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Don Lemon Tonight

Trump Jr. Was Told On Email of Russian Effort To Aid Campaign; Military Plane Crash In Mississippi; Neo-Nazi Site Founder Sued For Troll Storm. Aired 11p - Midnight ET

Aired July 10, 2017 - 23:00   ET

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

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[23:00:00] BAKARI SELLERS, FORMER HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: I do think from a posturing perspective, that is the right answer. They need to be willing to talk to I guess accepted intelligence.

KEVIN MADDEN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: They lied already, Scott but they lied already.

SELLERS: Or the independent counsel.

DON LEMON, CNN TONIGHT NEWS SHOW HOST: Stand by, top of the hour. This is "CNN tonight." go on, Bakari.

SELLERS: They lied already. And Ana has a good point. My question to Scott is, let's play the, what if game. And what if this was Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton? You would be hollering from high heaven how this was treason and ready to start impeachment hearings. Because they have an "r" beside his name which the problem in the country today, you're willing to give them excuses. George Bush said it best. It is a soft bigotry of low expectations. So all I am asking to do is strip the "r" or the Kentucky or whatever else it may be, strip the GOP from it and let us just make it an average ordinary American, period. And what Donald Trump is doing, what Donald Trump Jr. Is doing, what Ivanka is doing, what the family is doing, Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, the list goes on and on and on. It's unethical at best, treasonous at worst and they sold the United States down the stream, whether or not they knew it, ask the question that we asked Nixon, when the president knew it. That is the question.

LEMON: Kevin Madden, I will let you respond to that last word.

MADDEN: No, I think Bakari has some passion behind this. I think it's indicative of just how I think passionate so many of the President's opponent's feel. But you know, clearly I side with Scott said earlier which is the White House clearly has a challenge on their hands when it comes to changing people's minds about this and the drip, drip, drip of information is going to continue to be a challenge. They have to get out in front of it and tell their story better.

LEMON: Kevin, you and I have been working together for a long time. I Remember working on the Obama campaign when we were working for CNN and covering this. Can you imagine what Republicans would be saying to Bakari's points if this was hockey or Barack Obama? Not necessarily with the news we would be reporting but what Republicans would be saying someone like Scott Jennings or other Republican supporters. What do you think they would be saying if the shoe was on the other foot about this particular situation?

MADDEN: No, absolutely. What we have seen both on both sides. The partisan tribalism on both sides at its zenith and I would argue to Bakari, I worked for the candidate who said that our number one geopolitical foe was Russia.

SELLERS: He got laughed at.

ANA NAVARRO, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: We were mocked.

MADDEN: You're right.

LEMON: Those same candidates -- right. I just wish there were more Bakari's out there admitting we were right and they're looking hypocritical now.

NAVARRO: Guys, let me tell you this. John Podesta and Chelsea Clinton doing it, I would be saying exactly the same thing that I'm doing today. The first thing we have to do is defend the democracy and the integrity of our elections. Shoot partisanship.

LEMON: Scott, I'm three minutes over on this segment.

SCOTT JENNINGS, POLITICAL ANALYST: I agree with Ana. I have said from the beginning, the Russians tried to meddle in the election. I'm not sure we know they needed a colluding partner to do it. That is why the investigations exist. I believe the Russians clearly the intelligence community believes they tried to meddle in the election. That is what the purpose of these investigations is to find out what happened. The fact that people are saying they want to talk to the committees and the investigation bodies is a good thing.

LEMON: You need to tell that to the White House though.

NAVARRO: He was the good news for little boy Trump. He can get pardoned.

JENNINGS: Jared Kushner wants to talk to the investigators.

LEMON: Jared Kushner is not the President.

JENNINGS: I don't see an unwillingness to cooperate which I think is important.

MADDEN: It's easy to cooperate after you lie.

LEMON: Thank you all. I appreciate it. See you next time. This is our breaking news tonight. A report Donald Trump Jr. was told in an e-mail last year that the Russian government was trying to help the Trump campaign according to "The New York Times." the e-mail reportedly sent by the man who helped set up a meeting between Trump junior and a Russian lawyer who might have information about Hillary Clinton. What will tonight's breaking news mean for the fast-moving Russia investigation? We're going to talk about all of that. Let's get right to senior political analyst Mark Preston, Political commentator Mike Shields former chief of staff to Reince Priebus at the RNC and Max Boot a senior fellow at the council of foreign relations and the author of "invisible armies." So much to discuss, Mark more bombshell news tonight from the "New York Times." Here's part of what they are reporting about this meeting between a Russian lawyer and Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and also Paul Manafort and a Russian attorney.

Before arranging a meeting with the Kremlin connected Russian lawyer he believed would offer him compromising information about Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump Jr. was informed in an e-mail the material was part of a Russian government effort to aid his father's candidacy according to three people with knowledge of the e-mail." So what does this mean for the investigations into the Trump campaign for possible collusion with the Russian government?

[23:05:05] MARK PRESTON, POLITICS EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Well, a couple things. One you said, what we will be focusing and not focusing on issues that Republicans here in Washington, D.C. We want to focus on Health care, infrastructure, tax reform and what have you. What it does do for the investigation though, it gives another jolt in the arm for those who believe that Trump or some of his associates and advisers did do some business with the Russians or tried to do business with the Russians to try to affect the election. We don't know that to be true and have to be very careful about that.

Having said that, this is yet another self-inflicted wound and I think that is very important for viewers to know. This was the Trump White House. This was Trump's own son who has put him in this position at this point in his presidency. And when it really comes down to it, Don, is that Republicans here in Washington right now, not even Democrats are extremely frustrated, because they don't want to be asked tomorrow when they all return to Washington and walk the halls of congress what they think should happen given this latest bombshell.

LEMON: Mike, I want to bring you in here. Let me ask you what you make of the reporting before I read the statements from Donald Trump, the President and Donald Trump Jr.

MIKE SHIELDS, FORMER RNC CHIEF OF STAFF: Yeah, first of all, the reason we know about this is because of the leak. A leak from an investigation that is going on looking into this, what that tells me if they thought there was something illegal going on here, they wouldn't be leaking it to "The New York Times." they would take it to a Judge.

LEMON: We don't know who the source it is Mike.

SHIELDS: Right. That doesn't help an investigation to get in the "New York Times." If they thought something actually happen --

LEMON: You don't know if it's from the investigation it could be from a person in the White House. SHIELDS: Ok. It's someone who is familiar with the investigation.

Said it came through the investigation. The second thing I take you back to is June of last year. There was a huge scandal going on with the Clinton foundation about how they were selling access in speeches. If someone comes to the campaign and says I might know something about that, I don't think it is not unusual for someone to take a meeting say hey I want to find out what you were talking about. Obviously they weren't vetted correctly. I think Kevin and Scott were right that the campaign made some mistakes when it came to vetting things. There's a lot of things that sort of slip through the radar. The Speaker of the House and a Senator who didn't remember meeting with a Russian ambassador and later realized they met with him. I disagreed with Mark that now we're talking about Russia because of this latest thing. My guess is the press would have been focused on Russia regardless of what is going on even if this hadn't happened. That is the troubling tenor of the way this happens.

LEMON: I want to make something clear here. The article from what I have read, it says nothing about this coming from the investigation. It just, it says people with knowledge of the e-mail. Go ahead, Max.

MAX BOOT, COUNCIL FOR FOREIGN RELATIONS: You know, the comments of Mike Shields I think underline why after a lifetime as a Republican after serving as a senior foreign policy adviser in three Republican campaigns I am no longer a Republican. I am disgusted with the way the Republican Party is behaving. What we are seeing is that Donald Trump puts his own self-interests over the interests of the United States. You saw that just a few days ago in Hamburg where he refused to press Vladimir Putin on his meddling in the U.S. Election and he tried to excuse it away refusing to believe what the U.S. Intelligence community said and he cooked up this cockamamie scheme to engage in so-called cooperation with Russia on cyber issues which is like the Fox guarding the house and Republicans are not outraged about his, instead they're trying to make accuses for the White House and Donald Trump even when we are seeing evidence of collusion come into clear view with this jaw dropping meeting that Donald Trump junior, Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort, they're meeting with a Russian leader connected to the Kremlin to get dirt on Hillary Clinton and still Republicans are making excuses for this. It's time to come clean. It's time to put the interests of the country over the interests of the Republican Party.

LEMON: Do you want to respond to that, Mike?

SHIELDS: You just said evidence of collusion. There is no evidence of collusion. People have been looking --

BOOT: Read "The New York Times" as pick up "The New York Times."

SHIELDS: I did read "The New York Times." I read all three articles. There are actually three articles which are where I got the other statement I had. I did read it. There's no evidence. If there was evidence of collusion, then we would have a different story here. This would be something about a legal case.

BOOT: There is something called an investigation right. SHIELDS: Person in question.

BOOT: Bob Mueller was appointed about two months ago.

The Watergate investigation took over a year.

SHIELDS: We shouldn't have the Bob Mueller because of people like you decided what was guilty.

BOOT: People like me?

SHIELDS: Yes.

BOOT: I'm reacting to the evidence, sir. I don't know what you're reacting except you're biased in favor of Donald Trump.

[23:10:00] SHIELDS: You just said you had bias against Donald Trump.

BOOT: I was a lifelong Republican, I spent 30 years as a Republican and I quit the Republican Party in disgust when Donald Trump got elected, because I knew the Republicans had become morally complicit in the outrageous conduct of Donald Trump and you're an example of that complicit right now.

SHIELDS: Look, the fact of the matter is Donald Trump Jr. said he would cooperate. He is going to cooperate if asked to do that.

BOOT: He is got to get his story straight first because he keeps changing his story.

SHIELDS: You're making my point which is you're so angry about in that you indict everybody.

BOOT: You're right. I am angry when I see -- I am angry when I see an American President -- you know, I think everybody should be angry when they see an American President, a Republican who seems to be pursuing a Russia first policy and the interests of Vladimir Putin over the interests of NATO, the U.S. and our allies.

SHIELDS: Was he pursuing that interest when he added month negro to NATO or when he reinforced article 5, the number one thing Vladimir Putin doesn't want to do, helping the Russians out when we bombed Syria in direct controversy of what --

BOOT: I would referred you to -- I would refer you to his conduct in Europe just a couple of days ago when he refused to accept the --

SHIELDS: Warsaw reaffirming it articles five.

LEMON: One at a time.

BOOT: If you read what he said in Warsaw, he said Russia participated in destabilizing activity. But when he actually met with Vladimir Putin for more than two hours, he came out of that and basically seemed to accept Putin's ridiculous denials of meddling in the U.S. Election and right now, Donald Trump and the White House are trying to water down a strong sanctions bill that the senate passed against Russia. They're essentially protecting Russian interests. Donald Trump shows a lot more interest in this imaginary phony scandal claiming there are millions of illegal votes cast for which there is not an iota of evidence. He has no interest in finding out anything what Putin did to subvert the American electoral process which is the unanimous conclusion of the U.S. Intelligence community.

LEMON: Mark Preston, I need to get you in here. To Max's point where he says Don junior needs to get his story straight, this is the third statement. You can put up the statement tonight. There's a third statement from Donald Trump Jr. tonight. He is tweeted a number of times from his new lawyer where he basically says he did nothing wrong. That he didn't know what the meeting was about. He didn't know what it would turn out to be, if the information was reliable and on and on and on. It does appear that there's a certain degree of denial and then all of a sudden, the evidence, reported evidence comes out from the "New York times" and other news sources and then there's an admission and then the story changes. It appears to be a pattern of sorts.

PRESTON: It certainly does. Let me try to thread the needle between Max and Mike right there, because that was a fascinating discussion.

LEMON: It's amazing.

PRESTON: I do believe and maybe I'm wrong with this, but Max is probably still a Republican at heart but is extremely frustrated by Donald Trump as the President and the leader of the Republican Party. That in itself is fascinating. We have to be judicious in how we use our words, collusion, illegal because we don't necessarily know, but on the other side of that coin is that the supporters of Donald Trump like to go out (inaudible) --- the facts the facts. They'll talk about Hillary Clinton and the Clinton foundation and that is fine. We're not talking Hillary Clinton and the Clinton foundation. We're talking about the leader of the free world and the commander in chief. We're talking about the President of the United States. To the point of changing stories, we've seen this. When you talk about a pattern, we saw Michael Flynn, the fired national security adviser was not necessarily truthful in what his relations were or his discussions were with the Russian ambassador. We also saw that Jared Kushner had, had to change or at least amend his forms to get his top secret clearance. We also saw the Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, during his confirmation hearing not reveal that he himself had met with the Russian ambassador. They all have answers or excuses for doing so. But you have to wonder when you see all this smoke, what I don't understand is why people get upset when we look for the fire.

LEMON: I have to say the response from the President's team tonight is that asked for reaction in the "New York Times" report, Mark (inaudible), spokesman for President Trump's outside legal team reiterated their earlier statement and said the President was not aware and did not attend the meeting.

Thank you, gentlemen, I appreciate it, when we come back, much more on breaking news. Donald Trump Jr. reportedly told in an e-mail last year that the Russian government was trying to help his father's campaign. What's next in the Russia investigation?

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LEMON: Our breaking news tonight, Donald Trump Jr. reportedly told in an e-mail last year that the Russian government was trying to help his father's campaign that is according to "New York Times." here to discuss, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, what's your reaction to this.

[23:18:40] NICHOLAS KRISTOF, NEW YORK TIMES COLUMNIST: Don this is huge. I mean the last few days have been enormous with the revelation of the Russian lawyer after the Trump campaign denied such a thing happened. But now tonight, find out that Trump, that Don Trump Junior knew that this was a Russian government effort to damage Hillary Clinton and thus ipso facto interfere in the U.S. election and then to embrace it to go ahead with the meeting, the closest parallel I can think of is that in year 2000, the gore campaign received George W. Bush materials and what did they do? They immediately called the FBI. This is material that is actually coming from an adversary power attempting to affect the outcome of the election. What do you do? You call in two of the most senior aides and you see what you can get out of them?

LEMON: So to your point then, and look, I'm not saying this but I've had Republican after Republican after Republican come on, except for the staunch Trump defenders who are saying come on, everyone. Max Boot, who is --

[23:20:11] KRISTOF: Max is a Republican. And he was just blowing up at this because I think there are an awful lot of Republicans of integrity who are aghast, a, at the way Trump has been soft on Russia and b, at these indications that something incredibly untoward was going on with Russia. And I mean, what this also shows this meeting is for the first time it gives an indication of what collusion would have looked like that we know the Russian side was interested in what Don Trump junior called adoptions, in other words the sanctions under the MagNitsky act. It wanted an end to those. We know the Trump campaign was projecting its interests in getting damaging material on Hillary Clinton. Each side was signaling to the other what it wanted and they went ahead.

LEMON: Not only has it been there was a denial or whatever the explanation was from Donald Trump Jr. when the story broke in the New York Times this weekend. There were two of them and then he tweeted about it and there's another response tonight. I want to make sure I have this right. This is July of 2016. He was on, Donald Trump Jr., with Jake Tapper. And asked, Jake asked him to respond to Hillary Clinton campaign's manager Robbie Mook saying the Russians were behind the DNC hack and leaking of information again. This interview was right after that meeting took place with the Russian lawyer. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP JR., OLDEST SON OF DONALD TRUMP: Well, it just goes to show you their exact moral compass. They'll say anything to be able to win this. This is time and time again, lie after lie. It's disgusting. It is so phony. I watched them bumble through the interview. I was able to hear it on audio a little bit. I can't think of bigger lies. That goes to show you what the DNC and the Clinton camp will do. They will lie and do anything to win.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So if these reports are true -- go on.

KRISTOF: I mean this is -- you could not find anything more duplicitous. A few weeks before this, he had met with people representing the Kremlin, told that they were interested in providing material, damaging to Hillary Clinton. And then after that, he goes on to CNN and tells Jake Tapper that this is all lies. You know, I'm used to -- I've covered politicians a long time and used to politicians spinning, exaggerating. This is just flat out lies.

LEMON: This is nothing more you can hear. This is nothing more than people who hate the President and the fake news or whatever just going -- how do you respond to that?

KRISTOF: Look, one point that Trump supporters make is that opposition research is very real. They have noted that there were -- that Ukraine may have provided some support to the Hillary Clinton campaign. That is a foreign government doing that. And look, it's true that everybody does opposition research. It's true that there are some gray zones, and so you had a former DNC official who was making inquiries of Ukrainian officials. Ukrainian officials were publicly giving hints that Paul Manafort was a problem. But there is a huge difference between that Ukraine issue which I would say is a gray one and Russia, a country that is an adversary, that is spying on us, coming to a campaign and saying, you know, we have dirt on a nominee of the other Party. And then you going ahead and calling in two other top officials to find out what that dirt is.

LEMON: Are you saying it should have been like the example that you mentioned with the gore campaign that they should have given the information to the FBI or.

KRISTOF: Yeah, I'd say at that point, you -- the moment you get that e-mail, you know that the Kremlin is trying to interfere in your election. You call up the FBI.

LEMON: Robert Mueller has subpoena power and the question is do you think that they will be able to tie this to the President? The President has his outside counsel responded tonight the President knew nothing about the meetings. Go on.

KRISTOF: That may be true. You know, I have no idea. But I think it will be very important to get Don Trump Jr. and others speaking under oath about what went on. And you know, their own credibility is so shot at this point because after eight times denying that such a meeting happened and then finding out that not only did it happen but it happened under expectations that this was the Kremlin providing these materials, I think it would be really good to have them under oath. LEMON: Thank you, Nicolas Kristof.

KRISTOF: Good to be with you.

LEMON: Good to be with you, as well. Our recent breaking news to report out of Mississippi tonight, authorities say 16 people, 16 people are dead in the crash tonight of a military refueling plane north of Jackson, Mississippi. Governor Phil Bryant asking for prayers for the crash victims and their loved ones, there's no further details yet on what could have caused this crash. We will keep you updated on that breaking news story.

[23:25:21] Also coming up tonight, how a real estate run-in made a woman and her young son the targets of neo-Nazi trolls, the shocking story of an army of hate.

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[23:30:00] DON LEMON, CNN TONIGHT NEWS SHOW HOST: ...for allegedly targeting a Jewish woman, the mother of a young son, twitter storm. I must warn you, some of the language are you are about to hear is explicit and maybe disturbing but it illustrates the death of hate in America today. Here's Sara Sidner.

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SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They call themselves trolls. What do you call them?

TANYA GERSH, WHITEFISH RESIDENT: Terrorists.

SIDNER: In the digital era, it only takes a few keystrokes for hate to suddenly consume your life.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You piece of shit.

SIDNER: This is often waiting for Tanya Gersh, every day when she goes online or picks up the phone.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hope you die, you worthless (BEEP) you student ugly bitch.

GERSH: I had a lot of phone calls with gunshots that sound kind of still makes me sick.

SIDNER: The Gersh's including their 12-year-old son has received thousands of messages like this for months.

GERSH: You're a whore of a mother should watch herself. Why don't you crawl into this oven, little boy. There's a free Xbox inside. They Photoshop endless imagery of me with Nazi symbols on my forehead or my arm and terrible imagery of me and my son on the gates to Auschwitz concentration camp.

SIDNER: You think it scarred them?

GERSH: Yeah.

SIDNER: It's the last thing you'd expect in the quaint resort town of whitefish, Montana.

GERSH: I just pray that we'll be safe.

SIDNER: Gersh says it all started when he she came into contact with fellow resident Shari Spencer who happens to be the mother of white nationalist Richard Spencer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hail Trump. Hail our people. Hail victory.

SIDNER: He shot to fame celebrating President Trump's win with Nazi symbolism. His mom Shari Spencer owns a commercial building in town. Gersh, a realtor says she was trying to help Spencer sell the building to calm tensions within the town over her son's beliefs. But according to a lawsuit filed by an anti-hate group, Spencer published a blog post accusing her, of threatening her with protests until she complied and sold her building. We called Spencer who said she didn't want to talk to us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People say who do you believe? I say, I don't know.

SIDNER: But the police chief says no complaint was filed by Spencer and no charges were brought by any other agency. But after the blog post, the lawsuit says Andrew Engelland, the founder of one of the most popular Neo-Nazi web sites the Daily Stormer picked up the torch and unleashed what he called his troll army on The Gersh's, publishing their contact information on his site. The southern poverty law center is suing Andrew Engelland on Gersh's behalf accusing him of intentionally inflicting emotional distress, invasion of privacy and intimidation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The purpose is to cause them fear and emotional harm and that is illegal. It's not protected by the first amendment.

SIDNER: We reached out to and Andrew Engelland who told us he now lives in of all places Lagos, Nigeria where he says his rights to say what he wants aren't limited. He did not return comment about the Gersh case. But we managed to catch up with one of the writers on the Daily Stormer website at a rally in Houston.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Andrew Engelland specifically called on readers of Daily Stormer to contact Ms. Gersh and tell them what they think about it. That is exactly what they did. There's no evidence that anyone from who was influenced by Daily Stormer made any death threats or anything. I've watched --?

SIDNER: He made some threats definitely.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going to throw you in a gas chamber?

SIDNER: The anti-defamation league says Engelland has launched his army of hate many times before. Engelland initially responded with his lawsuit with this image. GERSH: He is on a horse with a big spear into me.

SIDNER: Asking for donations to fight the lawsuit. He has raised more than $150,000 so far. Gersh is also receiving support in the form of batches of letters and e-mails.

GERSH: I don't think I could have survived the whole thing without this.

SIDNER: While it was the hatred spewed by strangers that has terrified her family, it is also the kindness of strangers that is save them from utter despair.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Sara Sidner joins me now. It's disgusting. Some people may say that this happened to someone who came in contact with a white nationalist family and it couldn't happen to me. They don't believe it could happen to them. Do you know of other instances where the troll army has gone after people?

SIDNER: Yes. One of the people they went after was a student who happened to have risen in the ranks at her school. She became the first female African-American President of American University. We ended up doing a story on her and learned about this website and Andrew Engelland back then. She was just trolled if you will, because she had done well and they were concerned about her race. Not about her accomplishments.

[23:35:06] LEMON: Is there any sense that this political climate, Sara, we're living in right now, is it egging on these kinds of hate mongers on social media or just in general?

SIDNER: You know it's interesting you ask that. We asked that very question to Tanya herself and her family. She said look, I don't want to look at this as politics. When you look at the overall picture and talk to the southern poverty law center, for example, or the anti- defamation league or the FBI, statistics are showing the numbers of hate incidents are up across the country. California for example, where I am right now, just had a report out this past week saying that the hate incidents are up about 11 percent this year. So yes, indeed, there are a lot of people looking at this and saying the political climate we're living in is egging some of these folks on and giving them more voice, paying attention to them. I do want to mention this, too. Andrew Engelland told his followers to stop writing the Gersh's after he was sued. Interestingly she got almost no contact although there are a few people still contacting her and her family.

LEMON: Fascinating reporting. Thank you Sarah Sidner, much appreciate it. When we come back, online hate mongering on the rise, which is to blame, our politicians or ourselves?

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[23:40:46] LEMON: We're back. You just heard the story of how a Montana woman and her young son became the targets of a neo-Nazi troll storm. They are far from alone, believe me. Who is to blame for the rise in online hate? Our politicians, ourselves, what is going on here? Let's discuss CNN Political commentators Matt Lewis and Bakari Sellers. Republican Strategist John Brabender here to talk about this. We just Sara's report, the all of messages Tanya Gersh has received. Gersh calls them terrorists. How do you see it, Matt Lewis?

MATT LEWIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think they are obviously trolls. But I think that it extends to the terrorism level, so not all trolls are terrorists. Not all terrorists are trolls. You can be both things. In this case, there are people who troll people. They get on twitter or on the internet. Want to get a rise out of you. They want to basically you know, get a reaction. But when it gets to the point where you're like putting their cell phone on the internet, their home address on the internet that is intent to terrorize somebody to scare them. Even if it's never acted on, you have caused that person to be fearful. That is a very serious thing. And so that is.

LEMON: Do you think they should be prosecuted if someone docs someone?

LEWIS: I'm very hesitant to become litigious but I do believe you could make a very good case that somebody, that you were putting their lives in jeopardy potentially, but back to the terrorism angle. That is what terrorists do.

LEMON: Live in fear. They want you to be fearful. Bakari, what's your reaction to the story?

BAKARI SELLERS, FORMER HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: I think they're punks to be completely honest. You take the guy from the Daily Stormer or whatever that right wing loony bin website is that people go and aspire to. I mean it's not what America is. I mean, they've lost wars before. They've lost cultural battles. They'll lose again. So the disrespect that they showed this young lady is just indicative of who they are.

LEMON: This is far beyond right wing. This is neo-Nazi stuff and goes beyond being right wing or conservative.

SELLERS: I think that is fair to say. I think let me be clear. I don't think everyone on the right side of the aisle fits into this category but I will say everybody in this category is on the right side of the aisle. I want to be clear about that. So you know I don't have any respect for these guys. I don't have respect for these people who adhere to these very perverse cultural beliefs. The fact of the matter is they pick on people they can and do it online from a distance. They dare not say this to my face or your face or Matt may be 5'7" or 5, they won't say to Matt face either.

LEWIS: I'm normal height. You are huge sitting next to you.

LEMON: All right guys. Let's get back to the topic here. John, seriously, what do you think of the reporting and these incidents? JOHN BRABENDER, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, first of all, there's

something wrong with us if we can't all universally agree that what happened was horrific and we should speak in one single voice to say that criticize it, it's outrageous. I think we have to acknowledge to some degree that this isn't just the right or left. It's both. I think we are all responsible in some way, responsible because we feed into it and responsible because we're not all unified in criticizing it loudly. I think that really does have to change.

LEMON: Matt, it's interesting because you think that the Trump White House is more a result of a rise in hate citizens in groups rather than a catalyst for it. Why is that?

LEWIS: Here's what I think. Clearly Donald Trump's candidacy and presidency excited some you know, all and white supremacists. No doubt about that. I think Donald Trump is more a product or a symptom of these trends than he is the catalyst of them. So for example, whether it's the reality show phenomenon that we have right now or whether it is the sort of the troll culture, the memes, Donald Trump capitalized on that. He didn't invent it. I think he is -- we get the politicians that we deserve. And he is sort of the man of the hour.

LEMON: Who is saying correct on that.

SELLERS: I said that was correct. Donald Trump didn't invent racism. Donald Trump didn't invent anti-Semitism misogyny or xenophobia. He did light a fire to it and just to the point of my colleague on the panel with us tonight, you know, yeah, this isn't a left or right issue. This is an American issue that we can all stand up and speak out against. My response to that is okay, I agree with you. Why don't you tell your President to speak out against it?

The lone voice that is missing from this condemnation of this hate speech on the internet, social media, in bathrooms, wherever it is, is Donald Trump. And the fact that no one can see that, the fact that no one wants to say that, that in itself is cowardly. If we want to have a conversation about how do we stop this speech, let's start with the, quote unquote, leader of the free world.

LEMON: John?

BRABENDER: Look, let's be clear on this. The decisiveness started not now. It started probably around 1994, quite frankly, those of us who have been in Washington a long time.

SELLERS: I'm going to start with slavery. You can start there but we'll probably start with divisiveness around slavery.

BRABENDER: That is when the discord in Washington became really bad. There are two big changes. One is because of social media. Everybody now owns a TV station. They can distribute their message very wide ranging. That is one big change. The other big change we have to be honest about is the media themselves used to be sort of the Judge. They were the objective observer now they're more of a player in the ring taking sides and I think that is actually increase the animosity. BRABENDER: Not all media.

LEMON: To your point, hang on, Bakari. Not all media. I think the media tries. Listen. There are people, media out there that will say we're conservative media. They fight for conservative causes. There's media who fight for liberal causes, but I think the media try to be as objective as possible and so let's just put that -- but to say that -- to compare it to what's happening in Washington, D.C., this is not just a Washington, D.C. thing. It's not just people in Washington, D.C. who are sending out hateful internet messages. It's mostly people who live in America, away from Washington, D.C.

LEWIS: I think that is where the twitter thing that crown was talking about comes in handy, the part about twitter.

LEMON: It's not just twitter.

LEWIS: There used to be people who were very much fringe elements out there. There were -- they were generally seen as weirdoes and they couldn't get mainstream attention and if you met them, you could discern that they were weird. Now they can make videos, they can create memes. I think they're punching above their weight now.

LEMON: Go ahead, Bakari.

SELLERS: Matt and John just quickly, I mean you blame the media. You blame Jack who invented twitter and Zuckerberg who invented Facebook. You blamed everyone else but when I sit here and ask you, the biggest troll of them all who picks on people daily and bullies people daily, who ignites these storms daily, when I ask you why can't the President of the United States have any accountability and stand up and say something, you both evade and both run away and tuck your tail and you both --

LEWIS: I don't think that is right.

BRABENDER: I've been very critical of Donald Trump.

LEMON: Why don't you ask him this?

LEWIS: Look, of course he should stand up and say something. I don't think he has to say something about this particular woman in Montana or wherever. He had nothing to do with it. But the trend of lack of civility, he contributes to that. I said he was a product of it. You get people like Donald Trump when you have a culture like this?

SELLERS: Demand him do something, demand him say something about it.

BRABENDER: I think we're all responsible.

LEWIS: That is a copout.

SELLERS: To pin this on Donald Trump, this is to say we're all responsible.

LEWIS: That is a copout. Donald Trump is the President of the United States.

SELLERS: Much different than they used to be.

LEWIS: That is a copout.

SELLERS: We all have to ratchet down the rhetoric.

LEWIS: If this was Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton or John Kerry.

SELLERS: Everything wrong in the world is Donald Trump. I'm not going to say that.

BRABENDER: Nobody's saying that. All I'm saying is --

LEMON: We've got to go. I've got to go.

BRABENDER: I get the sense you want to fight with people tonight, another segment attacking people.

LEMON: I understand why he is so upset. I'm not saying whose fault it is. Within the last two years, I've never received as many hateful messages and threats as I have in my entire 20 plus years.

SELLERS: Neither have I.

LEMON: In this business. That is all I'll say. Thank you all. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:53:42] LEMON: This is a story you need to see to believe. A 19- year-old Summer Camp Counselor awakens in a sleeping bag when he was attacked by a bear. Listen to what he says about the terrifying moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He grabbed me like this and pulled me and bit the back of my head and dragged me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: My goodness. Dylan McWilliams, the camp counselor who survive that bear attack, joins me now. Dillon thanks for joining us. How are you feeling?

DYLAN MCWILLIAMS, ATTACK BY A BEAR: Pretty good, pretty lucky.

LEMON: Yeah, I can imagine. Before you tell us what happened, show us the scars and I'll explain to people what happened. So you -- what do you got?

MCWILLIAMS: You can see the claw marks where it grabbed my head and I got staples on the back of my head where the teeth grabbed me.

LEMON: We can see that. You woke up to a crunching sound. You thought you were dreaming before you realized your head was inside a bear's mouth.

MCWILLIAMS: Yeah.

LEMON: Tell me about it.

MCWILLIAMS: I was just -- I woke up and I thought I was dreaming and heard the crunching sound and thought it was a bad dream and woke up to a lot of pain and a lot of heavy breathing and grunting from the bear and it dragged me about 12 feet and I was just trying to fight it off, use anything I could as a weapon. Just my hands and I guess the crunching sound was the teeth scraping against my skull, is what the doctor said.

[23:55:12] LEMON: So you teach wilderness survival. So I imagine your instincts kicked in. What did you learn about your experience? How did it help you in this situation?

MCWILLIAMS: It just made me more aware and -- that it really pays to know how to defend yourself against wild animals or anything like that but --

LEMON: So what did you do?

MCWILLIAMS: I just -- when it grabbed me, I reached for its eyes and ears and found its eye and poked at its eye and it let me go.

LEMON: And your -- again, this wilderness survival skill, given what you know now experienced, do you have advice for campers? I've gone camping before, but right now I might not be so inclined to.

MCWILLIAMS: Yeah, just be observing of your surroundings and aware of your area and know not to have food in your area with you. If you're ever attacked by a black bear, fight back as much as you can.

LEMON: You were the only one with you, with your group, right?

MCWILLIAMS: Yeah. There was a group of five of us all together and I was the only one that got attacked, so.

LEMON: Dylan McWilliams, we are glad that you are alive, thank you for coming on CNN.

MCWILLIAMS: Thank you.

LEMON: That is it for us tonight. Thank you so much for watching. I will see you right back here tomorrow.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Tonight, the founder of a neo-Nazi website is facing a lawsuit for allegedly targeting a Jewish woman, the mother of a young son, twitter storm. I must warn you, some of the language are you are about to hear is explicit and maybe disturbing but it illustrates the death of hate in America today.