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CNN TONIGHT
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) Is Interviewed About Whether The U.S. Is On Its Own Now With Its Fight Against Iran After Soleimani's Death; Letter Sent By Mistake Now Defended By Trump Allies; A Debate On Whether Killing Soleimani Was Right; Defense Secretary Contradicts President Trump On Targeting Iranian Cultural Sites; Facts First With Daniel Dale; President Trump's Credibility Crisis; Trump Attacks The 'Squad' And Accuses The Congresswomen Of Anti-Semitism. Aired 11p-12a ET
Aired January 6, 2020 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[23:00:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DON LEMON, CNN HOST: This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon.
A lot is going on and we are going to catch you up on all the big headlines.
Confusion in the Trump administration tonight as Iran vows to take revenge on the United States for killing a top general.
An embarrassing incident, a letter suggesting that U.S. will withdraw troops from Iraq as the result of the deadly air strikes was release by a, quote, "mistake," for the chairman of the joint chiefs to say publicly that is not happening."
As we wait for the start of President Trump's impeachment trial in the Senate, former national security advisor John Bolton says that he's ready to testify if he is subpoenaed. If the call was perfect and the president did nothing wrong, why don't more Senate Republicans want to hear from him?
Compounding the administration's credibility crisis, President Trump in an interview today added to the long list of lies and falsehoods or misleading statements. We're going to fact-check what he says.
And the president on the attack once again slamming the Democratic congresswoman as the squad, known as the squad, I should say, congresswomen, and his top officials claimed that they took out Iran's General Soleimani because he was planning imminent attacks on Americans.
But Secretary of State Mike Pompeo dodging when asked to give details.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKE POMPEO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: We saw that he was plotting further plans to take down Americans, in some cases many Americans, we took the right action to defend and protect America. President Trump will never shy away from that.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: When you say the attacks were imminent, how imminent were they? Are we talking about days, are we talking about weeks?
POMPEO: If you're an American in the region days and weeks, this is not something that's relevant. We have to prepare. We have to be ready. And we took a bad guy off the battlefield. We made the right decision.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: So, there is a lot to get to tonight, straight ahead in this hour. Joining me now is Jamie Gangel, Frank Bruni, and Max Boot. So good to have all of you on. Good evening. Happy New Year to all three of you.
Frank, I am going to start with you. There are major questions about almost everything that happened with this -- seriously, since they kill Soleimani. That it was an imminent threat. We still don't know yet. Well, there hasn't been any evidence. What's happening with the U.S. troops in Iraq? Will the U.S. target cultural sites? Does the administration even know the answers to these questions?
FRANK BRUNI, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, the answers are sometimes different depending on whether the president is talking or whether someone else is talking. I mean, he has tweeted that cultural sites should be, you know, fair game because other countries do that sort of thing. He seems to want to bring us down to other people's level rather than lift the world up.
But then, you know, the Pentagon came out and said, no, cultural sites we wouldn't do it. One hand doesn't speak like the other hand necessarily what it's doing in this administration. It seems to be making it up as it goes along.
And I think, you know, part of the problem is we don't know what of the president's words to believe. You had up on the screen before the words credibility crisis which defines this entire presidency. But that becomes so much more important if you are on the precipice of being a wartime leader. We need to be able to trust the information that he and the administration are giving us about why they've been provoked and what their strategy is.
LEMON: Well, I'm glad you said that because people wonder why do you -- why do you guys report on the president's lies. We know he lies. He's going to continue to lie. But this is -- this is the reason because at this point there is no credibility. You don't know what believe.
(CROSSTALK)
BRUNI: He could lie us into war.
LEMON: Yes. BRUNI: American lives could or will be at stake. And whether they are at stake for real reasons or for imagined ones, I can't imagine anything more important.
LEMON: I don't know if you got this many times. Because he threatened to, with these Iranian cultural sites as Frank mentioned. Secretary of state denied it then he did it again. And the secretary of defense denied it again. We don't know who to believe.
MAX BOOT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, I think this goes not to the issue of credibility as Frank was saying, but also to the basic issue of competence. I mean, what the administration did in taking out Qasem Soleimani is arguably justifiable but it's a huge gamble. It's very risky.
[23:05:00]
In order to back the administration on this, you have to have some faith they know what they're doing. There is a game plan, there's a strategy. And today you have this Keystone Cops routine, where the Defense Department sent this letter to the Iraqis saying that we are preparing to move our forces out of Iraq.
And then General Milley, the chief of staff and Secretary Esper at Defense said, you know, no, this is not actually the case, we don't know how this got out. But how would a letter be saying this actually not only produced internally but actually sent to the Iraqis. And especially it does shows they don't know what they are doing. They're not able to do very small things confidently. And so, you have to ask can they handle the big stuff and it's very hard to have any faith that they can.
LEMON: So, because you've been -- you've been talking to sources --
(CROSSTALK)
JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: Just to Max's point, right. It's so interesting to me. I spoke to Republican sources who frequently are allies with the president who considered themselves hawks and who actually supported taking out Soleimani. That said, they are appalled at the way this is being conducted and they are worried.
And I would like to read -- to Max's point --
LEMON: Before you read then --
GANGEL: Yes.
LEMON: And I will. But you bring up a very good point. Taking out Soleimani could actually be the right thing to do. But the Republicans that you are mentioning, they don't know what the strategy is when --
(CROSSTALK)
GANGEL: And that -- and that is exactly their point.
LEMON: Yes.
GANGEL: They don't think the White House has a strategy. Their understanding is this happened very quickly, that it may have happened on a presidential whim. That the advisors were surprised that the president went for this alternative.
And their big concern is who's looking down the road at what happens next? Who's playing three-dimensional chess? Two quotes. One from this is an ally of the president, this person said we don't have a functioning government to handle the fallout. And then when the mistaken letter happened today, the person called back and said there is a stunning lack of basic competence.
LEMON: You --
BRUNI: I am freaking out and I'm so frustrated as you read these quotes because you had someone just say we don't have competent government or something like that? And they said if you --
(CROSSTALK)
GANGEL: We don't have a functioning government.
BRUNI: Functioning government. Even worse, right? And they were saying this to you on background. They are saying this anonymously. When will these Republicans who love to tell reporters how little faith they have in this president, how worried they are about the psychological -- psychological health?
LEMON: Off the record.
BRUNI: When will they say this publicly? Because as long as they are just whispering it off the record to all of us and not standing out and saying that they are protecting his image for the American people who support and they are miss serving the country. This is a magnitude of cowardness that's unacceptable.
LEMON: That's a very good question. But I want you to listen -- this is what they sound like when they do speak on the record, and this is Nikki Haley.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NIKKI HALEY, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS: You don't see anyone standing up for Iran. You are not hearing any other gulf members. You are not hearing China. You are not hearing Russia. The only ones that are mourning the loss of Soleimani are our Democrat leaderships and our Democratic presidential candidates.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's sad.
HALEY: No one else in the world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: I'm surprised at Nikki Haley. First of all, it should be Democratic. She knows -- she knows English. She's a very smart woman that she's saying that.
GANGEL: That's a ploy.
LEMON: That's a ploy. You know what that is, right. It's a pejorative that they used.
But first of all, no one is mourning the loss of Soleimani. They are questioning if it was a right move to target him. What is Nikki Haley doing? What is she -- is she trying to position herself to become --
BRUNI: I think she is.
LEMON: Because she has moved --
GANGEL: Yes.
LEMON: -- so far up --
BOOT: Yes.
LEMON: -- so far to the right that --
BOOT: Well, she's --
LEMON: What is that?
BOOT: I mean, she's shredding her reputation --
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: She's a completely different person when I interviewed her after the flag came down.
BOOT: Right.
BRUNI: This is ranked political opportunism as she watches Donald Trump survive and survive longer in the presidency. As she worries that the path to the Republican nomination and the presidency through the Republican Party in the future depends on not having alienated Donald Trump supporters.
She has utterly changed her tune. She has revealed herself not to be the person of principle that she said she was when she was engaged in taking down the Confederate flag over the state in South Carolina.
(CROSSTALK)
GANGEL: Or even when she was the U.N. ambassador and speaking out about Syria.
BRUNI: She has revealed herself to be on tactics, and it's so odd because she got out of this administration early to salvage her reputation which she now is just throwing on a bonfire.
BOOT: But sadly, I mean, this is part of a pattern with Republicans. I mean it's pretty ironic to hear like Mitch McConnell today castigating Democrats for not being more supportive of Trump's decision. But you know, Trump and his followers are doing everything in their power to alienate all Democrats.
Everybody who is not a MAGA Kool-Aide drinker. I mean, Trump actually retweeted the suggestion from Dinesh D'Souza equating chuck Schumer with the Iranians. They are basically calling Democrats traitors and then saying, why don't you traitors support us? What's wrong with you?
[23:09:56]
This is not the way you get bipartisan backing. And this is serious stuff. This is not normal politics. This is an issue of war and peace. This is an issue or rallying the country and they are not doing it.
They are playing politics and what they are trying to do is basically say anybody who expresses any doubts about their policy which is very questionable. They're suggesting that anybody who expresses those doubts must love the Iranians or must be a supporter of terrorism.
LEMON: Should Republicans be the main ones wanting to question the evidence of why this person -- this air strike considering what happened with the Iraq war? Shouldn't they be the main -- it was a Republican president who took us the war on --
(CROSSTALK)
GANGEL: Absolutely.
BOOT: We've seen this movie before, right?
GANGEL: To Max's point though about this is not normal politics and about Republicans standing up. And, Max, you come from a certain political background. Let's talk about what happens when you do stand up. How many members of Congress who are Republicans are either retiring or leaving? It's either 105 or 106 at this point. You get defeated.
This is not the same Republican Party and when you listen to Nikki Haley who seems to be calculating what she thinks her political future is, I think the question is, is that Republican Party ever going to come back or is it now the Trump base?
BRUNI: Well, these clips of Nikki Haley are going to survive, and when she decides it's more opportunity to change her tune again. She's going to be shown on TV.
BOOT: Good. Well, I can't wait.
LEMON: Yes. Thank you all. I appreciate it.
With our allies calling for restraint, are we on our own when it comes to Iran? That's a question for Senator Jeff Merkley who is on the Foreign Relations Committee.
[23:15:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Two America's closest allies are calling for restraint after the U.S> air strike that killed Iran's top general Qasem Soleimani.
A joint statement from British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and French President Emmanuel Macron calls on all parties to exercise utmost restraint and responsibility. The current cycle of violence in Iraq must be stopped.
So, joining me now to discuss is Senator Jeff Merkley. He's a Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee. Senator, thank you so much. I really appreciate you joining us this evening.
Many of our allies are expressing a lot of uncertainty about what the U.S. had done. Are we on our own when it comes to Iran here? Are we going into this battle alone?
SEN. JEFF MERKLEY (D-OR): Well, very much so. We have alienated our NATO allies. We them into the deal with Iran to curtail their nuclear enrichment program. We abandoned that. They stuck with it. The president has insulted NATO in various ways and raised questions about whether we would honor the collective defense agreement.
And so, we have a deeply frayed relationship, and certainly, NATO understands and our allies in Europe understand that we are in on the precipice of a war that will deeply damage the security of Europe and United States.
LEMON: The Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, told Fox News that he wishes that allies in Europe could be more helpful. But they weren't consulted on this. Why would the administration expect full trotted support when they weren't even consulted about doing this?
MERKLEY: Not only they were not consulted, but every value that we have in the region is being damaged by this action. Our goal has been to diminish Iranian influence in Iraq. This greatly increases it and possibly increase it profoundly if we are expelled from the country.
We want to control ISIS but our training of ISIS of Iraqi troops to counter ISIS has been suspended. We want Iran to abandon nuclear enrichment, but in fact, the opposite has taken place. We want our assets in the region to be safe and secure but instead there are place at risk in every major objective in the region the administration, President Trump and Secretary Pompeo have damaged our values and our goals.
LEMON: Well, isn't that the issue there is no consistency when it comes to foreign policy especially with Iran now? Because the administration's rationale for attacking Soleimani has been shifting. Do you expect detailed briefings on why the U.S. decided to eliminate him now and what the actual strategy is when it comes to Iran?
MERKLEY: Yes. I think all members of Congress are expecting those briefings this week. Many of our staffs were briefed and staff reported back and said it was really non-persuasive that there were some sudden or extensive or imminent risk that hasn't been kind of the general background risk that existed before. So, I'm anxious to learn myself.
LEMON: Yes. Yes, well, it seems that a lot of people are as well. Let's talk about the president doubling, and even tripling down on his threat to target Iranian cultural sites if they were to retaliate for the killing which would be a war crime.
And tonight, the Secretary of Defense, Esper says that the U.S. will obey the laws of armed conflict. What would happen if the U.S. did follow through on that?
MERKLEY: Well, what we've done is to greatly increase Iranian nationalism in unity with their government. Just recently so many Iranians have been protesting against our government, our government is greatly weakened.
Now with this act, both the assassination of a major leader in their government and the threat to attack their cultural sites, we've absolutely unified the Iranian people not against the Iranian government but against us.
So, this threat really was a stupid thing for the president to say Esper or someone in the administration had to step forward to set it straight that this would not happen.
LEMON: Six B-52 bombers are being sent. Thirty-five hundred service members are on their way to the Middle East, and that's in addition of tens of thousands of troops already deployed throughout the region.
The president says that killing Soleimani makes the U.S. safer, but are these troops or other Americans now in greater danger because of this?
MERKLEY: Absolutely. We are on lockdown now. Everyone is preparing for a possible attack where there is so many different forms of attack can take against soft targets, against hard targets, against civilians, and against the military.
[23:20:07]
No, we are much less safe. And we're at a moment where Iran has said, you've conducted this act of war against us, we will retaliate. And they swore to retaliate. And our president has said if you retaliate, we will double down on bombing your country, 52 sites in your country.
And the president of Iran has said, remember the number -- there's a much higher number and that's the number of Iranians who are killed when we shot down one of their civilian planes.
And so, every side is threatening escalation and it's extraordinary dangerous moment. It's a moment in which we have to say as Congress, in a powerful way the Constitution gives the power to go to war to Congress, not the president.
And our founders said that the risk of blood and treasure is so great that no one person should be able to make this one decision. They were right. And we need to stand up and reclaim that responsibility to have that debate and interrupt this cycle of escalation.
LEMON: Senator, I appreciate your time. Thank you so much.
MERKLEY: Thank you, Don.
LEMON: Please come back.
MERKLEY: Thank you.
LEMON: We want to get straight now to Robin Wright for more on how the air strikes on Soleimani is impacting that region. Robin, thank you for joining us. A very serious time. And happy New Year. Good to see you in the new decade.
It's now been four days since the strike that took out Soleimani. Is it clear to you why the president decided to order this strike?
ROBIN WRIGHT, CONTRIBUTING WRITER, THE NEW YORKER: Well, Soleimani is long a nemesis of the United States dating back to 1998 when he became head of the elite Quds Force. That we have yet to see the evidence.
But what is really striking is the incredible aftermath, the breathtaking unraveling of the Middle East, that not just the threats to the United States but the threats to the future stability of countries like Iraq where we have invested 17 years of national treasure more than 4,000 American lives, decades of diplomacies to try to stabilize a country that's in the geostrategic center of the world's most volatile region.
The president still has to convince us of why he did this and if the cost-benefit ratio is in American interest long-term. And so, the next few days will be critical.
LEMON: What does the U.S. response in the wake of the strike, tell us about U.S. strategy with respect to Iran. As I was just talking to the senator about no one seems to understand it. Do you understand what the strategy is?
WRIGHT: No. I think the deep concern is that the threat of a conflict whether it's overt or covert, some kind of military show down, is going to be very asymmetric. The United States is deploying B-52 bombers, the mightiest bombers in the world. We have a slew of war planes, bombers and fighters.
Iran has virtually no air force but it has out gamed us often in the Middle East by engaging in attacks whether it's suicide bombings or hostage takings, using tactics that we don't have a conventional force that can easily fight. And this is therefore a conflict that could deteriorate in a lot of different ways. And that we are not guaranteed of winning even though we are the mightier military power.
LEMON: OK. Talk about that again. Why? Why? Why?
WRIGHT: Well, this is again, because it's a -- we are fighting different kinds of wars. We have the military might, the larger military, the deadlier weapons but Iran has for 30, almost 40 years managed to figure out ways to undermine us.
I lived in Beirut when an Iranian-backed militia bombed the U.S. marine peace keepers in 1983. It was the largest loss of military life in a single incident since Iwo Jima, and it's still true today. They can have a very deadly impact through their proxies and through their own forces.
LEMON: With that said, Iran is publicly warning, has vowed harsh revenge. But somehow analyst think that Iran's leaders may use the killing to stoke anger and nationalism before striking back. How does that benefit Iran, Robin?
WRIGHT: Absolutely. In 1980, the Iranian Revolution then very young was in deep trouble and Saddam Hussein invaded. And that led to ignite Persian nationalism, Iranian nationalism which is ferocious given that the country dates back more than 5,000 years.
This is another one of those moments in the aftermath of protest that challenge the regime, that challenge the leadership in profound ways and dozens of Iranian cities and now you see millions of people turning out to mourn Soleimani. He was seen as a nationalist leader not just a military leader. And so, this struck an Iranian nerve and I think it could backfire on us.
LEMON: I'm sure I have this letter, I'm sure you saw the letter that caused so much confusion. Now, the joint chiefs tonight, Mark Milley said the Pentagon mistakenly sent out a draft letter to the Iraqis indicating that U.S. troops would be withdrawn.
[23:25:07]
Obviously, that is not. So, what kind of message does that send to Iraq and the region to this kind of mistake?
WRIGHT: Well, we did it once before in 2011. We did it last December and saying, and again -- sorry -- December of 2018 and again last year saying we are going to withdraw our troops from Syria, the United States has made clear that it wants to withdraw but this look like precipitous and poorly thought out.
I don't think there is going to be an immediate withdrawal. I think there will be a redeployment. There may be a reconfiguration of forces. But it does send a message that the United States may not fulfill the commitments it made when it first engages.
Remember, there is still another war playing out in Iraq and across the region and that's against ISIS.
LEMON: Right.
WRIGHT: There are 14,000 and 18,000 fighters.
LEMON: Right.
WRIGHT: There a lot of other things the U.S. has to take care of before or before it takes on another major conflict. LEMON: Yes. Before I let you go, I have to ask you this. Because you
spoke to the president of Iraq yesterday, Robin. How concerned is he for his country's future?
WRIGHT: Deeply concerned. This is an important moment not just in fighting ISIS but also rebuilding a nation. They want to invest funds in creating jobs so that the young won't be alienated and go off and join extremist movements.
This is a turning point. And the fact that Iraq could end up being the theater for yet another war after 40 years of wars playing out on its soil, has led him to tell me that he's worried about the future existence of Iraq at all.
LEMON: Robin Wright, thank you.
WRIGHT: Thank you.
LEMON: The president calling in to Rush Limbaugh show today and no surprise, a lot of what he said was just not true. We'll fact-check next.
[23:30:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Defense Secretary Mark Esper publicly contradicting President Trump, saying the U.S. military would not target Iranian cultural sites amid rising tensions between the two countries. Lots to discuss with CNN's fact-checker extraordinaire Daniel Dale. Good to see you, sir. Happy New Year to you.
DANIEL DALE, CNN REPORTER: Happy New Year, Don.
LEMON: More than once, President Trump has threatened to target Iranian cultural sites. Meanwhile, top aides are saying that Trump was not definitively saying that he would do so. You called this the eternal three-step. Explain.
DALE: What we've seen over and over during the Trump presidency, even during his candidacy, is that Trump will say something outrageous, outlandish, inflammatory, and his aides and allies will rush to explain that he didn't really mean it. He was just kidding. No, he has been misinterpreted.
And then what happens almost inevitably is that Trump himself comes out and says, no, no, I extremely meant that totally, I was totally serious. We saw that again with this threat about cultural sites where he told reporters basically that he thinks that the U.S. should be able to do that.
LEMON: But I think you might be right, though, because the three-step has become tonight the four-step.
DALE: Yeah. We had Esper tonight saying indeed the U.S. will abide by the laws and will not target cultural sites. This was after the president said he wants to do that.
LEMON: Wow. Let's turn to the president's interview with Rush Limbaugh today, Daniel. President Trump accuses Democrats of trying to make Soleimani sound like a wonderful human being.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (voice-over): He was a terrorist. They don't want to call him a terrorist. Now, the Democrats are trying to make him sound like he was this wonderful human being.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Really, Daniel? Go on.
DALE: That's just not what's happening. Democrats have issued statements. The prominent ones, at least, have made clear, look, this is a person who killed Americans, killed many people in the region, and was basically a bad dude.
They just take issue with Trump's actions. They think that itself will jeopardize the safety of Americans, jeopardize the stability of the region. Unless I missed something, I haven't seen any prominent Democrat who said this is some great person.
LEMON: The president also repeats his claims that he has made many times before, that Obama and the Democrats gave Iran $150 billion. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP (voice-over): He was designated a terrorist by President Obama, and Obama did nothing about it except give them $150 billion and even more incredibly $1.8 billion in cash.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Listen, you and many others have repeatedly fact-checked this, simply so.
DALE: Yeah. So the $1.8 billion is just about right. There was $1.7 billion in cash that was a repayment, an Iranian payment, for military sale in the '70s that was never completed because of the Iranian revolution.
The $150 billion figure, though, has two things wrong with it. One is an exaggeration. Experts say it is at most $100 million. Maybe around half that. And number two, these are Iranian assets that were frozen in international financial institutions before the nuclear deal. The Obama administration allowed them to access their own money. This was not Obama giving Iran U.S. taxpayer money as part of that deal.
LEMON: It sounds good and the base eats it up. What about John Kerry? The president claims that John Kerry has broken the law in his dealing with Iran. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP (voice-over): They should look at the Obama administration and John Kerry, the Logan Act, because what he was doing with Iran and the relationship that they built up and the things that he said, I would certainly love to see that be looked at because I think John Kerry was -- personally, I think he was advising them. I think that the Obama administration was just letting them get away with murder, in the true sense murder.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: OK, I can't really follow that but fortunately we have you -- what?
[23:35:02]
DALE: So the Logan Act is a 1799 law that makes it illegal for American citizens to conduct unauthorized diplomacy with countries that are having a dispute with the United States. John Kerry was a secretary of state. After he left office, he continued talking in some way to his former counterpart with whom he developed a relationship. This was before 2018.
Trump keeps wrongly asserting that these conversations have continued. There is no evidence of that. There is also no evidence that John Kerry was working against U.S. interests in any way. His people, his aides have made clear that he was trying to get Iran to continue to engage in diplomacy, to stick to its commitment under the nuclear deal as Trump was threatening to break it out.
So it is very unlikely that anyone -- Kerry would be prosecuted given that no one has ever been convicted, and there is no firm evidence that he actually broke this obscure statue.
LEMON: Daniel Dale setting the record straight. Thank you, my friend. I appreciate it.
DALE: Thank you.
LEMON: With falsely misleading statements like the ones we just talked about, the president is squandering his credibility, and that's a big problem for his administration. We'll discuss that, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:40:00]
LEMON: As tensions rise with Iran, what are Americans supposed to believe about the reasons the Trump administration gives for killing General Soleimani? This is a president and the White House with credibility problem. So let's discuss now with Washington Post's Catherine Rampell and Philip Bump. Good to see both of you. Happy New year to you.
CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Happy New Year. LEMON: So, we talked about -- Philip, you have been here when we talked about these escalations. Sometimes, you know, does not the same thing but we talked about it before. In times of war, a president needs to support the citizens' right and the citizens need to believe --
Right.
LEMON: -- their president. For this particular presidency, that is really tough for both. He doesn't necessarily have the support because people can't really believe him.
PHILIP BUMP, NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, WASHINGTON POST: Yeah. It is a very good point. I think it is important to remember that on this particular issue of moving towards military conflict, the government itself already has credibility problems from the Pentagon papers in the 70s to the start of the Iraq war --
LEMON: Right.
BUMP: -- even in new Post reporting about what happened in Afghanistan. So any president at this point would have a higher bar to clear on credibility. Trump is nowhere near that bar. He simply has thrown away all his credibility. He did that during the campaign by saying these things that are untrue over and over again.
But the important thing to remember is -- I'll take issue with your statement in that he doesn't appear to need to have Americans standing by him because he hasn't had the majority of Americans standing by him or believing in him. He has never been viewed as credible by majority of Americans. And yet, he is still progressing as the same president that he has always been.
LEMON: Very good point. You can take issue with it. I think you're right about it. Catherine, listen. Trump has told over 15,000 -- this is from Washington Post -- false and misleading claims, right? What does this say about his credibility as you look --
RAMPELL: I know. Well, to be clear, those are just the claims that have been fact-checked, right? We don't know how many other claims my talented colleagues have not had time to fact-check or haven't even heard about.
LEMON: You heard Daniel Dale on the segment before --
RAMPELL: Yes.
LEMON: -- talking about all these things that he just bounced off on conservative radio or on Fox News or at rallies, and people just believed it and most of it is not true.
RAMPELL: Well, look, from day one of the presidency, forget the campaign, there was an argument during the campaign that we should take him seriously but not literally. You know, he would become presidential, etcetera, etcetera. But day one of his presidency or maybe it was day two when Sean Spicer came out and lied about crowd size. People were saying, look, this is a serious issue.
LEMON: The first full day.
RAMPELL: The first full day.
LEMON: The next day after the inauguration.
RAMPELL: Excuse me, I don't remember exactly --
LEMON: No, just after the day after the inauguration.
RAMPELL: But the argument for why that mattered silly as it seems was that someday we might have a crisis. Someday, it might really be significant whether or not Americans can trust the guy in the White House and the people speaking in his name. And that day has arrived arguably, that during the perspective lead up to a war, maybe as Philip argues, it is no different from all of the other times that Americans did or didn't trust him.
But lives are at stake and it should matter whether or not we can believe the president or his people about the assassination of an Iranian leader being pre-emptive or retaliatory or whether or not he is going to commit war crimes or whether or not we are going to withdraw our troops from Iraq. That stuff matters. Unfortunately, they frittered away their credibility on much lower stakes things and we can't trust anything on the high stakes.
LEMON: He's not the first president who lied. But he is the first president who lied this much. And you can't trust pretty much -- I don't trust anything that comes out of his mouth.
RAMPELL: I think that --
LEMON: Until you fact-check it like three or four times.
RAMPELL: I think the distinction I would make is that yes, most politicians do lie. But most -- but most politicians when they are called on it, they will back down. They're able to experience some shame about being called out on being dishonest in some way and this president does the opposite. He digs in his heels --
LEMON: He'll lie. He'll lie about the lie that he lied about.
RAMPELL: Yes.
LEMON: This is Mike Pompeo. This is for you, Philip, on Jake Tapper's show, State of the Union, yesterday discussing the credibility gap. Here it is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: There is this credibility gap. In addition, obviously, this nation has heard leaders, whether it is blaming a YouTube video for the attacks on the embassy and Benghazi or WMD in Iraq.
[23:45:04]
TAPPER: People have heard this government, the government of the United States, say things to them that were not true when it comes to the war. Do you understand that there might be a special responsibility to provide proof and evidence to the American people of the imminence of these attacks, of the need to carry out the mission that you carried out?
MIKE POMPEO, UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF STATE: Jake, I do understand the power that we have and the need that we have to try and share with the American people everything we possibly can about why we are taking the actions that we take, and we'll do that. We'll continue to do everything we can, consistent with protecting our sources and our methods.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(LAUGHTER)
BUMP: Well, I mean, this is --
LEMON: I mean, do you think they take the public's trust seriously?
BUMP: I think they take a certain portion of public's trust seriously. I think that's Donald Trump's base and Republicans more broadly. I think that they have done a lot of leg work in establishing that the media isn't trustworthy, that the three of us sitting here at this channel, that our newspaper is not trustworthy.
And the reason they do that is so they can dismiss us in moments like this. So Mike Pompeo and President Trump, I think, understand that they can say here is what happened and not have to provide justifications. And it will be something. There is a new poll out which shows that the views of what happened to this Iranian are very much polarized by party as we have seen over and over again.
Republicans are confident. Yes, the right steps were taken. This was carefully planned. All these things that are reflection of the ongoing partisan divide on views of Trump, it is already in place. Mike Pompeo and Donald Trump are seeing enough for that portion that they care about in order to have this be irrationalized.
LEMON: Thank you both. I appreciate it. We'll be right back.
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[23:50:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: As tensions flare with Iran, President Trump is still finding time to attack some of his favorite political targets. He accused Democratic congresswomen Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of hating Israel and Jewish people in a speech in Miami on Friday. He doubled down with Rush Limbaugh again today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP (voice-over): If you go back 10 years or eight years or maybe even five years, Israel was the king of the Congress, right? Our Congress protected Israel and fought for Israel. Now you look at the way that Democrats in Congress are treating, where you have AOC and you have Tlaib and you have Omar and they are actually, you know, anti-Semitic. They are totally against Israel.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: So joining me now to discuss are CNN Political Commentators, Peter Beinart and Tara Setmayer. Hello to both of you. Happy New Year. Peter --
TARA SETMAYER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Happy New Year.
LEMON: -- You say these attacks are part of an effort to divide Jewish people and people of color. Why do you say that?
PETER BEINART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think the reason that Trump always focuses on the "Squad" I think is that he raises the anxieties among his base. This is what America is going to look like. These are the people who are going to be running America in the future. And they're not white. They're not even male, you know. And that's really scary, right?
(LAUGHTER)
BEINART: So I think that is part of it. And then there's -- as part of that, if you can loop in the Israel thing, you can maybe think you can try to scare Jewish voters, especially in the wake of this rash of anti-Semitism, frankly perhaps because some of anti-Semitism has been committed by people of color. You can drive this wedge.
I think ultimately, it's not going to work because American Jews have historically placed their lot with other people who have suffered oppression, other people who know the danger of bigotry, and I don't think Trump is going to do very well in that.
LEMON: Yeah. You know, I laughed at what you said but it's true. You're exactly right. Why do people buy into it? That is an interesting question.
Tara, President Trump is under a lot of pressure right now. Is he going to his happy place when he is attacking the "Squad?" I mean, I guess I understand it, but then I don't at the same time.
SETMAYER: Well, I mean, to Peter's point, they are a foil for him. He knows they are divisive. He knows to his base, especially when he attacks them, it was in front of evangelicals, he knows that Israel is a buzz word, and that's very important issue to the evangelical voting block --
LEMON: Tara, why is it OK for our president to be a bigot? I mean --
SETMAYER: It's not OK. You know I -- I don't think it's OK. I've been against him in what he's done and call out the hypocrisy of why Republicans allow this the entire time that Trump has been on the political scene.
You need to ask the Republicans who defend him why it is OK. Someone needs to ask them. Why is this OK with you? You know, they might say, well, we don't like his tweets and -- but, you know, judges and taxes and, you know, protecting Israel.
They'll make every rationalization possible for it but it's not OK. His constant attacks on them, he just villainizes them because this is what his base wants to hear.
LEMON: I want to get this in before we run out of time. The irony is that just last month the president was criticized for using anti- Semitic tropes in a speech to the Israeli-American Council. He played into negative Jewish stereotypes about dual loyalty and a love of money. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: You have people that are Jewish people, are great people. They don't love Israel enough. You know that. A lot of you are in real estate business because I know you very well. You're brutal killers. Not nice people at all. But you have to vote for me.
[23:55:00]
TRUMP: You have no choice. You're not going to vote for Pocahontas, I can tell you that.
(APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: You're not going to vote for the wealth tax. Yeah, let's take 100 percent of your wealth away. No, no. Even if you don't like me, some of you don't. Some of you, I don't like at all, actually.
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: And you're going to be my biggest supporters because you would be out of business in about 15 minutes if they get it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Peter, we talked about this before. Does he know -- does he understand what he's --
BEINART: No. You know, frankly, shame on those people for clapping and applauding, those -- that anti-Semitism. The thing is Trump has difficulty understanding that American Jews are Americans. We're not Israelis. Many of us do feel a connection to Israel, but we're also quite critical of a lot of the stuff that Israel does. And he doesn't seem to get that.
LEMON: Yes. I thank you both. I'm sorry. We're out of time. We'll see you soon again. Happy New Year to you. And happy New Year to you, folks at home, as well. Thank you for watching. Our coverage continues.
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