telling us that since he defended senator tester yesterday, he has heard nothing negative about that from the white house. with dr. jackson no longer in the running to be v.a. secretary, his committee's investigation is now over. >> fascinating. gary tuchman. thanks. thanks for watching "360" as well. time to hand it over to don lemon. "cnn tonight" starts now. see you time. this is "cnn tonight." i'm don lemon. another night of multiple big stories and we're following all of them for you. our breaking news right now, sources tell cnn president trump's lawyers are preparing for a showdown with robert mueller. that's over the special counsel's warning that he could issue a subpoena forcing the president to appear before a grand jury. that is a battle shaping up and we will bring you all of the latest reporting on that. plus, president trump really seems to have some doctor issues. just one week after that scandal that brought down the white house physician ronny jackson, trump's previous doctor, his

name is dr. harold bornstein, remember him? he has resurfaced. he tells cnn that glowing letter he wrote about then candidate trump calling him the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency was actually dictated by trump himself. i know, surprise, right? and then dr. bornstein also tells cnn he was, his words, robbed when trump's former bodyguard and two other men came to his office to get the president's medical records more than a year ago. and then there is kanye west, doubling down on his support for his new bff. >> i just love trump. that's my boy. >> and making what may be his most shocking claim of all. >> you hear about slavery for 400 years. for 400 years?

that sounds like a choice. like, you were there for 400 years and it's all of y'all? you know, like, it's like we're mentally imprisoned. >> so, to be clear, and i can't believe that i actually need to say this, black and brown people who were enslaved for centuries had absolutely no choice. they weren't just mentally enslaved. this wasn't some kind of mind game. they were in real chains. kanye has a lot more to say about this tonight. you don't want to miss it. we're going to get to that in just a few minutes, though. first, i want to bring in cnn's chief political analyst and garrett graff, author of the threat matrix. thank you all for joining us. good evening. gloria, i'm going to start with you. break down your new reporting for us. president trump's legal team preparing for a showdown with

robert mueller. >> that's right. even perez, pamela brown and i are reporting they are thinking they're now going to face a potential subpoena from the special counsel. we've reported, "the washington post" first reported it this evening, that there was at least one meeting with the special counsel and his then attorney john dowd in which the special counsel raised the potential of a subpoena and john dowd got very angry about it. and now the legal team understands that they've got a president who is angry after the michael cohen raid, who went from, yes, i'd like to testify to, no, i'm not going to testify. they have new members of their legal team who have to get sort of read in and caught up. so they're not making any blanket predictions here about what will occur, but they do believe that it's very possible that they will get a subpoena and that they would fight it if they got one all the way to the

supreme court. >> okay, gloria, you're also reporting that mueller himself has raised the idea of subpoenaing the president. so have the talks broken down with mueller? >> well, i think what we can say is that the talks are in a lull, which would be a nice way to put it. what was interesting about all of this was the morning of the michael cohen raid, the president's attorneys were sitting together in a room preparing a kind of a deal that they could strike with the special counsel about trump testifying on russia. then they looked at their tv and they saw the news of the michael cohen raid and they said, wait a minute, we are not going to go into this meeting with any kind of a proposal for presidential interview, and instead they had kind of a tense little meeting with the special counsel that afternoon and nothing occurred and nothing has really occurred since. we know rudy giuliani has met with them and there is a new team of lawyers, so at this point i would just have to say it's in a bit of a lull. >> one more question, couldn't

the president just plead the fifth, gloria? >> well, remember on the campaign trail when donald trump said that anybody who pleads the fifth is guilty? >> yep. >> i think that would be a bit of a problem for him, but in talking to his legal team about this, what they are saying is that -- is that, look, there are so many constitutional issues that they believe that would have to be addressed before that that they are not even thinking about that possibility at this point. >> okay. jack, i'm going to bring you in now. can be game out how this would play here? let's assume that president trump refuses to sit down voluntarily for an interview and mueller decides to issue that subpoena. then there is a giant legal battle that works its way through the courts. jeffrey toobin, alan dershowitz both say the president would ultimately lose. do you agree with that? >> absolutely. and i think, by the way, you know, the position of john dowd and others that they have a fighting chance of prevailing in the courts on that issue, i think that's just folly.

i mean, look, president clinton had to testify in a civil suit. the paula jones sexual harassment suit. as important as that piece of litigation might have been, civil suits in the scheme of things are not quite as important as enforcement of the criminal laws. >> got it. >> this case is about enforcing the criminal laws. there is -- there is no possible way that the president would be f free from providing evidence in a case like that. >> the question is, jack, why not cooperate now under better circumstances? >> well, why not cooperate? i mean, look, i've published an article -- op-ed in "the washington post" a couple of months ago saying that it would be not only in the interest of the country, in the interest of the proceeding, but in the president's own interests to

cooperate and submit to an interview. >> yeah. >> now, i have seen him go off on a few of the issues involved here, and i understand that he might be intemperate at times. on the other hand, people who have been party to his participation in depositions assert that he can keep control of himself. you know, i mean, look, it does seem to me that there is a good argument for him to cooperate -- if he really has something to hide and wants to just string this out, he can take that route, but i do think that the courts will not support him and that eventually he will be required to provide evidence. >> so, gloria, i'm going to get you to you in the next question, but let me bring garrett in for this one now. i need him to participate in this. do you think the president, garrett, and his team are banking that they can end the investigation in some way before any of this happens? >> well, i think what we've seen

over the last couple of weeks is that this investigation has progressed rather rapidly. i mean, that michael cohen raid really did change the stakes of the investigation and sort of what we think might be under the umbrella of the questions that the president might end up facing. so i think, you know, jay sekulow and the other lawyers involved in this thought that they were facing a very different landscape a couple of weeks ago when there was a much more open consideration of whether the president would end up testifying. the president, from everything that we know, wants very much to testify. i mean, i think that in some ways the president really thinks if he can just sit down on the other side of the table with robert mueller, you know, he can negotiate this investigation away, just like another new york real estate deal, you know? it's not a new york real estate deal, and everyone but the president seems to be very clear about the legal jeopardy that the president would be in the

moment that he sits down. i mean, you ask about whether the president would take the fifth. this is a president who could take the fifth any single day that he wants to and instead he wakes up every morning angry on twitter. this is a president who is like exhibit number one in how your words can and will be used against you. >> gloria, i know you want to jump in now. is that how garrett -- is that how trump's legal team, is that how they see it? >> well, look, i think if trump is your client you're worried he's going to talk too much. when you look at those questions, which, by the way, were notes of one of the attorneys of what bob mueller was saying might be asked when you look at those -- when you look at those questions, they're very detail and they do go into issues of collusion. they do go into issues of conspiracy or obstruction. and i think there is a lot of worry among the president's attorneys that this is something

where he could do himself some damage. and they intend to use article ii of the constitution, as jack well knows, to say that, you know, that they are not allowed to question the president about what he is entitled to do as president of the united states. and so they're going to use -- they're going to use that argument. i mean, they may lose, but it's an argument they are going to make and they have a client who was willing to testify. and if they could have narrowed it down to what -- to a great degree, i think they would have left him. >> yeah. >> but now you look at everything and it's so broad, it seems much more likely they'll wind up without him testifying. again, though, one caveat, they do have these new attorneys. the husband and wife team of the raskins and of course rudy giuliani. we'll have to see where they wind up. >> jack, look, the deputy attorney general rod rosenstein responding to reports that

articles of impeachment were drafted against him by the conservative house freedom caucus. and he had this broader message to the folks making threats against him that the doj will not be extorted. do you think that he's talking about the president there? >> well, i don't -- i don't want to make that conclusion -- i don't want to jump to that conclusion. i think he was saying we're going to keep our heads down. we're going to keep doing our jobs. we're going to do it properly. >> okay. >> and we're not going to be bullied. >> what do you think, gloria? do you think he's talking about the president? >> you know, i wouldn't read too much into rod rosenstein. i mean, i spoke with one of his friends the other day who said, if you scratch the surface, you still get the surface. and so i think he's kind of one of these people who answers the exact question he was asked. so i really -- >> which is nice. >> -- really wouldn't read too much into it. >> garrett, what do you think, though? is he talking about the

president? >> i think -- i don't know whether he's talking about the president specifically. he's certainly talking about the echo chamber of the president's allies who are, as rod rosenstein himself said today, sort of attacking him publicly and privately. >> mmm-hmm. >> i mean, the level of attack that he has come under from congress for sort of trying to do his job as best he can is sort of unprecedented from a partisan perspective at this point. >> all right. thank you all. i got to run. see you next time. when we come back, more on our breaking news. a showdown looking very likely, possibly, between the trump legal team and the special counsel's office.

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anyone who may be after his job. >> there have been people who have been making threats, privately and publicly, against me for quite some time. i think they should understand by now the department of justice is not going to be extorted. >> let's bring in former u.s. attorney guy lewis and susan hennessy. good evening to both of you. so glad to have you on. guy, you just heard the deputy attorney general there. he says he's not going to be extorted. you know rosenstein well. what do you make of these comments? >> i take them absolutely at his word. rod's been through a lot in the department of justice. he is born and bred a prosecutor. he was u.s. attorney. in fact, one of the longest serving u.s. attorneys, don, up in baltimore, maryland, which is no easy district to manage, sort of like miami and new york. he's done well up there. he's served three presidents during that tenure. so i take him at his word when he says, look, back off, i'm not

going to be extorted. >> guy, do you think he was trying to send a message here to anyone else? what do you think? >> well, don, i think he was speaking directly to these sort of mickey mouse articles of impeachment. you know, when i first looked at that, i kind of laughed and blew it off, but then i went and looked and, indeed, rod may be subject to impeachment. i'm not saying he would ever be impeached in a million years, but article ii lists the president, the vice president and other civil servants, and then i look at some of the charges in the past that civil servants, mainly judges and senator and some others have been impeached for, drunkness, conspiracy -- oddly enough, the very first impeachment of a senator from tennessee, my home state, guess what they impeached him for? the house impeached him for conspiracy with a foreign power. in that case, great britain over some land in louisiana.

go figure. >> so, susan, the president -- the president's been battling the leadership of his own justice department and the fbi for some time now. many of his surrogates are referring to rod rosenstein and mueller as his underlings now. what is the reality and how is this going to play out, you think? >> well, in some technical sense, this is accurate, right? rod rosenstein works for the executive branch. the president is the head of the executive branch. what sort of referring to the justice department officials as the president's underlings misses is a sense of sort of the normative protections. an independent law enforcement. an independent department of justice. that's something that despite a lot of pushback over the last, you know, year and a half of the trump presidency, the president really hasn't been able to understand why those norms exist, you know, why he should respect them and why at the end of the day it is to his political benefit to do so. >> so just last week, susan, the president said this. watch. >> and you look at the corruption at the top of the fbi, it's a disgrace.

and our justice department, which i try and stay away from, but at some point i won't. >> every time the president makes comments like these, is he giving mueller more ammunition for an obstruction case? >> so i don't know that that directly speaks to sort of the obstruction issue. in a larger sense, i do think that it galvanizes congress, it galvanizes individuals within the justice department to really want to stand as firmly as possible in those institutional protections. so, you know, i don't know that he would be -- that there is any sort of argument that there is an investigation that he's trying to sort of sidetrack with those types of comments, it is sort of a bizarre strategy. because at the end of the day what we see are speeches exactly like the one rod rosenstein gave today. justice department officials sort of standing up and saying, look, you know, we stand for these principles. we're going to continue to put our nose to the grindstone and essentially we're not afraid of you. >> guy, the white house press secretary sarah sanders was asked about the impeachment

moves today. take a listen. >> there are some allies of the president up on capitol hill apparently drafting articles of impeachment for the deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. is it the president's belief that rod rosenstein has either committed a high crime or a misdemeanor? >> i'm not aware of any belief of that? >> would the white house call on these members not to pursue that? >> i haven't seen the specific document but we don't have any personnel announcements. we're continuing to move forward with the department of justice. >> so do you think the white house has a full appreciation of what will happen if rosenstein or mueller or fired? >> that's a good question, don. i sometimes wonder sort of about the strategy that coming out of the white house. i think it would be a great mistake to fire or try to fire bob mueller or rod rosenstein. they're both good guys. whether you agree or disagree with the special counsel appointment, whether you agree

or disagree with the sort of pervasive and now really broad, based on the questions we saw today, don, really broad investigation of trump and some of the other issues that mueller's looking at. whether you agree with one or the other, big mistake to fire those prosecutors. >> also, susan, today deputy attorney general rod rosenstein was asked if a sitting president could be indicted. here is how he responded. >> i'm not going to answer this in the context of any current matters, so you shouldn't draw any inference about it, but the department of justice has in the past when the issue arose as opined that a sitting president cannot be indicted. there's been a lot of speculation in the media about this. i don't have anything more to say about it. that's -- when the issue arose, somebody in the department reached the legal conclusion and that's what it is. >> so is he right, susan? could that change?

is an indictment for president trump off the table? >> so rosenstein is referring to two memos authored by the office of legal counsel, one in 1973 and one in 2000. those opinions are binding on the department of justice unless they are rescinded. olc could rescind those opinions. no indication that is going to happen. there is some question, i would say it's a smaller minority question about whether or not those opinions are binding on the special counsel's office. whether or not robert mueller would consider himself sort of open to consider for his own purposes whether or not the president could be indicted, sort of put his own legal judgement on that question. you know, at the end of the day, we'll see what happens. >> all right. susan, guy, thank you so much. i appreciate it. when we come back, more on our breaking news tonight. as chances of the president sitting down with robert mueller's team seem to be getting slimmer, cnn is now learning that the special counsel's office could possibly issue a subpoena. how that showdown is shaping up. as a control enthusiast, i'm all-business when i travel...

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with robert mueller, the special counsel's team is warning that mueller could subpoena the president, forcing him to appear before a grand jury. let's discuss now with former u.s. attorney harry littmann and former white house ethics czar and ambassador to the czech republic, norm eisen. they're both here. appreciate you joining us. good evening, gentlemen. the president doesn't talk to the special counsel's team, norm, will they compel his testimony before a grand jury? >> don, thanks for having me back. i do believe that if the president refuses to talk to the special counsel's team that they will seriously consider subpoenaing him. they have already significant evidence of obstruction of justice. we now have some idea of their collusion questions. there are important questions there. they can't get to the bottom of what they need to know. bob mueller, who i've worked with, same side of the table and against, can't do his job

without hearing from the president. so i think a subpoena is likely. >> but what if the president goes in and just says, i plead the fifth. regardless what he said in the media that pleading the fifth says you're guilty. what if he says that? >> the president is facing a wicked -- it's not a dilemma, it's a trilemma, if he goes in and tells the truth, he runs an enormous risk of incriminating himself with obstruction, possible conspiracy, the actual other crimes that the president is referring to when he says collusion. >> right. >> if he doesn't testify, he runs the risk of getting subpoenaed. he has to take the fifth amendment. that disqualifies him as our chief law enforcement officer. so that's not a good solution for him. >> and then -- >> the president is stuck whichever which way he turns. >> all right. so, harry, what is the likelihood of the president that he actually sits down for this

interview? >> i've always thought it's low, unless he is forced to it, and it looks more likely than it did before that some kind of legal battle is brewing. i agree with norm at the end of the day, that he will lose that battle and be compelled. jack quinn mentioned that it might be open and shut because a criminal case is more weighty. on the other hand, the consequences for the president are more weighty as well. it's not an open and shut question and it's never been decided by the court precisely, but i think they will hold that he has to sit down. now, at that point, several months will have passed. there'll be potentially a whole new majority in the house. the dynamic may well have changed. and to his detriment. but i think mueller ultimately has the whole card here if he has to go to court. >> okay. harry, let me ask you this then, because norm mentioned collusion and said what the president

means by the crime. he keeps saying no collusion. even if the president didn't reach out to the russians directly, can he still be guilty of collusion or legally speaking conspiracy? >> that's a really important gloss you made just at the end because, again, collusiony bandied about doesn't refer to a crime. if there was an agreement to reach out to the russians, and he does any act at all, for example, let's say he knows about the june meeting in trump tower. he doesn't participate in it, but after the fact he helps doctor up the false alabi with his son in others. he kuwait to liability for conspiracy. >> what about him saying, wikileaks, release those e-mails, could that be considered part of it? >> that seems pretty weak kind

of evidence to me, and, of course, that's one of the questions mueller is talking about. that came as something of a surprise. we have to imagine, by the way, the questions seem kind of open-ended and be nine, but mueller is possessed of a wealth of information about all of them. to your very question, i don't think a prosecutor would want to go forward on the theory that that was the act. >> norm, just quickly, please, yes or no if you can. the president tweeted, it would seem very hard to obstruct justice for a crime that never happened, witch hunt. but that's not how obstruction of justice works, right? >> absolutely not. obstruction of justice is a freeh standi freestanding offense. it's prosecuted all the time. the president is wrong. >> thank you. when we come back, remember that letter claiming that president is, quote, the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency? guess who apparent wrote that. plus, details on an alleged

office raid for the president's medical records.

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the president's ex-doctor is back in the headlines tonight. dr. harold bornstein telling cnn that he didn't actually write that letter during the campaign praising trump's extraordinary physical strength and stamina. guess who he says did? cnn's senior national correspondent al detection marquardt has spoken to dr. bornstein and he joins me now. say that three times fast, bornstein, bornstein, bornstein. the man who described the president who said he was the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency -- >> right. >> -- now says that candidate trump dictated those words. >> right. and our drew griffin actually asked him last year in 2016, rather, the year after this came out, whether he had written the letter. he said, yes, he had. what seems to have changed now, he's putting a bit of a finer point on it. why he's doing this now. because we're asking him about it. perhaps also reflecting some of the rage he feels about a raid he says trump staffers carried

out, which we'll touch on in just a second. he told me verbatim, he, being trump, dictated that whole letter, i didn't write that letter. what he's saying is that trump gave him the phrasing and the words and while he admits to writing it up and using some of his own style, it really was trump's wording. the way he says it went down, he was driving across central park in a car with his wife on that day in 2017 when trump was still the candidate. he was on the phone. he said trump dictated those words to minimum. bornstein responded saying we can say this, we can't say this. he admitted to using some creative license and what he called some of his dark humor. he actually ended up comparing the letter to the movie "fargo," if you remember. he had this incredible quote, it takes the truth and moves it in a different direction. so he admits with trump's words, he moved the truth in a different direction.

>> why the doctor, before we talk about this raid thing, why would he allow himself to be used that way? >> i think there is a sense of loyalty. he treated trump for 35 years and said he had never turned against him. >> he talked about that incident that you referenced there earlier. trump's longtime bodyguard shows up at the office with at least one other man. what did they want? what happened? >> this happened february 2017. so a month after president trump was inaugurated. and the white house came out today saying that they were taking control of the president's medical records, as is appropriate once a president comes into power. however, bornstein says he was robbed. i asked him pointblank, was this a crime? he says, they stole them, many meaning the medical files. referring two to staffers, keith schiller, president trump's longtime bodyguard here in

anything. moved down to be head of oval office operations and another a man named alan garten, a lawyer for the trump organization. the way that bornstein puts it, he says they barged through the back door, terrified the secretary and pushed aside the patient who was there. when you release a patient's medical records, you need what's called a hipaa release. >> right. >> these men, according to bon stein, certainly didn't have it. he says they stole the records. he says he was humiliated after 35 years of faithful service. >> thank you. i appreciate it. now let's discuss. i want to bring in now cnn political commentator scott jennings and republican strategist rick wilson. rick, are you surprised to hear this glowing health assessment from trump's one-time doctor that he issued was actually dictated by the president, according to born seestein?

>> the mean the thing about his rippling physique and astounding stamina. >> six pack abs. >> the man can run a and not even break a sweat. it was a ridiculous and overly colorful thing. it had a lot of trump tells in it for the very beginning that should have at least indicated he was putting his thumb on the scale in terms of the creation of this memo about his health. i want to know what david denison's health records show as well. the doctor revealed today he did trump's lab tests under pseudonyms. there is a whole story here. every day we always say to ourselves, it can't get more crazy than today. it always does. this guy, i mean, he's meme worthy. it's fantastic. >> just after that glowing review, nbc asked dr. bornstein about his choice of language in the letter, and here's what he said. >> is that the way that you write most of your medical letters? >> no, but for mr. trump, i

wrote that letter that way. >> did he ask you to describe to that way? or did you pick up his kind of language by spending time with him? >> i think i probably picked up his kind of language and then interpreted it to my own. i thought about it all day, and at the end, i get anxious when i get rushed. i tried to get four, five lines done as fast as possible that they would be happy with. >> trump himself even tweeted about the report before it was released. here's what he said, saying, quote, it will show perfection. so i want you to imagine this, scott. imagine hillary clinton had issued a fraudulent letter about her health if she had done that at the time. what do you think the response would be? >> oh, i mean, people would be going crazy. remember, during the campaign, hillary clinton did have a scare with her health and there were all sorts of allegations about the clinton campaign possibly o

hiding how sick she might have been. that was an issue if we remember back to the presidential campaign. this doctor has always seemed like a fairly weird guy to me. he said he wrote the letter, now he says he didn't write the letter. he looks like the doctor they kept at area 51 in "independence day" to oversee the aliens to be candid with you, unless he is hiding some marriajor illness t donald trump had, this would be super weird, but i'm not sure it's going to crack the top ten weirdest things we talk about on the don lemon show during the trump administration. >> there is no concern to you that during the campaign for very big, you know, position, the highest some people would say in the world, that the american people were duped? >> yeah, well, i think -- yes, i'm concerned about it, of course, but the question i asked when i saw this back and forth today was, did he write a letter that had embellishments and a

lot of adverbs? or write a letter in an effort to hide an illness? that would be a much more serious scandal. it is super weird, but i don't get the feeling they're hiding any illnesses that the then candidate would have had. >> you know what i thought about, rick, is that if trump can pressure bornstein into signing off on something like that, what about the health assessment from ronny jackson? what about the one he delivered? >> well, look at the similarities between these two descriptions of donald trump's health. this is, you know, a guy who is clearly not missing many kfc meals who is described as this, you know, perfect cbs minute for his age, could live to be 200 years old, in astoundingly great health. the striking language in both of them is very similar and it obviously is a -- this is a guy who has a tremendous amount of personal vanity and wants to be described as this adonis, you

know, become flesh and described in this way that is glowing and heroic. the picture of per fictiofectioe said himself. the similarities between the two are very striking. if you're suborning a white house doctor, a navy officer and a white house doctor to describe you in ways that aren't fully accurate, it's one of the things that begs the question, what is it driving your mental state that wants to make you do that? at some point, you're 77 years old, you have extra pounds, your hair is a little weird, you own it and ride with it. that deep male vanity shows in both of these letters. >> thank you. appreciate it. in the universe of shocking things kanye west has said, this may be the most shocking, saying that slavery, quote, sounds like a choice. i'm going to let you hear that for yourself. i know a lot -- you're going to hear my take on it when we come back. we do whatever it takes to fight cancer.

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kanye west in hot water tonight, and it's of his own fault, really. when asked in an interview to talk about his support for president trump, he turned to

some really shocking comments on the history of slavery in this country. listen to this. >> i just love trump. that's my boy, like, you know, so many rappers, you'll look at a video of snoop dogg loving trump, but then get in the office and now they don't love him. trump is one of rap's favorite people. >> we talk about this, before he was elected president, people in hip-hop, it was an in thing to put donald trump in your rhymes somewhere. >> you hear about slavery for 400 years, for 400 years, that sounds line sound like a choice. you were there for 400 years and it's all of y'all? we're mentally imprisoned. i like the word prison because slavery goes too direct to the idea of blacks. it's like slavery, holocaust, holocaust, jews, slavery is blacks. so prison is something that unites us as one race, blacks and whites being one race, that we're one -- we're the human race.

joining me now is ebro barton. host of hot 197. thank you for -- [ laughter ] >> listen man, you're my guy. i'm happy to be here with you. >> yeah. >> i want to say that, you're my guy. we love you and we love how your afro has become more assertive as things have gotten more crazy in the world. >> all right, thank you, i appreciate that. that's why i have you on, because i like your voice. here's what kanye said. he said to make myself clear, of course i know that slaves did not get shackled and put on a boat by free will. my point is for us to have stayed in that position even with numbers on our side means we were mentally enslaved. then he added, the reason why i brought up the mentally in prison, because we can't be mentally in prison for another 400 years. even the statement was an example of free thought. it was just an idea. >> it was a bad taught.

-- thought. your brain, kanye, and your mouth are not working in concert. right, his thoughts are moving faster than his mouth, and he's embarrassing a lot of people especially in hip hop. >> he's embarrassing himself actually -- >> yes. >> because he doesn't know history. he doesn't read. >> he's actually said out loud on several occasions that he didn't read. he experiences life, and i think what we're seeing right now is a sad case of someone who isn't listening to people around him who are trying to tell him to just think first. he's not -- >> he doesn't know what free thinking is because people are free to criticize him. and just because people feel a certain way about slavery and the african american slavery, it's because of facts, history. it's because people know what happened in the past and what

effects that continues to have on people even in the present now. so it's not necessarily that it's not free thinking. >> don, you got it. i don't know even know why i'm here. i'm just here because you're my guy. i'm here because you're my guy. and i also want to point out to everyone that is paying attention, remember that kanye is also part of a marketing machine, right? which is the family and the team that he's around. i think this is spiraling out of control because he wants to think free, he's not filtering himself, because that would be out of fear and let's not do anything out of fear. and it's once again, embarrassing him. >> he talks about the reason he likes trump and talks about snoop. donald trump wasn't a national figure then. donald trump and people and the rest of the country outside new york didn't know about the central park five, didn't know about the housing discrimination, because he's a

rich guy -- >> people rapped about donald trump because he appears in the material things in hip hop, has always been enamored in the material things and those sort of images. >> and he wasn't imposing policies or suggesting policies that were detrimental to african-americans. >> he was just throwing his name on buildings and trying to get on the cover of newspapers. >> they asked what policies that affect black people specifically. trying to dismantle the affordable care act, what ben carson is doing, all of these issues affect black and brown people. >> and also i think specifically and this is something i've tried to maintain in all of this circus and chaos which is this kanye west situation is not about partisan politics, it's not about republican/democrat. it's about kanye has allowed himself to be used as a tool for people who align themselves with hate groups and white supremacy in this country. that's the problem.

>> yeah. let's talk about this because i watch van leithan all the time. i love him even more now. >> i just learned his name today. for a long time, he was just a black guy on tmz. >> i knew him because i'm from louisiana, and he's from louisiana. van is from tmz, and van confronted him. and this interview happens in the entire tmz newsroom. watch this. >> do you feel what i'm feeling? do you feel that i'm being free and i'm thinking free? >> i actually don't think you're thinking anything. i think what you're doing right now is actually the absence of thought. and the reason why i feel like that is because kanye, you're entitled to your opinion, you're entitled to believe whatever you want. but there's fact and real-world consequence behind everything that you just said. and while you are making music and being an artist and living the life that you've earned by being a genius, the rest of us in society have to deal with

these threats to our lives. we have to deal with the marginalization that's come from the 400 years of slavery that you said for our people, was a choice. frankly, i'm disappointed, i'm appalled. and brother, i am unbelievably hurt by the fact that you have morphed into something, to me, that's not real. bro, you got to be responsible, man. >> bro, i'm sorry i hurt you. i'm sorry i hurt you, bro. >> you gotta be responsible. >> exactly. he's got to be responsible. he doesn't understand the power of his platform and his words and what he's saying is wrong. this isn't about free thinking. what he's doing isn't about free thinking. >> don, do you actually think kanye west doesn't understand his platform, his words? >> i don't know. seeing this, i'm not sure of that. >> kanye west only cares about himself and he knows his power, and he knows his words. even though he doesn't know how to connect his words to actual

clear, actual thought. why? because kanye west is operating in a space right now that is dangerous to himself and dangerous to his overall brand. and he's doing it because it's spiraling out of control. it was a marketing idea to setup music and now things have gotten real. he's stepped out of this circle in cal pass -- calabasas, california, and started having conversations with people that know what's going on. the conversations kanye wants to have have been happening. it's not new, bro. it's been happening. you just haven't been involved. matter of fact, i don't honestly think that kanye wants to come down and get involved. he doesn't want to get his hands dirty. he just wants to say some stuff from his calabasas mansion, studio, make some music and do

what he wants to do. he just wants to say things for a mountain top. >> ebro, thank you very much. >> pleasure. my guy, don. >> we'll be right back. and packages. and it's also a story about people. people who rely on us every day to deliver their dreams they're handing us more than mail they're handing us their business and while we make more e-commerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country, we never forget... that your business is our business the united states postal service. priority: you ♪

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