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this is "cnn tonight." i'm don lemon. president trump launching an unsubstantiated attack on the mueller investigation claiming investigators are threatening people to get the answers they want and ruining people's lives. we now may have some insight on why because cnn is confirming trump has spent the last three days meeting with his attorneys over responses to the special counsel's written questions. the "washington post" is reporting tonight trump's lawyer rudy giuliani says some of the questions pose possible legal obstacles and some possible traps for president trump. what role is the new acting attorney general matt whitaker playing here now that he is overseeing the investigation? we know whitaker has publicly criticized the special counsel's probe on multiple occasions before he started working at the justice departments including on this show where he also told me how the mueller probe could be

ended. >> so i can see a scenario where jeff sessions is replaced with a recess appointment and that attorney general doesn't fire bob mueller but reduces the budget so low that his investigation grinds to almost a halt. >> let's discuss, shall we? because matthew rosenburg here, national security correspondent for the "new york times." a former counsel to watergate special prosecutors and chris ing weker is a former fbi special director of the criminal division. i'm so glad to have all of you gentlemen on this evening. good evening to you. phillip, let's get into it. you saw the reporting we have that cnn is reporting that the president met with his lawyers three days in a row talking about how to answer these written questions. rudy giuliani telling west that mueller's questions could create more issues for us legally than others. so he's admitting there are some legal landmines for the president. what is he saying there?

>> i think he's saying if the president gives truthful answers he's going to get himself into deeper quicksand and if he doesn't give truthful answers he's going to be creating other problems, either with the special counsel or now with the house judiciary committee, about to be in the hands of democrats, who've made no secret of the fact that they want to investigate what's going on with this investigation. >> what about these quotes, he says mueller's question may be "possible traps"? but i don't know if he's -- he writes down the questions. he answers them. if he's telling the truth, then -- >> that's why this whole notion of a perjury trap is so fanciful. it's only a trap if you're asked a question to which you don't want to give a truthful answer. if you give a truthful answer, it may be incriminating but it's not a trap. if you don't want to incriminate yourself, you can claim the fifth amendment but you can't lie. >> stand by. i just want to get the fbi guy in here quickly. chris, you were assistant director to the fbi. giuliani says some of the questions are irrelevant. mueller clearly doesn't think so. do you think mueller has

something up his sleeve here? >> no, i served directly under mueller for 2 1/2 years. if you know mueller -- and this whole thing about a trap implies that he's going to frame somebody. mueller's not going to frame anybody. robert mueller is an honorable person. he's going to do his job. he has a mission. he's going to do that fairly and within the bounds of the law. he's going to be proactive but he's not going to frame somebody. i've been saying this all along. nobody knows what he's doing behind the scenes because he's not leaking and he's just quietly going about his work. rudy giuliani, god bless him, he hasn't had an unedited thought since he became trump's attorney. he's probably not the best attorney for trump at this point. >> matthew, what do you think of this? we've got lawyers, he's been meeting, he's got the questions. you've got the "wall street

journal" reporting that came out. you've got michael cohen in d.c. he's not there to have dinner, let's just be honest. what's going on here? >> i mean look, it looks like there's movement and it looks like the president fears something is coming down the pike. is he worried about his son, is he worried about don jr.? is he worried he suddenly has one hostile branch of congress that's going to be unloading with investigations, digging into both the mueller investigation but other aspects beyond the scope of that investigation? or is it all that the fact that the midterms didn't go well for him, he went to europe and found out none of the european leaders wanted him around or had nice things to say about him. he thought it was okay to skip going to a cemetery for thousands of americans are buried for dying in a war for dying for our country and surprised people are upset about this. i don't know. he clearly is deeply, deeply out of sorts. >> listen, he's calling the reporting, "new york times" and other places, this is fake news, i'm not upset. but then he's rage tweeting.

isn't that proving exactly your reporting? >> i think every time he says fake news, we get more subscribers. i'd encourage him to keep doing that. every time he sees a story he doesn't like, it's fake news. it's an utterly meaningless phrase at this point. >> these questions, reportedly only deal with things from before the election, right? which would mean they had nothing to do with possible obstruction of justice. so where do you think that stands now? >> well, i am one of the many people who thinks that mueller made a strategic decision about whether to press the obstruction case or just focus on the russia collusion case. but even so, i think what trump fears is that the people around him like roger stone, jerome corsi and others who were involved in the campaign are the people who are by their own words likely to face indictments soon in connection with collusion with russia. so trump's main story over the last 18 months that there's been no collusion proved is exactly

what's about to collapse on him i think. that's what he's worried about. >> say that again plainly and clearly for people like me who are a little -- >> okay. trump has been saying all this time there's been no proof of collusion and all these other indictments and guilty pleas don't have anything to do with the activities during the campaign, but some of trump's key campaign advisers are the people who are now saying themselves that they expect to be indicted by mueller in connection with russian collusion and they've said that within the past couple of days. and we know that manafort and rick gates, who have pleaded guilty, or are cooperating have been actively in there along with michael cohen just on the last few days. i think that's a sign that this is coming to a climax and i think trump knows that. he either gets the information from whitaker about that or he at least has the intuition that the walls are closing in on him on russian collusion.

>> mr. fbi, sounds like cue the ominous music here, no? >> yeah, this is another thing i've said all along, former director mueller was not going to do anything before the midterms just because you don't want to interfere with the election in any way. but clearly he doesn't make a deal with the people he's made deals with if there isn't something coming down. something's in the chute right now. whether it's a very detailed report or whether it's another indictment, i think that's up in the air. i personally think it's another indictment. we don't know who's in those crosshairs for that indictment. but he's -- these are the building blocks of a conspiracy case. you make deals, you flip the middlemen or people further up the chain so by definition, that means there's somebody further up the chain. >> interesting. >> don, just one more point to make. that is that there are apparently about 50 sealed

indictments on file in the district court in washington. a bunch of them were filed in september right before the silence period that mueller had to observe. i think a lot of court watchers are saying there are more shoes just about to drop. >> so matthew, you talked about possibly members who are his family or close to him. he's worried about his own son. >> definitely. you know, his son don junior was the central player in a meeting in trump tower in july of 2016 in which a russian lawyer showed up with connections to the russian government, allegedly bringing dirt on hillary clinton. >> willingness to collude already proved in that case. >> they certainly were collusion curious. but i mean, the other thing too is look, during the campaign if all these questions trump is face are about the campaign, well, during the campaign they didn't know of an investigation, none of us knew of an investigation, so there was no obstruction to be had then. there could only be focusing on some kind of collusion, conspiracy type situation.

that's what would worry the president. i don't want to go too far speculating here. but what else are you looking at if you're looking at during the campaign except were you cooperating with russia, was somebody in your circle, camp, associates, whatever? >> the thing is the one thing that the president specifically tweeted about here, he said that the inner workings of the mueller investigation was a mess. all these things about oh, they're a mess. he's looking for answers that he wants specifically. they're ruining people's lives. on and on and on. didn't he just appoint a new acting a.g. to oversee this investigation? is that a coincidence? >> i think that's likely to be the source of what trump is construing as being efforts to wreck people's lives and don junior might be one of the people that he has foremost in his mind. i think whitaker as the acting a.g. would know what mueller has up his sleeve including any sealed indictments that may be just about to be released. >> fascinating conversation. thank you all, thank you, chris,

i appreciate it. nancy pelosi says she is the best person for the job of house speaker as the newly minted democratic majority assumes control. not everybody in her party agrees. is this a case of sexism? we'll talk about it next.

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recap! with t-mobile, you get this: four lines four phones for forty bucks. with verizon, you get this... the choice just got a whole lot more obvious. get more because you deserve it. only at t-mobile. house democratic leader nancy pelosi wants to have a second go at being the house speaker next year. she wants a second go at the gavel. but at least 17 democrats are standing in her way. in a letter they vow not to support her bid to become speaker. let's discuss with charlie dent, hilary rosen and david swerdlick. hello, everyone. always drama. always drama. so hilary, you first. democrats won the house and picked up 33 seats. they might win a few more. but now some in this caucus want to get rid of their leader. what's going on?

>> nancy pelosi was key to winning those 33 and maybe four or five more seats. so i think the majority of the democratic caucus knows that and wants her to serve as speaker. look, i think there's a bunch of moderate democrats who have decided that the republicans are, you know, are going to pick on them if they support nancy pelosi. and i just don't think it makes any sense for democrats to let republicans pick their leader. reason they do that, the reason they try and demonize nancy pelosi is because they know she's effective. so why would we buy into that? >> that's a good question. let's talk about that. congressman, because republicans have made pelosi a punching bag in just about every race, every national race even state races. did they succeed in making her too politically toxic do you think? they still won a lot of it. >> well, yeah, i do think that the republicans were effective

at turning nancy pelosi into a pinata. sure, they were able to damage her. but i don't think that her problems though are simply the cause of republicans. it's clear that many democrats in the house, i served with them, many of them want a new generation of leadership. you know, republicans i believe went through changes in leadership at least four or five times since i've been in congress. i could go list them. nancy pelosi has been the leader of the house democrats now since 2003. and when republicans would lose, we lost the majority in '06, dennis hastert stepped side, john boehner was forced to step aside. there tends to be some consequences when there's a perceived to be a failure in an election. when nancy pelosi and the democrats lost in 2012 and 2014, they maintained the same leader. i think a lot of democrats were frustrated about that. >> this is from dan pfeiffer, a former obama adviser. he says, "i am very sympathetic to the desire for a new generation of democratic

leaders. but the main argument against pelosi seems to be that republicans like to attack her in campaign ads, which seems like a dumb thing to factor into picking a democratic leader." does he have a point? >> yeah, dan pfeiffer has a point. hilary had a similar point. i agree with congressman dent that there is some restlessness on the democratic side. democrats need to ask themselves this, which model has worked better for republicans, sticking with mitch mcconnell, nondescript inside player, an elitist maybe who has marched the republican agenda through the senate, got kavanaugh over the hump without raising his voice, breaking a sweat, got the 2017 trump tax cut through without breaking a sweat, do they want that model which is what pelosi -- former speaker pelosi would be on the democratic side, or do they want to go with a new jack speaker who will be like speaker boehner or speaker ryan. ineffective, besieged by their

own constituencies and ultimately leaving with their tail between their legs. i don't think they want that. speaker pelosi has raised between $120 million, $130 million just this last cycle and kept her caucus together from the iraq war till now. why would you -- and she just won back the house. why would you switch horses now? it makes no sense. >> okay. that is effectively i think a mike drop. but go on. >> i would just make one quick point because i think david is exactly right. you know, if those folks who oppose nancy being speaker actually came up with some fresh strategy or some new message or something that's going to kind of unite the caucus in an effective way, that would make some sense. but now they seem to be putting forward congresswoman marcia fudge who frankly is not much younger than nancy pelosi and you know, is not even a true progressive.

she's against the gay rights bill for god's sakes. you can't be against the gay rights bill and be a successful democrat in the house caucus. so there's just -- it makes no sense. the strategy is flawed. i think that's because really thoughtful members are not going to look this gift horse in the mouth of having nancy. >> not disagreeing with hilary. but just real quick, don. i don't think it's the job of the speaker regardless of party to be a progressive or to be a staunch conservative or to be ideological. it's to hold the caucus together and move it forward, keep it together to be effective. >> but you have to stand for -- you have to at least let the caucus know that you believe in the values that they bring. >> go ahead, congressman. >> well, look, i've always been a great steny hoyer fan. i always thought he would be an ideal speaker if i were a democrat. that's just me. that said, the reason i say that is because steny hoyer is somebody that any democrat -- you could take him anywhere in the country. i think a lot of the democratic

house members and candidates are concerned they can't take speaker pelosi -- or nancy pelosi into a lot of districts around the country. >> but congressman dent, that's because republicans have vilified her for the past decade. if i can make that point. look, you served in the house, congressman dent. i defer to you on what's really going on behind the scenes. but i just want to make this point. the days of taking steny hoyer congressman hoyer, anywhere as if there are still reagan democrats out there to be won, they all belong to trump. so the idea that you're going to win back these working class reagan democrats i think democrats are starting to move on from that idea. >> congressman, before you weigh, in does it matter if perception is reality? i'm not saying that nancy pelosi actually is toxic. it may be messaging on the republicans' part. does it matter if it's working and that's the perception out there? go ahead, congressman. >> my point was steny hoyer is not that he would bring back

reagan democrats, is that he can go into progressive districts, he can go into moderate districts. it's very hard to demonize him and say whether you like it or not, nancy pelosi is toxic. >> i'm sorry. steny hoyer is the same age as nancy pelosi, the same age as jim clyburn. >> we'll be right back. we'll be right back. so this christmas, take care of the hands that take care of you. that's me in back in 1987, when i gave isotoner gloves to all my teammates. now i have a different set of teammates. my family. and they all want isotoner gloves for christmas

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there is one more race left in america where votes haven't been cast. it is a runoff to decide who will be mississippi's next senator. and with two weeks to go before the election, a new video shows republican candidate cindy hyde-smith appearing to say that making it harder to vote is a great idea. it's a little hard to hear but it's subtitled. here it is. >> so her campaign released a statement saying obviously senator hyde-smith was making a joke and clearly the video was selectively edited. back with me, charlie dent, hilary rosen and david

swerdlick. so sorry i had to get to the break. hilary, hyde-smith's campaign says she was making a joke. this is mississippi we're talking about, a state with a history of voter suppression. what's your response? >> my response is it's not funny. and she didn't actually look like she was joking in that video. she looked like she was dead serious and when we've seen the history we've seen with these republican secretaries of state in mississippi and in georgia, you know, it is believable. that is what they are trying to do, is stop people from voting. we've seen it time and time again and in this election, it is heartbreaking because these races are so close. there's a huge upswing in turnout from low voting public and these republicans just want to stop people from voting. as much as they say that they

think that you know, they're living in a great democracy, they don't really like this democracy very much. >> david, when she says, this is a quote, "liberal folks in those other schools," who is she talking about? >> well, she's definitely talking about liberals and look, we know there's a track record of republicans using voter suppression efforts to try and tamp down the democratic coalition which relies heavily on voters of color, younger voters in some cases, seniors. there have been other to hilary's point, even if she was joking it's not funny because there have been other republicans caught on tape saying things like this like in 2012, the republican house leader mike terzai said voter suppression -- or voter i.d. rather would let romney win. it didn't. and there have been other cases of this. so the idea that this is okay, i mean, it's beyond the pale for an elected official. >> charlie, with all the

controversy over voter suppression and selection, why would voters even believe that she was joking? >> well, a comment -- look, i don't understand the entire context but it certainly was a bad joke. it was insensitive. i don't think it's going to affect her race. i take her at her word it was a joke, it was a bad joke. it was a dumb thing to say. she said something that was also very inartful a few weeks ago about attending a public hanging. same kind of thing. just mistakes. i don't think it's going to affect the outcome of that election. >> i want to play the one you're talking about where she praised a man she was campaigning with talking about public hangings. here it is. >> if he invited me to a public hanging i'd be on the front row. >> i mean, hilary, this election is less than two weeks. do you think these -- charlie says he doesn't think these gaffes will affect the outcome. what do you think of this. >> mike espy running against her has gotten more votes than anybody thought he would get. he's been a fairly popular politician in mississippi.

who knows? i think the voters of mississippi really pay attention to their senator then they're not going to elect this woman. she was appointed to this office. she hasn't won yet on her own statewide. and so i think that you know, this is a race worth watching. i don't think we should give up on it. i think we should keep our protests out there. >> you mentioned her african-american opponent which is former representative mike espy. and you know, do -- is this a deeper problem? these remarks highlight a deeper problem with the republican party? quick answers please, david first and then i'll go to the congressman. >> yeah, they definitely do. as congressman dent said, just a few days ago she made that comment about attending a public lynching. which isn't even an expression. a few days before that, governor

perdue made the comment about cotton-picking in relation to the florida race. at least that's an expression. if not one that politicians should use. this is just out of nowhere makes you wonder what senator hyde-smith is thinking. so just to wrap it up, i think that we're -- it's unfortunate republicans can't get a handle on this. >> charlie? >> well, look, i would have to say this. if you're running for office for senate or governor, you have to choose your words very carefully particularly if you're down south and using certain terms like those public hangings, voter suppression, you should know better. like i said, i don't think these are huge issues to be quite honest. these are gaffes. and they're not -- >> public hanging even in the context -- congressman, a public hanging even not in the context of race is not really, you know -- >> yeah, it was a dumb thing to say. >> i mean i hope that this brings out african-american voters in a way that we haven't seen yet in mississippi.

and just like in georgia where you know, there's such a low voter turnout for potentially unregistered or registered voters that if african-americans voted in the same proportion as their population actually we would have more leadership, more african-american leadership in both states. >> i've got to run. thank you all. i appreciate it. my next guest wrote the book on how to get rid of a president. and he says any effort to impeach trump would likely fail. i'm going to ask him why next.

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president trump making unsubstantiated claims of chaos in the mueller investigation while telling us the white house is running very smoothly. but there are multiple reports of pending staff turnover in the administration and the president's foul mood while hanging over the west wing. david priess is a former intelligence officer who spent

over a year as a daily intelligence briefer to then fbi director robert mueller. his new book titled "how to get rid of a president." certainly a very interesting title. good evening, welcome to the program. good to have you on in person. >> good to be here. >> let's talk about the president, some of the tweets some of them were in caps, a total witch hunt like no other in american history. he has lashed out on twitter about the supposed inner workings of the mueller investigation saying people are being screamed at and threatened. number two, as i said you spent over a year briefing robert mueller when he was the fbi director. does this sound like the way he, works, robert mueller conducts himself? >> the first part i think is projection. this is what donald trump does, this is what donald trump behaves like. i think he's putting some of that on to mueller. it may be that people are going in and talking to the special counsel and then they're going ahead and coming back and telling trump what they think he wants to hear. it wouldn't surprise me if we

have a situation where trump is hearing what he wants to hear and it's not exactly reality. so that's that part of it. i briefed bob mueller every working day for a year. and i never saw him lose his temper in a way that i would call it yelling that i would think he was angry. in fact, he only raised his voice with me once and he promptly apologized for it when he did need to. it was worth getting angry over. but it wasn't yelling. that's not the guy i got to know. >> so democrats are going to take control of the house. some in the party have brought up impeachment. you have this book called "how to get rid of a president." you said even with evidence of high crimes impeaching trump would probably fail. >> uh-huh. >> why do you think that? >> impeachment has a really high bar. that's by design. the founders did not want to make it easy to overturn the will of the people. to impeach you have to get the majority in the house of representatives. which is a cakewalk.

that could happen within days of the democratic majority coming in. but the conviction in the senate, two-thirds is a high bar. >> you said you don't use the term collusion, right? you want to call it criminal. >> talk together attorney who's do this stuff they will say collusion has no specific legal meaning. they end up going to criminal conspiracy or issues like that. if the mueller investigation turns up actual criminal conspiracy, then we've got an interesting thing going on because that might move the ball forward a little bit. based on what we've seen so far, any democratic impeachment resolution would not reach a conviction in the senate. they just don't have enough to convince republicans that there have been violations of the constitution. >> but here's the thing though, david. when you say impeachment, even if he's impeached it doesn't necessarily mean he's going to having to leave office. remember bill clinton was impeached. >> that's one of the things i write about the idea that

impeachment originally was designed to be a stern rebuke in and of itself. that's not the lesson of the clinton impeachment. the lesson is if you fail to convict the president, the president wins. clinton's ratings went up during the impeachment trial. >> so criminal conspiracy. let's just say for the sake of argument, okay, they find that. still doesn't mean he has to leave office. is that what you're saying. > that's right. bill clinton did, andrew johnson did in the 1860s. that can happen. if you're convicted and remove of course, then you're out. but the most likely scenario is that an impeachment resolution would pass the house and fail to convict. that's most likely. >> so you write about you know, successful and unsuccessful attempts to remove presidents and then you quote this from a now defunct new york independent newspaper about johnson. okay, you said the people have been witness to the mortifying spectacle of the president going

from town to and you accompanied by the prominent members of the cabinet and electioneering raid, denouncing his opponents epithets with men in the crowd and praising himself and his policies. sounds a lot that you yourself could have written that two weeks ago about the current president. >> uh-huh. >> what did it end up being andrew johnson's legacy? >> his legacy is not a good one. he was a racist, he was a boor. he was stubborn, obstinate. he was a difficult man to get along with in every way and he alienated the very people who could have helped. legacy of andrew johnson is help yourself because he was one vote short of being removed from office. the quote you just showed was interesting because andrew johnson's behavior going out on essentially a campaign rally while he's president talking bad about his political opponents, that was not the norm. that actually was changing the norms.

it was so different for the time that that was an impeachment article against him. we're used to articles being things like obstruction of justice, being things like abuse of power. against andrew johnson, they had some of those but they had one article of impeachment he's saying bad things about congress. i can't imagine that happening now constitutionalitily. is that a reason to remove a president from office? probably not but there are a whole bunch of other methods you can do to weaken or remove a president that aren't impeachment. >> don't ask me that question. there are a lot of ways a president should conduct himself in office. if they don't, impeachment should be considered. but that's just me. >> it's an option anyone in congress can interpret how they want. high crimes and misdemeanors is very vague. >> the office deserves a certain level of respect. >> the issue is whether that is an unfit president or a popular one that should be voted out. >> you can read "the washington post" article saying that says even with evidence of high crimes impeaching trump would probably fail bill mr. david

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the existence of outtakes from donald trump's tenure at host of "the apprentice" has been debated since he announced his candidacy for president. they are rumored to contain footage of trump using offensive language. well, trump claims they don't exist. now a court case filed by a boston-based civil rights group has resulted in a subpoena for the tapes. i'm going to speak to one of the lawyers behind that suit in a moment. but first, cnn's athena jones how we got to this point. >> reporter: it's a tape that may or may not exist.

♪ money money money money and a story that just won't die. the mythical recording has never been release publicly but former white house aide omarosa manigault-newman says she has heard the outtake from "the apprentice" and in it then reality star donald trump uses the "n" word when referring to contestant kwame jackson. it's an allegation the president strongly denies, tweeting the show's creator, mark burnett, called him to say "there are no tapes of "the apprentice" where i used such a terrible and disgusting word as attributed by wacky and deranged omarosa. i don't have that word in my vocabulary and never have. she made it up." jackson himself said in 2016 he never heard trump use the "n" word but said trump's actions like touting the false claim that president obama was not a u.s. citizen suggests trump held racist views. >> he never used the "n" word or

said something racist to me. what i did get from donald trump was what he saw through the birther movement. >> still rumors such a tape surfaced in 2016 after the release of the access hollywood tape in which trump is heard bragging about grabbing women's genitals. a former "apprentice" producer tweeted "as a producer on season 1 and 2 i assure you when it comes to the trump tapes there are far worse." and trump critic, comedian tom arnold, told seattle radio station kiro in late 2016 -- >> i have the outtakes to the "apprentice" where he says every bad thing ever, every dirty, every offensive, racist thing ever. >> reporter: but arnold hasn't backed up his claim by releasing the supposed tapes in his possession. and despite intense public interest in "apprentice" outtakes, when clinton supporter david brock promised $5 million to cover the legal costs of anyone who would leak the tapes, he found no takers. while not answering the question directly white house counsel kellyanne conway seemed to acknowledge discussing the rumors with trump during the

campaign. >> i talked to him about it in the campaign. it was my job to tell the president every rumor, innuendo, fact, fiction. >> reporter: in her new book manigault newman writes about an october 2016 conversation she had with'll former campaign staffers lynn patton, jason miller and katrina pearson about how to handle the fallout should such a tape be released. though no one on the call had heard the alleged tape at the time. pearson said on fox that call never happened. >> katrina cursed and said "he said it." did it happen? >> no, ed, that did not happen. sounds like she's writing a script for a movie. >> reporter: manigault newman sharing with cbs what she says is a recording of the conversation. >> i'm trying to find out at least the context it was used in to help us maybe try to figure out a way to spin it. >> reporter: lynne patton says on the call that she had a conversation with trump about whether he had ever used the racial slur. >> i said, well, sir, can you

think of any time this might have happened? and he said no. >> well, that's not true so -- >> he goes, how do you think i should handle it? and i told him exactly what you just said, omarosa, which is well, it depends on what scenario you're talking about. and he said, well, why don't you just go ahead and put it to bed? >> he said it. he's embarrassed. >> reporter: in a new statement pierson acknowledged there were rumors of such a tape during the campaign but said they were "always being circulated by omarosa and her alone." and that she was merely trying to placate manigault newman to move the discussion along. athena jones, cnn, new york. >> oh, boy, what a mess. the trump administration has sought to end the program that allows people from certain countries to live in the united states. immigrants from countries like sudan, el salvador, haiti and nicaragua are at risk of deportation. last month a federal judge granted an injunction temporarily halting the deportations in a suit filed in boston by the group lawyers for civil rights. it claims the decision to end

the protected status of these countries is racially motivated. in an attempt to make that point a subpoena has been issued to trump productions and mgm seeking unaired footage from trump's days of hosting "the apprentice." oren, so glad to have you on. good evening, by the way. there's no hard evidence these tapes actually exist, and even if they do, what does it have to do with your case? >> so last spring lawyers for civil rights filed a lawsuit against the trump administration to challenge the terminations of temporarily protected status on behalf of haitians, salvadorians and hondurans. as part of that case we're asserting those terminations happened as a result of racial bias, coming directly from the president and infecting the trump administration. we're now seeking these tapes to bolster those claims there is racial bias present.

we've already seen that racial bias from public statements -- >> got it. you said bolster the claim because that was my question. there's ample evidence of the president saying racially charged and insensitive things so i'm just wondering why you need the tapes. you want to bolster your argument. >> exactly. it's our job to represent our clients to the best of our ability. if these tapes exist, you know, we need to bolster that evidence as much as he can. >> okay. so mgm and "apprentice" producer mark burnett have been fighting efforts to release outtakes of these shows for years. even releasing a joint statement, this was back in 2016, saying they don't have the right to release the footage. and there's the statement there up on the screen. it seems likely they're going to fight this. can they be compelled to do it? >> the tapes are relevant to our case. mgm and trump productions will likely oppose the production of those tapes. but we think we have a good case that those tapes should be produced.

whether that's to us under a confidentiality agreement or not remains to be seen but we think there's a good case they should come forward in this matter. >> mgm and prsand trump product have until december 13 to comply with the subpoena. >> that's correct. >> what happens if they refuse? >> if they refuse then we would go to the court and the court would decide what and when mgm and trump productions have to produce. >> okay. a number of legal experts say about this if trump were found to have made anti-immigrant remarks it would be relevant. they still say a comment ten years ago isn't relevant. quickly before i run out of time, how do you respond to that? >> all of those comments are relevant. they all build upon these bias that we know is affecting the trump administration. and any piece of evidence just adds to the overwhelming sum of evidence we already have. >> thank you for your time. i appreciate you coming on. have a good evening. >> thanks so much. >> thank you. and thank you for watching. our coverage continues. i can breathe again! ahhhh!

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are charges on the way for wikileaks founder julian assange? and democrats looking for gains and left with little reason for hope. astonishing 631 people are unaccounted for in the deadly camp fire in california. parts of the northeast crippled by the first major snow of the season. that commute was epic last night. expect a messy friday morning, too. my husband, it took