Return to Transcripts main page
Don Lemon Tonight
Trump Regrets His Tone; Democrats Leading The Polls; Oprah Winfrey And Stacey Abrams Victims Of Robocalls; Midterm Elections Just Hours Away; NBC And Fox News Have Pulled The Trump Campaign's Racist Ad. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired November 05, 2018 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
[22:00:00] CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: There they are fighting for our freedoms. We should exercise those freedoms and show them that their fight is worthwhile. And for the rest of us, it just matters too much right now.
DON LEMON, CNN HOST: Yes.
CUOMO: Everybody's got to do what they can, exercise the franchise. Let the chips fall where they may, but everybody's got to be involved.
LEMON: I think seven kids.
CUOMO: Seven kids. Very young. Eleven months old is the youngest. He was only 39.
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: He had everything going for him. He had no reason to put himself on the line the way he did except because of what he believed.
LEMON: Yes. And believed in something that was obviously bigger than ginning up fear as we have been talking about that ad that gins up fear and racism in this country. And I saw your interview with Corey Lewandowski. Every time you mention the ad, the implications of that ad, why it has been taken off the air by some networks, refused to be aired by this network, he kept moving it to other things. He kept deflecting.
CUOMO: He deflected it, but I'll tell you what. He did better than the president. The president said, well, there's a lot of offensive things. The ads are effective. I find your questions offensive.
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: I think that is probably the most damning thing he said in this entire election.
LEMON: Why so?
CUOMO: I'll tell you why, because everybody knows that ad is ugly and was calculated to be that. He says it's effective. So now you know it was no mistake.
LEMON: Right.
CUOMO: He wanted that message to be exactly what it is, pernicious and false and powerful.
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: And he wouldn't apologize. He didn't list it among his regrets, and he turned it back on the media--
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: -- as if we are the ones creating the problem that he certainly endorsed.
LEMON: Looking at my notes here because according to CNN, he hated -- they had an ad talking about the economy and all the good things the administration has done. The president hated it and said he wanted to stick with immigration. And obviously stick with this ad, which he tweeted out, which he supported and then saying, I didn't know about the controversy. It's obvious he knows about the controversy. We know that.
CUOMO: You know, it's interesting. If they lose the house tomorrow -- and, again, I really don't know. And I'm not--
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: We don't know.
CUOMO: We don't know it very well. I'm not in the business of hedging very often. I just don't know. I think there's too much emotion out there to be captured in these polls.
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: But if they lose, they have trouble because they lose mandate.
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: They also have trouble because that party has got to figure out which direction they want to go in. Is Trumpism the new GOP or they still about what they were always about?
LEMON: Yes. Well, the shrinking of it tends as it seems the Republicans have been out for the last decade or so, or if you're going to expand it beyond just Trumpism.
Thank you, my friend. Good to see you. We'll see you back here.
CUOMO: We'll be here all night, it seems.
LEMON: Not it seems. We will be here all night. All right. I appreciate it, Chris. See you soon.
This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon.
We are just hours away now. There you go. You see the countdown right there. Hours away from the first votes in the hardest fought midterms in years. And no matter where you live here in these United States, you've got a decision to make tomorrow. You've got the chance to make your voice heard.
Here's what our new CNN poll, it has Democrats with a double-digit lead over Republicans. That's in a general, on a general congressional ballot. But in a generic, excuse me, congressional ballot. But to state the obvious here, nobody votes in a generic election, OK?
And anything can happen tomorrow. Anything. Nobody has forgotten 2016, right? I'm sure you haven't forgotten that.
A Trump adviser is telling CNN that White House officials are warning the president to brace for Republican losses in the House, which is probably why he is already ginning up bogus warnings about illegal voting. Remember the last time the president did that? Remember that White House commission to investigate voter fraud? Remember that, the one he abruptly shut down nearly a year ago when there was absolutely no evidence of any substantial or widespread voter fraud at all?
That as the president of the United States is closing out the campaign with his final rally tonight in Missouri. He is joined by Rush Limbaugh and fitting in an interview with Sean Hannity on a Fox News set on the floor of the arena. It's the president's third rally on a day that also took him to Fort Wayne, Indiana, where he said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I shouldn't say this because I want to unite. I do eventually want to unite. But the fact is we're driving them crazy. We're driving them crazy.
(APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: They don't know what to do. They're going loco, loco.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Did you catch that? Eventually. Eventually he says he wants to unite. It seems like he could have made that a priority at some point in the past two years, you think? But I digress. There's also this from the president's rally in Cleveland.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I have actually kept more promises than I've made. When did you ever hear that from a politician? Maybe never. Never.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[22:04:56] LEMON: OK. He has kept more promises than he's made? I don't think -- I don't know about you, but I don't think I've heard that from anybody ever. Have you? This is already a campaign like nothing we have seen before. This
president virtually ignoring his own good news on the economy, a quarter of a million jobs added in October. But when his campaign produced a morning in America-style ad about the economic gains, President Trump hated it. So much, they said he hated it.
That two GOP officials are telling CNN he demanded an anti-immigration closing argument to fire up his base. That's exactly what he got. An ad so racist and divisive that even the president's favorite network, Fox News, rejected it. That after CNN refused to sell ad time for it at all, refused to even run it.
NBC pulled the spot after running it during Sunday night football and multiple times on MSNBC. Facebook also rejected the ad today. And a senior GOP congressional aide tells CNN that Trump's fearmongering on immigration, well, it may cost his party the House by putting suburban swing districts in jeopardy. But just listen to how the president responded when Josh Dawsey asked him about that ad today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOSH DAWSEY, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Several of the networks have declined to run your immigration ad that you posted last week, saying that it was (Inaudible) racist. Do you have response to that?
TRUMP: I don't know about it. I mean, you're telling me something I don't know about. We have a lot of ads, and they certainly are effective based on the numbers that we're seeing.
DAWSEY: Mr. President, a lot of folks have said that ad was offensive. Why did you like that ad? What were you trying to--
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Well, a lot of things are offensive. Your questions are offensive a lot of times, so, you know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: A lot of things are offensive. Really? Not the kind of argument you want to hear from the president of the United States. And this is far from the first time that he has played the race card in this campaign because he called Stacey Abrams the African-American Democratic candidate for governor in Georgia, he called her not qualified.
She's a graduate of Yale law school by the way, was a minority leader of the Georgia statehouse. That seems pretty qualified to me. He called Andrew Gillum, the African-American mayor of Tallahassee who is running for governor of Florida, not equipped for the job, even outrageously branding him a thief without any explanation as to why he said that. So, make no mistake, this election is a referendum on Trump. He said it himself today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: The key is you have to go out to vote because in a sense, I am on the ticket.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: And voters are listening. About seven in 10 likely voters in our new poll say that when they cast their ballots in a matter of hours in the matter of hours here in the United States, they're going to be sending a message to the president. Forty-two percent say they'll vote in opposition to the president. Only 28 percent say they'll vote to support him.
There's more bad news for President Trump in our poll as well. His approval rating is a dismal 39 percent, the worst pre-midterm rating for any president in more than 60 years. Don't be fooled. This race is as close as it gets. More than 31 million Americans have voted early nationwide, and in just a few hours, it is your turn to do the same thing.
So, let's bring in Harry Enten to give us -- as we say in New York, Enten--
(CROSSTALK)
HARRY ENTEN, CNN POLITICS SENIOR WRITER AND ANALYST: Whatever.
LEMON: -- to give us a forecast on what's going to happen tomorrow. So tomorrow really is your Super Bowl. talk to me about the latest forecast.
ENTEN: Yes. So, essentially what we see right now is Democrats look like they're going to gain the majority. They're going to gain 228 seats. Of course, they need 218 for a majority.
Look, it's within the margin of error that they won't get the majority, but it's also possible that right now the net gain we're projecting of 33 seats, it could be that they gain even more than that. Right now, the best guess is them getting 228 seats and that House majority.
LEMON: It's going to be -- before it's called, again, we don't know. It could be a very late night tomorrow.
ENTEN: It could absolutely be a very late night. Keep in mind we might have to wait until California -- they have a lot of mail ballots. We might have to wait for Washington eight, heck, we mint have to wait for Maine too which has this instant runoff voting, which isn't so instant. And if Democrats could be fighting a seat up there so it could be a very long night.
LEMON: Is there anything that we -- anything that's indicative of if we see this that it's a bellwether or it is an indicator, let's say a canary in a coal mine -- if something happens here on the east coast or, you know, maybe in the Central Time zone, is it an indication of which way it could possibly go? ENTEN: Yes. I'm looking at New Jersey. There are a lot of swing
districts in New Jersey. New Jersey 7th, New Jersey 3rd. These are vulnerable Republican incumbents. If they both go down in defeat, it's very hard for me to envision how Republicans will hold on to the chamber.
LEMON: All right. Harry Enten, thank you very much. I appreciate that. Get your sleep now.
ENTEN: I'm going to get it.
LEMON: All right. Lots to talk about tonight, including the president's surprising answer when a reporter asks him whether he has any regrets about his first two years in office.
[22:10:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Here it is, election day just hours away. One of the most consequential midterm elections in our lifetimes. Even President Trump knows it's a referendum on his first two years in office, and he's acknowledging that. Republicans may lose close to the -- lose control of the House, I should say, after tomorrow.
So, there's lots to discuss now. Former Congressman Charlie Dent is here. Also, Kirsten Powers and David Gergen. Good evening to all of you. Excuse me. So, David, Jeff Zeleny is reporting that the president insisted on this racist hard line immigration ad to be his closing -- the closing of his campaign. He didn't want this -- you know, they made this ad about the economy, and he hated it. So, we'll know if his gut is right tomorrow.
DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: That's right. And I think probably everybody here thinks his gut is wrong. But we have to remember that in 2016, we all thought that too.
LEMON: Yes.
GERGEN: And his gut turned out to be -- I do think it's stunning that in the closing days of a major race, the White House tries to put an ad on the air, and the networks refuse to put it on because CNN called it racist. It's a racist ad. When have we had a White House that wanted to put an ad on the air in the final days -- I mean, it's a reminder of Jim Crow days--
LEMON: Yes.
GERGEN: -- to have something like that.
LEMON: I don't know if -- I don't know if I think that it's wrong. I think fear is the ultimate motivator, right? When you're afraid of something, you can say, you can be angry at something all day, but if a snake runs up behind you and you're afraid of it, you're going to get out of the way. So, I'm not sure if it's the wrong strategy. It may be repugnant. It may be gross, racist. But is it effective?
[22:15:04] KIRSTEN POWERS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it probably is effective with a certain group of people.
LEMON: Yes.
POWERS: I think it's effective with his base, and there's been polls, I think, that show that a lot of Republicans, this message resonates with them. That they think there are Middle Easterners in this caravan. That they don't want any of these people to be admitted if they get into the country.
And you, you know, so I think -- but the thing is even if he was going to go this route, which I think is morally repugnant. But, again, we're just playing the game of he's doing it anyway for politics. You still could talk about the economy. You still -- you could do both, right? And he's just chosen to really make this his singular message.
LEMON: Maybe he doesn't actually feel the economy is his doing. Maybe he knows deep down or he feels deep down, well, President Obama set the table and I'm just sitting here eating.
POWERS: OK, Dr. Lemon.
LEMON: Yes. I'm just saying. I don't know.
GERGEN: Maybe he thinks it's going to cool off.
LEMON: Maybe he thinks it's going to cool off.
POWERS: Yes.
LEMON: You, as I was asking the question, you're like no way.
FORMER REP. CHARLIE DENT, (R) PENNSYLVANIA: Racially incendiary ad is very unhelpful to Republicans in these swing and marginal districts. You need to persuade persuadable voters and independents especially. The Republicans have a deficit. This is -- they are not campaigning on this in suburban Philadelphia in New Jersey or any of these suburbs of major cities.
This is the absolute wrong message, and I think the president more or less has given up on the House by engaging in that. He thinks he's ginning up base voters in these districts in these states where Democrats are running against Republicans, that they're vulnerable. I think he's just got a Senate strategy with this. It's bad.
POWERS: But do you think that he -- the question is, though, had he already lost those people? Had he already lost the suburban white women, right? I mean, even pre-dating this, and so his calculation is, I've lost them, so I might as well just go for my base.
DENT: He has, but many of those members have not lost those suburban white women.
POWERS: Right.
DENT: They've appealed to them. This is not him--
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: Charlie, it's all about him.
DENT: Well, I know. It just makes no sense.
(CROSSTALK)
POWERS: Well, I mean--
LEMON: I want to play this. This is, he gave an interview to Sinclair today, and I just wanted you to look at this exchange. The president's answer, his answer might surprise you.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is there anything as you look back at your first almost two years that you regret, that you wish on you, that you could just take back and redo?
TRUMP: Well, there would be certain things. I'm not sure I want to reveal all of them, but I would say tone. I would like to have a much softer tone. I feel too a certain extent I have no choice, but maybe I do, and maybe I could have been softer from that standpoint.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Everybody chuckled when he kind of -- when he said that, not when he kind of said that. When he said that. I mean, it's interesting that he says that tone. Really? Because remember when he said, well, we have to be more civil. We have to tone it down.
GERGEN: Right.
LEMON: And then he went after everybody in his during the rallies. And so, but he's been -- we've known him for the past, what, three years, and he could have changed?
GERGEN: It's -- well, I think -- listen, I think this is in his DNA. I mean, I think you know, certain people have psychological demons inside. They have certain angers that they just can't, they can't contain.
LEMON: But many as Charlie says that he realizes -- I think this is everything to do with tomorrow and that he realizes--
GERGEN: Right.
LEMON: -- well, maybe I'll get some people to believe that I'm going to sort of moderate in a way.
GERGEN: He's going to change about ten votes.
LEMON: Right. OK.
POWERS: I think this is--
(CROSSTALK)
GERGEN: It's not going to work.
POWERS: Yes.
LEMON: Yes.
GERGEN: It's too late. It's too late for that. It goes to his values too. It's not just -- it's what values he stands for, and I think my sense on it -- I may get this wrong, but my sense was his whole effort, he would gain momentum after Kavanaugh. His base was coming back. It was energized. Things were moving for him.
I think the last two weeks have really been semi-disastrous for him because starting with the pipe bombs but going through the shooting, especially the horrific shootings in Pittsburgh, I think people sort of said, enough. What do you stand for? You know, you came out with this rhetoric, this hysterical rhetoric, and some guy went in and shot 11 people in a synagogue.
LEMON: Yes.
GERGEN: And I think this final week on the caravan and the birthright, I think it's only compounded the problem. So it's not just that his instincts are wrong but I think they backfired on him politically.
LEMON: He said softer tone that he wanted to get, the softer tone, but then he ends his closing argument is this racist ad.
POWERS: Yes. Well, it's just funny how he says I'd like to be, like someone else is responsible for what he's doing. I think what he's talking about there is this idea that this is what he has to do. Two things about that. I think it's who he is, this is sort of to David's point. But I also think he does justify it by thinking this.
I interviewed him right before he got the nomination, and he said -- and I said, why can't you just talk about the issues and drop the, you know, making fun of your, you know, whatever, low energy Jeb and all this kind of stuff? And he said, well, if I had done that, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you.
So, it was this idea that, like, I have to do this. It's the only way I actually can get ahead.
LEMON: Yes.
[22:19:58] POWERS: And I think he does believe that. And I don't know. Maybe it's true. Maybe it's true. Maybe if he hadn't acted that way, he wouldn't have gotten the nomination.
LEMON: Charlie, can I ask you, do you want to respond because I want to ask you about, has any president ever nationalized a midterm in this way?
DENT: Not quite like this. LEMON: OK, so let me ask you this.
DENT: Not quite like this.
LEMON: Let me get this poll in. This is a new CNN poll out. It says seven in 10 likely voters say they are casting their ballot to send a message to President Trump. So he's nationalized this in a way that you believe no other president has. So, will this be a referendum on him instead of making it about the people as you said in those districts?
DENT: I've been saying for over a year this midterm election is a referendum on the president of the United States and his conduct in office. And that speaks to his tone as well. So absolutely this election is about him. Now, the president has acknowledged that, and he's correct. We agree. It is about him. And he's not -- he really isn't on the ballot, but people are going to the polls as if he is. And a lot of my friends in Congress are going to pay a price--
LEMON: Yes.
DENT: -- because of the president's behavior.
LEMON: Yes. Let's look at this. I want to show this poll. This new poll has President Trump at just 39 percent. That is the lowest pre- election approval rating for any president approaching the first midterm election of a presidency dating back to Eisenhower. It's not good heading into these races.
So many races are really incredibly close. Look at that. Bush was at 63 percent. Eisenhower, 61 percent. And you go down. That's the first Bush. And then you go down. No, it's not. It's President George W. Bush. And then Carter was at 49 percent. Obama, 46 percent. Clinton, 46 percent, 43, Reagan. Thirty-nine percent.
GERGEN: Yes. Don, I think to acknowledge this is an outlier poll we've had. And it may be right. Sometimes outlier polls do catch a swing in public opinion. But it's much more negative toward the president than other polls. So, the 13-point gap in people preferring Democrats to run the House versus the Republicans, that's a much bigger and potentially misleading.
On the other hand, has there been something happening in the last few days? My sense is it's breaking. This campaign is, this race is breaking toward the Democrats in the final hours. So, the poll may have picked that up. We just don't know right now.
LEMON: Yes. Thank you all. Fascinating conversation. Lots to talk about. Get your sleep, everybody. Get your sleep. There are toss-up races all across the country. Now I'm going to speak to two Democratic candidates in very close races that could be the key to flipping the balance of power. That's next.
[22:25:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Key toss-up races around the country could decide whether Republicans maintain control of the House or if Democrats take over. One of those races is in Texas, in the Dallas area.
We need to tell you we have asked longtime conservative Republican Congressman Pete Sessions to join us tonight. He declines. But the Democratic challenger, Colin Allred accepted our invitation. And here he is now.
Colin, thank you for joining us. Good evening. Your race is a key, in a key toss-up, one of the key toss-up races. You're facing 11-turn -- 11-term Republican Pete Sessions. The forecast here from our Harry Enten has been going back and forth over the last day, but I mean right now he sees you up three points. How do you feel about that?
COLIN ALLRED (D), CONGRESSINAL CANDIDATE FOR TEXAS: Well, thank you so much for having me, Don. You know, I am at the point where I don't listen to polling. I think the most important thing is that everybody here in north Texas gets out to vote tomorrow if you haven't voted during our early voting period. We've had record early voting here, which has been extremely encouraging, but we need everybody to go out tomorrow.
LEMON: Yes. Well, smart man because as they say, it is not over till it's over.
ALLRED: That's right.
LEMON: So, listen, Colin, I have to -- you've been endorsed by President Obama, but you say that you won't be a party line Democrat. What's the biggest issue for you on the campaign trail?
ALLRED: Well, by far the largest issue is healthcare. Everywhere I go, every event that I have, people talk to me about healthcare. They are worried about what nearly happened in the last congressional session, which my opponent, Pete Sessions, voted to repeal the ACA, and we were one thumb's down away from John McCain from losing protections for people with pre-existing conditions. That's something that shouldn't be a partisan issue. It affects people of every political stripe, and it's something that we should be able I think to find some consensus on if we can get people of goodwill there.
LEMON: The big picture race everyone is watching is the Senate Texas rate. of course, you know, Beto O'Rourke creating a real, some real excitement there. Do you see parallels with your race and Beto O'Rourke's race?
ALLRED: Absolutely. For us, it's also a great thing. The energy that Beto has brought to our state, to this district has been fantastic. We have also had incredible grassroots energy. We've had hundreds and hundreds of people who have volunteered just over the course of this weekend, knocking on thousands and thousands of doors, making many, many phone calls, trying to take a message neighbor to neighbor, Texan to Texan. We haven't had that in far too long here in north Texas, and we have it now.
LEMON: So, listen, Colin, for people who may be watching and they don't know much about you, they haven't been following your race, tell them a little bit about yourself before we go. ALLRED: Sure. Well, I'm not just running anywhere, don. I'm running
here in my hometown where I was born and raised by a single mother, who was a public schoolteacher. And I was fortunate I was able to get a scholarship to play football, and I played linebacker in the NFL for five years. And after a neck injury, sent me to law school. I became a civil rights lawyer and ended up working in the Obama administration.
And I believe in the community I'm running in because it made my life possible. And I believe we can do better than what we have right now.
LEMON: Colin Allred, thank you very much. Good luck tomorrow. We'll see you soon.
ALLRED: Thank you, Don.
LEMON: Another key other race that we need to talk about is the race in southern California and we may be up all night counting the votes in this one.
Thirty-year-old GOP incumbent Dana Rohrabacher in a title battle with Democratic challenger Harley Rouda who joins me now. We did reach out, we have to say to Congressman Rohrabacher's team. They were not interested in coming on, so we thank Harley for coming on.
Good evening to you, Harley. Thank you for joining us.
HARLEY ROUDA (D), CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE FOR CALIFORNIA: Thanks, Don, for having me on.
LEMON: Let's talk about the recent polls. I don't know if you're like Colin. He says I'm not paying attention to the polls. It's not over yet. So, but the polls have you neck and neck. Your opponent won this district by 17 points back in '16.
[22:30:05] What has changed there to make this so close, do you think?
ROUDA: Well, a lot of things. One, we have done a great job of exposing Dana Rohrabacher for who he really is, his outlandish positions, his extremist positions. And there are certainly changing demographics as well. So we've gone from him winning by 17 points to actually being in a statistical tie right now. And we know if we get the vote out, we win.
LEMON: Yeah. Your opponent is an ally of President Trump, a strong supporter of Russia. You accuse Rohrabacher of giving Russia a pass on meddling with our election, meeting with Russian operatives. You say -- now you said you've shown voters who he is. Has that been a big issue for voters?
ROUDA: It has been a big issue, not the biggest, but certainly a big issue. Because as you pointed out, he is a pal of Donald Trump and a pal of Putin. And the fact that he has gone -- to met with Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy to get a thumb drive to say that 17 U.S. intelligence agencies were wrong, people see this and recognize that that is not being a patriot. That is not representing your country, allowing Russia to interfere in our elections. LEMON: Harley, you know, you've been focusing on healthcare. Is the
President's closing argument on fear and immigration impacting your race at all?
ROUDA: Absolutely. But that's been the message of Donald Trump from his campaign to his presidency. He is constantly pitting Americans against Americans, trying to divide us instead of unite us. And the President of the United States, sitting in the highest office in the land, should be trying to bring us together, not separate us.
LEMON: What do you say, Harley, to people who say, hey, the economy is great? Why should I change now?
ROUDA: Well, the economy is great for those in the upper tax brackets. And we're not seeing it in the middle class whatsoever. And you need to look at the overall -- all of the issues. And just as your generic poll is showing, there's a lot of separation from the Republican side and the Democratic side. And we've got a great opportunity here to send a strong message.
LEMON: Harley Rouda, good luck tomorrow. Thank you, sir.
ROUDA: Hey, thanks, Don.
LEMON: All right. Oprah and Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams targeted by robocalls full of outrageous, false, and racist claims. We're going to tell you who's behind them next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:35:00] LEMON: It is true. I mean the first votes in these crucial midterm elections just hours away. This campaign has been undeniably ugly with attacks that are ugly, racist, and despicable, like this robocall aimed at Georgia Democratic candidate for governor. Her name is Stacey Abrams. It features a voice impersonating Oprah. I want everyone to listen to this. But I have to warn you. The content of this is truly awful. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is the magical Negro, Oprah Winfrey, asking you to make my fellow Negress, Stacey Abrams, the Governor of Georgia. Where others see a poor man's Aunt Jemima, I see someone white women can be tricked into voting for, especially the fat ones. And so I promise that every single person who votes for Stacey Abrams, you're going to get a new car. So you get a car, and you get a car, and you get a car. Everybody gets a car.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: So let's discuss now. Steve Cortes is here, Ana Navarro, Bakari Sellers and Matt Lewis. It's sickening, everyone. Good evening, by the way. Brian Kemp did the right thing. He condemned it. What does it say, Bakari that something this extreme is out here in 2018? This is like (Inaudible).
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Listen, who's surprised, right? And so I am not surprised.
LEMON: It's an absurd robocall.
SELLERS: Yeah. It's an absurd robocall. I am not surprised. I was over here chuckling. They didn't get Oprah's voice right. I did like the you get a car, you get a car, you get a car, but you know you just to have laugh at this because...
LEMON: Are you saying don't take it seriously?
SELLERS: Stacey cannot take it seriously.
LEMON: But do you think people whose homes that they called...
(CROSSTALK)
SELLERS: If they do, that is unfortunate. That is kind of the state of play. I think Stacey needs to focus on things like a closing message, which she has, which is healthcare, jobs, being a great Governor for Georgia. And I appreciate the fact that Brian Kemp has actually disavowed this. But the fact is that Brian Kemp has enveloped every Lester Maddox voter suppression policy he possibly could in running for Governor. So this is not surprising.
And let me just say this to be completely honest. We had racism in this country before Donald Trump. We're going to have racism in this country after Donald Trump. He didn't begin this type of things. But I hope that more Republicans are ready to repudiate this and stand firmly against this, and not accept this as a part of their party platform.
STEVE CORTES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: But Bakari, what are you saying there? Are you trying to attribute this to Trump? I mean this ridiculous call from some racist...
LEMON: He just said...
(CROSSTALK)
CORTES: But why are you even mentioning Trump? Trump had nothing to do with this call.
SELLERS: Because I think that it's very telling now. And I go back to Charlottesville, for example. And I say, what was the most surprising part about Charlottesville, was that individuals didn't even wear hoods. They weren't ashamed of their racism. They weren't ashamed of their xenophobia or anti-Semitism. And what I'm saying is that Donald Trump has allowed people to have comfort in that bigotry, in that xenophobia, in that racism.
And I am also saying that it didn't start with him. But we're having a national conversation, because now people are emboldened to do things like this. That's my only point. And now -- Donald Trump didn't pick up the phone and tell these people to make the phone call. He didn't make the phone call. But you have to admit that the increase in anti-Semitism and racism, the outbursts that we're seeing now is something very real that's happening on his watch.
[22:40:00] CORTES: No. I will admit nothing like that. For example, and specifically on anti-Semitism, this President is actually the closest thing we've ever had to a Jewish President.
SELLERS: That's absurd. That's like saying Bill Clinton is a black President.
CORTES: He has Jewish children. He has Jewish grandchildren. He celebrates Shabbat with them. So the idea that he's anti-Semite is ludicrous. But this is what you do. Instead of talking policy, it's character assassination. Let's call him a racist, the scarlet R, the new scarlet A, right? Let's put that letter on him so that he's marginalized. Let's call him an anti-Semite with zero evidence, with zero evidence.
SELLERS: I actually didn't say that.
(CROSSTALK)
ANA NAVARRO, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Steve, you say instead of talking policy, we go personal. Look, the guy who calls Andrew Gillum a thief, the guy who says that Stacey Abrams and Andrew Gillum are not equipped to hold this office is Donald Trump, the guy who is not talking policy.
CORTES: And, Ana, I said that he -- I thought thief was a really bad choice of words. I did. And I said I think we should be careful with our words. I think you should have been careful last night when you called him a racist pig on CNN. I think that's totally uncalled for.
NAVARRO: When you are willing to condemn him saying shithole, when you are willing to condemn him for saying athlete sons of bitches. When you are willing to condemn him for equating neo-Nazis with those that protest against him, then you can hold me to a standard. But until you're willing to have the President of the United States to a much higher standard than you hold me, you know, you can take that smirk off your face...
(CROSSTALK)
CORTES: I didn't call anybody a racist pig on air.
NAVARRO: OK. But you're what -- I'll take away the pig. I'll just call him a racist.
LEMON: OK. Let me ask you this, Steve. So you're upset with Ana for calling...
CORTES: For calling the President a racist pig. I am extremely upset. I think it's quite unprofessional...
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: Will you please let me get in? OK, thank you. So why don't you have the same level of condemnation for the President who does it every single day almost?
CORTES: Well, hold on. I do at times. As you know, on your show, I thought him calling Lebron James stupid was a really bad idea, very inappropriate. I thought thief was a bad -- so I am not a sycophant. I don't defend everything this President does. And there are times he overreaches. But to call him a racist pig on-air?
LEMON: That's not true. Because I think that you may say, hey, this is awful, but. And that's a backhanded defense. Hey, I don't like this. The language is terrible, but.
CORTES: Sure.
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: Let me just say...
(CROSSTALK)
CORTES: You criticize him generally, OK?
(CROSSTALK)
CORTES: Out of the supposition that he's a racist. And let's just be honest.
LEMON: How is it supposition? I would not have a supposition unless there was evidence to offer it. If he did not give me ammunition to be able to call him, quite honestly, a racist then I wouldn't do it. I couldn't do it.
NAVARRO: Let's just take a look here at what Donald Trump...
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: But I just don't want to get too far afield, because that is my defense. And that's what I will stick with forever. What do you think of this ad, this Oprah...
SELLERS: Welcome to the show, Matt.
MATT LEWIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I am the nice guy. Look, I think that Bakari actually is right that the good thing about this -- two good things about this, one, that the Republican Kemp has disavowed this and condemned it. And, two, I don't think it's that effective. I don't think it's fooling anybody. I think it's despicable, but it's sort of laughably...
LEMON: Too stupid to be taken seriously.
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: This same group paid for a very similar ad against Andrew Gillum just a couple of weeks ago. To me, the silver lining to this horrible, horrible campaigning has been that the Republicans finally seemed to have had enough of Steve King, who has been doing anti- Semitic, racist commentary for as long as he's going to be...
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: He's going to win tomorrow probably. The polls show.
NAVARRO: Well, but fine, but you know what? He's being treated like a leper.
LEMON: Just on this subject, I have to say the Abrams campaign also condemned it, right? We don't have to put that up, talking about the robocalls, saying it was poisonous thinking. And then Oprah -- can we just play what Oprah said on Instagram? Let's play it.
SELLERS: Of course we can play Oprah.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I heard people are making racist robocalls in my name against Stacey Abrams, who I am 100 percent for in Georgia. I just want to say, Jesus don't like ugly, uh-uh. And we know what to do about that. Vote tomorrow, show up, and show out and vote.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: That's Oprah.
SELLERS: But I mean like -- this isn't new.
LEMON: I know.
SELLERS: When I ran for office in 2006, when I ran for office, there were people who called my house in 2006 and said, tell that nigger to get out of the race, right? So this isn't new. What Stacey and what Andrew are overcoming, I mean that's the excitement. I mean the excitement is the overcoming. It's not even getting excited over the fact that there are ignorant racists in the country.
[22:45:01] And the President -- even if I don't call the President a racist, let's say that. Let's say that I tell you that the President traffics in racism and uses it as a currency.
CORTES: No.
SELLERS: Let me tell you why I would say that.
LEMON: OK. I got to get to a break.
SELLERS: The day before the Mississippi primary, or the Sunday before the Mississippi primary, I was in the studio with Jake Tapper when he said he didn't know who David Duke was. You know why he said he didn't know who David Duke was? Because the Mississippi primary was on Tuesday, and he didn't want to alienate those voters, and so it's a trafficking in racism whether you want to call him a racist or not. But you're going to have to open up your eyes, Steve.
CORTES: No. The Republican Party could have had Marco Rubio and Nikki Haley as their standard bearer, and this different would be an entirely scenario. I think that this is what you get two years later when you get Donald Trump.
LEMON: I doubt anyone would be calling Marco Rubio or, you know, or anyone else a racist.
NAVARRO: And they wouldn't be allowing this. They wouldn't be peddling this. They wouldn't be promoting it. They wouldn't be enabling it.
LEMON: Oprah is answering the hate with a positive message, which I think that everybody should if you can, if you can do that, if you're in the position to do that. But you said about the -- people still call me and e-mail me and use that word, and it's 2018. I am sure they use it against you now as well. So there you go.
NAVARRO: Well, honey, I am being told to go back to Mexico where I am not even from.
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: We've got a lot to talk about. A Trump campaign ad that even Fox News said was too racist to air.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:50:00] LEMON: So after repeated airings including on Sunday night football, NBC and Fox News have pulled the Trump campaign's racist ad about the caravan from the air waves. Let's discuss now, Steve Cortes, Ana Navarro, Bakari Sellers, and Matt Lewis.
So Steve, CNN, NBC, Facebook, even Fox News all refuse to air this ad at this point. I am not sure if you're one of them. I don't recall. But I know some people have been trying to defend this as not racist. Do you think it is on the air?
CORTES: Why do you say even Fox News?
LEMON: Because Fox News is basically the Trump channel.
CORTES: OK.
LEMON: Sean Hannity is at a rally as a special guest.
CORTES: Well, Sheppard Smith...
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: Hold on. Let me finish. One of their personalities is now stumping for the President, former personalities stumping for the President and is now engaged I guess, I don't know, marrying one of the sons.
CORTES: OK.
LEMON: Laura Ingraham... CORTES: I watch Shep Smith every day rip the President for an
absolute hour, you know? But regardless about the Fox issue. You know, getting to the actual commercial. Here's why I don't think it's racist, is that America is not a race. We're a multiracial, multiethnic...
SELLERS: No, I am black.
CORTES: And defending...
SELLERS: No, I am black. No, let's get this clear. We've got a bunch of races up here. And I am not part of that whole colorblind...
CORTES: And we're all Americans.
(CROSSTALK)
SELLERS: But the blessing about...
(CROSSTALK)
CORTES: Either by birth or by choice, legal choice, right? Doing it the legal way, you become an American.
SELLERS: Have you heard of slavery?
CORTES: It means you believe in our constitution, our shared value, nobody here is a slave.
(CROSSTALK)
SELLERS: But have you heard about it? Have you heard about how our people...
CORTES: I am well aware. I am well aware of it.
SELLERS: So what choice was that?
CORTES: That's not the reality today. So are you not an American? Is that what you're telling me?
SELLERS: First of all, I am an African-American. I'm black. I represent, and I understand that my family came in from the west coast of Africa. We went through bondage. We went through slavery. We went through rape and pillaging. Then we actually went through Jim Crow. We went through slave codes.
CORTES: Right.
SELLERS: We came here. And so now we're at this point where we have 400 years of degradation, oppression, and slavery. And the fact that I have to explain that on national TV to somebody is like amazing.
CORTES: And would your community be helped then by saying that we have open borders and we're going to allow anyone who wants to come in on their terms to come into the United States? (CROSSTALK)
LEMON: Is that what we're talking about?
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: Let's stick to the ad, which was -- even Fox News, again, which is in lock-step with this President, refused to air it.
CORTES: Right.
LEMON: Pulled it. My question was do you think the ad is racist?
CORTES: I don't think it is racist. It would be racist if America were a race, if we were a white country saying we don't want brown people or black people. America's not a race. And protecting American citizens of every color is actually the opposite of racism, and so illegal immigration is a huge problem for America. And Donald Trump was elected...
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: So you don't think it is racist...
CORTES: -- perhaps primarily to address this issue, you know, at least in large part...
(CROSSTALK)
CORTES: And who suffers the most from illegal immigration? Black and brown Americans...
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: Let's take a look at what he has done, what Trump has done in the last couple of weeks. First, he fanned and ginned up hysteria about a migrant caravan, lied about there being terrorists, middle easterners, code word for terrorists in that caravan, to the point where it triggered somebody to go into a house of worship and shoot and kill 11 Jewish members. He then started...
(CROSSTALK)
CORTES: Somebody who hated Trump, by the way.
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: Who got triggered by the caravan...
CORTES: And by his own statements hated Trump...
NAVARRO: Who got triggered by the caravan hysteria...
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: And wanted Trump to do more about it. NAVARRO: Then he wanted to -- birthright citizenship. Then he, you
know, talked about why are we talking about this bomb stuff. Let's go back to talking about politics. Look, what he's doing is so transparent. He has told us in his own words what he's doing and why he wants to talk about these issues, because it gins up the base, because he feels fear-mongering, scare tactics...
(CROSSTALK)
CORTES: When you say the base, you know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of Hillary saying the deplorables. There's such derision in your voice even when you say the base. You know what the base is? It is working class Americans, who elected this President, who by the way...
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: What does that mean, working class Americans? What does that mean by working class?
CORTES: It means exactly that. Blue collar people who are now prosperous...
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: Listen, I don't think Trump's...
(CROSSTALK)
CORTES: Working-class Americans are seeing their wages grow...
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: Don't put words in my mouth. But every deplorable is part of Trump's base...
(CROSSTALK)
[22:54:55] LEMON: That's absolutely not true. Because when people say that, they don't look at people's hours being cut. They don't look at automation. Listen, I had a long phone call with my mother today, who -- she loves Walmart, by the way. She shops there all the time. She said everyone is saying oh, you know, I get an extra $1.50 in my paycheck. But they cut my hours in half to make up for it.
And the workers there actually think the corporations are the ones that are getting the benefit from the tax cuts and from the economy, not the actual workers. But we don't talk about that. That's the reality in America. Not everybody is seeing this. The corporations are seeing this.
CORTES: That is not the reality. Wages are finally rising. They never did under President Obama.
LEMON: That's not true.
CORTES: Blue collar wages are rising faster...
(CROSSTALK)
SELLERS: That's not a fact.
CORTES: It is an absolute fact.
SELLERS: No, it's not. There were 84 straight months of job growth. And under Barack Obama, the stock market went from 6,000 to about 17,000.
LEMON: Yeah.
SELLERS: But also wages grew for every single segment of the population. So that's just not...
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: And instead of talking about that, Trump is ginning up racism.
LEMON: Anderson's up next. We'll be right back. We'll see you in a little bit. Good job.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
