thousands of others in our nation's capital and around the country will march for the change they're demanding. it's a march that may turn out to be unlike any we've seen before. stay with cnn for full coverage tomorrow. this has been an ac 360 special report, the parkland diaries. good night. this is cnn tonight. i'm don lemon. the president of the united states threw a very public temper tantrum today. first he threatened to veto the $1.3 trillion budget bill that will keep the federal government open for business through september. then he signed it away. then he suddenly called a news conference and trashed the bill some more. >> i will never sign another bill like this again. i'm not going to do it again. nobody read it. it's only hours old. >> so that is the very same bill president trump's own team worked on every step of the way. but the president wasn't done

complaining. he blamed democrats for failing to include money for daca even though he is the one who ordered the end of the program. he said he wants the power of a line item veto, which the supreme court ruled unconstitutional 20 years ago. and he insisted the senate should scrap the filibuster, which had absolutely nothing to do with this. and which senate majority leader mitch mcconnell has bluntly said will not happen. all of this again just one big presidential temper tantrum. the president knew he had to sign the bill, but he also knew his base would be furious about the lack of funding for his long promised wall. so he signed it behind closed doors. there wasn't the big thing where, you know, he does this with the paper and shows you what he's signing. he held a so-called closed news conference with no actual questions from reporters about -- who shouted to the

president as he was walking out the door. watch this. >> thank you all very much. >> mr. president, is stormy daniels and karen mcdougal lying about the affairs? >> just camera clicks, huh? the president didn't answer that. maybe he didn't hear. then i guess he also didn't hear cnn's jeff zeleny asking the president as he was headed to marine one, on his way to mar-a-lago. here it is. >> will you watch "60 minutes" on sunday, mr. president? >> stormy daniels' attorney, who tweeted out a picture of a dvd late last night with the caption, if a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is this worth? he told wolf blitzer this today. >> the tweet is a warning shot. i want to be really clear about this. it is a warning shot. >> so much more on that in just a few minutes. we have a whole lot to cover on a friday night. i want to bring in mark preston, matthew rosenberg and kirsten

powers, and former congressman david jolly. happy friday to everyone. thank you so much for joining us. >> good to be with you. >> let's talk about this, mark, seriously. usually we see this, right? >> big sweeping signatures, too. >> why didn't we see that today? >> we didn't say that today because everything that he ran on -- and i know some people said he didn't necessarily run as a fiscal conservative. everything that he ran on as a republican, he went back against in order to try to get this bill through today. he knew that the republicans were having trouble on capitol hill. but the fact of the matter is, don, is that donald trump was upset. donald trump was angry that he didn't get all the money for the wall, and he needed a distraction. the news hasn't been so good for him, certainly in his personal life, in the last 48 hours, and he needed a distraction. and if you needed any proof of that, why did he do this today? why wasn't the president out front on monday and tuesday

saying, we need to get our spending down. we need to get this bill done. we're coming up against a deadline. we didn't hear much from him other than what was happening behind the scenes with white house aides crafting this bill. >> well, white house aides -- that's what i want to ask matthew rosenberg. there was, though, $1.6 billion in there for securing the border wall, right? wasn't there $1.6 billion in there? >> yeah, but not all of that can be used to build the wall. of that, it's existing fencing. so it's not even true quite frankly. >> so if he helped to craft this, then why the tantrum, matthew, or saying, i will never sign a bill like this again or pretending maybe he's not going to sign it? what was that all about? >> look, this is a guy who is used to getting what he wants. he ran a small family business. you know, everybody worked for him. he owned the company. there was no separation of powers. there were no people to be negotiated with. and i think this remains an

incredibly difficult situation for president trump to manage, for his personality to management we all have bad days. i can throw tantrums too. but so publicly over the affairs of state, over a budget for our government, it's just one of the things you're looking at a guy who is not used to the restrictions on power that he doesn't think he should have. >> kirsten, i want read this from "the wall street journal." it says white house aides huddled with mr. trump and warned him that he might catch blame for shutting down the government on a weekday he planned to spend at his palm beach, florida, resort. at that, from trump said in rejecting the argument, according to people familiar with the discussion. how do you read this, kirsten? >> well, i think he -- look, he should be unhappy with it because it doesn't represent his priorities. but you have to ask how did that happen because he had his staff working with people in congress. and, again, the republicans as we talk about all the time do control congress. so he's the head of the

republican party theoretically. so the things that he's upset about are he didn't get the funding for the wall. that's because he wouldn't strike a deal with the democrats. the democrats were willing to give him the funding he wanted if they -- he came back and asked for a whole bunch of things the democrats couldn't give him. he didn't get funding cut off to sanctuary cities, which has been a major priority of his as well. they in fact increased funding on a lot of programs he wanted to see cut. so here we have the man who told us he is the best deal maker there is. he's going to come and strike deals, and he has this horrible deal that doesn't represent his priorities. of course he wants to veto it but he really can't because his staff negotiated it. >> yeah. there's some other breaking news i want to get to. before i get to that, i want to ask you, congressman, the president called for two things that aren't going to happen. he wants the congress to give him a line item veto. the supreme court actually deemed that unconstitutional 20 years ago. he wants to get rid of the

filibuster rule in the senate. both things are not happening, so does he understand how this works? >> no, he doesn't, don. listen, this is the biggest wholesale failure legislatively of donald trump's administration. there's no two ways about that. recall he proposed a budget that cut a whole lot of domestic programs. all of those cuts were rejected. in fact, democratic priorities were funded in this bill. and so the fact that he tried to nuance his way into signing this frankly is a disappointment to his base. there's no other way around that. this is a complete abdication to the swamp, and donald trump signed a bill today that represents not only what we've seen in the past, but something that republican congresses have eschewed in recent years. they gave him a larger domestic budget than anything president obama ever had, and donald trump signed it today. he caved. >> there's also breaking news tonight. i want to report the white house tonight announcing a plan to ban

most transgender persons from serving in the military. he is following through on a pledge that he first made on twitter last year. mark, why is this being announced with president trump down at mar-a-lago on a friday night? >> well, clearly they want to bury it. this is obviously an issue that the trump administration has struggled with. the good thing about this, though, don, is that if there can be any good that you can find in this, is that it doesn't ban all transgender folks from serving in the military, but it does put out clear guidelines. those guidelines, having just looked at them, certainly come into questions because those guidelines say if you have had some surgery or you're going to require surgery, that would disqualify you from serving in the military. you got to ask yourself, would you say that to a woman who is going to have a baby? would you say that to anybody who signs up and say, you may goat canc get cancer. we may have to pay for your health care down the road. >> go ahead, kirsten. >> look, when we talked about

this a while back, they spend more on viagra than they would ever spend on the surgery for transgender people. so the idea that somehow -- which they've said before, that this is some sort of -- it's too expensive. it's going to harm them, is absurd. then the statement that came out from sarah sanders, there was definitely implication that it could somehow undermine military readiness, which doesn't make sense. if you're going to let them stay in if they're already in, then you're acknowledging that it's not affecting military readiness. so i think this is a really terrible decision on their part. >> well, matthew, today's drama is 100% self-made here. the white house obviously involved in crafting this bill that we talked about just moments ago. also what's happened with the transgender bill on a friday night. if the president was really concerned about these issues, number one, if he really cared that much about the transgender issue, would he do it on friday night and then go? but when it comes to this budget, he could have said something before, right? i mean is this attributable to

too much cable news watching, executive time? is it because there is a revolving door at the white house? why all this drama? >> i mean i'm going to guess all of the above there. you know, the president could have come out this week, could have come out last week and started working for a bill he wanted. instead, he sat back, and what he got, he didn't want. it wasn't the result he wanted. so he complained about it, and then he signed it. the transgender ban, it sounds like policy kind of created a fit of campaign promise but not actually matching the facts and the experts that have dubone a number of reports and studies. >> could it be at the end of a week where he knows people are upset about his budget, that he's trying to change the headlines? >> you know, at this white house, it can be hard to tell from minute to minute. it certainly looks like that's one of the things they want to do here is, you know, let's shift it here. this is a policy that is going to be a lot less unpopular than a number of other things the white house has done.

i think they know that, that with their base, this will play well. >> hold your thoughts. when we come right back, fired deputy fbi director andrew mccabe fires back at the president. thing. our your top-rated thing. that five stars, two thumbs up, 12-out-of-10, would recommend thing. because if you only want the best thing, you get the #1 thing. directv is rated #1 in customer satisfaction over cable. switch now and get a $200 reward card. more for your thing. that's our thing. call 1.800.directv

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i could go on, but we only have so much time in this broadcast. matthew, let's talk about your reporting. it connects two big stories this week, the data harvesting from cambridge analytica and john bolton. what are you learning? >> well, bolton was one of cambridge analytica's kind of first and earliest customers. and you look at the paperwork. they signed up specifically for this kind of psych oh graphic profiling that cambridge claimed it could offer. how effective that was is still a huge question. but they were really close. there was a point in october 2014 where cambridge analytica was writing talking points for bolton to explain his work with this new company and their ability to psychologically profile voters to give them very specific messages. i think some of this is that robert mercer, the very wealthy republican kind of patron who backed trump, he also backed bolton's pac. he's going to connect a lot of republicans to cambridge analytica because cambridge analytica was his company. but this is a company that

harvested facebook data under false pretenses, misused it. its chief executive has been suspended this week, but he was caught on camera bragging that they send prostitutes to seduce, you know, politicians of rival candidates in foreign elections, and they bribe people. this is a company in a lot of trouble and its association with the republicans is going to be an issue. >> you spoke to cambridge analytica whistle-blower christopher wylie. i spoke to him as well for your piece, and he told you bolton's pac was interested in ways to make people more militaristic? >> think john bolton has been very clear about his vision for the world, and is he somebody who has advocated a lot of use of military force at a lot of times in his career. so it does go to figure that if he's running a pac and they're focused on national security, he wants to see a more robust kind of aggressive posture. i think the way chris put it is that bolton thought americans were limp-wristed and spineless, and he needed to stiffen them

up. >> kirsten, wanting to make people more militaristic, stiffen them up, what do you think this says about bolton and how he'll look at his position as national security adviser? >> it's just completely consistent with who he has always been. you know, it's who he was when he was in the bush administration, and he was pushing for the war in iraq. it's who he was when he was an ambassador to the united nations and was advocating -- i mean hawkish doesn't even begin to capture his world view. there's almost no problem that he doesn't think a military strike or all-out war wouldn't solve. so i think, look, he's even talked about recently a military strike against north korea. he has extreme views. and to say, i want to make the country more militaristic versus, i'd like to persuade people, you know, on some policies, i mean these are very different things. it suggests almost a sort of like, i want to brainwash people into having this militaristic view, and to think he's going to

be the person advising the president is a pretty scary thing. >> yeah. you took the words out of my mouth. i was going to say brainwashing. it's interesting that people can be manipulated how -- you know, people can be manipulated without even knowing that they're being manipulated. >> what's amazing too is especially with all the reporting we've seen out of cnn and out of "the new york times," especially when it comes to facebook, is that we've all known that all of these companies -- she's social media companies have taken our data. we don't necessarily know what they've used it for, and people have seemed to be okay with it. this is actually a very big moment in time, i think, because we even heard mark zuckerberg say the other night that perhaps facebook needs to be regulated. we just don't know what the regulations are. but now we are seeing the real dirty underbelly of politics right now with what's happening with cambridge analytica and this facebook data. >> of course it should be regulated. i think the bots should be removed and they should go through and somehow scrub fake accounts and all that. you should have to put your

information. i think you should put your name there. you should be required to put your name, and it shouldn't be just anonymous on twitter so that you can be held accountable for it. david, i have to ask you about john bolton's pac contributed to your house campaign, right? what do you make of all of this and bolton having the president's ear? he is an ideologue. does that seem like a good fit with the president? >> look, it raises concern. and so here's what i would say about that. i love this question, don, because of this. i had grave concerns about barack obama's foreign policy, right? the republican notion of leading from behind, the gaps in the middle east, and some of his questions with russia which seemed juvenile compared to what we're seeing from donald trump. but what i know now is this. i would rather have ideological questions about a president's foreign policy than judgment questions about a foreign policy. and so, yes, josh bolton -- or john bolton did contribute to my campaign. his super pac certainly did.

but what i know now is that we have a president who reacts to the last person who has his ear. and i think that's a grave concern, right? john bolton, i would say i've met him one time, and i know him to be a hawk as defined by the most ardent hawks. the president deserves to be counseled by hawks and by doves. the concern is the president as arbiter of that information, and that is where the distrust lies. i don't see eye to eye with john bolton on everything. i certainly don't. but the concern is the judgment of the president of the united states and who he listens to. and i think the transition of the national security team in the last two weeks is of grave concern to the republicans. >> my question was, does that seem like a good fit with the president, and you don't think it's a good fit? >> no, i don't simply because of the president's temperament, right? the president is continuing to surround himself by hard-liners, and the president is not somebody who has shown himself to be of reason and of judgment. >> got it. mark, i want to switch gears and talk about andrew mccabe.

the recently fired deputy director of the fbi. he was fired less than two days before he was supposed to retire. here's what he -- he wrote an op-ed and said, president trump's cruelty reminded me of the days immediately following the firing of james b. comey as the white house desperately tried to push the falsehood that people in the fbi were celebrating the loss of our director. the president's comments about me were equally hurtful and false, which shows he has no idea how fbi people feel about their leaders. he's describing the president as cruel in this. >> well, the president is cruel in this. i mean just the way they go about firing james comey and of course, now mccabe, if you read that whole op-ed, it notes that mccabe found out that he was fired from a friend who said he saw it on cnn, that cnn was reporting that in fact he was fired. that's when he went and saw -- >> he found out on someone. comey was -- >> was out in los angeles and found out -- >> from found out from the news

as well. tillerson reportedly from twitter. >> right. this has become -- and let me answer the question this way. i ran into an fbi agent, a high-ranking agent who i know a little bit, last week. he said to me, i don't want tv anymore. i said why? he said because i'm just sick and tired of the fbi just getting hammered all the time. i had to say, listen, i don't want to talk about work with you. i understand that there's a lot of pressure on you, but understand this. the american people don't believe or support what donald trump is saying about the fbi. he might have some of his supporters, but a majority of people don't, and i think that's important. >> you think the majority of the people don't? >> i think in the end, i think that we can go out and, we can do stories and we can fan the flames and we can talk to the 37% of the people who support donald trump. but i think if you talk to the other 60% of the people, especially if you know somebody who is in law enforcement, it's a lot easier to be dismissive of president trump's attacks. >> i just wonder, kirsten, you having worked at different

networks and you know what the information that some other networks put out regarding the fbi and regarding this president is not, you know, always -- it's not always factual and right on. do you think that most people -- do ah agree with mark about most people not feeling that way about the fbi? >> well, i think that he -- i think the president's attacks have eroded the trust in the fbi with a certain part of the country. you know, we're talking about a lot of people who watch fox news or who listen to conservative media and, you know, who take that as sort of the gospel. so, you know, maybe i agree with mark. everybody in the country doesn't think this, and i wouldn't even say most of the people in the country believe this about the fbi. but i think he's had a real impact in terms of, you know, with the republican party. just imagine if barack obama had attacked the fbi. he would have been called un-american. i mean this used to be -- the

fbi and law enforcement used to be the sort of core of the republican party, and they would say, you know, we always stand by the people who are, you know, basically out there trying to protect us. so i think it's amazing how much he's been able to shift that in such a short amount of time. >> interesting. okay. thank you guys. have a great weekend. i appreciate you joining us here. when we come back, you should do it. that's what the trump campaign official told george papadopoulos about meeting with russians. we know that papadopoulos is cooperating with robert mueller. so what could all of this mean for his investigation? you won't see these folks at the post office

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interview with a russian news agency as foreign outreach. trump campaign deputy communications director bryan lanza told papadopoulos you should do it. so does this contradict the picture the trump campaign had originally painted of papadopoulos, who is now cooperating by the way with robert mueller? >> it does in the sense that after the papadopoulos plea was revealed -- remember, papadopoulos' plea sort of surprised all of us. no one really knew who he was or what role he played in the campaign. then all of a sudden there's this one-count lying to agents information. so everyone said, what's this all about? and the trump surrogates and the campaign said he was a coffee boy and had a de minimis role and wouldn't recognize him in an elevator if i saw him kind of stuff. now what is coming out is the role that papadopoulos played was more significant than the

campaign has let on and that papadopoulos had more communicati communicati communications and perhaps even blessings of the campaign to meet with russians and others affiliated with russians during this march, april, may, june, july period. so i'm not sure that it makes anything more criminally actionable, but it sure does create a picture of the campaign sort of directing papadopoulos on his way rather than it being accidental. >> ken, what do you -- what's the face for? >> if you read "the washington post" article, it minimizes the guy even more. you guys are talking russia and people. it's a reporter, a reporter who e-mailed numerous people in the trump campaign, and only one of them responded -- george papadopoulos. and here he is, the bryan lanza, sure, go talk to her comment was about going and speaking to this

russian reporter. and, look, the foreign press cover the u.s. elections, and they're frankly kind of annoying -- not personally annoying, but they're of no use to the campaign. so, you know, they're not a high priority like, say, cnn would be or cbs would be and so forth. people who talk to americans. and so the only one who responded was papadopoulos, and we're really making a mountain out of something that isn't even a mole hill of bryan lanza, deputy comms guy saying, yeah, you go talk to this reporter. i mean this is nothing -- "the washington post" article, to their credit, goes through and person after person, the reporter was interviewed -- the russian reporter was interviewed by the post via e-mail. the greek defense minister who is referenced in the article, who he had contact with, is referenced and calls him, oh,

yeah, young man, he's a real dreamer. but i didn't really talk to him because he was of no relevance. >> so just because someone works -- go ahead, michael. >> i was going to say, ken, i think you're not taking this in the broader context. if you look at the papadopoulos statement of offense, what it shows is that papadopoulos was trying to minimize his relationship to the campaign when he spoke to mueller about his contacts with the russian professor, with the woman that he brought with him, and others ongoing. also what was minimized was papadopoulos' dealings with sam cloebis who was co-chair of the campaign and others. and this bryan lanza piece -- and i'm not saying bryan did anything wrong at all. it is another element in this mosaic of the campaign, whether it be lanza or cloebis or others understanding that this fellow and probably others -- carter page and others were out in the world meeting with russians with

the knowledge and perhaps even support of the campaign. so you can't take this one talking to a reporter and pretend that's all this is about. it's a broader context of what papadopoulos and carter page and others were doing during this critical period of april, may, june, july. >> by the way, i have to say we invited bryan lanza. he's from the campaign, right? but now he is a contributor on cnn. he was not available tonight. i got to ask you, sources are telling cnn -- this is the role of the new attorney brought on to trump's legal team is in flux. he met with longtime washington attorney joe digenova yesterday. sources tell cnn the president liked their message but doesn't think they are right for the job. no one has officially been hired yet. is digenova the right person for this role, michael? then, ken, i'll bring you in. >> well, so i've worked for joe as deputy independent counsel when he was independent counsel. he's been -- and vicki.

i think they're terrific people and terrific lawyers, and i think they could help drive a media strategy for the president. my biggest problem is that they have been reported in the paper as representing mark corallo and sam klobis, and i don't understand how you overcome the conflict of the representation of those individuals, irrespective of whether they sign a waiver, and the representation of the president, especially corallo, who quit the campaign -- or quit the job in the white house because he thought they were engaged in obstructionist behavior on that air force one memo thing. so how do you represent someone who has essentially said the white house has engaged in obstruction behavior and at the same time represent the white house. i think on a conflicts matter, they probably won't pass the test. >> ken, i know you want to respond. go ahead. >> no, no, no. i agree with michael.

i think that for those reasons, it's a bad fit, and you don't really have to go any farther than that. you did say there's no conflict now, but there's no telling where things will go, particularly as it relates to each individual, sam clovis, corallo, or president trump. putting yourself as a lawyer in that position would be very unwise. again, i don't think it serves any of those clients well for a lawyer to put themselves in that position, much like i said last night. >> all you had to do was say, no, i wouldn't. but anyway, thank you. i appreciate both of you. have a great weekend. when we come back, playboy playmate and a porn star both coming out with blockbuster interviews about their alleged affairs with the president and their stories are pretty similar. plus stormy daniels' attorney firing what he calls a warning shot. we're going to tell you what he is threatening.

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the president has stayed uncharacteristically silent as more women come forward with allegations about affairs with him. sources have told cnn the president has asked for advice from allies who have told him

fighting back could make him look guilty. and "the wall street journal" is reporting others have told trump there's no sign the allegations are hurting him with voters. but as we're learning more about ex-playmate karen mcdougal and adult film star stormy daniels, their stories are sounding more and more similar. cnn's sara sidner has the lat t latest. >> reporter: don, michael avenatti says he's warning to be careful what they say about stormy daniels after their 60 minutes interview. we also notice some details that are strikingly similar between stormy daniels and karen mcdougal. both women say they had an affair with donald trump. the parallels are unmistakable between these two women. porn star stormy daniels and former playboy model karen mcdougal, who say they were silenced about their alleged affairs with donald trump. the similarities are important because they show a pattern of alleged behavior, including intimidation, payoffs, and media influence by trump's allies as

we ran for president. both say the relationships happened between 2006 and 2007, and both describe similar sexual experiences with donald trump. >> did he ever use protection? >> no. >> this happening around the time melania trump had her son in march of 2006. both these women say trump offered them an apartment in new york, which they refused. mcdougal says she was well into the relationship when they both attended a lake tahoe golf tournament. >> he came in one day and said, oh, there are a bunch of porn stars out there. >> reporter: one of those porn stars, daniels, who still has this memento. >> i knew he talked to ladies, but i didn't know there was anything else. i didn't know he was intimate with other ladies. >> reporter: except for his wife, melania, of course. >> the only regret i have about the relationship that i had with

donald was the fact that he was married. >> reporter: mcdougal even met the now first lady but told anderson cooper she purposely kept her distance from mrs. trump. mcdougal also attended trump's vodka release party in hollywood in 2007. also at the party, stormy daniels. friends say trump invited her. their parallels continued just before the 2016 presidential election, when the two women decided they wanted to tell their stories and somehow ended up with the same attorney, keith davidson. he brokered the deal for daniels with trump's personal attorney, michael cohen, to pay $130,000 as part of this confidentiality agreement. according to mcdougal's lawsuit, she had no idea davidson was also informing cohen about her deal to sell her story involving donald trump to the "national enquirer," which it never published. and both women say they were later intimidated to keep them from talking.

>> ami has put out a statement saying that you can talk to the media, that you're free. >> yeah. i saw that statement too. but according to their attorney, i can't. there will be financial ruin. >> reporter: trump, cohen, and the parent company of the "national enquirer," ami, have all disputed various claims. cohen says trump denies the affairs ever took place and knew nothing of the deals. he says he doesn't remember any e-mails coming from ami to him in mcdougal's case and denies intimidating anyone. ami denies any coordinated campaign to convince mcdougal that she would be sued or that her reputation would be besmirched if she told the truth. now, the attorney that once represented stormy daniels and karen mcdougal in 2016 says he would like to talk about what mcdougal has said about him, but that he can't because of attorney-client privilege. don? >> sara sidner, thank you very much. i want to bring in know

conservative commentator carrie sheffie sheffield, ana navarro, also a conservative. >> i'm a republican. >> all righty. >> i think there are some nuances. >> we'll talk about that, but let's get to the nuances of this story because we don't have a ton of time. stormy daniels' attorney michael avenatti tweeted out this last night. he said, if a picture is worth a thousand words, how many is this worth? the tweet had a photo of a disk and a safe. wolf asked avenatti today what that meant, and here's what he said. >> the tweet is a warning shot. i want to be really clear about this. it's a warning shot. and it's a warning shot to michael cohen and anyone else associated with president trump that they better be very, very careful after sunday night relating to what they say about my client and what spin or lies they attempt to tell the american people. but make no mistake about it, it

is a warning shot. >> what do you think he meant by warning shot, and what do you think could be on that dvd, ana? >> honestly, i don't even want to speculate what could be on that dvd because it might require me then having to bleach my mind's eye. look, obviously what can be on a dvd? images. you know, i think that's what he's obviously alluding to and, you know, making a veiled reference to -- not so veiled reference to. look, i think stormy daniels and michael avenatti are very, very good at moving and influencing the court of public opinion and doing what trump is so good at doing, which is teasing and engaging directly with the public and communicating directly with the public. they are masters at it. if trump is the master of the art of the deal, this guy's been -- and stormy, they're the masters of the art of the teeth. >> i said if the president

wasn't the president, he would be asking michael avenatti to be on "the apprentice" because he certainly knows the immediate kwia and how to tease things out. >> the communications job is open. >> if he does have evidence of an affair with stormy, what do you think that will do? what happens then? >> well, don, i think at the very beginning of the report you hit the nail on the head from "the wall street journal," which says that voters don't really care, that this wouldn't really -- he's teflon don as it relates to these allegations that are really quite old and really quite tiresome in the sense of i was just at the white house yesterday with the president, with kellyanne conway, with ivanka. it was a panel and forum on millennial -- >> we're going to talk about that next block. >> sure. but it's substance. >> here's the thing, though. this isn't about an affair. you know people. if he had an affair, that's between him and his wife. this is about questionable legal practices and possibly intimidating a private citizen or private citizens. and if the president of the

united states is involved in that, we didn't know about the $130,000 payoff or the $150,000 whatever from ami. that's what this is about. it's not about whether he had an affair or not. >> i just don't think that, again, if this is a new story that, again, as you guys have all pointed out, this is masterful just deviating from substance. let's focus on the substance. that's what really matters. and the fact that harvard -- >> that's the substance. that's what i'm asking you about. if there are questionable legal affairs with the president, isn't that -- or possible campaign finance laws that were broken, that's substance, don't you think? >> but there's no evidence of any substance, that this has anything to do with the campaign. >> we don't know unless it's litigated. >> it's a speculation game again to say there is no evidence of something. >> we don't know. >> that's hearsay. >> until it is adjudicated, you can't say that there is no evidence of that. >> but you cannot say that -- you are innocent until proven

guilty. again, this is going in the same circles. >> that's not what this is. do you think he had an affair? >> i don't think it's really relevant to -- >> okay. but you're not answering my question, then. if you think he had an affair and it was worth paying off someone to keep them quiet, hundreds of thousands of dollars, you don't think that's substanti substantive? apparently they think it's at least for one case, $130,000 substantive. there are 130,000 reasons that they paid this person off. >> look, i am not privy to what happened, and neither are you in certain terms of what happened between these women and the president. the president has absolutely denied it, and i just think it really is a distraction. look, i like you, don, and i love cnn, but it's just like if you want to get the trump voters to be, you know, more receptive to these conversations, like let's focus on things that matter, not allegations. >> it's not my job to get a trump reporter to be more receptive to a conversation. my job is to report the truth. >> don, can you let me get in

here? >> go ahead. >> a few things. first, she's right. these are old allegations. this is from, i think, 2006. here's the problem, though, with that point. i remember in october during a debate with hillary clinton when donald trump and his allies brought out every woman bill clinton -- not even hillary -- bill clinton, the spouse, had been with decades and decades and decades before. and so if old allegations didn't matter then, i'm not sure why 10-year-old allegations should be so old now. >> hold your point right there. i've got to take a break. we'll be right back.

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ana, if you want to finish the pount you were >> i think you all are right. i don't think the voters care one bit about this. we are seeing it right now. i do think there's probably one or at least one if not two people who care a lot. and unfortunately for trump, it's a big house but they live under his same roof. and i think that's why you are

seeing him do so much chaotic decisionmaking this week. i don't think it is a coincidence that an hour or two before anderson's interview with karen mcdougal was to air, he suddenly made the announcement on john bolton and mcmaster. i don't think it's a coincidence that all of a sudden today at 10:00 at night he throws the religious right a bone and announces the ban of transgenders in military. he is very good at distract and divert. let me tell me something hold onto your wig on sunday because god only knows what he is pulling on sunday and monday to distract from the stormy daniels interview. >> i want to talk about this this afternoon much. the first lady gave a speem at the state department as part of the international women of courage awards ceremony. let's listen to this. >> courage is the quality most needed in this world. yet, it is often the hardest to find. courage sets apart those who

believe in higher calling and those who act on it. it takes courage not only to see wrong but strive to right it. >> do you -- do you think that women who support the president have a hard time with this apparently putting his wife and mother and child through this and then having the first lady talk about courage standing up there, carrie. >> that was a beautiful statement from the first lady. the women honored in thor is moreno i'd love to see them honored in the cnn heroes something segment. >> she didn't answer the question i'm running out of time. >> in terms of what might be happening under the roof of a private family, in terms of their relationship it's -- it should be private. so i think we should respect that. >> like bill clinton and hillary clinton's relationship was private? >> i mean come on let's be

consistent here. it matters. it matters because what happens in the personal life affects the professional life and the political life and that affects us all. how their head is affects us all. and you can't sit there and say it doesn't matter. >> we spent years. >> let me go. >> monica lewinsky. >> we would love to honor some of those women can you go to cnn.com heroes.com and submit them. en and if any rise to the ranks they could be a cnn hero anyone can. >> beautiful. >> thank you both i appreciate it. when we come back the president governing by conflict on multiple fronts. we know the president thrives on chaos. but does the country? at&t gives you more for your thing. your snapping pics all day, all night thing. your getting the low-light, just right thing. ♪ introducing the samsung galaxy s9 with low light camera. now 50% off.

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this is "cnn tonight." i'm don lemon. 11:00 p.m. on of the east coast and friday night, live with new