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Don Lemon Tonight

Trump Uses Policy Speech To Demonize Immigrants; Is Trump Helping Or Hurting GOP Candidates?; Will The Internet Be The Death To Us?; Steve King's Fading Support; Iowa GOP Representative King Fighting For His Political Life; Oprah Winfrey Stumps For Stacey Abrams in Georgia Gubernatorial Race; Judge Denies Motion to Open Second Polling Place in Dodge City, Kansas, Only Site Moved Out of Town. Aired 11-12a ET

Aired November 01, 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. President Trump employing a last ditch effort to change the conversation just days ahead of the midterms. He is attempting to paint a group of migrants, hundreds of miles from the border with a broad and scary brush. And what was billed as a policy speech from the Roosevelt room today, the President proposed no actual policies. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There's nothing political about a caravan of thousands of people and now others forming pouring up into our country. We have no idea who they are.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Did you catch that? The President admitted we have no idea who they are. Why does he keep calling them invaders? If there is nothing political about it, why is the caravan brought up in every single campaign appearance the President makes? A slow moving group of asylum seekers, asylum seeking immigrants, some walking with strollers and suitcases, not an invasion.

Repeating a lie does not make it truth. With the midterms just five days away, the President is attempting to scare people to the polls. Let's discuss that. Will it work? What's going on? David Swerdlick is here, Molly Ball as well as Larry Sabato.

Good evening everyone. Thank you so much for coming on this evening.

David, I'm going to start with you. OK? Because I just want to know, do you think this plan the White House is -- that sat down and came up with or did they come up with this or is the President going with his gut and what's worked before?

DAVID SWERDLICK, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, the President is comfortable, Don, talking about immigration and until it doesn't work for him, I think he is going to continue to do it. If we go back a couple of weeks, Republicans and President Trump were very happy with the narrative coming out of the Kavanaugh hearings. They were spooling up this talking about globalists and about the caravan. Then all of a sudden, with the bombings the week before last and then the tree of life massacre, the narrative changed and in real time we heard the President lamenting that the news wasn't about what he wanted to talk about.

So in the last couple of days, to sort of make sure he got the news back on immigration, his topic of choice, he first floated this idea about birthright citizenship and then this inflammatory ad that his campaign has released and finally now today, as you said, a campaign speech disguised as a policy speech where he wanted to ratchet up sort of maximum fear of undocumented immigrants coming across the border.

Something that can be discussed and talked about in a rational way not as invaders not as people needing 15,000 troops on the border, but I think the President feels like he won in 2016 with immigration at its core and until he loses an election on immigration, that is what he is going with.

LEMON: Molly, the President is making 11 campaign stops today through Election Day, but Arizona, Nevada, are missing from that map.

[23:05:03] And sources are telling CNN's Jeff Zeleny that Trump has been asked to stay away from those tight Senate races. Is his message hurting Republican candidates' do you think?

MOLLY BALL, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, in the places that he is going, they obviously feel that he is helping. But it is revealing, as I am not the first to know that the places he is going are places where he is popular and Republicans are probably going to win anyway.

There are a lot of strategists Republicans and Democrats alike who wonder if he isn't a more galvanizing figure for the other side than he is for his own side. We've seen how energized Democrats are to vote in this midterm election. We'll find out for sure on Tuesday and the President and some of his advisers have been telling themselves that their best hope is to increase Republican base turnout to try to match that Democratic enthusiasm, but it's not clear that the President doesn't actually motivate more Democrats when he goes to a particular place than he does Republicans.

So in a place particularly like Nevada or Arizona where obviously, there is a large segment of the electorate that is Latino, those are places where Republicans would prefer not to have the President going in and potentially stirring up more Democrats.

LEMON: Yes. So let's bring in Larry now. Larry, the President's divisive language on race and immigration plays well in some parts of the country, but not everywhere. Where could it alienate voters?

LARRY SABATO, DIRECTOR CENTER FOR POLITICS, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: It alienates voters in the high college educated suburbs that are at the heart of the House districts that may very well turn the House over to the Democrats. And look, Don, I really think there is a calculation here that no

one's talking about, certainly the White House won't. They would never concede that the House is lost in advance and most of their base believes there's going to be a giant red wave. You know, we've all gotten those e-mails and tweets. But I think they have made a very practical decision, you may not like it, but they decided to save the senate.

That is what this is all about. He is campaigning in all those deeply red states that probably will allow the Republicans to keep the senate, maybe even add a seat or two. As long as he has the senate, he feels like he can get through the next two years, get his court appointments, his cabinet appointments and he'll have the House to beat up on. You know, he likes to have a juicy target and they'll provide it.

LEMON: I think your analysis is right on there, Larry. David, is the President just focusing on immigration, because it worked for him in 2016? You said he is going to continue to do it, he'll use immigration as long as it works. So, obviously, he is thinking it will work again.

SWERDLICK: Yes, first of all, I agree with Larry that this is a focus in the final days on the senate. Republicans feel better about that, Democrats feel a little better about the House and the President knows he is got to at least hold on to one House of Congress.

LEMON: David, let me just say this.

SWERDLICK: Yes. Sure.

LEMON: You know, we say always, you remember 2016. Right?

SWERDLICK: Right.

LEMON: We actually don't really know what's going to happen on Tuesday night, right.

SWERDLICK: I'm saying.

LEMON: That is the common wisdom with the polling.

SWERDLICK: Yes. Conventional wisdom I think in 2016 was tested and defeated. I'm suggesting that Republicans feel better about the Senate and Democrats feel better about the House. Neither Party especially Democrats right now who control neither House nor the White House should get cocky about anything.

Leader Pelosi the other day saying, I think we're going to win. I think was a political mistake. Premature. You don't want to give bulletin board material to the other side and she, like you say, Don, doesn't know what is really going to happen.

Real quick, let me just answer your question on immigration. The President although as Larry says, Republicans are facing trouble in some House districts, the President's approval rating is right around where it was on inauguration day. He is got his base with him, that is number one and number two, the Democrats have a plus eight I think, or plus seven and a half in the generic Congressional ballot. But that is not the same as having that kind of lead in especially these red states where a lot of Democrats are up for re-election instead of Senate races in red states and these House races even if Democrats win, it will be much closer.

LEMON: All right. So, then you took us there. So, Molly, hang on. All right, because I've got to go to the polling guy for this since David got us there. So, Larry, your latest prediction, you switched ratings for four House races. Is that good news for the Republicans or is that good news for the Democrats?

SABATO: It will actually kind of washed out, Don, but I'll tell you, on the whole, when you talk even to Republican analysts -- you can detect that they're a little bit pessimistic to a lot pessimistic about keeping the House. Now, when they talk about individual races, they give you better odds for their individual candidates than they do for keeping the House as a whole.

LEMON: Right.

SABATO: So I think I know its conventional wisdom and yes, I certainly remember 2016. I think everybody in our business who predicted a Hillary Clinton win remembers 2016, but you know the good side of this, Don?

[23:10:10] It's that everyone should know that nothing is over until the final poll closes and nobody's going to be overconfident and that is going to encourage a higher voter turnout maybe on both sides.

LEMON: All right, listen, I am going to give you the bulk of the time after this one. OK? I just want to know from Larry why you switched Steve King's seat in the House race, you switched from likely to leans Republican. That is different from CNN's math. Why did you make that move?

SABATO: We did it because he is getting a lot of blow back even in his own district from the outrageous comments that he has made. I don't know anybody even in the Republican hierarchy who doesn't think his comments were outrageous. He was denounced by the guy running the Republican campaign who is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Ohio.

So, we've lowered it because we have learned when a major controversy breaks on an incumbent right before the election, they may not lose, but it is going to be closer than it usually is. He has got 61 percent the last time. He is looking at a closer race.

LEMON: Molly, I see you shaking your head, you want to respond to that one.

BALL: I wanted to respond to what we are talking about earlier this argument about immigration. Because I think it is a really interesting test of this immigration message. I think it is still a really pretty exotic theory that this is a winning message for Republicans to go all-in on this very hard line, very extreme immigration message.

It's a political strategy that probably Steve King, a couple of President Trump's advisers and apparently the President's gut believe, but it's not something that I think most conventional Republican political strategists would advocate this extremely divisive and as you have said, fearmongering message.

Because as Larry was saying before this doesn't only alienate, you know, Latino voters who may, you know, see themselves perhaps with their ancestors reflected with the people in that caravan, it's all kinds of voters. It alienates suburban voters, it alienates educated voters, it alienates Republican voters. We have all kinds of data that says that most Americans are not really there for a message quite this far out on immigration and yet the President is determined to make this the closing message for the entire Republican Party and we'll see if like 2016, he is got an instinct that is better than the entire sort of conventional political class on there.

LEMON: It's interesting, Molly, because -- go ahead. What are you going to say?

SWERDLICK: I was just going to jump in real quick. I really do agree with what Molly is saying there. And certainly polling bears out that Americans are not by in large looking for the type of solutions that are solutions that the President is proposing. I will only say though that in an election where -- we're at the point where this is not about persuading people. This is about getting your base out to vote. Minds aren't changing now. It's who will come out to the polls.

LEMON: Molly, I just have a couple seconds left. Speaking of that, because 23 million votes have been cast already. So people have made up their minds in places, for both parties. They've managed to get people out to the polls early or to vote early.

BALL: Sure. I mean and it is early voting is something that has been increasing nationally and in many states and jurisdictions for years now, but look, we see that you know, a midterm election is always a turnout election. People have made up their minds. Yes, but they haven't necessarily made up their minds to vote. And we have seen Democrats champing at the bit to vote in a lot of these early, you know, special elections and Virginia election and so on.

And so as David was saying, the Republicans are hoping that this fear- based strategy can energize enough dispirited or complacent Republicans or Republican leaning independents who might have been thinking about staying home or assuming because of the President talking about a red wave that their vote wasn't needed try to get those people off the couch and we'll see if it works.

LEMON: Thank you all. I appreciate it.

SWERDLICK: Thanks, Don.

LEMON: From the President's tweets to Russian battle (ph) on social media. Are we at a point where propaganda and lies pass as truth?

[23:15:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: A President who seemingly tweets every passing thought, Russia manipulating social media to divide us, proof that there is a downside to the internet echo chamber. Let's discuss now with Frank Bruni of "The New York Times." Michael D'Antonio is the author of "The Truth about Trump." Gentlemen, good evening.

So, there is a method to our madness. I have you here because you wrote something about this. Your piece is titled -- you said the internet will be the death of us. OK? And you said at first I was like the death of the U.S. which is just -- the death of us. You say it is a tool for learning robing and constructive community building, but it's unrivaled too in the spread of lies, narrowing of interests and erosion of common cause. Please give us some examples of that.

FRANK BRUNI, OP-ED COLUMNIST, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": With the internet, we are now individuals are kind of curating their information diets, they're curating their news consumption in a way where they can tune out anything that doesn't fit their pre-existing world view. They can tuck themselves into echo chambers where they only hear what they already believe and what they want to believe. We recently had two horrifying examples of this.

This is Cesar Sayoc who allegedly sent the pipe bombs and then Robert Bowers with the massacre in Pittsburgh. In both cases, those men spent enormous time online and what they were doing online was they were finding communities of people who believed in the same dark things they did, who reinforced those beliefs who colored them darker still. And we have to ask some really serious questions about whether people who are already prone to hate are actually being pushed all the way to violence by the encouragement and by the reinforcement that they get online.

LEMON: Have we reached a point -- look, even here, I'll just speak for myself. And the folks at the network will present factual information, back it up with examples, right?

[23:20:00] Concrete empirical evidence and people say that is not true or it is fake news. It's like what, are you talking about? I'm often shocked by the amount of propaganda that people believe. Have we reached a point where propaganda can pass as truth and lies?

BRUNI: Here's why this is happens. I was thinking about this much watching CNN earlier this evening. And on Anderson's show, he was going through all the lies in the President's speech for lack of a better word on immigration today. Because the internet gives you all of these kind of tiny niches you can go into, because even the TV dial gives you so many options.

You can tell yourself you're extremely well informed, because you have all of these sites bookmarked, because you're following these 100 people on Twitter. Because you are watching TV, but you can never stumble across a show that is actually giving you objective dispassionate facts. And so you end up -- what the internet does for you is you end up overfed and undernourished.

LEMON: Inundated, but not necessarily informed.

BRUNI: But not informed.

LEMON: Did you want to say something?

MICHAEL D'ANTONIO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I think that is a brilliant analysis. I was speaking with someone earlier today who had actually had been hired by Facebook years ago when they were going to consider looking into the news diet that people were getting on Facebook.

Facebook brought in a whole bunch of journalists, these were professionals that actually informing people and within a year they fired them all. They decided that they were going to buy into this utopian idea that the internet was going to provide us with a plethora of sources and everybody was going to be very keen on informing themselves well. Really people separated themselves into tribes and now the tribes are getting more and more exclusive. Donald Trump would like an echo chamber of one, so he could hear his own voice all the time.

LEMON: Speaking of -- let me ask you this, because you know him very well. You're the biographer. He is got over 55 million Twitter followers, right? And yet he capitalizes on that reach -- to reach out to his base, but he doesn't like to use e-mail. I'm not sure if he has an email account. Who knows, but as widely known the White House say, print out e-mails and documents for the President to read. How did he get to Twitter?

D'ANTONIO: Well, you know, I think that is a technology that he is mastered, because it matters to him and it's only a limited number of characters and words. He actually if you think about it, is a 19170's tabloid.

LEMON: I just answered the question in my head. But go on, no one wants to hear more than what Donald Trump has to say than himself.

D'ANTONIO: Right and he is writing "New York Post" headlines circa 1980. This is how he is always thought. And he is always mastered these niches.

BRUNI: There's another reason he loves Twitter which is it provides this instant odometer of approval. You send out a tweet and you look over, who like it, who shared it? It's a wonderful instant feeling of validation if you're someone like Trump.

D'ANTONIO: He told me he was going to run for President in 2014 base on Twitter. He said everybody on Twitter is telling me to do it. And he knew at that time that half of his followers were bots. He went out and purchased millions of followers in the Philippines and other places so the bots were telling him to run, but that really was him telling himself to run.

LEMON: It's interesting to me, because I just -- I don't even read the comments anymore. I may as well turn the comments off on my social media, because I don't read it. People say did you see such and such. No, why are you reading that? Who cares? BRUNI: You get that into your head it's a big danger. But there's

one other thing about social media I have to say. Not only can you use it to follow people whom you agree with, et cetera, but the algorithms encourage more of that. So I go on Facebook, if I like something, if I share something, I'm going to see more from that person, I am going to see more of that kind.

If you think about the way that works, it takes a narrow interest of yours and makes it narrower and narrower until you are just spinning in a rut.

LEMON: If you clicked on something on the Internet, like the Internet, I bought a backpack the other night. OK, I bought one. I don't need any more backpack ads.

D'ANTONIO: Right, next you'll get other mountaineering gear. Ads for those things. But they're forcing you into this limited neighborhood where you're only going to see reflections of yourself.

BRUNI: You're just backpack man.

LEMON: Also it's interesting because we talked about this racist ad that the President retweeted yesterday. It was interesting that he would use his Twitter page to put out something that many people are saying is worse.

D'ANTONIO: Interesting is a kind word.

LEMON: This racist ad that is worse than Willie Horton. But it's also a straight line to others, not only his followers and I say followers. I notice you said supporters. Followers because that is what it has become, but to every journalist who then amplify what he says even if it's right or wrong, even if it's embellishment or a lie. People will still amplify. In many ways we do that here on cable news too, because we put it on, we will run it, and people believe it before we have a chance to fact check it.

[23:25:09] D'ANTONIO: Yes.

BRUNI: He sets the terms of the conversation. This happened Tuesday. At the beginning of Tuesday we heard that he had said with an executive order I'm going to end birthright citizenship. He is not going to be able to do that. I don't think he believes he can do that. But for 24 hours what were we talking about? Immigration and birthright citizenship. Victory Donald Trump.

LEMON: Exactly and I'm going to do the tax cut. People still believe those things. I was listening to on my way home last night Randi Kaye's story on Anderson's show. Just to listen to the people in the crowd what they believe, he is going to change the whole, you said birthright citizenship, but realize you can't. No, he is going to do it. Do you think it's an election tactics so close to Election Day that these people aren't anywhere near, no, they believe it's imminent. The folks are on the border, they actually believe it.

D'ANTONIO: They believe an invasion is imminent, they believe that our troops need to be sent.

LEMON: Because he said it.

D'ANTONIO: There are people who are now talking about sending drones to interdict the caravan 500 miles into Mexico, because they're panic about this fake invasion.

LEMON: I would challenge everyone to just try to walk 500 miles and see how fast you get to somewhere or 800 miles or 1,000 miles.

D'ANTONIO: this is the world we -- this is Donald Trump's mind that we're all living inside of now.

BRUNI: He is created this narrative that has at this point in terms of the caravan no relationship whatsoever to the truth, none.

D'ANTONIO: What did he say, I tell the truth when I can.

BRUNI: Which apparently he can't do that very often.

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: Thank you. I've got to run. We'll continue this conversation, maybe one day over -- snowy fire or something. Snowy fire. It wouldn't be a snowy fire. Snowy day by a fire.

(LAUGHTER)

Thanks, guys. With his racist comments catching up to him, member of his own party turning against him, eight-term Iowa Congressman Steve King is facing which shaping up to be the battle of his political life.

[23:30:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: So Republican Congressman Steve King increasingly under fire for his racially charged remarks, hard line views on immigration and diversity, and comments that many consider hateful. And now he has serious competition in this election.

I want to talk to Rekha Basu now, a columnist for the Des Moines Register. Rekha, so good to have you on. I guess you have been --

REKHA BASU, COLUMNIST, DES MOINES REGISTER: Thank you, Don, good to be here.

LEMON: Absolutely. You have been following Steve King for years. You wrote a great piece in Des Moines Register --

BASU: I have.

LEMON: -- and it is entitled "Steve King's base shows cracks over his rhetoric on immigrants, Kavanaugh investigation." So --

BASU: Right.

LEMON: -- you spoke to some Republican voters who say that they're now supporting Democratic candidate J.D. Scholten. Why is that?

BASU: Scholten.

LEMON: Yeah.

BASU: That -- you know, it's very interesting. He has had such a loyal base of Christian conservative Republicans in his western Iowa district. And what is happening is that some of those very same Christian conservative Republicans are taking great offense now at the way he's talking about immigrants, because some of them have adopted children from other countries.

And when Steve King makes these remarks about we can't preserve our western civilization with other people's babies, that's now very offensive to them because it hits them where they live in their homes.

So you know, I think that there are a lot of decent people who live in his district who have just been profoundly misguided by his rhetoric, people who have not had a lot of contact with people of color or immigrants before, and now they're not quite sure whether to -- he's very good at stoking fears and they're really not quite sure how to think about their neighbors anymore.

And the irony of this is that western Iowa's towns would be emptied out if it wasn't for immigrants and there would be nobody to work in the meat packing plants.

LEMON: Interesting.

BASU: And so they have this incredible dependence on immigrant labor and on immigrants rebuilding small communities, populating the schools, putting in small businesses, all of that. And yet, King continually tries to say things divisive things about how Mexicans don't have the same values, are the mostly drug runners, they're involved in crimes.

LEMON: He also said that he wanted immigrants to assimilate to American culture and not try to reverse it. But I got to ask you, you know, we talked about Scholten, right? He is outracing King. The campaign tells our team that they took in $800,000 from 24,000 individual donors in 72 hours. That is really astonishing. He's winning more newspaper endorsements.

BASU: Yes.

LEMON: Is all that enough to get him over the line? Do you think that most people are still all in for King?

BASU: You know, I don't know. I don't know how much of a difference that makes in King's district. I think it makes a difference everywhere else in the country. Everyone is talking about Steve King and his diatribes.

But I don't know that more ads which Scholten can certainly afford to buy now because of all the national attention is what it's going to take in the district. On the other hand, I think Scholten himself is a very convincing character, a very convincing candidate.

LEMON: Yeah.

BASU: He's 38 years old. He doesn't have a high profile. He's not been -- you know, one of the people who ran against King previously who didn't get much traction was the wife of the former governor, Tom Vilsack. And that just didn't go anywhere. Most of these races he's won by about 20 points.

LEMON: But this one is really close, right?

BASU: This one is really -- if you look at Scholten's data, it's one- point race.

LEMON: OK.

BASU: If you look at King's recent data, it's an 18-point race.

LEMON: OK, I want to get this in, because this may explain some of it. This is Representative King losing his cool today when someone asked him at a forum about his history of anti-immigrant rhetoric.

[23:35:00] Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You and the shooter both share an ideology that is --

REP. STEVE KING (R), IOWA: No.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- anti-immigration.

KING: Do not associate me with that shooter. I knew you were an ambusher when you walked in the room. There's no basis for that. You get no questions. You get no answers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was about to ask you what distinguishes your ideology.

KING: No, you're done.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was about to ask you what distinguishes your ideology.

KING: No. You crossed the line. It's not tolerable to accuse me to be associated with a guy that shot 11 people in Pittsburgh. I am a person --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you don't --

KING: -- who has stood with Israel from the beginning. The length of that nation is the length of my life, and I've been with them all along. I will not answer your question. I will not listen to another word from you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Wow. He responded by tweeting the video and then adding, "leftist media lies have reached peak insanity and compared me to the evil Pittsburgh murderer of 11 Jews." I mean, it seems -- it sounds like he is not accustomed to being challenged because he shut that guy down. That guy was calm and he was losing it.

BASU: Well, he doesn't allow himself to be challenged. Frankly, he refused to debate Scholten. There had not been any debate with Scholten because he generally refuses to debate his opponents. He does not come in to the editorial board anymore. He used to come in for regular interviews, endorsement interviews.

He was actually even once endorsed by the Des Moines Register, but he won't come in anymore now. He says -- and you'll be interested in this -- he says liberal media like CNN and the Des Moines Register, you know, left-wing bias and so I won't talk to them. I can't talk to them. Everything is lies.

What's interesting about that go around with the man who was asking him the question is that I think the man actually very appropriately quoted something, started out at least quoting something that King has said about other cultures and other people's babies and so on.

King took offense at linking that understandably to the synagogue shootings, but King has never taken offense to those remarks being brought up to him again, nor has he ever taken offense to being called a white supremacist or liken to a white supremacist, until this year when there is some concern on the part of his campaign that it might, you know, might backfire.

I have for a long time been talking about his white supremacist views in my column, and I've never gotten any push back about it. But this time, there is some.

LEMON: All right.

BASU: In fact, King was on a local -- sorry.

LEMON: No, I've got to run. I'm out of time.

BASU: King --

LEMON: But go on, finish your thought.

BASU: OK. I was going to say he was on a local T.V. news program about a week ago in which he said what's so bad about white supremacists? Three years ago, that wasn't even a bad word. All of a sudden, it's become a bad word.

LEMON: Oh, boy. Rekha, thank you. I appreciate it.

BASU: Thank you, Don.

LEMON: Thank you. OK --

BASU: My pleasure. Good to be here.

LEMON: Absolutely. Oprah! That's next.

[23:40:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: The race for governor in Georgia is one of the most closely watched battles as we head into election day. It's neck and neck. So both candidates bringing out heavy hitters to help get out the vote. Vice President Mike Pence stumping for Republican Brian Kemp and Oprah stumping for Democrat Stacey Abrams and making an impassioned plea to voters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OPRAH WINFREY, MEDIA EXECUTIVE: For anybody here who has an ancestor who didn't have the right to vote, and you are choosing not to vote wherever you are in this state in this country, you are dishonoring your family.

(APPLAUSE)

WINFREY: You are disrespecting and disregarding their legacy, their suffering and their dreams when you don't vote.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Hmm. So let's discuss now, Keith Boykin, Alice Stewart, Amanda Carpenter. Amanda is the author of "Gaslighting America: Why We Love It When Trump Lies To Us" or try to lie, either way, but Trump lies to us. Thank you all for joining us. Keith, what can Oprah do for Stacey Abrams, do you think?

KEITH BOYKIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Oprah can do a lot. I mean, take the state of Georgia. Georgia is 32 percent African-American, 51 percent female. Oprah has a great deal of resonance with both of those communities because of her popularity, her T.V. show.

And she's out there campaigning, knocking on doors. She's drawing attention to the race, creating publicity for Stacey Abrams. I think she's already having an impact in a very tight race. Any little bit helps and Oprah will help.

LEMON: So Alice, you know, Mike Pence, the vice president, was in Georgia on behalf of Brian Kemp. He mocked Stacey Abrams for being bankrolled by Hollywood liberals. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I heard Oprah is in town today. And I heard Will Ferrell was going door to door the other day. Well, I'd like to remind Stacey, Oprah and Will Ferrell, I'm kind of a big deal, too.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

PENCE: Did you get that? And I got a message. I got a message for all of Stacey Abrams's liberal Hollywood friends. This ain't Hollywood. This is Georgia.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: All right. OK --

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: First of all, Oprah -- Oprah, not Mike Pence, is from the south.

[23:45:00] Second, the president is a celebrity as well. So, what do you say to that, Alice?

ALICE STEWART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It's good to see that Mike Pence and Ron Burgundy were both there campaigning in Georgia. Look, Don, as you know, I was born and raised in Georgia. I know that state very well. Oprah hit on a very key issue that resonates with Georgia. She says if you don't vote a certain way, you're dishonoring your family, you're not supporting your family.

That's the way it's been for many years in Georgia for Democrats. Zell Miller exemplified this. They're born and raised as Democrats. But Georgians finally realized, I'm actually conservative, I support life, I support immigration reform, I support Second Amendment rights, I am actually a Republican. That's why Georgia took the shift and that's the values that people are going to vote for when they vote for Kemp.

BOYKIN: Alice, can I just correct one thing? You said that Oprah said if you don't vote a certain way. She never said that. She said if you don't vote. She was speaking about the fact that African-Americans have to fight for the right to vote --

LEMON: Or women.

BOYKIN: -- and women, too. But she didn't say that if you don't vote a certain way, you're disrespecting your elders.

LEMON: Alice, I'll let you finish, but she also said that she is a registered independent. She had voted Republican in some races and Democrat, and that she owned her own mind, and that you can vote whatever way you want. You don't need a political party to tell you which way to vote. I don't think she was talking about Democrats. She was talking about people whose ancestors had not been able to vote.

STEWART: She made a very, very articulate case on that. It was a great speech and it was very motivating, but she was clearly there for Stacey Abrams as she made it quite clear. And she was smart to avoid talking about the issues because she was there to motivate voters on their emotions.

But this was a clear contrast today between Stacey Abrams who was there being promoted and pushed by Oprah Winfrey, who is a very articulate spokesperson for her, buy she was pushing Stacey Abrams who supports supports socialized medicine, she supports open borders, and she supports tax hikes, as opposed to Mike Pence who was there for Kemp who supports immigration reform, Second Amendment rights, and life issues. Two very stark contrasts.

Donald Trump won Georgia by five points and that is the message that resonates with Georgians. I think that will steer clear.

LEMON: OK. I want to get Allison here -- but -- I mean, excuse, Amanda. She said she doesn't support open border and she is for the Second Amendment. As a matter of fact, she said that to me.

AMANDA CARPENTER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: She wants gun control.

LEMON: Yeah, but she -- yeah, she wants gun control law but it doesn't mean that she wants to -- that she doesn't support the Second Amendment.

BOYKIN: Come on, Alice. You're better than that. You know that.

CARPENTER: I think we should -- listen, this speech by Oprah was very well received. I think Mike Pence is a little mad that they lost Kanye. So, we won't hold that against him right now.

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: You're always shady, you and Keith.

(LAUGHTER)

CARPENTER: Why was this a good speech? Oprah, there's a big debate going on among Democrats whether they go low against Donald Trump or they go high or whatever. Look at Oprah's speech. She gave a very political speech that wasn't partisan. It was extremely accessible to anyone who listen to. But it was very much aimed at women and minorities.

But it wasn't over the top. It wasn't race-baiting. She told a story. And she talked about the importance of voting. And she said this woman shows my values and that's why I support her. And it was a beautiful speech.

And I think everyone felt good listening to it. To me, it was like a breath of fresh air. I'm very curious to know what Republicans Oprah has voted for. But I think people who want to campaign against Donald Trump should study that.

LEMON: Yeah.

CARPENTER: And see how she did it because she's an expert. You want to know how to reach out to suburban women? She is the queen. She has cultivated with her talk show for years and years and years. She knocked it out of the park. It was beautiful.

LEMON: Yeah, OK, thank you. Listen, you guys stick around. We are going to talk what you should know about voter suppression when we come right back.

[23:50:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK) LEMON: Tonight, a federal judge denying a motion seeking to open a second polling place in Dodge City, Kansas. A lawsuit was filed because the only polling place in the city was moved out of town. I'm back now with everyone. So, we got to get through this quickly. So, short answers, please.

Alice, Dodge City, Kansas, 60 percent Hispanic, state where the secretary of state, Kris Kobach, is in a dead heat with Democratic Senator Laura Kelly for governor. How is it moving the polling place just weeks before the election outside of Dodge City, how is that fair to these voters?

STEWART: Well, they had restrictions and it applied to every person across the board in the district, and I think it's important to realize when we are talking about all of these states that these apply -- these rules apply across the board and having served as deputy secretary of state in Arkansas, free and fair elections require certain things.

That is the integrity of our voter laws, making sure that the polling sites are free and fair and equitable, and make sure that we have voter I.D. laws that are equitable across the board. That is the best way that we can make sure that our elections are free of integrity (ph).

LEMON: Keith, this new site is literally in the middle of nowhere. It is a mile from the nearest bus stop. Very difficult to get to without a car. Blatant attempt to suppress Hispanic vote?

BOYKIN: It's equitable that every person who lives in this area has to go and travel a long way to get to a polling place because they just happen to be Hispanic. It's the same crap they tried in Georgia and doing in North Dakota and Texas. It's not equitable and the problem is, it's targeted, laser targeted to get African-Americans and Hispanics and people of color not to vote.

LEMON: OK. Amanda, this is the kicker. MSNBC's Rachel Maddow sent a producer to Dodge City to check out the original site, because it was supposedly inaccessible due to construction. Here is what she saw.

[23:55:00] This is three days ago. Does this building completely blocked off to you, unable to be assessed? And by the way, Maddow's producer also learned that there are a number of events that are scheduled between now and election day and right after. What's going on here?

CARPENTER: I think that Kansas City state officials are going to have some explaining to do. Listen, if you're going to close a polling site this close to an election, you have to accommodate people either through buses or some kind of other accommodation to make it easier for them. This doesn't pass the smell test, especially considering the building looks fine and there are events there.

LEMON: I just -- I don't know. I don't know.

BOYKIN: And we have to (INAUDIBLE) decision.

LEMON: I got to go. Thank you. Great conversation. We'll see you guys soon. Don't miss CNN special report, "Democracy in Peril: The War On Voting Rights," tomorrow night at 11:00 Eastern. Thanks for watching. Our coverage continues.

[24:00:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)