they do everything right. dictatorships are horrible because there is no one to tell them if they did something wrong. in a country the size of china, it has been historically impossible for one person to run china. if we are moving in that direction, there will be concerns, not in the next 12 to 18 months but lo

time to hand it over to don lemon. "cnn tonight" begins now. see you tomorrow. >>> this is "cnn tonight." i'm don lemon. here we go again. another night of one big breaking news story after another. first on the russia investigation, james comey's memos about his conversations with president trump have been turned over to congress tonight. and cnn has obtained a copy. those memos are, of course, a key part of robert mueller's investigation. a potential obstruction of justice. and they are full of fascinating details. we're going to go through them page by page for you, and we will bring you all of it tonight. >>> then, there's the president adding a big name to his legal team, i'm talking about rudy giuliani, after one legal "a" lister after another turned him down. now giuliani tells cnn he's coming on to help push the mueller investigation to an end, according to him, that end could come in a matter of weeks which seems a wee bit optimistic but it's exactly what president trump wants to hear. >>> also today, james comey telling cnn's jake tap

>> reporter: well, don, the me

i'm don lemon. here's our breaking news. sources telling cnn president trump is now considering firing deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. the only man who stands between the president and robert mueller. firing rosenstein is something that could put trump in saturday night massacre territory. but officials say even that may not be enough for a furious president. i want you to listen to this exchange from today's white house briefing. >> does this president believe he has the power to fire special counsel robert mueller? >> certainly believes he has the pow tore do so. we've been advised that the president certainly has the power to make that decision. >> so the president believes he has the power to fire mueller. even though the code of federal regulations clearly states only the attorney general has that power. but this may be even more important. sarah sanders says the white house has been advised that the president has the power to fire mueller. so it's not just something he's threatening to do, he's looking for guid

don jr.acted by wikileaks and papadapoulos just contacted about this information and just too cute avenue coincidence and i ask what was the interview process for the campaign. was the basic question do you know how to get legal information or know somebody who does rather than policy experience. >> all of the best people. >> right. >> yeah. was that chris? >> that was me. i was just going -- one quick thing to sam's point which is what you have to remember is that foreign policy national security team was thrown together very slap dash because donald trump was being questioned over and over again on who he had that had any experience as he became -- looked more like the nominee or could be the nominee and he thrust these people together. >> he was at the first five campaign foreign policy adviser. >> and these are people that i don't think were vetted. i think it is hard to go back and remember. but donald trump went from zero percent chance of being the nominee suddenly to, hey, wait a minu

so, again, don, this is really a last straw. one of the only things they can talk about is james comey's credibility because the president's also very much on the line and there's utter silence here about that. >> the former director of the fbi. writing a book like this. i can't -- i mean, who would have thunk? so let's get to the bookmark. this is an excerpt on tbtained the associated press. comey writes about his first meeting with trump after the election and was surprised by the president-elect that he didn't ask -- trump was -- what he didn't ask. trump was just briefed about the russia interference. here's what he said. "they were about to lead a country that had been attacked by a foreign adversary, yet they had no question about what the future russian threat might be." so, mark, comey then says that they -- they want to figure out a way to spin that, what they just learned. what do you make of the president's early indifference to russia's interference? >> we're certainly not shocked. i think anybody who was hearing wha

we work in the news, don.ory in this country that we forget things very quickly. what happens in a year? what happens in five years. >> you said you wanted to wait to see what starbucks would really do before you cast judgment. so now you see they're closing every single u.s. store on may 29th to educate employees about racial bias. i said to him in one afternoon, i applaud you for doing something. but young this is the real deal? >> it's just got to be the first step. it sounds good, it's a good headline. i'm not saying it's the right thing to start. blooe me, the journey he had in that interview with you where he started to cry. those men were in jail for almost nine hours. forget about that, forget about me, somebody sent a video earlier that went out saying they couldn't use the bathroom at a starbucks in torrance, california. and people have been coming to me with things that happened at starbuc starbucks, other coffee shops. they were acting like that man and that manager made one bad decision. it's a co

here's the thing, don. we know there's going to be some overlaps between the criminal probe that may be happening in new york and the civil action in california. a judge knows that any defendant who is reasonable will try to ensure that they will not implicate themselves further by giving testimony in the criminal case, or the civil case in a way it's going to hurt them in the long run in the other case. so they may be much more empathetic in this case. however, you are unique in this position because right now there actually is civil case happening in california. there's not even an indictment yet in new york. but i think the judge is going to look at these issues and say, well, if you're not going to have a productive case in the civil matter until you're -- you have it more flushed out to the criminal side, let's stall a little bit for the sake of the economy of the court. and that may be a very strong argument to make. >> jack, let me ask you because there's a special master and then it was ruled that t

>> don, don. i'm just going to be real honest. the president took an oath of office in january 2017, january 20th, actually. he was supposed to defend the constitution. and part of the constitution is that first amendment, freedom of the press. and i don't see the defense. i don't see him defending. i see him attacking. and the tone has been set by this white house that has caused so many to say, oh, we don't like the press, it's death threats or they go after us. we are doing what we have been doing. we're not supposed to be in the president's camp. we're supposed to look objectively at issues. we're supposed to question. that's our job. we're not saying yea or nay. we're asking questions. >> brian, i know you want to weigh in, when the president declared the free press the enemy of the people. talk to us about that. >> he's defended his actions. and tells us we're the enemy of the people. and most of the time we're only reporting what it is that he's actually said. or when he said something like, you know, when he lied about the

>> yes, it is, don. that is accurate. the fact reince priebus who was the chief of staff designate, that was on the 6th of january, during our briefing in trump tower. even before we left the room, he's starting to draft a public release on the briefing and wanted to make the point that what we said was the russian interference had no impact on the outcome of the election, which was just not true. and we had to remind him of that a couple of times, and we really couldn't say that. what we did say in our report is that we saw no evidence of meddling with voter tallies, which is quite different. and that's not to say there wasn't meddling. we just didn't have any evidence of it. but it was way beyond the charter, capabilities, and the authority of the intelligence community to gauge what impact russian meddling had on the electorate. but they were concerned about this, and the president-elect, and boy, he's been consistent about this ever since. it's all about casting doubt on the legitimacy of his election, and that's the

that's like telling these neo-cons there is no god go ahead don. look we know that first of all there have been battles on the ground in syria behind between pentagon backed your hobbies and. langley back jihadi s. so you know there are competing american interests on the ground of syria that's the point and they are merely a manifestation of competing interests in washington or in washington in langley or whatever that you know that were more or less bundled together for the period from one thousand nine hundred five perhaps all the way up until last year and that's started to come on ravel i think trump represents a distinct tendency against the trend that prevailed before and i think what we're seeing in korea for example is you know a manifestation of that and i think a recognition of it on the part of pyongyang and to beijing you know we have to remember what happened japan occupied korea up as far the into the peninsula as it could the united states conquer japan the no other word for it unconditional surrender and essentially just occupied t

this isn't even a subpoena, don. this is just a letter on his stationary saying give us this report. he knows will never get it. but it's his way of keeping the story in the news and keeping us talking about it. because there is some concern that this matter may be sent to private arbitration. and he won't be able to talk with it. >> are we getting to a point? >> he is trying to get out as much as possible. >> are we getting to the point the daniel's team needs to show us the money? >> she went on "60 minutes" and told us about the one sexual encounter and gave us a lot of information. but we are getting to the point where the matter is referred back to private arbitration and not hearing much about it. so they're going to share as much and keep this story in the news as long as they can. >> okay. >> that's a lawyer's job. i'm not faulting him for that. but i don't think he has any reasonable expectation of getting that report. >> there is a new development in the karen mcdougal case, the "national enquirer" parent c

flanagan he is president of flanagan consulting and a former congressman and in new york we cross to don de bar he is an anti-war activist and host of the daily radio program all right cross talk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate hillary let me go to you. because my introduction i mean there seems like an enormous amount of continuity in american foreign policy particularly in this century i mean i mean if i didn't know better i would i could assume if i didn't know who the president was based on the campaign it would have would be hillary clinton in office right now is much is that terribly disappoints me because that was the only reason why i even took an interest in donald trump because he said something different and now i guess he's gotten in line go ahead hillary in washington. since the end of the cold war there has been bipartisan consensus for an incredibly interventionist u.s. foreign policy to consolidate the sole superpower nature of u.s. power in the wake of the cold war you know i worked in the clinton white house the nation

>> you know, don, it's hard to tell. again, from what i said before because we don't know all the facts. and so at the end of the day it's hard to know and you really can't know what all the facts are and what the implications of the president's statements will be to the case. and i think jack and laura will agree with me that at the end of the day that most formal federal prosecutors and defense lawyers we typically try to impress upon our clients that when there's an ongoing criminal investigation the thing to do, the best course is not to say anything because we don't know what the government knows. we don't know the scope of their investigation. so i think at this stage it's hard to tell what the impact of those statements are either way. >> laura, you know, you don't have to know michael cohen. you can have the sound down and see he's under pressure. i think as he was leaving his hotel and heading to kourlt. it's been said he said he would take a bullet for this president. but according to the wall street journal tr

don. >> sarah, thank you very much. and you just heard keith davidson talk about several conversations he had michael cohen. when we come back could either stormy daniels or karen mcdougal use the conversations in their suits? internet providers promise business owners a lot. let's see who delivers more. comcast business offers fast gig-speeds across our network. at&t doesn't. we offer more complete reliability with up to 8 hours of 4g wireless network backup. at&t, no way. we offer 35 voice features and solutions that grow with your business. at&t, not so much. we give you 75 mbps for $59.95. that's more speed than at&t's comparable bundle, for less. call today. >>> a strange twist as we saw the former lawyer for stormy daniels and karen mcdougal. i want to talk about the author of make it rain. also defense attorney joe tacapino is here. thanks for dressing up, joe. >> after 11:00 no ties. >> listen, we heard from sarah side ner who spoke with keith davidson, the broker of the hush deals between stormy daniels and kar

i hand it over to don lemon. 360 will be back tomorrow. >>> this is "cnn tonight." i'm don lemon. the magnitude of this day is unbelievable. it is historic. it is a moment when our country is on the brink. on the brink of what could turn into a constitutional crisis and potentially on the brink of military acts in syria. a furious president trump surrounded by grim-faced military leaders in what was planned to be a meeting of syria, his arms folded, blasting the fbi raid today on his personal attorney michael cohen. >> i just heard that they broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys, good man, and it's a disgraceful situation. it's a total witch hunt. i've been saying it for a long time. i've wanted to keep it down. we've given, i believe, over a million pages' worth of documents to the special counsel. >> so let me be absolutely clear about this. the president is absolutely wrong. nobody broke into michael cohen's office. and nobody, not even the president, is above the law. a dozen fbi agents armed with search warrants legally seized documents from cohen's office, hi

the mayor and the don of odessa were never charged.ind out the gang had links to another european city. london is one of the biggest financial markets in the world. that's one reason it attracts an estimated £90 billion of dirty money each year. corrupt individuals cannot steel public funds unless they have a getaway vehicle and a safe place to stash their stolen loot. anonymous companies are the getaway vehicle and uk assets such as property are the safe haven. the place they can hide their funds. london property is a good place to hide dodgy cash. it is seen as a safe investment and there are few checks. transparency international says there are 40,000 properties were the identity of the owner is hidden. not even the land registry knows who owns these homes and money—laundering of suspicious funds is a huge problem. we found a £4.2 billion worth of property in london alone that is owned by people with suspicious wealth. most of the properties are within three miles of buckingham palace so kensington and chelsea really is at the heart

thank you so much. >> thanks, don. >> thank you, don. >> that's it for us tonight, thank you for watchingtomorrow. it's really not very important. i was in the stone ages as much as technology wise. and i would say i had nothing. you become a school teacher for one reason, you love kids. and so you don't have the same tools, you don't always believe you have the same... outcomes achievable for yourself. when we got the tablets, it changed everything. by giving them that technology and then marrying it with a curriculum that's designed to have technology at the heart of it, we are really changing the way that students learn. and i can't wait for ten years from now when i get to talk to them again and see, like, who they are. ♪ ♪ most people come to la with big dreams. ♪ we came with big appetites. with expedia, you could book a flight, hotel, car, and activity all in one place. ♪ if you'd have told me three years ago... that we'd be downloading in seconds, what used to take... minutes. that guests would compliment our wifi. that we could video conference... and do it like that. (snaps) if

>> don, they are indeed. slightly unusual, two separate statements coming from the president himself and the first lady as well, even though other presidents, the clintons and the obamas issued one statement. let's take a look at a couple of these statements, first from president trump who is having a dinner this evening with japanese prime minister shinzo abe at his mar-a-lago resort. in part the statement reads this. mrs. bush was an advocate of the american family. among her greatest achievements was recognizing the importance of literacy as a fundamental family value that requires nurturing and protection. she will long be remembered, he says, for her strong devotion to country and family, both of which she served unfailingly well. also another statement, as i said, from the first lady, melania trump, issuing her own statement to a former first lady. it says in part this. throughout her life, she put family and country above all else. her dedicated service to the american people was matched only by her co

don. >> sarah, thank you very much.ou just heard keith davidson talk about several conversations he had michael cohen. when we come back could either stormy daniels or karen mcdougal use the conversations in their suits? >> vo: they're getting more out of life by starting with miracle-gro potting mix and plant food. together, guaranteed to produce three times the harvest. more to enjoy... to share. three times the harvest. one powerful guarantee. miracle-gro. ♪ ♪ ♪ raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens ♪ ♪ bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens ♪ ♪ brown paper packages tied up with strings ♪ ♪ these are a few of my favorite things ♪ ♪ ♪ if you'd have told me three years ago... that we'd be downloading in seconds, what used to take... minutes. that guests would compliment our wifi. that we could video conference... and do it like that. (snaps) if you'd have told me that i could afford... a gig-speed. a gig-speed network. it's like 20 times faster than what most people have. i'd of said... i'd of said you're d

alexander angert, aka the don of odessa. a previous conviction for murder. translation: he was the boss of the criminal society, which operated in odessa, and was particularly active in the corruption of local politicians. you won't find many investigators of organised crime more expert than the italian police here in rome. but there was a problem — the evidence that they'd accumulated was not evidence of crimes being committed here in italy. so the prosecutor told them they couldn't go ahead. the mayor and the don of odessa were never charged. but police found out the gang had links to another european city. london is one of the biggest financial markets in the world. that's one reason it attracts an estimated £90 billion of dirty money each year. the fact is, corrupt individuals cannot steel public funds unless they have a getaway vehicle and then a safe place to stash their stolen loot, right? and anonymous companies are the getaway vehicle and uk assets such as property are the safe haven, the place where they hide their

>> don, i think that's a bit ironic.ident himself and kanye west is talking about love, et cetera, that should come from the person at the top. i remember when donald trump was running for president, if you remember the african-american protesters who were attacked by individuals who were going to trump rallies and guess what, the president encouraged those attacks when there were protesters who protested rallies on the outside. he encouraged law enforcement to use force against those individuals. this is the same president who has stereotyped minorities from africa, from south america. he's stereotyped african-american communities and muslims. so when you talk about love be and y -- and you talk about empathy, he should direct that towards donald trump and not the people who criticize trump and all he stands for. >> remember, there are good people on both sides. should ever on all sides be heard? hitler, we should hear, all sides. george wallace, we need to hear all sides, the head of the kkk, we need to hear all sides.

>> reporter: it does seem to be that way, with don. i think that's what's so smart about this "new york times" reporting, is we've been saying so much, how close he and michael cohen truly are, how cohen is like an attack dog for the president, clearly very loyal. but that relationship hasn't always been 50/50. "the new york times says the president has been very dismissive of cohen, insulting, even threatening to fire him at some points. and it seems as though their entire relationship, president trump has had leverage over michael cohen, but now the tables could be turning in that. and that is what the president's legal team and his advisers fear here. because, of course, they know that michael cohen knows a lot about the president. he's being investigated for his business dealings, a lot of which have to do with president trump, of course. and this is someone who has a why have, he has two kids, he's facing a serious amount of legal fees, potential criminal charges, and they think it's not out of that far of a possibility that he co

don, this is not any more about a political party. who very, very recklessly is trying to run over the rule of law and move and clear out of his way anyone investigating him. we should never tolerate that whether that's a democrat or republican. >> in the short time we have left, i want to talk about this fbi raid on michael cohen. looking into the "access hollywood" tape, what's your reaction to that and what questions do you have about it? >> to me, as it relates to the russia investigation, i think it demonstrates just how far mr. cohen will go to protect the president. and so it makes me wonder, you know, for the hours that we interviewed him, was he being straightforward about his role in setting up a trump tower in moscow? whether he was straightforward about the e-mails that he exchanged with felix sader, a russian-american associated with donald trump and said that as early as 2015, let's get donald trump and vladimir putin together, we can engineer this and make our boy president. there's a lot of questions that now i wonder,

don was an open book.e was a great teacher, and he taught so much of what he learned from murrow and fred friendly, the president who did fire him. they did not like each other at all. it was an amazing thing because i think don because he got fired and realized it and eventually talked everybody into this new program, spent the rest of his career trying to hammer into us the things he learned from them. that is 35 years running 60 minutes, and that is a significant part of who we are and why we have succeeded i believe because those same standards and values he learned from them that he hammered into us over those years, we still live by. we have not compromised them a bit. he was fun. the program is fun. he was serious. the program is serious. i think that among the things that mattered the most is that he taught the most is that we cover what is important, and that is primarily our role in the world. to cover what is important and make it interesting. and a fundamental difference that we carry on to thi

don, i have a very sophisticated district.dged base upon at i have supported including this piece of legislation. >> are you hearing about the russia investigation from your constituents and if so, what are they telling you? >> i am. i hold town hall meetings regularly and my constituents want to get to the bottom of how the russians were involved in tampering with our elective process and that is unconscionable and we want to make sure it does not happen again. we need to make sure that the sanctity of the voting booth is preserved in this country. there should be no votie ining in this country and secertainlyo tampering by a foreign power, especially the russians. >> let me ask you, is the president a liability for you or other moderate republicans come the midterms? >> i support the administration when i can, but i have opposed both the health care bill and the tax bill and i want the russian investigation to continue and i will be judged based upon my views. i have been a republican throughout my entire adult life. i'm a p

i'm don lemon. we're back with our breaking news tonight.rdering strikes on the syrian regime's chemical weapons facilities in coordination with france and the united kingdom in response to a chemical weapons attack last weekend. lest bring in now cnn's chief national security correspondent mr. jim sciutto. thanks for joining us. again, a lot of information came out from the pentagon briefing tonight. what stood out most to you? >> well, it appears we've been aware all week long there's been a debate inside the administration. you had some in the administration apparently the president included who were pushing more for a sustained military response, to distinguish this response from last year's which even the administration grants did not change the assad regime's behavior. they continued to use chemical weapons. so a debate between a camp saying we need a more sustained response, cannot be a one-off, and mattis and others cautioning saying a sustained mill stare campaign risks escalation and particularly risks escalation with russia which

simón: rápido, rápido, pásele la barrida, don cosme. abrió, jefe. don cosme: más bien.

time to hand it over to don lemon and "cnn tonight." >>> this is "cnn tonight." i'm don lemon. president trump on a twitter tirade complaining about really our self-inflicted wounds and leaving out a lot of facts along the way. so we're going to put facts first in the next couple of hours. president trump, let's start with your all-out war on amazon, against amazon and your false accusations that the corporate giant is taking advantage of the u.s. postal service and not paying its fair share of tacks. amazon pays the same rate that the post office offers other shippers. that's good. another fact, amazon collects sales tax in every state, every state that charges it. what's really at issue here, mr. president and the viewer, what you should know where the president's hard feelings for amazon's jeff bazos. he also owns "the washington post," a paper that has been aggressively covering his administration, and he doesn't like that. and did you watch the market today? tech stocks fell and fears of a trade war are weighing heavily on your friends, mr. president, on wall street. you h

i'm don lemon. you know you've got a blockbuster day in court when the porn star who says she slept with the president isn't the biggest news of the day. no, the biggest revelation was one that pretty much nobody saw coming. michael cohen's attorney was forced to reveal the name of his mystery third client and boy was it a bombshell. it's sean hannity. yes, sean hannity. who had asked to remain anonymous. and he said this on his radio show. >> michael never represented me in any matter. i never retained him in the traditional sense as retaining a lawyer. but i have occasional had brief discussions with him about legal questions about which i wanted his input and perspective. and i assumed that those conversations were attorney/client confidential. >> so hannity also says his dealings with cohen were, quote, almost exclusively about real estate. but he didn't explain how, on the one hand, he could claim he never retained cohen as a lawyer, while on the other hand, claiming their conversations were at

and that raises this question going forward, don. because if they have said the next time the assad regime uses the weapons the u.s. will give a military response, look at the past year. chlorine gas has been used by this regime dozens of times over the course of the past year. does that mean the u.s. is going to respond militarily to each of those. you could say the administration set something of a red line that will be tested going forward. >> and jim, he did say -- this is a one-time shot to dissuade him -- meaning bashar al assad from doing it again but saying it is i -- it is a one-time shot to dissuade him and there is a possibility -- >> and he said that explicitly. one time shot unless they see the use of this kind of weapons again. >> and you mentioned russia. he said no coordination with the russians nor did we pre-notify them. and i want to get to barbara starr. it is important to point out jim talked about the weapons and the types of facilities that we're targeting. a scientific research center in damascus area and whet

i didn't say that, don.say i don't expect him to do that, but i do understand that we're talking about someone who is 71. do you know how hard it is to change behaviors? so, my intention is to -- you look at the lay of the land and you try to figure out what you can accomplish. what can i do? i cannot from where i am change president trump. but i can talk to people who are willing to listen. >> that's true, but that doesn't mean you have to accept something that's detrimental to the country. >> i'm not accepting anything. >> that lowers the bar for the entire country. >> the bar is low, don. the bar has been lowered by so many other people. >> the bar is so low now, stacy, you can't even limbo under the bar. >> okay. i agree with you. >> and that is from this particular administration. >> it's not all from president trump. >> i have to get to the break. anna, i will give you as much time as you want on the other side of the break. >> i'm dying to talk about kanye. >> we'll be back. ...and raw power. ♪ new in

don, they didn't deserve that. and from there, i think we had a very constructive dialogue around perhaps how we can take a very bad instance and turn it into something good. >> i've interviewed thousands of people in my career. i don't know if you're exhaustions or how this really ached you. maybe it's a combination. but you seem to be really affected by this. what's going through your head? >> well, you know r, it's been emotional experience. and spending these three days on the ground and sitting across from these young men and really trying to understand how this could happen in today's society in a starbucks, in a starbucks where our mission is around the human experience, and creating a warm welcoming environment for everyone. and so for me, it's a learning experience. it's an emotional learning experience. i take it personally. so yeah, i'm affected by it. and i'm going to fix it. >> yeah. so i'll ask you again because listen, i'm a man of color and i've dealt with this and just about every person of color i

don, you do this every day.o have to. >> jimmy: oh, wow. what a twist. >> did you hear that aww? >> war machine and the initials for it. >> jimmy: in no way are you represented on that piece of paper. and finally, dr. strange, benedict cumberbatch. he used a lot of colors. [ cheers and applause ] >> have you practiced? have you done this before? >> well, lizzy, it's like if you read the script, you come better prepared. [ laughter ] [ cheers and applause ] >> jimmy: that's not what we do in the united states. we don't read things. >> i don't read! >> this was for you. it's letters. it's words. >> jimmy: don, who is in the avengers fantasy football league? >> chris. >> jimmy: which chris? there's 12 of them. >> i don't remember. [ laughter ] there was a couple of chriss in it. i was in it. anthony mackie's in it -- >> ite i'd like to be invited. >> you can have my spot. >> jimmy: oh, really. did it not go well? >> i had never participated in this fantasy football. >> jimmy: you had a draft? was there a gathering?