multiplication -- multiple occasions for the team for bringing up things that are not related to the crime that paul is been accused of. the judge has been clear that it is not a crime to be rich. it is a crime is not to pay your taxes on money that is held offshore and is the obligation of the prosecutors to prove that he did not pay the taxes. i think that the judge has made sure that he is been given a fair trial. it is important to remember that the crimes that he is been accused of all predated his tenure at the trump organization. for the five months that he was a volunteer for the campaign. none of those crimes, which you have been charged with, had anything to do with his tenure of the campaign or while he was there. i have not spoken with the president directly about the trial over the last 10 days into how closely he is followed it. it has consumed a fair amount of news. i think if paul committed crimes, will be held accountable. that is how the system is supposed to work. nobody is above the law. if paul did things to violate the law, which is what he is accused of, he will be held accountable under the system. does that come back to the campaign? i don't think so. paul's crimes that he is been charged with were from 10 years ago. it is very difficult for the american people to say, because he committed a crime 12 years prior to his tenure at this organization, we will hold chop or the republicans accountable for that. it is a very broad stretch to make and i don't think they will do that. i think paul will be held accountable for his own problems and it won't relate directly to trump the election come november. mrs. feldmann: do you think donald trump will pardon paul manafort if he is convicted? mr. lewandowski: i don't know the answer to that. we have to see what counts the jury comes back with. he is facing 18 different counts. i'm not trying to parse this. i don't see any scenario where the president is looking to pardon paul manafort is the jury is going to be out in days. they're going to have closing arguments. he will be tried by a jury of his peers. he could be acquitted. mrs. feldmann: what would the optics of a pardon, are there any upsides for trump to pardon? mr. lewandowski: i don't think so. i think what the president has said as it relates to the manafort trial is that he has raised the question, has paul received the same treatment that anybody else would've received have been accused of the same cry -- crime and not associated with trump? i don't know the answer. i don't want to find out because i pay my taxes. it is a question he has raised and i think it is a fair question. paul will have his opportunity, he at the opportunity to take the stand but he chose not to. before there was any discussion of a pardon, we will let the jury make their decision. mrs. feldmann: when paul manafort joined the campaign in march of 2016, if you have any idea that he was in financial difficulty? mr. lewandowski: of course not. . . i would have access to know not -- not of his financial records idea of he had no was attending to secure loans from banks where the ceo of that bank was trying to secure a job with the administration. there is no vetting process that toould have gone through check paul manafort's financial stability prior to coming on board even as a volunteer of the campaign. it is impossible. i do not have access to irs documents. i cannot run a background check. it does not work that way. ms. feldmann: did you have any idea about his context in ukraine with pro-russian leaders -- about his contacts in ukraine with pro-russian leaders? mr. lewandowski: he was recommended to the campaign by a 30-year friend of the president. a lengthy story was written on this. as campaign manager, i had to pump options and as i had to prop -- i had two options. one is that i could take the email and show it to then candidate trump and let him make the decision. he is to bring paul and for a discussion. it was the first time i ever met paul manafort, in mar-a-lago in march of 2016, and there were four people at the dinner, including myself, donald trump, and men afford. -- and manafort. ms. feldmann: next question from "dallas morning news." >> -- raising money for john culberson, and they donated money to pete sessions' campaign . three republican held districts in texas that hillary clinton won. how much of that is a concern, those districts, and what are the chances the vice president could expand his map in texas? ms. feldmann: pete's districts are probably the most critical for us when you look at the race and his opponent. pete sessions understands how difficult it is in the environment, and he is campaigning hard now in that district. i think he has got an unexpectedly good challenger to ted cruz on a statewide level, someone who has raised a lot of money and has support. i think ted is going to win that race handily, but it will require us to put more effort into texas, which is a place where we do not want to be as republicans because we are playing defense and offense. part of what the strategy always is as you try to go into races, you secure the race as early as possible, whether it is financial contributions -- the vice president was in cincinnati yesterday and iowa today -- you try to help those races early so you can go back on the offense later. he will be looking at those races, that i do not see us spending too much time at texas. i think pete's race will be the number one race in texas right now. >> any details on when he will be going to pete's district? ms. feldmann: i do not know, but i will know that tomorrow. mr. lewandowski: marissa schulz from "new york post." >> president trump talked about a phone call he had recently with governor cuomo, and he said how governor cuomo called and said he would never run against him in 2020. i wonder if you have any insights on the relationship between the president and governor cuomo, and looking ahead to 2020, what potential democratic challengers -- who do you think president trump would most like to go against or avoid going against? ms. feldmann: i do not speak for the president. i do not know what his relationship is like with governor cuomo. i did not interact at all with governor cuomo when i was running the campaign, so i do not know how friendly they have been. as new yorkers, they have some kind of long-standing relationship. and the cuomo family, the father, and chris, it is one that has been involved for a very long time. i cannot speak to what the relationship is like. i think any pledge by any democrat right now i for election that they are not running for presidency in 2020 is a fallacy, from a elizabeth warren to governor cuomo to anybody on the ballot in 2018. no one is going to is a they're going to run for president while seeking reelection. that said, i think if i were a democrat strategist -- put my democrat strategist hat on, and some of the said to me, who do you want to be the democratic nominee for president of the united states, there is only one name i would choose. i think the person could have a very competitive race, and his name is michael bloomberg. he checks many boxes in the progressive movement. he is exceptionally wealthy. he has 100% name id. use going to self raise -- he is willing to self raise. he has the history of running the nation's largest city. and he does not have the same problems that senators have, which is the schedule of being in the u.s. senate, the obligation to go out and raise money at the clip of $27,000 apiece. by and large, if i was a democrat strategist, and with all due respect to the mayor of south bend, indiana, and senators and congressmen and governors and all these people who think they are going to be the democratic nominee, michael bloomberg has 100% name id. you can -- he could literally write a check for $250 million tomorrow. it is a pretty special thing to be able to do. he is also an american success story. he did not and harriet it. he -- he did not inherit it. he built it all on his own. he can make it through a primary and be very competitive and the general election. if i was a democrat, i would be looking to find a candidate that is not settled with casting votes in washington, d.c., and being part of the culture in d.c. to try and be the next person to make it through a competitive democratic primary. >> what he beat donald trump? ms. feldmann: i do not know. the electoral map is so difficult. michael bloomberg would have to do a donald trump did, which is parlayed his business acumen and the success he has built as a businessman and to the places that want to make sure the economy is continuing to grow. those states, ohio, pennsylvania, wisconsin, michigan, michael bloomberg has created tens of thousands of jobs over the course of his lifetime. that is a story the american people like, and he is an outsider. i think it would be a very competitive race, one that would not require an enormous amount of time fundraising. they would literally just be on the campaign trail the entire time. it would be much longer race because he would not have guys out raising money in the small clips. mr. lewandowski: next, "wall street journal." >> if president trump were to call you and ask your advice, ask if he should continue tweeting about bob mueller and the witchhunt, what would you tell him? ms. feldmann: i would say that the mueller investigation has to be given a finite amount of time, and i would recommend to the president that we set a deadline. i thought the deadline for the mueller investigation to finish should have been that the report comes up a labor day. i thought that would be a fair assessment and they would finish their interviews and report to the department of justice so that they can decide if there is anything there are not there. it has to be a finite amount of time. that has not occurred, and i think the frustration with the president is no one knows when the investigation is going to end. and i would say what the president has been able to articulate is that there has been no collusion. there was no collusion on the campaign. and the whole premise now of the russia investigation, which began with a fired fbi agent in charge of counterintelligence, has now all fallen apart. i understand the president's frustration. look, i have been public, been before the house committee twice and the senate intelligence committee, and i have been very public about it. look, i do not do anything wrong. i think the president wants to see this end. i think the team wants to see it end. if the president were to ask me, i would recommend against him sitting down with bob miller and having a conversation -- sitting down with bob mueller and having a conversation. i do not see any if it of doing that. i would ask that he press upon the mueller team and investigator to meet that deadline an issue their report to the department of justice. mr. lewandowski: "new york times." >> you said earlier when talking about the retirement in congress , you said that is what is dooming the republican majority. so you believe the republican majority is doomed? that is pretty strong language. mr. lewandowski: we have more republican retirements now in the history of retirement in congress, i believe, and that is what has caused consternation of republicans. look, the republicans can only use 23 seats. 41 of 42 incumbent members retiring or not coming back to congress. those are historic numbers. you couple that with a midterm election of a presidential year -- and a nonpresidential year, and you look at whether it is barack obama who left 63 seats or bill clinton who lost 64 seats. historically, the party in power loses without the massive amounts of retirements. so the battle for republicans to keep the house is very real. there is a path to do that. the best indicator is the generic ballot. the generic ballot, if it is under six and a half, republicans will lose, historically speaking, less than 25 seats. if it goes over seven, they have a historical very difficult time of not losing the majority. >> on the russia investigation, given the way the president continues to tweet about it, do you believe the white house used the russia investigation and everything that swirls around it as a political plus or political minus to them? putting aside questions about whether they -- obviously, they do not want the investigation to exist in the first place. given that it does, do you think it helps from the perspective of motivating the base or do you think they think it hurts because it brings of democratic passions? mr. lewandowski: i do not know if it is a plus or minus. i think it is a massive distraction and we have seen silo in inside the white house with teams test with working on the russia investigation, so the giuliani teamed is one thing and the staff in the west wing has all but said, and sir huckabee has been clear about this, she is not going to answer questions on that because it is out to a sacred entity a team was tasked with just responding to that. i do not think it is a plus or a minus. i think it is a massive destruction to the individuals trying to serve this president inside the administration everyday. and once it is behind, it allows them to refocus on what their real agenda is, which is job creation and economic prosperity. ms. feldmann: buzzfeed is next. >> there has been reporting and speculation about your work outside of working with the president, working for the super pac or the vice president, connections to various firms. you have denied a lot of it and said you are not a registered lobbyist. can you give a scope of what your work is outside of working for the vice president's pac, an idea of which firms you are involved with? mr. lewandowski: i rate books. >> so you -- i write books. >> so not involved with outside consulting firms or anything like that? mr. lewandowski: i do a number of things that have responsibilities that fall outside of my role with the vice president. i own a company called lewandowski strategic advisors, so i will be happy to help companies understand how the federal bureaucracy works and the mindset of individuals who work there, but i'm not a registered lobbyist. i do not have lobbying clients and do not do for an work. i do not work for a foreign government and never have. i know this amazing discussion about how i make money every day, which i appreciate very much, but i write books. >> can you talk about the work you have done with t-mobile on the sprint deal? have you talked to the president about this deal, and do you anticipate approval of this sprint/t-mobile deal by the federal government? mr. lewandowski: i have no idea about approving and not approving mergers. that is outside of my realm. it is for the department of justice and those guys to make the determination. look, i do not get paid by t-mobile. i have been very clear about that. the point is, there are all kinds of companies who want to understand opportunities that exist within the government. they will hire companies that i have strategic relationships with, all kinds of people, that i tell how it works. no difference than reince priebus or sean spicer or anybody else who leaves the government and says we know the people inside and let me tell you about the mindset to position something. if the t-mobile deal was going to move forward because it is going to create better 5g coverage in rural areas and create more jobs in the marketplace and help grow and compete with a competitive china, then, without hesitation, i say we should have more jobs and should be more competitive. i have no idea what the justice department does on it and i have never spoken with anybody from the justice department. nobody can ever tell you i have called or had a conversation with any federal employee about any of those transactions. >> t-mobile said you are consulting with them. mr. lewandowski: they hired a firm that is housed at the same office space i am, and i talk to these guys all the time am a but i never made a phone call. i have never called government employee or a person and ask them to look at, help, solution, move forward, pass any transaction. i will challenge anybody in the room to find someone in the government who says i ever called and asked for a favor because i have never done it. >> talk a little bit about trump's relationship with jeff sessions. he has been tweeting a lot about him, saturday and yesterday. is it productive? some have questioned whether these kind of tweets with acting innocence -- what do you make of it? what does sessions have that prevents trump from -- if he wants him to resign, what does he want, and when i just do it? what does sessions have that prevents them from doing that himself? mr. lewandowski: jeff sessions is a very honorable man. i know him well, an early supporter of the campaign. he endorsed the campaign. the president's frustration with the attorney general that he never told the president after he was appointed that he would recuse himself from this investigation. when the president looks back at the relationship between the barack obama and eric holder, eric holder was an unapologetic barack obama supporter. he was very clear and had numerous public statements that said i am his wingman. that is what eric holder has said and was unapologetic about that. i think the president feels that jeff sessions probably should not have recused himself from the investigation. does that mean the president wants to fire jeff sessions? no, but he has the purview to do that. he has chosen not to do that. what i think the president wants is an end to the mueller witchhunt, investigation, probe. and his frustration with the attorney general was that, to the best of my knowledge and it has been publicly reported, jeff sessions do not know that rod rosenstein was standing up this probe when it was stood up, my understanding, and the president did not know jeff sessions was going to recuse himself from the investigation here that was his frustration. >> what do you think he would like sessions to do now? mr. lewandowski: i -- jeff has recused himself, and i'm not an attorney, but from what i have heard, read, and seen, even though jeff has recused himself, it is not mean he has recused himself from everything that relates to the mueller probe. what i think he wants is you want a finite area of time to either have the mueller investigators come up and george the president or clear him -- and charge the president or clear him. it is reasonable to say give as a time period, put an end date on this, and i think labor day is -- two years into this, so report to congress of the find extent not impact the november elections, and let the justice department move forward. ms. feldmann: jennifer jacobs from bloomberg. >> about the president -- talking about showing an id when buying groceries. have you seen him use cash or purchase something? walk us through some real guy moments. mr. lewandowski: i remember in iowa one day, and it is very rare because on the campaign, we flew back to new york almost every night. we were in iowa when night and were going to spend the night. he said, hey, let's go to dinner. we went to an iowa steakhouse. we sat down, about five of us, and the bill came. he took out his american express card. pretty cool, right? took out his gold american express card, platinum american express card, and he paid the bill. it is a very real thing. he does not seem like a big deal, but this is a person who probably does not have a lot of those interactions when he goes out to dinner with his wife, it as a staff member, i had not had that opportunity. traditionally, i would pick up the tap and get reimbursed or whatever it would be. i remember very vividly having dinner at the steakhouse in iowa, and we were in the back of the room, five of us there, and he just took out the american express card and paid. >> when do you think the last time was that he purchased groceries are filled up the car with gas? mr. lewandowski: he does not drive anymore, and for him, he loves to drive. i remember he was driving his rolls-royce from new york city one day after the golf course, private secret service, and we were on the campaign, and i remember he was talking on the telephone. guess what happened, when you are in new york driving and talking on the telephone, you get stopped. he said, hey, just got pulled over. not allowed to talk on the phone. so i do not know if he is at the gas station filling up on a regular basis. he cannot drive anymore, and one of the things he really enjoys doing is driving the car, but secret service does not allow that anymore. i do not think he does a lot of food shopping at the white house. i think that is kind of brought in for him. i think the misperception of donald trump is he has no understanding what things cost. it is absolutely not the case. he was so engaged in things when we would go to a mcdonald's or a fast food place on the campaign trail, and he would know what it would cost because he would take up a cash and pay for it. we would go in and buy the food, and he would get the change back. he's very engaged in those things. he is very aware of what things cost and what people do in daily life. he is rich, but that is just who he is. ms. feldmann: "washington post." >> have you heard the president, then candidate, use the n-word o r another racial slur, and was there the possibility that evidence might exist that he did so, was that a topic of discussion during the campaign? mr. lewandowski: i have never heard that and never had a conversation with the president about that potentially happening, ever. from what has been reported from omarosa, the conversation she claims took place, which we have seen no evidence of, took place sometime during a taping of "the apprentice." long before my tenure. i have never heard the president use any type of racist words ever, and i have never had a conversation with him about a potential tape that may or may not exist on any of those issues. >> just the fact that there might be this liability out there -- mr. lewandowski: never discussed. during my time, i never had a conversation about a potential liability of something that might have been on tape or a hot mic, nothing like that ever came up. ms. feldmann: "france 24" television. >> you said you think donald trump will run for reelection. if he were not to run for reelection, is the vice president willing to jump in? are there presidential ambitions on behalf of mike pence? looking forward to 2024 potentially, is the vice president a president in waiting? is it something he really wants to do? mr. lewandowski: i do not know because the vice president, i think many of you know, is a man who has deep, deep faith. before he undertakes a challenge like running for president, he would consult his family, his wife and children, first, and he would ask for god's guidance. i truly believe that. i do not think anybody could speak on behalf of mike pence until he and his family and his religious beliefs have come to the decision that it is the right for -- right thing for him in the country to do. when i had the privilege of sharing the vice presidential selection committee and went through candidates being considered for vice president, i called a number of them personally, governors and senators and business executives, and when it came to the name, mike pence, i called a mutual name from indiana to ask if governor pence would be considered -- would he consider being vice president if we offered it? almost anybody the answer was immediately yes, absolutely. mike pence, through the intermediary, said i want to spend time with my family, talk to our children, and talk to god and see if this is the right thing for us. he took a weekend to think about if he even wanted to be vetted to be considered to be the vice president because that is how strong his faith is. before mike pence would ever make a decision and decide he wants to run for president, he would have a discussion with his family and look internally and decide if it is the right thing for his family at the time and if it is the right thing for the country. i cannot speak to that because it would be a decision mike would make with a very close group of people. >> is god were to tell him the right thing to do would be to run against on a trunk, would he do it? mr. lewandowski: mike pence has been a phenomenal partner in this administration. look, there was a lot of discussion as who to choose as vice president. we looked at widely known names. chris christie, newt gingrich, and mike pence were the last three. there was a lot of internal discussion about the pros and cons of each of those respective potential vice presidential candidates. mike, i think, has been a phenomenal partner in this administration. he has been someone who the president respects and trusts and listens to for his guidance, and they have really formed a great bond. i do not see any scenario whatsoever where the vice president would say i want to challenge donald trump the primary. ms. feldmann: it is 9:59. anyone have a quick one? >> can you talk about great america's role in the midterms? mr. lewandowski: the great american committee, the vice president's hard money political action committee, is designated to raise money and then reallocate that money to key congressional districts, senate races, and has funded a series of gubernatorial races. i think about chris sununu in new hampshire, mike dewine in ohio. raising money and putting it back into places through hard money donations to make sure the individuals who are running for office on donald trump's agenda, helping them in any way we can. prior to the last disbursement, i think we handed out 120 or 130 checks to either incumbent members of congress or candidates running for congress or the u.s. senate. hard dollar checks given directly from our pac to those candidates for reelection efforts. ms. feldmann: we have reached the end of the hour. thank you so much for coming. i hope you will come again. mr. lewandowski: it has been a pleasure. thank you for having me. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [indiscernible conversation] >> what president trump did in the midterms, 43 days in between labor day and election day they put or the days inn where they were campaigning in their first terms. i think you will see this president do at least 40. if not more. to 2020 this is the beginning of the white house to aing from tax reform, more political one. >> and it will. once the election ends you have to go back to governing. this president has a lot of accomplishants to prince still a lot of work to do from the government side of things. he will go back to him probably depending on what happened in congress, different ways to govern at that point. different ways to get a deal done. infrastructure spending is still important for many people. that is what you're going to see as a prior that priority. >> democrats and republicans wants good roads and bridges. why not work together to get that done? that should have been done already but it hasn't then and that is something with republicans or democrats, it doesn't matter. you can get that done and it is not an election year issue. story you clarify the about getting pulled over in new jersey. >> four years ago. i don't remember. was just mr. trump. no secret service. every week, he dropped his golf course. i remember that happened. >> how did he not have hands-free? >> i don't know. i'm sure there is a pun didn't out there somewhere with that. i have no idea. i didn't follow up. you can't talk on your phone in new york i guess. >> new yorker new jersey. i do not know. he was driving from trump tower to new jersey. that is hysterical. it happens to people all the time. i get pulled over for the same problem. --do you, regarding these are you privy to any of these rumors? >> how do you feel about the coworkers on the campaign? theseting that she knew types? >> using that word. >> she said she has never heard that, never seen it. what i think she was responding to was on barroso said that a tape existed. she hashas never said, done multiple media interview say she has never seen the president. never been a wear of a tape. >> were those rumors bubbling up? >> i don't know. forgive me if you have artie been asked this. are you going to be involved in the 2020 campaign? >> i like working for the vice president. i will tell you this. he is in a phenomenal job. he is a transformational campaign manager. the first and we have seen someone who has an experience, a mastery of digital marketing take over a presidential campaign. whosed to be bozos like me have no tangible skills. they took a person who has no political experience, has a business background, how to direct market through social media and put him in charge of the most important race in the world. brad is the guy to do that. i have looked closely with brad. i talked to him every day. he is going to run a campaign which is so transformational, they will say that is the way we should have been doing it a long time ago. >> are you giving him advice and guidance? >> we t
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