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Don Lemon Tonight

Trump Visits Site Of Pittsburgh Synagogue Massacre; Harry Enten's Midterm Forecast; Kanye: I Have Been Used To Spread Messages I Don't Believe In; Weeks After Oval Office Visit, Kanye West Distancing Himself From Politics; Jon Stewart and Dave Chappelle on Trump's First Two Years in Office in an Exclusive Interview; President Trump and the White Working-Class Voter. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired October 30, 2018 - 23:00   ET

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

[23:00:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon. The President and the first lady traveled to Pittsburgh today along with Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner to pay their respects to the victims of Saturday's mass shooting at Tree of Life synagogue, laying stones and white roses on top of 11 stars of David markers outside.

Now, they then spent time with four wounded police officers and medical staff as well as a family member of one of the victims. That is peaceful protesters gathered to oppose the President's visit carrying signs saying things like words matter, and strength through unity. A White House official is telling CNN that there was talk about moving the visit to tomorrow or Thursday, but the optics of visiting Pittsburgh on the same day as a campaign rally, well they weren't as ideal for them. So they moved it today.

Lots to discuss. Olivia Nuzzi, is here, Joe Lockhart and Michael D'Antonio. Michael is the author of "The Truth about Trump."

Good evening to all of you. The rabbi of the Tree of Life greeted President Trump and the first lady. You can put that up at the synagogue this afternoon. But other officials said no thanks. Michael, why do you think Trump insists ongoing today, insisted ongoing when apparently many people there said don't come?

MICHAEL D'ANTONIO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, in some ways I look at this as a day of desecration for Donald Trump. He desecrated the constitution by saying he was going to avoid the 14th amendment. Then he went to Pittsburgh where he wasn't wanted. The majority of the survivors didn't want him present. And desecrated what should be hallowed ground at least on the day that he visited.

This is a President who wasn't willing to cancel a campaign rally in order to visit on a more appropriate day and I kept thinking as I watched this of the families whose loved ones were represented by those memorials and him going and touching them, touching those memorials when they didn't want him there. And this is -- has to be about the families. The rabbi showed real grace by welcoming him and essentially ministering to the President in a way that a President normally would minister to the country. So he went for himself. LEMON: But you're not saying that he should not go?

D'ANTONIO: He should go at an appropriate time when welcomed by all. And this was about him. This was about him showing that he would do this and wouldn't back down and not wanting to cancel a campaign appearance.

LEMON: But he did say he wanted to pay his respects and visit the heroic first responders. There was a doctor at the hospital to say it did help. How do you think he handled it?

JOE LOCKHART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Listen, it comes down to a simple decision he made that he thought the campaign rally was more important than his duties as President to bring the country together and that is now not surprising. You know, in fairness, it is very, very difficult for a President as a human being to do these things. I was with -- I was the person walked in the Oval Office and told President Clinton that 25 students had been killed in Columbine and sat with him as he went family to family to family not just in Colorado in Oregon and other places. It is excruciating to any President.

And I think, what we are seeing is, and Michael is the expert on the psyche of Trump, but rather than give which he would be doing in Pittsburgh if he went on the appropriate day, it was more important for him to get. What he gets is the rallies. He lives off these rallies.

LEMON: He gets a photo op from today.

LOCKHART: Yes, but he gets recharged by people screaming and yelling and frothing. And that to him was more important than being the American President today.

LEMON: Can I ask you something though in fairness, was he or is he damned if he does, damned if he doesn't?

LOCKHART: I think oftentimes politicians are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

LEMON: That is part of the job.

LOCKHART: And then, what they do is they end up doing is doing the right thing. And by prioritizing a political rally in the midterms over this much more important job as President, he did the wrong thing.

D'ANTONIO: What they also do is they don't squander the credibility to minister in the way that he should have in the way that President Clinton did many times with grace, because he was able to reach out to the whole country. Donald Trump squandered that with Charlottesville.

LOCKHART: It's not partisan.

LEMON: (Inaudible) by the way.

LOCKHART: I would say the same thing for President Bush, President Obama. This is different. This is uncharted territory.

[23:05:02] LEMON: This is very interesting, Michael. I didn't think about it that way because usually when these things happen, the President will speak when he is in the city. He was basically muted today, because I don't know why.

D'ANTONIO: This was about him.

LEMON: Yes.

D'ANTONIO: Everything is about him. Even this tragedy, the worst anti-Semitic attack, a massacre that took place with a person who was in love with the idea that the President spread of immigrants as invaders.

LEMON: But he didn't like the President. He wanted him to be stronger on that.

D'ANTONIO: No, but certainly he used the same rhetoric and this is from the same context.

LEMON: OK. Let's bring Olivia in. The mayor of Pittsburgh, the governor of Pennsylvania, Allegheny County executive refused to meet the President. They're all Democrats. But even Republican Senator Pat Toomey bowed out. How awkward that none of the leaders wanted to appear with Trump.

OLIVIA NUZZI, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, NEW YORK MAGAZINE: I don't think it's surprising. He is particularly divisive right now and obviously he has been divisive since he entered politics formally before that even. So I don't think it's surprising that politicians wouldn't want to be pictured with him on a day like today. I think there's something to your point earlier that he sort off is damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. If he didn't go today, if he didn't go early I'm sure there would be people criticizing him for that, as well.

But I will say it's ridiculous to consider what that source told CNN about the President not wanting to -- the optics being that about going on a day of a rally. He went to deliver a speech the day that the massacre happened. He talked about globalists in that speech. On the date that people were slaughtered in a synagogue. So, I think that the idea that they suddenly care about optics in this White House in a way they didn't before is pretty absurd.

LEMON: You say globalist, because that is code for what -- Jew?

NUZZI: It certainly has anti-Semitic overtones, yes.

LEMON: Yes. So what message, Olivia, does it send to have Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump go along on this visit? She converted. She is Jewish.

NUZZI: Look, I think it makes sense to have them there throughout his political career, it has certainly helped the President to have his son-in-law and his daughter with him and be able to kind of have more credibility when it comes to the idea that he is not anti-Semitic as he is been accused of being in the past.

I think ---I do think in some ways it was good that he went today. You know, it was good that he was quiet as you noted before which is unusual for him. And I do hope, you know, for the country that maybe he has learned something through all of there. I'm not particularly hopeful that that is the case, but hopefully, it is.

LEMON: You know what's frustrating, you've worked in the White House and you know him. Is to sit here, we have to sit here and pretend that saying words like globalist or saying I'm a nationalist, that that is normal. When I said it's code for Jew, you said it has is anti-Semitic intent. People have known that forever, but we have to sit here on television and argue with people who pretend that this is normal and there's nothing wrong with it and it's not anti-Semitic.

D'ANTONIO: He is been informed of these things for many years. This is a man who said I don't want black people counting my money. I want Jewish guys in Yamakas counting my money. That was in the 1990s. He knows -- he knows what this is. And the canard about the media, it goes back generations and it was the Jewish media. This is also something that is tinged with anti-Semitism. And I think we all -- you know, I don't expect this President to change tomorrow. I expect him to go out tomorrow and be just as divisive, just as the braying as he always has been and try and press this immigration issue all the way to the election.

LEMON: So we've gone over what he sources were telling Zeleny, Olivia did, that he visited today, because it was the best day on his schedule. She brings up a very good point I think is that, he on the same day that you it happened, he went to do -- he went to a rally.

LOCKHART: Listen. I can't think of another word, sick part of this is he does know. He does know when he uses the word invader and invasion this morning that that is a dog whistle to his people. Even after 11 people have been killed. He does know what globalist means. So they have a political strategy here that is designed to divide the country and fire up his people, fire them up with hate, and fire them up with envy. All of the seven deadly sins. You know? And it is -- and he does know and he knows better and he chooses every single time to do it to put aside you know what an American President would be like and to only be the President for the people who love him.

[23:10:15] LEMON: That is why, you know, every night for a while I've been opening the show saying words matter. The truth matters. And words do matter. Invaders, globalists, nationalists. These are not only politically charged words, these are racially charged words, as well. Anti-Semitic words. When I say racially, I mean invaders talking about immigrants.

Olivia, I've got to ask you, just to give some context to this, President Obama traveled to towns after the experienced mass shootings, are he went to Newtown, I think two days after, the Sand Diego shooting, Aurora three days after the movie theater shooting. The difference between Obama in making those trip and Trump making this one, what's the difference? NUZZI: I think, everything is different about it. The President

unfortunately does not have a calming presence on the country. He is not good at or even particularly interested in unifying the country and as he is speaking about the media being a divisive force, he is doing all that he can to further divide the country. I mean, I can't stop thinking about the fact that later that night after the shooting, he was tweeting about baseball. You know, I can't imagine another President doing something like that.

LEMON: And making bad hair jokes.

LOCKHART: I think there's a debate that it should be over now. People say he is not good at it. He is not good at empathy. I think that is wrong. He has no interest in it, because it doesn't fulfill him. It will only goes one way. He could be good at. He says he is the master sales man. So if he wanted to sell us all on the fact that he was grief stricken here, he could pull that off. He has no interest in it. He doesn't want to do it and he doesn't do things he doesn't want to do.

LEMON: I've got to go, quickly please.

D'ANTONIO: How grotesque is it that he uses his daughter and his son- in-law and his grandchildren to say, well see, I'm not anti-Semitic. Would that Ivanka married a Mexican immigrant, maybe we could have been spared all of this, because he could have empathy for someone in his family. So Jon is right. He knows what is what. This is all --

LEMON: You're saying that he uses him not necessarily to go, but you mean to say, when people say my father --

D'ANTONIO: Everyone says this, this is his supporters.

LEMON: I'm sure they wanted to go.

D'ANTONIO: Of course they did. And of course, I think in his heart, Donald doesn't believe that the President doesn't believe that he is anti-Semitic, but is bigoted. What he is done with immigrants would be completely different if there was a Mexican immigrant in his family.

LEMON: Thank you all. I appreciate it. In the wake of all this, what may be the most important midterms in recent history are just days away. The forecast is next.

[23:15:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: First off to visit to Pittsburgh today, President Trump is preparing to hit the campaign trail with 11 rallies scheduled in the days leading up to Election Day. Here to discuss, Mark Preston, love that, Harry Enten.

MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Hey.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN POLITICS SENIOR WRITER AND ANALYST: Hi, Mark.

LEMON: Oh, my gosh. OK. We love you, Harry.

He is so excited about this, Mark. You know why he is excited? Good evening by the way to both of you. He is excites because we very exactly one day to Election Day, right, Harry.

ENTEN: thank God.

LEMON: Give me the forecast.

ENTEN: The forecast in the house.

LEMON: One week, not one day, sorry. One week.

ENTEN: I wish it were one day.

LEMON: One week.

ENTEN: So in the House of Representatives, the forecast is pretty much the same. We expect Democrats will gain a majority. Right now, the forecast is for them to get in this graphic, 226 seats. They obviously need 218 so it's a net gain of 31, they only need a gain of 23. The Senate though is a somewhat different story. In the Senate, we expect Republican who's currently control 51 seats to gain one seat, get to 52.

LEMON: So the forecast hasn't changed much. The week before is when they gained two seats or last week they gained two seats.

ENTEN: Right. The forecast hasn't really changed very much. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised given the house polling that comes out of the past few days that if the forecast actually gives Democrats a little bit of a boost as we head into the final days.

LEMON: Very interesting. This is a boost that you mentioned for the Democrats, but Gallup is saying the President's approval rating is now at 40 percent. That is like a 4-point drop in a week. I know we've had the mail bombings and we have the synagogue shooting, but I don't know. Is that going to affect the midterms? What do you make of that?

ENTEN: Well, I'll say a few things. Number one, we do know the President's approval rating is tied up in how his party does. A president who's approval rating is at 40 percent, his Party is not going to perform particularly well. Looking back historically that would suggest a seat loss for his party between 30 and 40 seats. Which is exactly what all forecast has. That being said, I don't think the President's approval rating dropped four points in a week. I think that is statistical noise. But either if it is as high as 44 that is still not good for his Party.

LEMON: OK. A fair answer, Mark. Why do you think the big drop in the approval? Do you think it is the Kavanaugh but was maybe a sugar high and it's gone? Is it all the violence in the last week? What did you say, it was a statistical noise.

PRESTON: Statistical noise. LEMON: What do you think, mark?

PRESTON: let us go to statistical noise that is the easier answer now for everything. It's just statistical noise. You know, Don, it is a couple of things. One, it's a confluence of factors. You have the President coming off of, as you noted a sugar high of the Kavanaugh hearings where we really saw the Republican Party, a very fractured Republican Party really galvanize behind Kavanaugh and show their support for him to become the newest member of the Supreme Court. While that victory is won and now they've moved on so that high has been pulled back. But in addition, look we've seen the President not act very Presidential, you know, shocker that he isn't, but specifically this Gallup poll that we see was conducted until Sunday.

[23:20:08] He has said some pretty ridiculous things up to that point which could have turned people off. One, the shootings at the synagogue where 11 people were killed in Pittsburgh. You know, he noted that perhaps it should have been better armed. And if somebody had a gun, they could have stopped it. That is not something that you say.

And of course, we have all these bombs that had been sent in the mail and you know, at first he talked about bringing everyone together unity, Don, but then he turned around and he blamed the media. So, I think people are starting to tire of his act. I do agree with Harry, I don't think it dropped four points, but he is in a terrible position right now for his fellow Republicans heading into Tuesday.

LEMON: So, but with just a week to go, I'm sure he would like the conversation to be about that caravan and immigration, Mark. Today he announced he wants to end birth right citizenship. Is he desperate to gain control of the narrative again do you think?

PRESTON: Yes, he definitely sets the narrative, but to your point, gaining control of the narrative, no matter what he says, as long as he can control that message, it is outrageous and ridiculous the idea that we're sending troops down to the U.S./Mexico border right now for a caravan that is not going to get there for another month or so.

And also, the idea that he could change the constitution, the constitution by you know, the swerve of his pen is outrageous, but to your point, he is playing into his base, Don. And he is playing into fears of Republicans and conservatives and hoping to get them out to the polls.

LEMON: So, Harry, I got to ask you, a source close to the White House tells CNN that top Trump advisers urging him to play up the base, to keep attacking the media. Winning strategy?

ENTEN: In Senate races, yes, but in the house races, 435 races all across the country. And Republicans are in big trouble in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Chicago, Kansas City, these are places where Donald Trump isn't particularly popular and more than that they're places where Hillary Clinton outperformed Barack Obama just four years before that. So, I'm not sure that is necessarily a winning message. Yes you need

the Republican base to come out and vote. But at the same time can, you don't want to alienate those voters in the center of the electorate. And when Trump is playing to the base such as comments that he made over the past weekend, you know, about the caravan and stuff like that, I think he is alienating the center. I don't think it is working out for him and the polling we're seeing in the individual congressional districts suggest it's not.

LEMON: Speaking of alienating the center, alienating a lot of people, remember the low point, Mark, with their family separation policy. Do you think voters trust him on immigration issues? Will that even resonate now?

PRESTON: You know who trusts him on immigration issues are those who believe in his very hard line rhetoric and beliefs on immigration, otherwise no. And the American public hasn't been supportive of him on immigration. And the idea that he clouds it with all this rhetoric is really just causing more confusion around an issue that quite frankly we've almost been close to solving a few times. People forget about that. I mean, it's almost been done. Let's see if we can get there.

LEMON: Mark, next time I see you, I need you to be as excited as Harry, OK?

ENTEN: Mark, I'm coming down to D.C. We're going to have a nice discussion.

PRESTON: That would be a lot of fun.

LEMON: Always a pleasure. Thank you gentlemen. See you soon. You know, it's not even three weeks ago that Kanye West had his big meeting with the President in the Oval Office.. And now he says he is distancing himself from politics, because he is been used. Isn't that what a lot of people told him at the time?

[23:25:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: No more politics for Kanye West. The rapper tweeting today my eyes are now wide open and now realize I've been used to spread messages I don't believe in. I am distancing myself from politics and completely focusing on being creative. Nia Malika Henderson joins me. She got a new piece for CNN politics and it is titled "For Trump, It's All about the White Part of White Working-Class Voters." Also with us is Scott Jennings, Keith Boykin.

Good evening to one and all. OK, so listen, Keith, he didn't really you know say well, I'm not a fan of Donald Trump anymore, but the irony with him saying he is done with politics and he is going to you know, that he was spreading a message that he didn't believe in other people were, that is what other people were criticizing him for the exact same thing.

KEITH BOYKIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: People were saying we note you don't know a lot about politics. LEMON: He said, being used it is more like, yes, but go on.

BOYKIN: It's not just about Candace Owens using him. He said some crazy things, he said slavery was a choice which made no sense and he said that Malcolm X and Martin Luther King were the not relatable to him and other people I guess like him. He said, that we should put Harry Tobin on the (inaudible) -- Michael Jordan on the $20 bill, instead. Why are we taking political advice from Kanye West for the first places? Did anyone really take him seriously except for Donald Trump? And how sad is that the President of the United States actually listens to this guy for political advice.

LEMON: Scott, looks like you agree with that, Scott.

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, I had never heard a Michael Jordan, it would have put Michael Jordan on money, let's put him on like a much higher denomination than the $20 bill. Lord have mercy. He is the greatest basketball player that ever live. Look, I don't care what Kanye West thinks. I didn't care what he thought yesterday.

I don't care what he thinks today. I am not going to care what he thinks tomorrow. For every Republican out there who thought Kanye West had magically solved all of our problems with black people, please pull your head out of your rear end. For every Democrat who was going nuts because one black guy says something nice about Republican, please do the same. Americans, PSA. Stop caring so much about what these celebrities think. They're often ill informed. They don't know much. Pick up a newspaper. Turn off Kanye West. Read something. Lord, have mercy. Can we --

BOYKIN: Scott --

LEMON: Oh, my gosh, playing the part of Don Lemon is --

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: Scott, let me say, we have one thing that -- you were mostly correct except it wasn't because he said something nice about a Republican, honestly. It was because -- and it wasn't just because he was saying something nice about this president. It's because people ultimately knew or know he's being used by this president, and so it's nothing to do with Republicans. There are black conservatives and that's fine. There should be black conservatives. Go on, but --

JENNINGS: Yes, there should be. There should be a lot.

LEMON: Nia, here's what Kanye West said about President Trump in the White House earlier this month. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KANYE WEST, RAPPER: There was something about when I put this hat on, it made me feel like Superman. You made a Superman, that's my favorite superhero. You made a Superman cape for me. Also as a guy that looks up to you, looks up to Ralph Lauren, looks up to American industry guys - nonpolitical, no (bleep). Put the beep on it, however you want to do it, five seconds delay, and just goes in and gets it done.

Trump is on his hero's journey right now. And he might not have expected to have a crazy mother (bleep) like Kanye West run up and support but, best believe, we are going to make America great.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Too soon? That didn't age well, did it?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: It did not age well.

LEMON: Before you respond, I just want to put this disclaimer. TMZ says Kanye West -- he never mentioned Trump and this is all about this dispute over Blexit, right? Which urges black voters to leave the Democratic Party. OK, go on, sorry.

HENDERSON: In some ways, it seems like that, that Kanye West now has beef with Candace Owens, who is kind of this wacky figure on the far- right who has wacky ideas about black people and why they shouldn't be Democrats essentially since they've been brainwashed by the Democratic Party.

And she put out a really whack-looking t-shirt and linked it to Kanye West and he seems to be very displeased with that, and so there he is on Twitter essentially saying to Candace Owens to take my name out off your mouth.

I mean, that is essentially what he seems to be saying at this point. He doesn't really at this point seem to be critiquing Donald Trump or what happened in that display in the White House that was really odd to watch. I look at the look on Jim Brown's face. He just sort of giving him side eye in some ways through that whole thing.

You know, I doubt that Kanye West is done with politics. He seems to be having fun in that press conference there with Donald Trump. It's in some ways the most attention he's gotten in awhile. Doesn't seem to be, you know, working in terms of selling his albums or his sneakers at this point. So he does seem to love this attachment with Donald Trump because it puts him in a place that he hasn't been in awhile --

LEMON: Hold on. We've got to talk about something, so hold your thought. Scott, your facial expressions always get me in trouble. People think I'm laughing at the subject matter. Remember that last thing where I always laugh? I was actually laughing at Scott's face and I said as much. You know what I'm talking about, the whole negro thing. I was laughing at Scott's face.

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: Keith -- Scott knows -- Scott knows what I'm talking about.

JENNINGS: You keep saying -- Don, you keep saying things out loud.

(LAUGHTER) JENNINGS: There's nothing for me to say. You say things, I have to speak with my eyes and my facial expressions. I think you know what I'm doing here, I'm giving you a signal.

(LAUGHTER)

JENNINGS: And the signal is, let's go to a commercial.

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: Thank you very much. So with that said, everybody, stay with me because CNN's Christiane Amanpour has an exclusive interview with Jon Stewart and Dave Chappelle on President Trump's America.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVE CHAPPELLE, STAND-UP COMEDIAN: Some of the things they say -even they say that Russia influenced the election, it's kind of like, is Russia making us racist?

(LAUGHTER)

CHAPPELLE: Is that who's doing it? Oh, OK. Oh, my God, thank goodness, I thought it was us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[23:35:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: CNN's Christiane Amanpour has an exclusive interview with Dave Chappelle and Jon Stewart, talking about the first two years of the Trump era.

Back to discuss, Nia-Malika Henderson, Scott Jennings and Keith Boykin. So, Nia, I just want to play some sound from that interview with Christiane Amanpour, talking about the political landscape right now. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHAPPELLE: Some of the things they say - even when they say that Russia influenced the election, it's kind of like, is Russia making us racist?

(LAUGHTER)

CHAPPELLE: Is that who's doing it? Oh, OK. Oh, my God, thank goodness, I thought it was.

(LAUGHTER)

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST: I hadn't thought of it that way.

CHAPPELLE: Huh?

AMANPOUR: I hadn't thought of it that way. CHAPPELLE: If they killed the country that way, then we're the murder weapon.

JON STEWART, COMEDIAN: Yeah, we've always been.

AMANPOUR: Is the Trump era a good era for comedians? Is it just unbelievable fodder or not?

CHAPPELLE: I would not even name the era after him. He's getting too much credit.

AMANPOUR: He's the president.

CHAPPELLE: He's not -- he's not making the wave, he's surfing it.

STEWART: Energy's always been there.

CHAPPELLE: All he does is sing those people's greatest hits - build a wall, all these things we've heard before, he just sings all the songs. He's the only that has been brash enough to do it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Brilliant, Nia.

[23:40:00] Because everyone says he's a brilliant strategist, he's a brilliant marketer. He said, brash enough to do it. And I think the media overplays it, plays it too much. Amplifies his message too much. Therefore, helps him succeed in gaslighting the country. My two cents. Go on.

HENDERSON: Yeah, in some ways doesn't necessarily put him in the proper historical context in many ways and really look at the ways in which a race and racism has been part and parcel of the American presidency going back since the country's (INAUDIBLE).

I was at the portrait museum here in D.C. a couple months ago. If you look at the portraits of the 40-some odd presidents and you look at the captions, almost all of the captions will say something about the ways in which presidents have had to deal with the race problem in America, going back -- you think about Jefferson, you think about Andrew Jackson, you think about Lincoln, you think about Johnson, you think about Lyndon B. Johnson, you think about both Roosevelts.

All of them in some ways have had to deal what to do about the color line, what to do about white identity versus the identity of native Americans, what to do about white identity versus the identity of slaves. And so I think Trump is playing to that.

You've seen Republicans and Democrats in different eras obviously have to deal with this. So I think that's right. This isn't some brilliant strategy that begins with Trump. It's something I think that he has voiced in a way we haven't seen from American presidents in some time. Certainly not from Republicans.

If you think about the Republican Party, they very much at one point think about Bob Dole, for instance, basically said, listen, the racist have no place in the Republican Party. You think about Ken Mehlman in 2005, going before the NAACP and apologizing to the NAACP for playing racial politics oftentimes to the benefit of the Republican Party.

Then you have Trump basically saying, let's try this sort of divisive strategy around race. It just so happened that enough voters and some of these voters voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, but also had racially conservative views. And so in some ways, I think he very much played to that and played to it to great effect. We'll see how it works. Does it keep working?

LEMON: I want to play this clip. This is Jon Stewart talking about President Trump. He says Trump is a performer, a salesman.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEWART: Donald Trump is a salesman who changes his pitch depending on who he's in front of. What he doesn't realize is it's all being recorded. And so his pitch to that audience is the us versus them. We're all the victims of this liberal media, of these soft journalist who come out here and lie about us, we're really great people.

And that's what he pitches to them, and if you ask him about it and you say, do you think that's OK to body slam a reporter, no, no, no, of course not. Do not do that. But I was joking. It was a little joke I was making in front of friends.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So -- and we know, Keith, sometimes he can say opposing things in the same sentence. Is Stewart right here about --

BOYKIN: Of course, Donald Trump is the quintessential con artist. He spent five and a half years lying about President Obama's birth certificate and got away with it and got elected president. I mean, go back to 1988, Roger Ailes did a famous interview with Judy Woodruff where he told her that the three things he covered in presidential campaigns are mistakes, attacks and pictures.

Donald Trump knows that, and he gives the media all three of those. He gives the mistakes, he gives them attacks, he gives them pictures, he gives them theater. It's all about the performance of the presidency, the performance of the campaign.

The reason why he likes to campaign so much instead of governing is because you can't see him when he's governing, you see him when he out in the campaign stage. He's playing into the racial fears that Republicans have been tapping into.

Going back to 1964, after Lyndon Johnson signed the civil rights act in 1964, no Democratic president has ever won the white vote since that time. What Republican candidates have done typically in state races and federal races is they tried to exploit that very subtly. Leah Ward (ph) even admitted that in a famous interview.

Donald Trump does. And Donald Trump has basically torn off the mask and says, I'm not going to even pretend not to be racist. I'm just going to say it out loud and you can -- you don't even have to --

LEMON: Hear to say it but then say I'm not. He's going to say things --

BOYKIN: He's going to deny these races. He is going to be blatantly racist than the previous people are.

LEMON: Yeah. So Scott, just days after election day in 2016, Chappelle delivered Saturday Night Live's opening monologue. He said that we should give President Trump a chance. I just want to play it. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHAPPELLE: I'm wishing Donald Trump luck, and I'm going to give him a chance. And we the historically disenfranchised demand that he give us one, too. Thank you very much.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: All right. So then he told Christiane Amanpour that that was the right thing to say at the time.

[23:44:59] Has President Trump squandered all that goodwill, do you think?

JENNINGS: Well, first of all, I agree with you. I think Chappelle was right to say that at the time. I think when we get a new president, all Americans should give the new president a chance. I think the president still has some runway left in this term to try to tell his story to people that have not traditionally supported the Republican Party.

I think there's some things happening in the economy and some other areas that are still on the upswing that during a presidential re- election campaign, he could take advantage of.

And I would just say that I hope a lot of people out there who are skeptical of Republicans or were skeptical of Trump, didn't vote for Trump, are still looking at him and still trying to think about what are the things he's doing that I like, what are the things that he's doing that I could improve upon and trying to reconcile all of that and not necessarily just closing their mind to the possibility of supporting a Republican in the future.

I guess -- I try to look at presidencies in the totality of an entire term, not just a short period of time. So, I actually think after the midterms, once he's back on the ballot, that's his moment to try to tell a story to those audiences that haven't traditionally been Republican that say, hey, here's what I have done for you, here's what I want to do in the future and try to connect with them.

LEMON: Half way in, Scott still saying he's going to pivot.

(LAUGHTER)

JENNINGS: All presidents heading into their own reelection campaign have to pivot and tell a story about the future. Presidential campaigns are always about the future. They're not about the past. They're about the future. You have to say, here is what I'm going to do for you.

LEMON: All right, I got to go.

BOYKIN: Donald Trump became president tomorrow then, right?

LEMON: Yeah. No, he said after --

BOYKIN: On November 7th, Donald Trump became president.

LEMON: Stay with me, everyone. The president ramp up campaign appearances and speeches catering to a very specific bloc of voters. The white working class base. So, is his strategy working? We'll discuss, next.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice over): We're now calling Alaska for Donald Trump.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my god. I think America is racist.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my god.

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I remember my great grandfather told me something like that.

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was like a slave or something, I don't know.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can't believe it. Like, why aren't people turning out for Hillary the way they did for Barack Obama?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean maybe because they're replacing a charismatic 40-year-old black guy with a 70-year-old white woman. That's like the Knicks replacing Patrick Ewing with Neil Patrick Harris.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[23:50:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: All right. I'm back now with Nia, Scott, and Keith. OK, Nia, so your latest piece, it's called "For Trump It's All About the White Part of White Working-Class Voters." And you write, "all the conventional wisdom of 2016 was that Trump's message was really all about the economy. Turns out his argument then and his argument now is really about race, culture and American identity." Talk to me about that.

HENDERSON: We often talk about identity politics on the left, very much this idea that for instance Barack Obama represented something racially for African-Americans and therefore African-Americans wanted to support him.

I think it's the same in many ways for Donald Trump. He represents something racially for white voters. He's telling a story to white voters who do in some ways, many white voters, feel a sense of anxiety, a sense of fear when they look at the changing demographics, when they look at sort of the changing cultural norms in America. And so you see Donald Trump playing on that.

Even in his first outing, when he announced for presidency, this idea that somehow he was going to be the great protector of America against the dangerous and brown hordes that were south of the border. And you see him returning to that theme as he talks about this caravan that's thousands of miles away, probably two months away.

And so yes, I think -- again, we've seen that it worked so far with those voters who were switching sides from Obama to Donald Trump in 2016. You can see him doing that now. You can see him inserting himself for instance in the Florida race, calling the candidate there, Andrew Gillum, a thief and kind of conjuring up this idea of black criminality to insert himself into that race and really I think gin up support among white people.

And listen, as we said, it's worked. We'll see if it continues to work. And I think it's his formula. And again, I think it goes against this conventional wisdom that really was all about the economy. I think it was much more for a lot of white voters about race and identity and white identity.

LEMON: The studies show --

HENDERSON: All the data shows that.

LEMON: The data shows that it wasn't about economic anxiety.

HENDERSON: Right.

LEMON: It was about race. I've said it on the show. I get lots of criticism for it, but that is the absolute truth. OK, Keith, the president wants to end birthright citizenship. You heard him say that in an Axios interview today.

He's talking about doing this because of this caravan of migrants, invaders, that's what he's calling them. Even Shep Smith on Fox News said there is no danger to Americans. This is fearmongering, right? And will it work?

BOYKIN: Yes and no. I mean, yes it's fearmongering. It will work for his base because he does it repeatedly. It doesn't work for reaching anybody else. But he doesn't care. His only objective is to reach his base.

I just want to add to what Nia was saying. Donald trump is engaged in what I consider to be a race against time. He looks at the demographics. He sees whites will no longer be a majority in 2040. We had a black president for eight years.

[23:54:58] We had a woman get 66 million votes. We have marriage equality for LGBT people in all 50 states. American white working- class people who are Trump supporters look at that and say, wow, this country is different from the country that I was born in and they're reluctant to embrace that. And so Donald Trump is sowing the fears with the immigrant caravan and all this other stuff he's talking about to get that fear to --

LEMON: I want to get Scott in before we run out of time. We're almost out, Scott. I'm sorry. I'll give you the last word.

JENNINGS: Yeah, look, I think the white working-class voters and I'm the son of white working-class voters from Western Kentucky, I can tell you they care about their jobs, their kids, their families and they care about being disrespected by the political elite.

So I think part of the equation in this conversation is there was a political party they felt like was disrespecting their culture, their values and their way of life.

And Trump comes along and says, I'm not going to disrespect you, I'm going to respect what your views are and not tell you you're wrong because you live in the middle of the country. And I think that was driving quite a bit of their interest in his candidacy.

I think he's going to try to recapture that for his own re-election campaign. And frankly in these senate races, I still think you see that alive and well and that's why Republicans are poised to hold the Senate.

LEMON: All right. Thank you all. I appreciate it. Thanks for watching. Our coverage continues.

[24:00:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)