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Don Lemon Tonight

GOP to NBC: You're Fired; Clinton Vs. Black Lives Matter; RNC Suspends Ties With NBC For Feb. Debate; Carson Calls For Debate Change; Race For The White House; Trump Vs. Bourdain; Trump on Immigration. Aired 9-10p ET.

Aired October 30, 2015 - 21:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[21:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Wow that's does it for us. "CNN Tonight" with Don Lemon starts now.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: GOP to NBC: "You're fired." This is "CNN Tonight" I'm Don Lemon. The Republican National Committee is so agree at CNCB's handling of the GOP debate and suspending its partnership with NBC News for a February debate.

What's really going on? And were the CNBC questions any worse than the Fox debate questions? Our political experts are here tonight.

Also, Hillary Clinton says black lives matter, but why doesn't everyone believe her?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES: Using the power of the feelings that come forward and yes, they do, yes they do.

Yes, they do. And I'm going to talk a lot about that in a minute.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: We will certainly get to that shortly. But I want to begin with the RNC's dramatic move today against NBC News.

Joining me now is Dylan Byers. He's CNN'S Senior Reporter and media -- for media and politics. Good evening to you, Dylan.

You know, I had to ask you about this breaking news story. Paul Singer, a very, very wealthy and influential Republican donor is throwing his support behind Marco Rubio, how significant is that? And how might this -- that influences his race.

DYLAN BYERS, CNN SENIOR MEDIA AND POLITICAL REPORTER: It would be hard to over state how significant it is, Don. Paul Singer is one of the most powerful and influential donors on the Republican side. And what he did is he sent a letter to several other donors, basically expressing his support for Rubio, why he thought Rubio was the Republican candidate that could win the nomination and go on to defeat Hillary Clinton become president. And it's huge not just because of the millions of dollars this could mean for Rubio coming from Singer, it also Singer's ability to bring in other donors.

And in term of the money raise, Jeb Bush he has been far, far out pacing Rubio and other candidates. Rubio really struggled over the summer to raise money. Now all of a sudden, we're seeing Rubio come forward with this financial support. He's been stronger in the debate than Jeb Bush has. JEB Bush's team fought hard for Singer support as to the Chris Christie campaign. Now, it's gone to Rubio and I think that's a clear indication where things are going for Rubio's campaign in terms of financial support.

LEMON: And as we know, money makes a huge difference. It can keep you in the race or if you don't have it, of course, you can be excluded from it.

Dylan, the RNC fuming that there are suspending ties now with NBC for their February 26 debate, he's part of their letter to NBC chairman, Andrew Lack call.

"While debates are meant to include tough questions and contrast candidates, visions and policies for the future of the America, CNBC'S moderators engaged in a series of "Gotcha" questions, petty and mean- spirited in tone and designed to embarrass our candidates. What took place Wednesday night was not an attempt to give the American people a greater understanding of our candidate's policies and ideas".

So NBC said that they're going to work in good faith to resolve this matter, Dylan. What do you think the RNC and candidates really want? What is a win look like here?

BYERS: Sure, well, it's important to understand the two things going on. That letter does reflect the real frustrations of the Republican National Committee with the debate that took place on Wednesday night. At the same time, it's also a move by the RNC to sort of a assert control over this process to do something dramatic to show that they're serious about controlling these debates. And making sure what happened with CNBC doesn't happen again.

And the reason they need it to take such a major dramatic step is because the campaigns have been very frustrated with the RNC'S handling of this entire process. And what we know is that representatives from many of these campaigns are going to meet on Sunday night without the RNC to sort of discuss how their needs and their concerns can be addressed.

Among those concerns, more substantive debate, more time to respond to questions, more time for individual statements. What many of the campaigns want is not so much a debate as a forum. They want to get up on stage and have a chance to talk about issues they care about responding, you know, in 30 seconds or a minute to what they view as "Gotcha" questions from moderators is not what they want.

LEMON: And before I let you go quickly, can you answer this from NBC news doesn't have editorial control over CNBC. Many people don't know that. So isn't fair to hold them responsible?

BYERS: No, that's a really great point, right? And in fact, the person they sent the letter to was NBC News Chairman Andrew Lack who doesn't have control over CNBC. In fact, very explicitly doesn't but in the eyes of conservatives, in the eyes of the Republicans the whole NBC News family which includes MSNBC, you know, they sort of a lumps all of those together. They often use MSNBC a liberal network to sort of fault NBC News when it's convenient for them. And that's sort of what you're seeing going on here. But to your point, no, there is no editorial control that NBC News has over CNBC but they do share reporting resources.

[21:05:03]

LEMON: No Bias. Thank you, sir, I appreciate it. Have a great weekend. I want to bring in now Hugh Hewitt, the host of radio's Hugh Hewitt Show and author of "The Queen: The Epic Ambition of Hillary Clinton and Coming of a Second Clinton Era". Good evening to you, sir.

HUGH HEWITT, HOST OF THE HUGH HEWITT SHOW: Hi, Don.

LEMON: RNC is curios, candidates are mad. Were the questions really that bad?

HEWITT: They were terrible and I do believe the Reince Priebus letter was appropriate. But take this I'll predict on Andy Lack has got a reputation for being very sophisticated and effective. Reince Priebus has done the previous reform is a great chairman.

The coming out of this will be an agreement that the Houston debate will be moderated by Chuck Todd, Rich Lowry from the national view and maybe Tom Brokaw and peace will break out when it's realized the objective of these exercises is to help Republican primary voters pick the candidate who will beat Hillary Clinton. Not to embarrass them, not to call them comic book characters.

I think it comes down to this, it's a skill set. I'm a question asker, you're a question asker. Chuck Todd, Jake Tapper, they're question askers, Dana Bash. I don't think those people this week were very experienced of asking questions of political people. Not making speeches asking questions. And so NBC will agree to provide no editorial guarantees but they'll agree to provide experienced questions ask.

LEMON: Yeah. And they are certainly very -- they are experienced journalists. I mean no doubt. I mean I know Carl Quintanilla from NBC news. We work there at the same time. And he is a very experienced journalist. But I want you to take a listen to this clip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MEGYN KELLY, FOX NEWS MODERATOR: You've called women you don't like fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals. You once told a contestant on "celebrity apprentice" it would be nice to see her on her knees. Does that sound you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president?

CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS MODERATOR: Other than politics, could you explain why in the last two years you changed your position on a path to citizen ship and are there other past positions we shouldn't hold you to.

KELLY: Governor Christie, you said Senator Paul's opposition to the NSA's collection of phone records has made the United States weaker and more vulnerable. Even going so far as to say he should be called before Congress to answer for it if we should be hit by another terrorist attack.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So that's the Fox debate back in August. How is this different, Hugh?

HEWITT: They were both bad in my view. I did not like the Fox debate. I liked the CNN debate.

But I think the best debate question that's been asked in the four debates we've seen thus far was Anderson Cooper saying Edward Snowden, hero or traitor. I think the validity of a question is inversely promotional to it's length. The longer you have to set up, the more evidence you are assuming that can be debated.

I want to hear the candidates answer tough questions. I asked Marco Rubio and Donald Trump about Syria. It was a very tough, very pointed question. No one was mad at me afterwards. That's what people want to know, tough pointed questions, not softballs, not talking point invitations but not the speechify and personal attacks. That's for the interview setting, that's for the one on one on Sunday morning, a debate is when the candidate should talk to each other about that which distinguishes their positions and why they are better than the other person at beating Hillary Clinton.

LEMON: Don't you think the fox during the Fox debate at least there was more contexts given to the reason for the questioning they quoted the candidates in their own words and then asked them a question off of that?

HEWITT: Well, look, the Fox debate was not as bad as CNBC. I've seen -- I know a lot of people survived rollovers on the highway. And this was ironically out of that car that rolled over on Wednesday night, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Chris Christie sprinted unharmed but none of the moderators got out. The first debate everybody got banged up. The CNN debate with Jake Ram with Dana Bash and me, I think university well-regarded and 23 million people agreed. So there is a happy medium with a strong moderator, with well-prepared professionals.

Mark Preston basically lived in my head for four weeks before that debate working, working, working.

LEMON: Oh, my god.

HEWITT: So it takes practice and preparation and I just didn't see that this week. I saw -- even the sound guys were off, Don.

LEMON: Yeah, Mark is very experienced politically and been here at CNN for quite sometime. But that's a dangerous -- I know Mark Preston. Wow. OK so. Just kidding, Mark.

HEWITT: No, I can speak a second language now which is profanity.

LEMON: And the accent -- the New England accent....

HEWITT: Yeah.

LEMON: So first, you know, they complain about the length of the debate, when it was here on CNN and they say they didn't have enough time to talk. I mean, who bears the responsibility for this? Is it the RNC? Is it the -- who -- what gives here?

HEWITT: It's not the RNC. It is the debate panelist. In this case, Salem Media Group and CNN got together and I like those ground rules. I think there was plenty of time. I think Jake gave people enough time to respond. As I did as Dana Bash did. What Ben Carson complained about today was not giving the opportunity to people like Chris Christie to you get asked about climate change, step back.

[21:10:07] That takes three or four minutes to explain.

LEMON: He wants more time to layout platform.

HEWITT: Yeah.

LEMON: He used to time as usual

HEWITT: Yeah and I agree with that. On the other hand, you don't get to just give you talking points over and over again. On one is going to watch that.

LEMON: Is that in the veto or is that speechifying?

HEWITT: That's speechifying. And the candidates have got to watch out. The reason to 23 million people watched CNN is that there was conflict and drama. If you make it boring talking points, you have two people watching they're going to turn the channel and they're not going to have the opportunity to make the case that obviously Marco Rubio made to Paul Singer last night or this week that she ought to come with me.

So the interesting part about this week's debate that was a train wreck is that it did help some people make up their minds. It helped Marco Rubio a lot, Ted Cruz a lot, Chris Christie a lot, Carly Fiorina a little bit but the future ones need to make more of a balance about that, you know, that person at the dining room table in Iowa who doesn't know who to caucus for it.

LEMON: OK, so if you had the title RNC chair, what would you do?

HEWITT: I'd actually say any luck I'd like to have Chuck Todd, Tom Brokaw and Rick Lowry ask all of the questions for a period of two and a half hours and don't worry about people having two minutes more, two minutes less. Let those three go and I put everyone in chairs. I really don't like left turns. I know its better T.V. but the best debate of modern times was Joe Lieberman, Dick Cheney and one moderator at a table, very best debate at modern times.

LEMON: Yeah, I remember them sitting at a table. I think that one of the debates back in 2012 as well.

HEWITT: Yeah.

LEMON: I think they sat down. Anyway, thank you Hugh Hewitt.

HEWITT: Always a pleasure, Don.

LEMON: Have a great weekend.

HEWITT: Thank you.

LEMON: All right, up next. Protesters from Black Lives Matter disrupt the Hillary Clinton campaign event at a historically Black University in Atlanta and a new rival taking Donald Trump to task for his views on immigration. You'll never guess who it is. That's ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[21:15:34]

LEMON: Welcome back. You're looking at live pictures now. This is of course candidate Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State now candidate for president speaking tonight.

She will be at the NAACP dinner in North Charlton, South Carolina and as you know, she had a little bit of controversy today. She was involved in earlier protest to stage of disruption at a Hillary Clinton campaign event chanting Black Lives Matter while she's delivering her campaign remarks. Here is how it went down.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: Using the power...

UNIDENTIFED FEMALE: Black Lives matter.

CLINTON: ... of the feelings that com forward...

UNIDENTIFED FEMALE:

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Black Lives Matter.

CLINTON: Yes, they do and I'm going to talk a lot about that in a minute.

UNIDENTIFED female: : Hillary. Hillary. Hillary.

CLINTON: Now, my friends, I am going to get to some very important points that actually prove that black lives do matter and we have to take action together.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: CNN National Correspondents Suzanne Malveaux joins me now. So Suzanne, you've covered a lot of campaign rallies and speeches. You've been White House Correspondent at one point. You were there. You saw it all go down. Walk us through what happened and what your impressions were?

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Don, it was absolutely incredible. I mean, this is like nothing I have ever seen before and that was because this went on for nearly 30 minutes if you can imagine this.

The Hillary Clinton campaign folks said there were 2,100 people at this rally, this was 10, 10 people Black Lives Matter who came in and walked into the room about five minutes into Hillary Clinton's speech started shouting Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter. She tried to address it saying black lives do matter. Here let me explain why. They were not satisfied with that. They started chanting what the hell do you know?

Then Hillary Clinton started trying to tell stories of struggles of Civil Right leaders John Lewis who is in room the congressmen, Dorothy Height, some people cheered but they were not able to drawn out the protesters and at that point the congressman and the mayor of Atlanta went down on the floor. They pleaded with them. They talked to them. At some point they were trying to gently kind of push them out the room. That did not go over well at all.

This went on, Don, this stand off between Hillary Clinton and Black Lives Matter for a good 25 minutes. You can imagine the distraction she talked over them, cameras, cell phones went out. Everybody was taking pictures and videos.

At some point, John Lewis and the mayor gave up and decided they could not convince them to stop and so they therefore went on stage with Hillary Clinton, literally shoulder to shoulder behind her to show her, figuratively and literally they had her back.

At that point and it seemed like a signal to security, the security came in, escorted them out. The crowd erupted saying "Let her talk, let her talk, let her speak." It was a big applause.

She went on, Don, to talk about her criminal justice reform system for about another five minutes - five to 10 minutes or so and then instead of running like off the stage after she was done. She stayed for another 30 minutes shaking hands, taking selfies with the choir. Laughing with students, really just trying to own this if you will.

And as you know, I know you're going to talk to members of Black Lives Matters but I talked to some of those protesters who were kicked out today and they believe they did the right thing, that they had to make this gesture, stance that they are not going to be taken for granted by Hillary Clinton and that's something that they were very concerned about this evening. And we also caught up with Congressman John Lewis, my colleague then in America who said he wasn't offended but he was disappointed because he said it was unfortunate that they didn't listen to what she had to say because he thought that she really had a prescription for dealing with a lot of their concerns.

LEMON: We have that Suzanne. We actually have that. Let's listen to it real quick.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN LEWIS, (D) GEORGIA: Because they represent another time, another period and they were trying to make a point to dramatize of what the concern about.

[21:20:00] So I think the movement need to continue reaching out and addressing the concerns and needs of people. It is unfortunate that they didn't listen to the secretary because I think she would have answered many of their questions that they are concerned about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Several of the Black Lives Matter organizations, the groups, protesters there, they were disappointed to hear Congressman Lewis say that because they asked me, they said what else are we supposed to do here? I mean, we want to go beyond the rhetoric. We want to get something done. How do we do that?

And they felt that they really wanted the support of those who were in the room with them and clearly, that was not something that was coming from the traditional Civil Rights icons and I think Don, it just illustrates, demonstrates what Hillary Clinton is dealing with here. She is clearly does have a lot of support from traditional Civil Rights leader but it is far from clear whether or not she has that kind of support from young black leaders and black students who she will need to get come out is she's going to get a victory.

LEMON: Thank you Suzanne. I appreciated.

Let's talk about this now with someone who was there. Joining me now is Avery Jackson, an organizer with the group called "#AUCShutItDown". He was at the Clinton event.

So let's talk about the last thing that Suzanne talked about. How -- they said that people there were disappointed to hear John Lewis say what he had to say. Why would they be disappointed with that?

AVERY JACKSON, ORGANIZER, #AUCSHUTITDOWN: I think we were disappointed because Senator John Lewis is someone we do look up to. You know, we do pull on the spirits of people who have organized in this movement prior to us to guide us and to really direct our tactics and he is someone who use the tactics and, you know he got to push back that we got from people who had that generational divide, as well, and hopefully, we were hoping there will be an understanding there for him to see that we had different methods and different tactics and people have different ways to accomplish their goals... LEMON: So Mr. Jackson, let me ask you this. He's Congressman John Lewis and then but people -- he would say that you used his tactics. He didn't use your tactic. That he -- that you're using his tactics because he, you know, he was Dr. King's. They did it. They started it all. They sort of -- they made not sort of -- they made the way for you.

So if you had this experienced politician who is a Civil Rights icon and legend and he's saying "Hey, listen young people. You know, I'm trying to talk to you and tell you, we're listening to you. We got Senator Clinton here. We're going to make sure she listens to you. We got the Mayor of Atlanta, one of the biggest and most influential is black cities in the nation. We got Dorothy Height, a Civil Rights legend and icon here. We're all here listening. We're trying to tell your behinds, your young people like hey, listen to us, we got you. Chill out and listen to her." So why wouldn't you do that?

JACKSON: I think that's the issue. You know, we seen what Hillary Clinton did today. It was really pushing a monolithic image of what it means to be black and what it means to represent black people on these platforms and what we have seen from leaders who do represent us, you know, in official position, they often times represent one image of black people and one agenda of black people and the experiences and the stories and the opinions that are erased are those of us who spoke out today, right?

LEMON: OK.

JACKSON: Hillary Clinton came to the Atlanta University Center and she didn't necessarily reach out to us. She didn't speak to us before hand and I think that represent...

LEMON: "So why -- if you're yelling at me, I'm just saying listen to it. I'm playing -- just playing devil's advocate here but if you're yelling at me, why would I listen to you? If you're screaming at me and if -- if she's not even five minutes into her speech and you come in, wouldn't you say, hey listen, give me a chance and if you don't like what I have to say, then you can yell at me. You can do all the yelling that you want."

JACKSON: I think we listened to Hillary talk for quite awhile and I think we're at the point where we have to really move past rhetoric and we have to get to action. And I think though Hillary Clinton has made some great suggestions, what we are here to do is continue to provide that pressure and that heat to make sure we are making progress to realize solutions and not just rhetoric.

LEMON: OK, so here's what it is in. All right, so she says that she would endorse legislation, she's not president, yet, OK and if she becomes president, legislation banning, racial profiling by law enforcement. She said that she would ban federal employers from asking job seekers about their prior criminal convictions. She said she wants to eliminate the distinction between crack and cocaine to drug sentences. Aren't these are kind of actions that Black Lives Matter would be on board about? JACKSON: That's the kind of rhetoric that we are on board for but I think we need to see those put into real policy suggestions, right, and I think that what Hillary Clinton is doing is starting a conversation that we've been having for a long time.

So we know these things are issues and we know that the things that she out laid today are issues but we reached past that point of recognizing issues and talking about what are real life solutions and having those solutions being brought to us because if you are going to run for the president of the United States, I think it's time for you to really give solution that people who -- black people who are Americans and who are probably the agenda that you're supposed to be pushing really are at the priority and the center of this conversation.

[21:25:01]

LEMON: OK. I heard you. Thank you, Mr. Jackson appreciation coming on.

JACKSON: Thank you.

LEMON: Thank you.

Up next, the G.O.P. candidates in the RNC complaining about the debate questions. Do they have a point or are they being whining? The political experts will join me next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: The battle over the debate intensifies. RNC now suspending ties with NBC News on a planned February debate. I'm joined now by Bob Beckel, CNN Political Commentator and Author of "I Should Be Dead, My Life Surviving Politics, T.V. and Addiction", Tara Setmayer my CNN Political Commentator and Republican Strategist and Douglas Brinkley, CNN Presidential Historian.

So listen, Bob, I want to talk to you about this before and I think there was some miscommunication about Dorothy Height. Dorothy Height just no longer with us.

BOB BECKEL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No, she's not.

LEMON: So she was talking about Dorothy Height. So if that was -- there was some confusion, we apologize for that, I apologize for that. But I want to talk to you about that because I know that John Lewis and Civil Rights struggle very close to you. What do you think of what happened today?

BECKEL: I think that it was actually ridiculous. I think they should have listened. I think what Hillary Clinton has been saying is exactly the kinds of things they want to hear about.

[21:30:03] John Lewis said the same thing and John Lewis was on the front lines. John Lewis has been beat up. He's been arrested, so has my dad and so was I. And so I just find it -- I think it's time for them to be quiet and listen and then have their say but I just think to sit there and to be little somebody for saying the things they want them to say is just crazy.

LEMON: Historically, Douglas Brinkley, you know, but you know the Civil Rights Movement obviously, you know, what happened but historically, has there been anything that you can see that equates to sort of the Black Lives Matter movement and the presidential campaign?

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well, you know, I think all this is an out growth right now with the Occupy Wall Street movement and if you're going to Occupy Wall Street to, you know, criticize financial shenanigan then now, you're going to kind of occupy political stages but a lot of this is the theater of the '60s.

We keep talking about the 1960s Civil Rights Movement of John Lewis and Martin Luther King but there was Dick Gregory running for president in 1968 and people -- a lot of disruption at conventions by African -- American groups trying to bring a consciousness level to things. I thought...

BECKEL: Right, but that's necessary saying we're hanging.

LEMON: Let him finish, Bob.

BRINKLEY: Yes.

LEMON: Go ahead.

BRINKLEY: Well, people are being shot in America now. I mean, in the Black Lives Matter (inaudible) Trayvon Martin case and I think there's a lot of legitimacy to Black Lives Matter but they should not interrupt Hillary Clinton a few minutes in the speech. If they did it should have lasted a second as a heckler and they've been quiet instead of disrupted the whole event and people in the audience there may have been having to go to their -- get their, you know, go baby sit or go back to their job and kind of ruin the event for everybody. So I don't think it was a good moment for Black Lives Matter but the movement itself has legitimacy.

LEMON: When you're talking about -- hang on, Tara, I'm going to pose a question to you because he -- because Douglas Brinkley mentioned Occupy Wall Street. Where is Occupy Wall Street now? Do they, you know, are they possibly could face the same fate if they keep talking and not listening?

TARA SETMAYER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, that's the point I was going to make. I mean, whether you feel Black Lives Matter has legitimacy or not. The -- some of the issues that they bring up our legitimate possibly but they're killing themselves with these topics by continuing to act that like they're on the fringe here. I mean, this is -- things like this do not help their cause.

Hillary Clinton is obviously an ally. She was there at a historically black school. She was speaking on criminal justice reform trying to layout a plan. I mean, your guest before was talking in circles. I don't if -- well, he said, well, yeah, that's the kind of rhetoric we want to hear but we want real policy, that's Hillary Clinton was trying to do and yet they still continue to disrupt.

So between these antics and then you have the other sprint elements within Black Lives Matter screaming about, you know, pigs in a blanket and killing cops, they are going to de-legitimize themselves right out of having any credibility whatsoever.

LEMON: Yeah, OK. Tara, let's move on now.

Before -- let's talk about -- before we talk about the debates, "The New York Times" is reporting at the influential and wealthy Republican donor, Paul Singer. We have it now, CNN has this reporting, is throwing his support behind Marco Rubio. How big of a blow is this to the Jeb Bush campaign, do you think?

SETMAYER: Listen, Jeb Bush is a goner, OK? He is -- anytime you have a candidate that has to go out there and say my candidacy is not on life support means that your candidacy is on life support.

I mean, Jeb Bush has been on a -- his campaign has been hemorrhaging for many months now and it's been even more so in the last week with his comments about "I could have cooler things where I could do whether they than run for president and be miserable." That's not great and then he had a terrible debate performance where just Marco Rubio ate his lunch.

So now you have the COO resign of the campaign. When you start seeing staff changes like that at higher levels, it's not a good thing and now, the donors have already been worried. They been softening support for Jeb Bush over the last month and half or so and with a major donor like Singer going over to Rubio that's just a signal that the major donor class does not have confidence in Jeb Bush anymore and Rubio is the guy and you're going to see the slow demise of Jeb Bush.

LEMON: Bob Beckel?

BECKEL: Well, I mean, I said last night that this was a donor debate as much as anything else.

LEMON: You did? You actually did.

BECKEL: We're going to look at this race and they're going to decide that whether their candidate was somebody who was going to be up for the long haul and clearly some of Bush's people did not. This is a big blow to Bush and it won't be the last. One of the problems is that he's got a lot of money but he's got a huge what we call burn rate presidential politics.

They are spending millions of dollars a day and I did this for myself when we were behind Gary Hart when we took everything we had through it into Alabama and Georgia and he won and got back in the race but when you do those kinds of things, you're not kidding anybody. You're not reorganizing. You're putting yourself a life raft out there and you're getting on it.

[21:35:01]

SETMAYER: And he's already cut his campaign by 45 percent.

LEMON: I want to...

SETMAYER: That came down this week, too.

LEMON: Yeah, stand by...

SETMAYER: That's not -- that's a terrible week.

LEMON: ... stand by, everyone. I want you to listen to this because you're going to have to comment on it. Here's Hillary Clinton.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: ... end to racial profiling across America on every level. Federal, state and local, I don't care where it happens, it's wrong. It's demeaning. It doesn't keep us safe. It doesn't help solve crimes. It's time to end this practice once and for all.

I will also fight to end the era of mass incarceration. We have 5 percent of the world's population and 25 percent of the world's prison population. Many Americans behind bars right now are low level offenders, predominantly drug users. Keeping them in prison does little to reduce crime but it does a lot to tear families and communities apart.

Right now, one out of every 28 children in America has a parent in prison. You talk about the pipeline that goes from the cradle to prison it starts when a family is broken up for no real reason.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Hillary Clinton speaking in North Charleston tonight, South Carolina at NAACP meeting. I just -- I want to bring my panel back in. I just want to get a response.

Douglas Brinkley, these are the kinds of issues that Hillary Clinton she spoke about similar issues today when she was speaking in Atlanta, yet was interrupted, wasn't given the chance to speak about and this is certainly part of her platform, so it is perplexing, you know, some of the tactics that Black Lives Matter has taken when it comes to Hillary at least today.

BRINKLEY: Well, I think that's true. It was silly when they interrupted Bernie Sanders like that, too, but look, we're talking about these issues. So it's not clear we be running Hillary Clinton tonight on CNN at the NAACP meeting except they created a bit of controversy today.

This was the tactics used in the '60s where Yippees would come and protest the war in Vietnam. The cameras would all come and it made news. The story here is how well Hillary Clinton handled all this today. She did a marvelous job in the afternoon continuing into the evening and she's really just what the clip you just played is really tackling some of the big issues for African-American to the black that that does concern the Black Lives Matter movement. Great, it's been a good day for Hillary Clinton.

LEMON: Yeah, and that -- it was live. So stand by everyone. We'll take a break and we'll come back and we'll continue the conversation. Don't go anywhere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[21:41:48]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: ... new college...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: All right. Live pictures again, Hillary Clinton, presidential candidate speaking now North Charleston South Carolina speaking at the NAACP dinner talking about issues, about important to African- Americans. And to the black lives matter movement. Back with me now is Bob Beckel, Tara Setmayer and also Douglas Brinkley.

Bob, let's talk about these debates. What's your take on what you're hearing from the RNC and these candidates? How does that make them look?

BECKEL: Well, I mean, CNBC looks like their stock is going to go down. But the candidates are right. I mean, you cannot have a free for all like that. We're not running here for "gotcha" questions. They are running for president of the United States. And this format has got to change. You got to give people more time to speak. And the fact that matter is, that CNBC'S people were not up to the job. They weren't presidentially -- they didn't have any presidential experience. And I think one of these days, somebody is going to get smart and put people who have had presidential experience on who can ask the kind of questions that need to be asked.

LEMON: Douglas Brinkley, you know, aren't tough questions even bad questions or "gotcha" questions, don't these moments allow stronger candidates to shine? I mean, they're going to face a very tough question once they're in the oval office, right?

BRINKLEY: Well, they definitely do, but, you know, I think a lot of people were thinking CNBC was going to ask about jobs and the economy. It seemed to be void of any substance and just a lot of plastic cups flying quickly.

And I think it's Donald Trump present the tone and tenor for these debates early on -- starting off with Megyn Kelly. Ratings are high, if you can have plastic cups a lot of drama right out of the gate. And I think we do need a little more substance seeping into this debate, these debates. And my belief is the RNC and CNBC will come to agreement and things will be back on track. It seems to have just gotten out of hand last night.

LEMON: So Tara, we talked about this a little bit before we went on as you and I were getting ready to go on. Listen, I understand that they said that they want conservative hosts or hosts who understand conservative issues which is because you want someone who understands women's issues more than probably a man, you want to women affairs someone who understand African -- American issue, you probably want it up the American affair, once you what to understands that issue are important to Latinos so you may having Latino up there.

So, I think it's fine to have that conservative but should they all be conservatives but should they all be conservation should they all be Republicans at a Republican debate?

SETMAYER: No, I don't think they all should be. I mean, look what CNN did. They brought in Hugh Hewitt that was the right thing to do to feel that, that part of it, a prerequisite. I think that was a fair thing to do for CNN. But I would hope that you have journalist who are journalists and objectives, not necessarily identity politics journalist. I think - I don't think you have to necessarily be black or a woman or whatever to be able to ask objective questions in a presidential debate format. I think people who want professionalism and fairness. No one is running away from tough questions.

LEMON: Right.

SETMAYER: When the point was made of course you want tough questions. And you want it to be fair and I've got to tell you, I mean, it just -- this just furthers the idea behind there is the main stream media is not fair to conserve this.

[21:45:03]

LEMON: Got to go, Tara

SETMAYER: They would never ask Democrats those kinds of questions.

LEMON: Thanks to all of you. Appreciate it. Have a great weekend.

Coming up, Donald Trump has his fair chair of political rivals but we'll see this coming of Trump versus Bourdain battle. Anthony Bourdain joins me next.

ANTHONY BOURDAIN, CNN HOST, PARTS UNKNOWN: How you doing?

LEMON: Look at that walk on Olympic, is that a --what happen?

BOURDAIN: I just introduce you today.

LEMON: Oh. I know you got.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Well, Donald Trump has a new rival. CNN host Anthony Bourdain. He's right here now. We'll talk to him in a second. He is taking on Trump for his flagship platform on immigration. Take a look at this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. They're illegal immigrants. They came over illegally. Some are wonderful people and they've been here for a while. They've got to go out.

These are illegal people. They're at least 11 million. Nobody knows, it could be 30 million. But they're at least 11 million. I've been hearing that number for years, so it's probably wrong could be less, could be more. But they can come back in.

We could do wall.

[21:50:00] We're going to have a big, fat beautiful door right in the middle of the wall. We'll going to have people come in, but they're coming in legally. And Mexico is going to pay for the wall.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Anthony Bourdain says Trump's massive deportation plan would mean every restaurant in America would shut down. The host of CNN's "Parts Unknown" joins me now live. You're sort of laughing, but that's a laugh of exasperation, right?

BOURDAIN: Look, it is a hypocritical and preposterous assumption, but it's also -- are we seriously talking about. Now, deporting 11 million people at once or over a short -- we're actually having that conversation?

Look, I think honest, good-hearted people can disagree or have different opinions about whether or not we want to let anybody else in or how many people we want to let -- it is a legitimate position to say, OK, we can't take anymore. We're going to restrict access, we're going to make it tough.

Though I think the logistics of a wall are ludicrous and ugly. But let us, at least, all I'm asking is can we at least be honest about, who is working in America now, who has been working in America for some time. Look, I was the backstairs help for 28 years, for much of my life.

LEMON: I want to get to the restaurant part. Why do you say that? And I think that's where you're going. Why would you say every restaurant in America will shutdown?

BOURDAIN: I think that's a hyperbole, but for 28 years of my life I was in the service industry, working in the restaurant industry, and I was surrounded by, supported by and inspired a significant, enormous portion of that industry, which were central Americans, people from abroad, who were working for close to minimum wage, taking jobs that were very difficult to fill with Americans, unfortunately. And they have been doing those jobs for some time -- entry-level positions.

LEMON: And it's not a secret.

(CROSSTALK) LEMON: This is no secret in the restaurant.

BOURDAIN: Everybody in the industry knows it. Nobody wants to talk about it. But it is a huge proportion, not just of the restaurant industry, and Mr. Trump is surely aware of this, because, you know, he has interests in the hospitality, golf course, hotel, casino business.

LEMON: That's also true. Yeah

BOURDAIN: So it's dishonest. And all I'm saying is, do you really want to throw out people who have been here for ten years, who have no criminal records, who have set down roots, who have had children, who have been part and contributed to the American dream. You really want to just uproot them all at once and pack them out on trains?

LEMON: He says, yes, Tony, he says, yes, he wants to do it. And that's a big part of his platform and it's resonating.

BOURDAIN: These are ugly times and I find it, you know, my God, you know, this country was founded on the idea of being, you know, welcoming to people from elsewhere.

LEMON: Do you at least agree with him that we wouldn't be discussing it to this level, even Anthony Bourdain, if he didn't bring it up? That's what he says.

BOURDAIN: I think it takes a special kind of a person to start a conversation like this and he is definitely a special kind of a person. And I don't mean it in a good way.

LEMON: Do you think it's worth having the conversation, though?

BOURDAIN: I wish it wasn't him leading the conversation. I think -- look, as they guy said...

LEMON: You said it's legitimate to...

BOURDAIN: Yeah it is legitimate to talk about, to regulating things in the future. But can we find a -- in good conscience, can we find a way to find a path for amnesty to people who have done the right thing and raised families here and contributed to the American dream.

LEMON: Yeah. And you know the hospitality industry. You know the restaurant as well?

BOURDAIN: Yes.

LEMON: Because if you've traveled all the not just in the United States all over the world. This Sunday at 9:00 P.M., you're going to take us to Borneo. You went there, right? What do people say to you about America there?

BOURDAIN: I think, like much of the world, they look at us as a hopeful place, a hopeful and increasingly strange place that they would like to come.

LEMON: What's with the bare chest here? What's going on?

BOURDAIN: I made the terrible mistake of get a traditional hand- tapped tattoo. While in Borneo, I wanted to do like the elder -- the tribal elders who were covered with these fantastic tattoos. But how bad can it hurt? It hurt, a lot.

LEMON: And it's still there?

BOURDAIN: It's permanent. A permanent tattoos

LEMON: Yeah.

BOURDAIN: Right there.

LEMON: Yeah.

BOURDAIN: I'm going to take a look to make sure right after. Anthony Bourdain returns to Borneo on the next episode of "parts unknown," this Sunday at 9:00 p.m. eastern.

Again I thanks to Anthony Bourdain.

BOURDAIN: Don't try this at home.

LEMON: Ah, there it is. Thank you. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[21:59:08]

LEMON: I want you to meet another of this year's top ten CNN heroes. 10 years ago, Maggie Doyne left her hometown in New Jersey to take a backpacking trip in Nepal and stumbled on to a new life. While there, she intended to help one needy child. Today, she has become the mother of nearly 50.

MAGGIE DOYNE, CNN HEROES: You know, I always said I would stop after 25. Then the cap became 30. Then the cap became 40. And then that kid comes in that you just can't say no to, that it's life or death.

LEMON: Make sure you see Maggie's full story at cnnheroes.com and while you're there, make sure you check out all of our top 10 heroes and vote every day for your favorite. That's it for tonight. We'll see you back here on Monday night at 10:00 P.M. have a great weekend. Happy Halloween . "Anthony Bourdain parts unknown.

[22:00:00] You've got to see it. It's just here on the show live starts right now.