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Don Lemon Tonight
Jay-Z And Beyonce Headline Clinton Rally; The Race Tightening; Campaigner-In-Chief Stumps For Clinton; Are Latino Voters The Key?; NAACP Alleges Effort To Suppress Black Vote In North Carolina; Polls Show Tight Race; Two Princeton Profs Say Polls Show Less Variation Than Ever; Princeton Profs on Election Anxiety: Focus on Data, Not Drama; Beyonce and Jay-Z Headline Clinton Rally; Sununu Makes Crude Joke About Clinton; Two Former Christie Aides Convicted For "Bridgegate". Aired 11p-Midnight ET
Aired November 04, 2016 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Hillary Clinton rolls out her A-list supporters with just four days to go until the election. This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon. Jay-z and Beyonce headlining Hillary Clinton's Cleveland rally tonight. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BEYONCE: Cleveland, how y'all feeling tonight? Y'all help me sing.
JAY-Z: One more time for the one and only Queen B tonight. Once you divide us, you weaken us, we're stronger together. Once you divide us, you weaken us. We are stronger together, and without further ado, I would like to introduce to you, the next president of the United States, Ms. Hillary Clinton.
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thanks to Jay-z and Beyonce, and thanks to Chance the Rapper, and Jay Coal, and Big Shawn. When I see them here, this passion and energy and intensity, I don't even know where to begin because this is what America is, my friends.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Straight now to CNN's Brianna Keilar in Cleveland tonight at that event. You had the best duty at the network tonight, the Jay-z and Beyonce concert for Hillary Clinton. So tell us how it went down.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, not a bad way to spend a Friday night and certainly that was what the crowd of thousands here at the Wolstein Center thought. The performance, which is what everyone came for obviously was fantastic.
But it was really the messages that were particularly interesting coming from Jay-z and Beyonce. Jay-z was talking about really how the first female president, it was something that he was equating with the first black president.
It would have been a very historic thing and he actually took aim at Donald Trump, not by name, but he said that he was divisive and he said that he was an evolved soul and then you heard Beyonce really talking as a mother to a daughter and about the importance of certainly a female president and Hillary Clinton gave some very short remarks.
Because it was certainly noted, Don, that a lot of people came more for the concert than maybe they came to hear what Hillary Clinton had to say, but she urged them to get out to vote.
And all of this here tonight in Ohio is about her attracting young, African-American voters, trying to get to them out to the polls. You remember in the primaries that once you looked at the demographics, young black voters went for Bernie Sanders, just as all other younger voters did.
We really saw that divide cutting across racial lines and so Hillary Clinton has been slow in bringing them around. She talked tonight about criminal justice reform, but also for young black voters, they have found out through this election about some of the things that she's said in the '90s, supporting her husband's crime bill.
And that's part of the reason why they haven't really come around. Jay-z and Beyonce and these other acts here tonight trying to help forget some of that attention and trying to get people out to the polls.
LEMON: Brianna Keilar, thank you very much with that reporting. I want to bring in now "Washington Post," David Swerdlick. David, thanks for joining us again. The race is tightening up. Hillary Clinton has got all her big name surrogates out. Is it going to make a difference in Ohio where she has been behind for a while?
DAVID SWERDLICK, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: So, Don, again, you know, I am skeptical about Ohio for Hillary Clinton at this point. For weeks now, if you look at the Real Clear Politics polling average, Ohio has been in the Trump column. Right now it's Trump by about 3 percent in the polling average.
I just don't know if there's enough days left in this race for Hillary Clinton to change that.
[23:05:03]To the bigger picture, though, of the rest of the states on the map, I think what Brianna was saying just a moment ago really hints at what is key right now for the Clinton campaign.
This idea that, look, in the primaries, younger voters of color, African-Americans, Latino younger voters were skewing towards Bernie Sanders.
Now that their choice is between Trump and Clinton, it's really -- there's no indication that younger voters of color are going to go for Trump, but the question is whether they will come out for Hillary Clinton, or whether they'll stay home and that is what the Clinton campaign is trying to guard against.
Polling these rallies, having surrogates, you know, the biggest surrogates in politics, President Obama, Michelle Obama, out on the trail for them to underscore this idea that now that it's down to this binary choice.
Unless you count, you know, Gary Johnson and Jill Stein, the two, third, and fourth party candidates, this is a choice younger voters are simply going to have to make and they want people to think this is their future.
LEMON: And you mentioned the president being out there. The president was in North Carolina, and I want you to listen to how he handled a protester, who interrupted him and how the audience responded.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Now listen up, I'm serious. Listen up. You've got an older gentleman who is supporting his candidate. He -- he's not doing nothing. You don't have to worry about him. This is what I mean about folks not being focused.
First of all -- first of all, we -- holed up. Hold up. First of all, we live in a country that respects free speech. So second of all, it looks like maybe he might have served in our military and we ought to respect that.
Third of all, he was elderly and we got to respect our elders and fourth of all, don't boo.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: David, let's be honest. That is how you handle a protester. That's how you handle a protester, and it's a stark difference as to what you see -- especially what we saw at those Trump rallies, get him out of here or punch him in the faced or I'll pay your legal bills, that's how you do it.
SWERDLICK: That's how you handle a protester, Don. It speaks to president Obama having this moral authority at this point. At the end of eight years, his approval ratings are in the mid-50s. He's popular. He's respected. Even people that don't agree with him on issues see him as someone who can speak with moral authority on these issues, and he handles it without coming across as a scold simply saying let's maintain calm and order.
LEMON: He's supporting his candidate. He's a veteran. We must thank him for his service or honor him. It was just a lesson.
SWERDLICK: It was masterful.
LEMON: It was a master class in how you handle a protester and he didn't demean the man at all. This is about the exact moment that President Obama had with the protester. I want you to listen to how it was described by Donald Trump to his supporters.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You saw it today on television, right? He was talking to the protester screaming at him, really screaming at him. By the way, if I spoke the way Obama spoke to that protester, they would say he became unhinged.
You have to go back and look and study and see what happened. They never moved the camera and he spent so much time screaming at this protester and frankly it was a disgrace.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Was he watching the same tape? I mean, what's going on?
SWERDLICK: It's a total mischaracterization. Let's acknowledge that for the last few days Trump has been on message. He's gaining on Secretary Clinton in the polls. Let's not take that away from him.
But his characterization of the president is completely off and doesn't bear out for anyone who has been watching your show for the last 5 minutes, Don, President Obama was measured, made a series of points that really no thinking American could disagree with.
And again he didn't do it in a way that scolded anybody. It simply showed that he could regain order and go on, and as you said, Don, support his candidate without putting down a protester.
LEMON: Thank you, David. I appreciate it.
SWERDLICK: Thank you, Don.
LEMON: I want to bring now and turn to Maria Elena Salinas, a news anchor for Univision. Thank you so much. I appreciate you joining us this evening. Welcome to the show. Maria, we've been talking a lot about the black vote being down.
MARIA ELENA SALINAS, UNIVISION NEWS ANCHOR: It's my pleasure.
LEMON: But there's evidence the Hispanic vote is way up. What are you seeing and hearing?
SALINAS: Definitely the Hispanic vote is up across the country, but particularly in Florida, which is one of the states that's most important to this election. In fact early voting among Hispanics increased 129 percent since 2008.
[23:10:03]And as we know, one of the most important areas is the I4 corridor in Central Florida, and there has been an increase of 46 percent, 170,000 more voter registration amongst Hispanics since 2012.
So there definitely is an increase of people interested in voting, people that are registering to vote and people that are casting their vote early.
LEMON: And Maria, you know, Donald Trump never let up on the Hispanic and Latino communities. He came on my show and said, you know, who's doing the raping, Don, somebody is doing the raping and talk about the wall, the attacks on Judge Curiel, the bad hombres, feeding insults to Miss Universe, Alicia Machado.
These controversies have gotten a lot of coverage in the mainstream media, but I would imagine that there have been even bigger issue in the Hispanic media, no?
SALINAS: They definitely have been, and we have been covering it since the beginning, since that very first day in 2015 when he launched his campaign accusing immigrants, particularly Mexican immigrants of being rapists, of being criminal, drug dealers, building the wall.
And you know, one of the things I think that affected a lot of people and realized that Donald Trump's issue was not only with undocumented immigrants is when he attacked Judge Curiel.
Judge Curiel is Mexican-American, and he called him a Mexican and said he could not do his job because he was a Mexican and because he was building a wall. And I think that gave people the perception that your problem is with Mexicans and Latinos in general, not specifically with undocumented immigrants.
So yes, we've been covering it quite a bit and our viewers are very interested. They're very engaged. We see that in our viewership that has increased. We had incredible numbers in the debates.
We've had incredible numbers in our social media of people responding and according to the Pews Hispanic Center, there's a 63 percent increase in interest among Latinos in 2012 in politics.
LEMON: This was Tim Kaine last night, Maria, in Phoenix. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SENATOR TIM KAINE (D), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: (Speaking Spanish).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Do you think that the Latino and Hispanic community understand the power that they might have in this election?
SALINAS: I think they do understand the power and I think little by little they're realizing that they could make a difference. It's interesting that he gave that speech in Arizona because Arizona is also s very important state and even though Donald Trump at this moment is up in the polls in Arizona, the Hispanic vote could make a huge difference.
They're more than 21 percent of the electorate in that state and there's been huge movement in people come have become citizens, registering to vote, and getting out and vote. Let me tell you an anecdote about Arizona after HB1070, the anti-immigrant law.
There was an increase of 165 percent of Latinos who registered to vote and let's remember also that Russell Pierce was voted out of office because of HB1070. So I really think that's going to have an impact.
The fact that he speaks Spanish, of course might not, although a lot of people see it as a form of respect and attention to our culture, but not necessarily a reason to vote for someone.
LEMON: Maria Elena Salinas, I really, really enjoyed having your perspective. Will you please come back on the show more often?
SALINAS: Of course, I'd love to. Thank you, Don.
LEMON: Thank you very much for joining this evening. Make sure you stay with CNN for all-day coverage of the Election Day on Tuesday. We'll be covering it all day for you.
When we come right back, the last minute ruling that could affect thousands of voters in a big battleground state.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:17:32]
LEMON: A big ruling in North Carolina will affect exactly who can vote on Tuesday, who can vote on Tuesday. Here to discuss this, Reverend Dr. William Barber, president of North Carolina NAACP.
I'm so glad you're joining us this evening to discuss this, a very important matter, Reverend. So you have been fighting voter suppression down there including thousands of people stripped from the voting rolls. You had a big victory tonight. What did the judge ruled?
REVEREND DR. WILLIAM BARBER, PRESIDENT, NORTH CAROLINA NAACP: The judge ruled a temporary restraining order saying that these purges all thousands of these people had to be returned to the rolls and allowed to vote and all of this activity had to cease across the state of North Carolina.
This is heavy. It's a first case of its type for this challenge, this kind of purging where a group allied with the GOP simply sends out a bunch of mailings, if they come back undeliverable, then they go in and they challenge them in bulk form.
And they challenge these voters and people find out in the newspaper that their voter registration has been challenged.
LEMON: Reverend, there's been a lot of talk about the black vote being down. How much of that is a lower degree of enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton, or how much is the stuff that we have been reporting on here about a lack of polling places in black areas, not opening polls on Sundays and things like that?
BARBER: Well, first of all, let me just say to everybody vote in North Carolina tomorrow is the last day of early voting. We have same-day registration and early voting that we won in the courts, and if you need any information, call 1888-our-vote. Don, in our state, the GOP keeps scheming and the court keeps speaking. We have a lot of enthusiasm here. We've had 60 marches to the polls. Students have marched to the polls, but at the same turn, we have 158 fewer polling places in the 40 counties previously covered by the Voting Rights Act than we had in 2012.
And some places, where we would have say, 16 early voting sites the first week, we only had one, and this is because the GOP sent a letter out to their local Boards of Election told them to implement rules that reflected GOP values, and not so much the spirit of the law and the constitution.
So we're battling, Don, against voter suppression, but people are fighting. People are coming back, and now the numbers are ticking up because early voting sites have been added. There are more sites now, HBCU campuses, and this victory will help in a major way.
[23:20:01]So it may not be -- there may be more to that not lack of enthusiasm, or it just made people cannot get to the polls. I want to talk about this before I let you go.
It's not just in North Carolina, there's federal judge in Ohio, issued a temporary restraining order against Trump friend and advisor, Roger Stone and his group called, "Stop the Steel." That group was mobilizing to send poll watchers into minority Democratic areas.
Judge James Gwen's order says it prohibits hindering or delaying a voter or perspective voter from reaching or leaving the polling place, challenging or questioning voters or perspective voters about their eligibility to vote or training organizing or directing others to do the same, interrogating, admonishing, interfering with or verbally harassing voters or perspective voters.
Questioning voters under the guise of the purported exit polling or citizen journalist' operations, organized and encouraged by Defendants Stone and Stop the Steal.
So with these kinds of voter suppression efforts keeps African- Americans from turning out, do you think it's going to -- will it motivate them now?
BARBER: Well, I believe so. I've been preaching a message, we better vote and then when people are working this hard to take something, it must mean you have power. It must mean you can make a difference. We're organizing thousands of poll watchers. We have 12,000 faith centers that are organized to turn the vote out.
We are mobilizing. We put out more than 450,000 robo calls, more than 500,000 pieces of literature in terms of voter registration, and we are telling people do not be intimated.
"The Washington Post" did a story I think yesterday, said this traces back to what the clan did in the early 1900s, and to intimidate people, and suggesting, look, stand your ground. We've been through worse. We've seen worse. We have -- we won the right to vote through lynching and people being beaten, bloodied, and killed and surely we can stand up to somebody, who said they are going to come knocking you.
Let them come and watch us vote, but understand we're not going to be moved. We're not going to be intimidated and we are going to vote.
LEMON: Tonight in Arizona, Democrats won a third case, Reverend, against the voter suppression efforts. You've been fighting the good fight for voting rights for a very long time. Did you think that back from the very beginning that you would still be facing these kinds of tactics now in 2016?
BARBER: You know, Don, that's the sad irony of it. One of the latest that was challenged in this purge is 100 years old and she found out in the newspapers. This is a woman who came through Jim Crow. Our lead plaintiff in our case against House Bill 589, the monster voting bill, Jim Crow is 93 years old.
But you know, Don, I think about my mother. My mother integrated public schools. She's 83 years old. She still goes to work every day.
She looked at me one day and said, son, I never thought I'd have a child August 13th, 1963, two days after the march on Washington, who would be facing some of the same kind of challenges we faced them.
But then she got that squint in her eye that black mamas get, she said, but you all better fight. You better not turn around. So my mama told me, Don. And so we've been -- people told us we were going to lose. They told us we couldn't beat them.
They spent $6 million of our taxpayer money trying to take the right to vote and (inaudible) the right to vote. But people went to jail, we stood and we went to courts and we won and we have to use this victory by voting. So I tell folks, mama said, you better vote.
LEMON: You always listen to mama. Listen, I went to the barbershop today and a barber said, I like your hair short, and I said my mama likes it when I have more hair on my head, I don't care if it looks bad or good. She wants it. Mama said, and mama's always right.
BARBER: That's right.
LEMON: Thank you, I appreciate it.
When we come right back, what's going to happen when this long, ugly race is finally over, will the losers step aside gracefully, or will that be just the beginning?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:27:53]
LEMON: OK. Four days until Election Day and the polls show the race is tight. Here to discuss now two Princeton University professors, Julian Zelizer and Sam Wang, they are the co-host of the podcast "Politics and Polls."
So let's get right to it. Welcome to the show, gentlemen. Sam, you first. This is the latest CNN poll of polls shows Clinton ahead of Trump by 5 percentage points, and this is our newly updated Electoral College map. Clinton has 268. Trump has 204. You do want your own models. Your math of Clinton is what?
SAM WANG, CO-HOST, "POLITICS AND POLLS" PODCAST: Currently on the Princeton Election Consortium, the median is 312 electoral votes for Clinton and 226 for Trump.
LEMON: So why do you think -- 312, that's quite a difference from the other polls, 312 to 226. Why such a big difference?
WANG: Well, on my site, what I do is I take state polls, which is the most accurate ones and I calculate all the possibilities (inaudible) something 72 quadrillions in possibilities and calculate what the middle outcome is, the median, and that is the most accurate snapshot of exactly where things are at any given moment and right now that's at about 312.
LEMON: We're one week after the Comey letter came out. We're back to a five-point difference, which is basically what it was before that Comey letter. Things have changed a lot in one week.
WANG: You know, my calculation is based on state polls. They move a little bit slowly. National polls like what you just cited move pretty fast and so things are come being back and what we should expect is things to turn to where they were about a week or two ago and that was again over 300 electoral votes for Hillary Clinton. So things have stayed, you know, in some sense, about the same.
LEMON: What states would surprise you if Donald Trump won?
WANG: I would be surprised if he won North Carolina. I would be surprised -- I would be really surprised if he won Pennsylvania.
LEMON: OK.
WANG: I -- currently, I actually am thinking that he's probably going to lose Nevada so I think those are states that are close, but if I had to guess I'd say that those are three states that would go for Hillary at the moment.
LEMON: OK, so when you wake up to these kinds of headlines Julian, white nationalists plot Election Day show of force. Election Day violence concerns Republicans are now vowing total war. Hate base fears driving political anxiety.
[23:30:00] How does that weigh on us?
JULIAN ZELIZER, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: Well, I worry about it. I think we've seen a lot of serious evidence, both anger in the electorate, belief that the system is rigged, and obviously threats of monitoring on voting day, which we've had a history of doing that. So it doesn't come out of nowhere. So I think there's serious concern about the tone of the last month and what kind of impact it can have.
And it also plays into our very polarized electorate that we already have. So even before Donald Trump, we had a country where some of the electorate doesn't like or trust the other part of the electorate. So you add to it some of this rhetoric, and I think it can be a very toxic environment.
LEMON: I thought you guys had you a very interesting e-mail exchange --
ZELIZER: Oh, yes.
LEMON: -- with each other, and you can read about it. It's on CNN.com. And here's what you wrote, Sam. You said, "I've seen some great work trying to get at where Trump voters come from and the wing of the GOP they represent. This was the year that Whites became an interest group and not the overwhelming group by default, and it is the details of polls that told us about it."
SAM WANG, FOUNDER, PRINCETON ELECTION CONSORTIUM: Yes.
LEMON: What does that mean?
WANG: Well, if you look at White voters --I had a piece that was in "New York Times" a week before last -- and you can start seeing divisions even among White voters. And so it's something like White nationalists, which have always been, to some extent, associated with the Republican Party, have now come to the fore. And they are a pretty important part of Trump's voice.
And so you can see people like evangelicals, White nationalists, whites who didn't go to college, those are groups that are swinging towards Trump. Whites who did go to college are swinging away. And so you can see these groups that are -- you know, it's the way we would talk about Hispanic voters or Black voters. And it's interesting to see these subgroups become identity groups. And it's part of the polarization of the last 20 years that you can guess how people are going to vote, to a large extent, by their sub-identities.
ZELIZER: I mean, part of what's interested us is looking at Donald Trump not as a person who steps in and creates a new Republican Party, but actually looking at how the Republican Party got to this point where Donald Trump would be their nominee. And there's roots to this. There's different groups that have been coming into the part. There's different ideas that have been shaping the party for the last 20 years.
So in some ways, you could predict Donald Trump.
LEMON: Yes.
ZELIZER: But not totally. He's unique and he does things. But you could predict some of the arguments he's making becoming the mainstream of the GOP.
LEMON: Could you predict that this really wealthy guy who lives in a tower on Fifth Avenue would become the representative voice for --
ZELIZER: You couldn't predict that, but the defining issue for his campaign has been a hardline stance against immigration, for example.
LEMON: Yes.
ZELIZER: And that's been something that's been bubbling up in the GOP for over a decade now. George W. Bush learned about this when he tried to pass a liberal immigration bill and clashed with his own party. So a lot of the policy issues and some of the style, some of his style, comes out of Republican politics for several decades now.
LEMON: When you see what's happening as, you know, you saw President Obama trying to calm, you know, the crowd today with the protestor, and you see, you know, many things happening out on the campaign trail, what about the anxiety level this particular time?
WANG: Yes. One thing that's interesting about this is, as politics has become more polarized, voters have become less persuadable. And so if you look at polls, the margin between the candidates varies less and less year after year. And so the Clinton over Trump margin has only been between two and seven percentage points. And a lot of that appears to be associated at the same time with deep emotionality. People are very worked up about this.
You know, the American Psychological Association has come up with guidelines for dealing with election-associated stress.
LEMON: Yes. We laugh but it's true.
ZELIZER: True. Yes.
LEMON: Yes.
WANG: Yes. And so --
LEMON: People feel it.
WANG: Yes.
LEMON: The interesting thing is, as the country continues to become more diverse, right, and less White, does that anxiety increase? Does, you know, the polarization increase?
WANG: Right.
LEMON: Does it become --
WANG: Well, if you look at these different demographic groups, the ones I mentioned, but also Blacks, Asian-Americans, have swung really hard from the Republican column to the Democratic column, non-church going Whites. Everyone is becoming more polarized in one direction or the other. And that seems to be something that's probably going to continue after next Tuesday's election.
LEMON: Thank you, Sam. Thank you, Julian.
ZELIZER: Thank you.
LEMON: Appreciate it. When we come right back, an ugly moment from a top Trump supporter, what he said about Hillary Clinton.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:38:28] LEMON: Betsy McCaughey is here, and she's -- you're actually dancing to Beyonce.
BETSY MCCAUGHEY (R), FORMER LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR FOR NEW YORK: Yes.
LEMON: That's all on the Beyonce and Jay-Z headlining Hillary Clinton's victory -- excuse me, rally tonight.
(LAUGHTER)
LEMON: I mean, that was not party slip. Here to discuss, CNN Political Contributor Van Jones; Betsy McCaughey, the former lieutenant governor of New York who is supporting Trump; political contributor Hilary Rosen, a Clinton supporter; and political commentator Scottie Nell Hughes, a Trump supporter.
Go ahead, you guys can smack me.
MCCAUGHEY: We're just going to dance all night.
SCOTTIE NELL HUGHES, POLITICAL EDITOR, RIGHTALERTS.COM: Bless your dear heart, Don Lemon.
LEMON: So what did you think of having Beyonce and Jay-Z -- I'm asking you because, you know, you got a whole lot of attention for that.
MCCAUGHEY: Right. Well, I say bees and lemons for everybody.
(LAUGHTER)
LEMON: You don't want to go up against the beehive tonight. What did you think, honestly?
MCCAUGHEY: Oh, no, not at all. It looked very entertaining.
LEMON: That's it.
MCCAUGHEY: Yes. Well --
LEMON: Do you think it made a difference?
VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, I think, you know, Jay-Z, give him his credit. People have criticized his lyrics including folks in the Black community, but give him his credit. Over the past couple of years, he's become more and more socially engaged, more and more socially conscious as of so many artists, Beyonce, Alicia Keys. And for him to bring that firepower there.
Hillary Clinton doesn't have big rallies on her own, but she's having a surrogate surge like you wouldn't believe. And tonight was probably the peak of it.
LEMON: You --
MCCAUGHEY: They can probably fill a room almost as full with Beyonce and Jay-Z as Donald Trump can by himself.
JONES: True.
LEMON: And listen, you and I have had conversation about that.
(LAUGHTER)
LEMON: Yes, mic drop. You and I have had conversations about lyrics and whatever on this show.
JONES: Sure. Yes.
[23:40:01] LEMON: I mean, or on CNN, right, and many people in the community do not agree with that and they -- there's a trend away from that, at least, with some of the guys.
JONES: And what's very interesting about the Clinton campaign is that they have the two twin weapons. They have both the Black church and hip hop.
LEMON: Yes.
JONES: And so those are two very powerful weapons to bring to bear right here at the end in Ohio.
LEMON: Because you are part of the music industry, aren't you? What do you think of this? Do you think that that makes a difference?
HILARY ROSEN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think that the lyrics are their own and, you know, the artist is speaking. But the most important thing is their fans.
LEMON: Yes.
ROSEN: You know, I don't think they're tearing apart the lyrics. I think they're feeling the experience, and I think that when you have events like, Katy Perry in Philly and Pharrell, what it does is it legitimatizes Hillary Clinton in a way with a population that got excited about Barack Obama. Barack Obama can't be everywhere here, and this does help. It creates enthusiasm.
LEMON: Before we go, guys, I just want to you about this. If we have the moment, you don't have to play the sound, but just when Jay-Z introduced Hillary Clinton and, you know, she's standing in the middle. And I think that's the moment that you're talking about, and I want to discuss that. But what's your reaction? Do you think these big artists and names make a difference, Scottie? HUGHES: I think, in the past, I was a part of the rock the vote
generation.
LEMON: Here's the picture I'm talking about.
HUGHES: Yes, ye. The rote the vote generation, and that made a huge push in the '90s of getting the young vote out there. I think it's a little bit different now with social media. And I have to wonder, are these folks going to be -- you know, it might have been just as effective if maybe they had loud speakers at the voting boxes on Tuesday while they're waiting for hours in lines and keeping people there. People are going to be singing the whole sound track of Beyonce and Jay-Z while they wait in line because that's how long the lines might be.
LEMON: The lemonade sound track. And it's a long one.
MCCAUGHEY: This isn't so bad for when we go --
(CROSSTALK)
HUGHES: It is a long one. And you have to also talk about the desperation of this. Why is she bringing them in now? Is all of the sudden there's panic mode? I would actually think that they should have done this, to be more effective, maybe a few weeks ago, maybe a few months ago.
MCCAUGHEY: I'm not sure about that.
HUGHES: Not just now.
MCCAUGHEY: It's not just the timing, though.
HUGHES: Well, of course --
MCCAUGHEY: I think she's facing an uphill battle because median income is down for African-Americans. Labor participation rates are down for African-Americans. Food stamp dependency is up 58 percent under Barack Obama for African-Americans. So she has to compensate for his bad record with African-Americans.
LEMON: Did you see the jobs numbers today in the --
MCCAUGHEY: I did.
LEMON: Go ahead, Van.
MCCAUGHEY: Yes.
JONES: I don't know. Republicans are coming out and they say all this sort of stuff. And you know what, people feel so terrible about Barack Obama in the Black community that he's 98 percent support from the Black community. So I just don't -- I mean --
ROSEN: Yes.
JONES: I don't think that she's -- that people in the Black community feel terrible about Barack Obama.
LEMON: OK.
ROSEN: And by the way, almost 60 percent in the entire country's, of approval for Barack Obama.
LEMON: OK. So this is what I understand. I'm going to compare and contrast because that was a big moment tonight, right, when you have Beyonce and you have Jay-Z. And this is a Trump rally today. This is John Sununu, a Trump supporter in New Hampshire.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN SUNUNU (R), FORMER GOVERNOR OF NEW HAMPSHIRE: Do you think Bill was referring to Hillary when he said, "I did not have sex with that woman"?
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: So, Betsy, you thought that was funny?
MCCAUGHEY: Boy, that's a quote out of history, isn't it?
LEMON: You thought that was funny? You thought that was appropriate for the last --
MCCAUGHEY: He's crowd concept was very funny, and he's playing to his crowd.
ROSEN: Do you think that's funny though?
MCCAUGHEY: I think it's funny. I think it's funny because it reminds Republican voters that these accusations about sexual misconduct have been going on as long as politics has.
ROSEN: Really.
JONES: You know what --
ROSEN: Would you like that if your husband said that about you?
LEMON: Yes.
ROSEN: If somebody said that about your marriage?
LEMON: But that's not --
ROSEN: Do you really think that was funny?
MCCAUGHEY: Hillary Clinton was the one who started it.
LEMON: But that's --
ROSEN: But Hillary Clinton doesn't think it's funny either. MCCAUGHEY: Marching out these women like ponies on a rope, making
false charges against Donald Trump.
ROSEN: I'm sorry.
HUGHES: OK.
MCCAUGHEY: This is --
LEMON: But hold on. That's not what he said.
ROSEN: That's not what he said.
LEMON: He was talking about Hillary Clinton and inferring -- talking about her attractiveness as a woman. Do you think he --
MCCAUGHEY: I don't think so. That's not what he's --
ROSEN: Yes.
LEMON: Can we play that again, please? Can we play it again?
MCCAUGHEY: -- inferring his audience for of.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SUNUNU: Do you think Bill was referring to Hillary when he said, "I did not have sex with that woman"?
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCCAUGHEY: No. No, he was referring to Monica Lewinsky.
LEMON: Say again. No one heard you. What?
MCCAUGHEY: Everyone who doesn't live on Mars knows that he was referring to Monica Lewinsky.
HUGHES: That was --
JONES: That's actually false.
HUGHES: Well -- no, that was. That's exactly why I did not -- that was, in the context of when he said that --
ROSEN: It's a reference, but that's not what he meant.
HUGHES: -- at that point.
MCCAUGHEY: That's right.
HUGHES: But the question is, right now, why are we talking about this three --
MCCAUGHEY: Yes.
LEMON: Because he said it.
HUGHES: No. No, no. I'm not talking about why is he even bringing this up --
LEMON: Yes.
HUGHES: -- three days out at the rally.
ROSEN: Right.
HUGHES: This is not the kind of questions --
LEMON: That was my question. Was that appropriate at this --
HUGHES: -- we need to be having.
LEMON: Yes.
HUGHES: You know, and both sides -- to be fair, both sides have said -- their surrogates have said negative and nasty things. We saw in July, Mark Cuban went after Donald Trump and said he was a version of a jag-off, and he received some criticism of it. Sometimes surrogates do not say the right things.
MCCAUGHEY: Right.
HUGHES: But let's just face the reality. We are three days out from Election Day. Right now, actually, everybody at this table, we're on the same team because I think the majority of Americans are making a decision, if they have not voted by now, whether or not they're going to vote.
[23:45:01] And all of us right now want to encourage people. And by seeing the fighting and seeing these types of comments, all that does is encourage the people who have not been involved yet to stay home. That's not a good thing.
MCCAUGHEY: Amen. He should have --
LEMON: Yes.
ROSEN: But to hear that --
MCCAUGHEY: Sununu should have led with Obamacare because the people of New Hampshire --
LEMON: Well, hold on.
ROSEN: But --
MCCAUGHEY: -- are suffering so incredibly under Obamacare.
ROSEN: Wait a minute. That's not --
LEMON: I got to --
ROSEN: She was actually making a different point.
LEMON: I've got to take a break.
MCCAUGHEY: I think she's making exactly that point.
LEMON: I just want you to see the part that I had circled right here. And you made the point, so Scottie for the win. What does that say?
HUGHES: Or in any way appropriate for the final days of the presidential race.
MCCAUGHEY: Right.
HUGHES: Great minds think alike, Don Lemon.
MCCAUGHEY: Yes.
LEMON: We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: We're back with Van Jones, Betsy McCaughey, Hilary Rosen, and Scottie Nell Hughes. So two of the former aides to Chris Christie were found guilty in their roles in the Bridgegate scandal.
Betsy, I'm going to ask you. Chris Christie is heading Trump's transition team. Is that a smart strategy for Trump to --
MCCAUGHEY: Well, I don't know whether Chris Christie knew anything about Bridgegate. I haven't followed the facts closely. He says he doesn't. He didn't. He's not running for President, and he's not under an FBI investigation, so.
LEMON: Donald Trump has said that he knew. He said in a debate.
MCCAUGHEY: Oh, really, he did?
LEMON: Yes, he said that.
MCCAUGHEY: Well, then, I think Trump should answer whether Chris Christie is the appropriate person. I don't have those facts.
[23:49:59] JONES: You know, what was so interesting is, I remember -- and we had these conversations many times -- how concerned and afraid we were as Democrats of a Chris Christie. He really was the person that we thought was going to do what Donald Trump did.
I mean, you know, here you got a guy who has, you know, served --
ROSEN: Come up the middle.
JONES: --come right up the middle, an outsider but with a brash personality, the color, the flash, the quick tongue. And we were all getting ready to deal with this guy, and he just went down like a lead balloon over this scandal. I often wonder what would have happened if you had a true clash of the titans between a Chris Christie at full strength and a Donald Trump. I don't know. But I tell you what, the Democrats dodged a bullet with this guy. He's a very formidable guy. No longer.
HUGHES: Here's the difference though. And I can see where, it obviously is Chris Christie because I was a fan. And then you saw, you know, conservatives like Ann Coulter, actually, were very supportive of him maybe four years ago. But the conservative grassroots movement did not like what happened with the hurricane and all the extra funds that never got distributed to the people.
I mean, when they say it was because of Barack Obama and the HUD Department?
ROSEN: Right.
HUGHES: That wasn't it. They just did not like to see the wasteful pork spending. The conservative movement that has propelled Donald Trump to where he is was never going to get behind Chris Christie. I think if there as any fear, it would have been Marco Rubio who was actually going to be the real fear and the real challenge. That without the gang of eight immigration bill, that right there would have, I think, made a different picture.
LEMON: But Donald Trump has said he's going to Washington and drain the swamp, and people are saying, well, maybe he should have start it with Chris Christie, who is now under --
MCCAUGHEY: Well, he wouldn't have known until today. I mean, he's waiting --
ROSEN: But this is why --
LEMON: Yes, but he's already said he thought he knew.
ROSEN: This is why it's relevant though.
HUGHES: But isn't it kind of funny that we're talking about this --
ROSEN: This is why it's relevant, though, because when you look at John Sununu versus a Jay-Z on stage for their respective peeps, there's no question that Republicans will never have the presidency, in my view, if they do not deal with this, you know, unique White male problem.
MCCAUGHEY: Oh, wait a second.
ROSEN: If they don't expand the map.
MCCAUGHEY: Because that's the biggest problem in this election, male shaming. I'm telling you that when I hear this --
ROSEN: You know what, let me finish and then you can disagree with me.
MCCAUGHEY: -- if Hillary Clinton is elected President --
LEMON: All right. One at a time.
MCCAUGHEY: -- I feel sorry for every White man in this country.
ROSEN: Let me finish and then you can disagree with me. Donald Trump has not been able to get enough women and people of color, and that is a majority of people in this country, to vote for him. Chris Christie might have had a shot. He got elected in New Jersey with more Latinos, even with some African-American votes, and college-educated women. That is not where Donald Trump is. The Republican Party is permanently disabled if they do not broaden this base.
HUGHES: But that is why I want to ask you, is it a Donald Trump or is it a Republican --
MCCAUGHEY: I mean, that's one thing but singling out White males --
LEMON: Hold on, hold on, Scottie.
MCCAUGHEY: --as if they're villains, as if they should always be at back of the line, as if they should always be accused of things --
JONES: But wait --
ROSEN: What is your problem?
MCCAUGHEY: -- that is happening in this campaign.
ROSEN: I didn't say that at all.
LEMON: I didn't hear that.
MCCAUGHEY: That -- I just heard that.
ROSEN: I talked about voter block.
MCCAUGHEY: And I hear it again and again when I hear that a man can't call a woman nasty, but woman can call a man just about anything and get away with it.
LEMON: But isn't it context everything?
JONES: That is --
MCCAUGHEY: And that's what's happening in this campaign.
JONES: Look, all due respect, I appreciate your passion, and I don't like it when different groups are put down. But --
MCCAUGHEY: Yes, it's not fair.
JONES: But I didn't hear anybody say that. I thought she was talking about a voter block, which everybody else talks about. And I thought she was trying to give advice for how your party could be more successful. HUGHES: So we've had several African-Americans out on the stump --
MCCAUGHEY: That's right.
HUGHES: -- within the community for Mr. Trump. He has probably a larger --
LEMON: Like seven or eight.
HUGHES: Well, he has a larger surrogacy group, more diverse surrogacy group than has any other Republican candidate. I think this is more of an issue with the Republican Party --
ROSEN: Almost a vote card.
HUGHES: -- not necessarily the candidate. And it also has to deal with --
ROSEN: And ultimately, I don't think that's going to win the race.
HUGHES: As long as you're dealing with things like government entitlements or things that Republicans stand overall against in trying to limit, it'll be interesting to see whether or not they'll ever be able to get into those different diversity groups.
JONES: Yes.
MCCAUGHEY: And I think in terms of --
JONES: Well, hold on. I think --
ROSEN: I'm sorry. A majority of government entitlements go to White people.
JONES: Yes.
ROSEN: So I don't know the point you just made, but it sounded like you were saying that minorities get some entitlement. I'm not --
HUGHES: No, I am saying, as long as we're talking about government entitlement, as long as we're talking about things like voter I.D. laws, things that the Republican Party stands for, those are things that do not necessarily resonate right now within certain communities.
ROSEN: Well, voter I.D. laws is a whole other issue.
MCCAUGHEY: And by the way, Donald Trump took a lot of criticism --
HUGHES: Well, no, a lot of people feel that to be racial discrimination, Republicans do not.
MCCAUGHEY: -- for going into these inner cities, for talking about the importance of school choice, for talking about economic programs that would lift up --
JONES: OK. Yes -- MCCAUGHEY: -- people who are mired in poverty.
JONES: Well --
MCCAUGHEY: He took a lot of criticism for that --
JONES: I don't think that --
MCCAUGHEY: -- as if he didn't have any right --
JONES: No, no, no.
MCCAUGHEY: -- to address these groups.
JONES: I will tell you what. I will tell you very clearly. I think both political parties should do a much better job talking about poverty. I think the Democrats have not done as well as they might have on urban poverty. I think the Republicans have not done as well as they might on rural poverty, which we never talk about. But nobody criticized him for caring. They criticized him for having such a horrific tone and the way that he talked.
Listen, if I ever talked to White --
LEMON: Go ahead. Real quick.
ROSEN: On the record.
JONES: If I ever talked to White poor folks the way that he talked about Black poor folks, I don't think I'd be well received.
MCCAUGHEY: You know, I don't think --
LEMON: We'll be right back. I got to go, Betsy.
MCCAUGHEY: -- being a speech police is the right idea.
[23:55:06] LEMON: We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: A lot of voting going on, including CNN Heroes, now under way for CNN Hero of the Year. Here is one of this year's top 10 heroes. Meet Becca Stevens.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REV. BECCA STEVENS, FOUNDER, THISTLE FARMS: All I wanted to do was open one house and invite five women to come in who all had been survivors of trafficking, addiction, and prostitution, and say, come stay for two years, no cost, no authority in the house. Just come be together.
So when a woman comes in and we give her a key, this is your beautiful home. This is your place to be. That's the mindset. And the idea is that in can be lavish and economical. You can do all these, and you can house people for half of what it costs to house them in prison for a year.
It started with residential communities. It moved into social enterprise because we understood that while women were doing amazing work, they were still dirt poor.
On average, for the last 20 years, for the women that we serve, the first sexual assault was between the ages of seven and 11 years old. Those stories used to undo me. They're so horrific. And the global issues of human trafficking were so big.
[24:00:05] It doesn't have to be the end of the story. It's a big part of the story. That's not the end. It's just a chapter in it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: You can vote for Becca or any of your favorite top ten heroes now at CNN/Heroes.com.
That is it for us tonight. Thanks for watching. I'm going to see you right back here at a special time on Sunday night, at 10 o'clock. So tune in then. Thank you.
Good night.
