President Trump Doesn't Have Tapes of His Chats with James Comey
DON LEMON, CNN HOST: Trump's tale of the tapes. This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon. Is anybody out there surprised to hear President Trump doesn't actually have tapes of his chats with James Comey? Anybody? Anybody? Mueller? I don't think so. But was this a much bigger mistake than the President realizes. Plus, the man they're calling a human Bruce Springsteen. Iron stash is running against Paul Ryan. Does he have a shot? And you think Bill Cosby would keep quiet after he dashed a bullet in his indecent assault trial. But just wait until you hear what he wants to do now. So let's get started right to the tale of the tapes. Here to discuss CNN presidential historians, plural. Timothy Naftali and Douglas Brinkley. He is the author of "Rightful Heritage, Franklin D. Roosevelt in the land of America" and CNN senior political analyst, David Gergen and political commentator David Swerdlick. Good evening, gentlemen. Thank you so much for coming on. David Gergen, you first. The President was on FOX News tonight. Let's listen.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Robert Mueller, do you think he should recuse himself because he is good friends with James Comey. He has hired some attorneys that were part of Hillary Clinton's foundation and given money to President Obama and Hillary Clinton's campaign. Should he recuse himself?</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, he is very, very good friends with Comey, which is very bothersome but he is also - we are going to have to see. I mean, we are going to have to see in terms -- look, there has been no obstruction. There has been no collusion. There has been leaking by Comey. But there has been no collusion, no obstruction and virtually everybody agrees to that. So we will have to see. I can say that the people that have been hired all Hillary Clinton supporters.</s>LEMON: So David Gergen, he has declared himself innocent. Should the special counsel be stop now?</s>DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: No. But I do think you can tell he is ramping up that way to, you know, he is trying to discredit Mueller so that if in fact the Mueller and special counsel finds or has been obstruction or finds there has been collusion, the President's going to declare that fake news. Fake findings. Done by a bunch of Democrats. He is muddying the water in such a way that is either way he wins. If he exonerate him then he wins, if they find him, you know, that he is -- there are issues that ought to be taken to the Congress regarding to the President, he is going to call it all fake. And you know, a lot of his supporters, based on the past, are going to agree with him.</s>LEMON: David Swerdlick, I have to ask you. What is he laying the groundwork for? Is he hinting at something that maybe Mueller might be out of a job soon?</s>DAVID SWERDLICK, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. He wants to sort of bloody Mueller up and he is doing it in a way that he probably thinks is subtle there. The problem for the President, Don, is that when Mueller was first appointed as special counsel, most prominent Republicans praised him. The problem is also that he was appointed by President Trump's own justice department. And director Mueller, former director Mueller has a stellar reputation having served as 12 years as the FBI director. So the idea that now the President is going to sort of come in here and suggest that, well, hey, he is in the pocket of Democrats, even though as others have pointed out, President Trump himself has on many occasions contributed money to the Democrats over the course of his career. It just - it doesn't seem like it's going to wash.</s>LEMON: I want to move on. So quickly, to you guys. Does this bother you him saying that? Is this concerning to you?</s>DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Very concerning. It means he is going to, you know, gut Mueller in the end. The question is will Republican senators go along with that? Will Corker and Flake and - you know, allow him to beat up on Mueller like that.</s>TIMOTHY NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: It would be disaster if he fired Mueller or tried to through the justice department.</s>LEMON: Let's turn now to the tapes of the other news of the day. So here is how this all gone down. First, there was this tweet for the President. This was on May 12th and he says here on</s>JAMES COMEY, FORMER FBI DIRECTOR: I very carefully chose the words. Look, I have seen the tweet about tapes. Lord, I hope there are tapes.</s>LEMON: And this today the President tweeting with all of the recently reported electronic surveillance intercepts unmasking or legal leaking of information, I have no idea whether there are tapes or recordings of my conversations with James Comey. But I did not make and do not have any such recordings. We have lost, Doug, 40 days, right? And 40 days that have damaged the Trump presidency and cast doubt on his personal credibility as well.</s>BRINKLEY: It is -- makes me ill. We have soldiers fighting abroad right now. You have a President jerking the American people around like this on the idea of dangling these tapes that didn't exist in front of us. It's a move of a scoundrel, I think. And the President's behavior has to be -- and we know Republicans don't like it either. This is not any way to run a country. The world is just got to be scratching their heads and laughing at us.</s>LEMON: Would you describe these last 40 days as self-sabotage?</s>NAFTALI: Of course. If it hadn't been for his tweet, it is unlikely that James Comey would have leaked his memos. But I want to add one more thing which is the importance of credibility. We are still the only superpower in the world. We have the most powerful nuclear arsenal. And we have a President of the United States who doesn't care if he makes things up. That undermines our ability to send signals to our adversaries and our friends alike. This is real business. This is serious business. And our President, in the way in which he dealt with this tapes matter for 40 days wasn't taking his job seriously, period.</s>LEMON: I want to hear from David Gergen because it has been said, one Republican said the President has been amused by this and all that's been made of it. What do you think?</s>GERGEN: Well, I agree with much of what has been said. I have reached the stage of feeling like you know, yes, there has been a lot of self-sabotage. But you know, there have been four special elections in the last 40 days too. And all these assaults on the President. And the Democrats have gone zero for four, which means all this conversation hasn't really moved a lot of the voters who were with him to start with. And I think the question becomes how do we have a conversation on television in which we can listen to each other and I think in some ways persuade the Trump supporters that those of us often critical of the President are not doing it because we want to bring him down. That's not the point. It just - he is failing to meet the standards so often that we set for presidents and that's disappointing and concerning and can be dangerous. But I don't know how we get to a place where every night we throw stones at the President and think that's solving the country's problem.</s>BRINKLEY: We will see what - we have to see what the Mueller reports says. I think that's going to be the big moment for our country.</s>LEMON: But don't you think it is incumbent upon the President of the United States to start to the top? Because the President is the one who is - he starts by saying, you know, the media is fake. They are terrible people. They are liars. Don't believe anything they say and on and on and on. And then, you know, then he discredits the intelligence agencies and he discredit the former FBI director and anyone who says that this should be investigated. Anyone who says there was actually tampering with the election, that Russia temped with the election. Even though most of the intelligence agencies said they did, he says it is fake news. Shouldn't that start with the President of the United States?</s>NAFTALI: Yes, but you're expecting him to understand the rules of public administration. This man has never worked for a public organization. He has never been held to that standard. He has never had to be in a transparent situation. He has no desire to learn how to do it. And he has shown us he is not interested of playing by those rules. The question is whether the other people in government in the other branches of government are going to continue to allow break those rules.</s>LEMON: And if he is interested, man, you said by not playing by the rules, I mean, let's be honest, he is interested - also interested in not telling the truth because much of what he says about the investigation even beyond, even in creating jobs were just a fact- check is, David Swerdlick, it is simply not the truth. So you know, to David Gergen's point, so you know, instead of television, how do we reach the Trump voter? I don't know. I mean, unless you want to start not telling the truth or giving the reality 068 what's actually happening.</s>SWERDLICK: Yes. If you take something that is very specific like these tweets about the supposed tapes, I think it is incumbent upon us as journalists to, you know, call out where the President is either, you know, wasting time, as Douglas said or dithering with the American people, you know. You have a situation where unless there is some strategy that is later revealed about why the President tweeted about these tapes, what you are left with is it's a sense that it is just a little bit of nonsense, right. Nothing about James Comey says that he can either be bluff -- whether you like him or not, that he can be bluffed or pushed off his stance. So why the President thought that he could do that to director Comey is baffling. If you expand it out the whole open and think about what David Gergen said a moment ago, I agree. The President's approval ratings have never gone lower than 35, never gone higher than 45 since inauguration day which suggest to me that on the one hand he's not losing a lot of support and he is also not gaining a lot of support. And that, you know, we are sort of hardening it to camps in this country and we have got to find a way to have a little bit better dialogue.</s>LEMON: David Gergen, I will give you the last point since we are discussing what you were saying.</s>GERGEN: Well, I just want to say is that at the same time I think we have got to hold him accountable when he has big issues before it that are really important to people's lives like this health care bill. I must say that of all the things that have been happening in the last 24 hours, the idea that the United States might actually take money away from poor people, take away their health care and turn it into dollars and give it to the richest people in the country in a country that already has terrible inequality, I just find that stunning. You know, Don, we are at point we don't know whether to talk about the President and all his tweets and all his craziness or to talk about the substance and how it may really effect the very people who voted for him.</s>LEMON: Yes. I get your point and I think a lot of this is a distraction. We have to discuss it. It's the President of the United States. And the tapes are important especially if you look the history of tapes and Watergate. But you are right. This healthcare bill is just as important. And this may be a distraction to get people not to talk about it so that they can sneak it through under the cover of darkness. Thank you. I appreciate that. When we come back the union ironworker who wants Paul Ryan's job.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it is time. Let's trade places. Paul Ryan you can come work the iron and I'll go to D.C.</s>LEMON: He will join me live.