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Don Lemon Tonight
Dark Cloud Hanging Over Virginia Officials; Racism Not Accepted in America; Scandal at the Top of Virginia's Government; President Trump and His State of the Union Address; CNN Poll Says More Than Half of Democrats Say That Joe Biden Should Run for President. Aired 10-11a ET
Aired February 06, 2019 - 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: Thank you for watching. "CNN TONIGHT" with Don Lemon starts right now.
DON LEMON, CNN HOST: I can get into every one says you know, the tax cuts juiced the economy and they're worried about inflation and all that. But I don't want to get into a Bernie Sanders/Lloyd Blankfein Twitter fight on the air.
CUOMO: Which one am I on that? I want to be Blankfein by the way.
LEMON: Well because of the -- I want to be Lloyd too, by the way.
CUOMO: No. No. I already took him.
LEMON: Yes. Well, well, I won't say anything.
CUOMO: Look, everybody wants a tax cut. I remember I said that on New Day once. And you know, obviously I was with Alisyn Camerota the anchor there. And she's like, I don't want a tax cut. I don't think I need one. Nobody says that. Everybody wants a tax cut. And of course, that is true. But whom do you target? What is the effect of it? How is it paid for? Not all tax cuts are equal. We're going to see that here.
LEMON: Yes. Here's how I feel about that. Listen, who wants to be taxed? Right? Who wants, I mean, people like, my gosh, it's like --
CUOMO: Everybody wants the tax cut.
LEMON: When I think about it overall, when I think about it, let's be honest. We have pretty good lives, right?
CUOMO: Yes. Ridiculously blessed.
LEMON: I am happy to be more in order for other people to have better lives and to be able to --
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: I have a different take.
LEMON: Go on. I want to hear it.
CUOMO: There's an assumption. I used to say exactly what you just said. Look, thank God I can. I'll pay more. What are they going to do with my money?
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: Well, that's true.
CUOMO: Are they actually going to give relief to people? Are they doing something with it I respect? Do I trust what they're going to do with it? That's the gap in the analysis. And I don't know that the government in its current iteration deserves the respect of the tax money. Of course, you got to pay your taxes.
LEMON: That's right. You're going deeper, of course. But I mean, do you know where it goes anyway now? Do you have any control over that? You don't really --
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: I don't have control.
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: But I'm saying do I respect their control?
LEMON: Well.
CUOMO: That is what the analysis is. That's why people say I'd rather pay less. I'll do it myself with my own money. I'll keep it thank you.
LEMON: But as citizens of the United States we have every right to --
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: We must pay.
LEMON: We must pay. But we have every right to try to correct those wrongs.
CUOMO: Sure.
LEMON: And I'll get back to over -- this is an overall. I'm not, you know, Lloyd, I'm not going as deeply into it as you are, but I say that I am happy to pay more to help others because I remember a point when I didn't have, and I could have used the help of others.
CUOMO: Absolutely. The counter argument is then do it.
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: You know, I know you. These guys don't know you. You're a very charitable person, not just with your time but with your wallet. That's what you do. Don't have the government take your money and make the decisions for you -- (CROSSTALK)
LEMON: It hurts, trust me.
CUOMO: -- to the extent that they don't have to.
LEMON: Right.
CUOMO: But look, if they're spending it in the right places, if they were doing what he said he would do, which is a middle-class tax cut disproportionately weight the cuts to help that group more than the others. Not 83 cents out of every dollar to me.
LEMON: Right.
CUOMO: If he had done that, bravo to him. Promise kept. Those are the people who put you there. You did right by them.
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: Fine. Now just be fiscally responsible about it. He got away with that.
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: He didn't do that. He's got to own it.
LEMON: So, you know pretty much most of the time I'm always right, right?
CUOMO: Sure.
LEMON: Remember I told you that there was a lot of -- I said there are a lot of people, Chris, who are sitting there, and they've got photo worry like, my gosh, what's going to come out about me? And then, boom, see what you have? I don't think it's the last of it. I think there's more people --
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: You're talking about what's going on --
LEMON: I'm talking about what's going on in Virginia.
CUOMO: How about being the A.G.?
LEMON: And not just in Virginia, in Florida, in other places. They are getting --
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: How about being the A.G., Herring? He says about Northam, he's got to go. Then the same thing comes out that he did. Talk about karma. The same thing, Don. What's the chance?
LEMON: It happens. You can't -- (CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: What do you mean it happens? Shoot, I forgot about that blackface picture that I took. No. No. You don't forget.
LEMON: Someone said --
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: Especially when it comes up with somebody else, Don.
LEMON: All right. Let's --
CUOMO: It's like you got in trouble for kicking a puppy. I'm not going to dance and got to go. And I conveniently forget one drunken night I went to a shelter and was kicking dogs all over the place. You remember these things.
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: Crazy hubris.
LEMON: I think it's -- you know, he says -- the guy you're talking about says, this is the Florida guy. The Florida guy -- a guy in Florida said that he did it, he and his friends were -- he and his friend were dressing up as each other. One was --
CUOMO: Yes.
LEMON: This one.
CUOMO: That's the Republican guy.
LEMON: That's the Republican. Yes. So, they said that he and his friend were dressing up as each other.
CUOMO: Yes.
LEMON: That's OK, but do you have to do blackface to do that? I can simply wear a black and white suit.
CUOMO: True.
LEMON: And then you know, cut my -- like shave my head and put on a --
CUOMO: And walk backwards?
LEMON: No. I was going to say shave my head and put on a toupee, and I could be Chris. You don't have to dress up in blackface in order to --
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: But what if his black friend said it was OK at the time?
LEMON: What?
[22:04:57] CUOMO: What if his black friend said, Yes, dress up as me. I'll dress up as you. I'm going to put powder on. You put on whatever colored his face. Would that be OK?
LEMON: What if I -- Chris, if you asked me that, you know what I would say to you? No. You don't --
CUOMO: Of course.
LEMON: You don't want to do that. It's not OK.
CUOMO: Of course, now. But I'm saying if this was a while ago and they did that during a different time with the -- no?
LEMON: No, because you're just being silly. It's not OK. Listen, I understand that, and you know, kids are silly. We've already gone through this. But, no, it's still not OK. It's still not OK to -- you can't do something silly and say, listen, I just -- I went to the bank and robbed it because my friend was going. We both signed off on it. That doesn't -- that doesn't --
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: Well, true.
LEMON: That's all being --
CUOMO: I think that you have a different level of recognition and expected outcome of consequence. But, of course, you could push back on that, and say it's part of the problem that we don't attach -- not you -- people like me don't attach the same pain and punitive aspect to doing certain things because it doesn't apply to us.
But then here comes the big question for me, brother Don. What is the right level of zero tolerance? I know that that's oxymoronic. But I'm saying how far do the Democrats go in insisting that certain things trigger the death sentence politically?
LEMON: There's no one answer for that. You have to look at every case. Every case.
CUOMO: Every case.
LEMON: Every case because it's different. I think there's a different --
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: Do you think Herring as to go, the A.G.?
LEMON: No, no, no. I think, no. I think that there's a difference between dressing up like a friend and being silly. It's bad.
CUOMO: That's the Republican guy in Florida.
LEMON: It's bad. As to --
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: You got to keep your blackface guys --
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: If you're going to be Michael Jackson, if you are going to be a basketball player or whatever you're going to do.
CUOMO: Yes.
LEMON: And I think the extreme is the KKK costume and blackface in the way that was portrayed by --
CUOMO: Right.
LEMON: -- the current -- of Northam. That those are different degree.
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: So, Northam has got to go. Herring doesn't have to go, the A.G.?
LEMON: Well, I think it depends -- it depends on how you respond to it.
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: Responding is also important.
LEMON: I think it really, really does.
CUOMO: He gave a lousy response. I had his friend on the other night, and that was one of the things I had to push her on was, man, did he handle this lousy. If the picture wasn't him, that should have been the first words out of his mouth, right?
Not like, well, I had to apologize anyway because I know it hurt people just having it there. No, no, no. They think you're in the picture.
LEMON: Yes.
CUOMO: If you're not in the picture, you lead with that if you want to get out of it.
LEMON: Yes. Two things, and then I got to run.
CUOMO: What do you got?
LEMON: I had a friend that said to me today, he said, you know he lost me when you said, you know, have you ever tried to put shoe polish on your face and you know how hard it is to get off?
CUOMO: That's what the guy -- (CROSSTALK)
LEMON: He said immediately his answer was, no, I've never tried. And the other thing I can't remember what I wanted to say.
CUOMO: You can't remember?
LEMON: No.
CUOMO: You don't want to say it.
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: No, I forgot what I was going to say.
CUOMO: Are you getting scared because of all the stuff going on in society? Are you getting shy on me? You're not speaking your truth anymore. I'm talking to you, lollipop.
CUOMO: If you -- my name is Don Lemon. Have you ever met me?
CUOMO: I've met you.
LEMON: Did you ever know me to be afraid of this conversation?
CUOMO: I've met you. And I love the other night, you said, hey, Chris, my name is Lemon. You don't think what it's like to be teased. What do you think it was like being me when my father got elected to office in Queens? That was like the neighborhood pinata.
LEMON: My gosh. I'll think about it. I forgot what I wanted to say about you.
CUOMO: You know how to get me.
LEMON: It was profound.
CUOMO: Of course, it was.
LEMON: It was profound.
CUOMO: You're like my philosopher friend.
LEMON: Yes. Good stuff.
CUOMO: Nostradamus.
LEMON: I wish people could talk about this more instead of people yelling at each other. If they could do this, it would be a lot more productive, don't you think?
CUOMO: I think that's one of the reasons why people like the Cuomo and Lemon show.
LEMON: No, no, no.
CUOMO: What?
LEMON: Lemon.
CUOMO: You think it should be Chris Cuomo and Lemon.
LEMON: No, it should be Lemon.
CUOMO: No, you should have your same equal name.
LEMON: Yes. By the way, this is my show and you're eight minutes into it, nine. Thank you, sir.
CUOMO: Always a pleasure.
LEMON: See you next time. Nice work tonight.
This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon.
So, you know, I'll bet there are a lot of politicians tonight hoping that no one looks at my yearbook. No one looks at their yearbooks. And the thing is none of this is surprising, and it's probably not surprising that so many politicians are going straight to the Trump playbook. Fight back, and you can survive anything, even a racist blackface scandal.
You don't have to have grown up in the south like I did to know that racism runs very deep in this country. It has from the very beginning. It's a third rail, right? The American society.
So, it's not surprising that the governor of Virginia is refusing to resign. It's not surprising that he is hiring a crisis communicator tonight, something he maybe should have done a long time ago.
It's not surprising that he is meeting with prominent black leaders while ignoring calls from just about every top Democrat to step down. It's not surprising that he wants to put the whole thing behind him and keep his job, right? Never mind that all of this is what it's doing to the state and to his party.
Let's not forget how this all went down, OK? So, let me run it down for you. First the governor apologized for the photo and the racism it represents, saying that it was him. Remember? He's saying, in that photo that doesn't represent him.
[22:10:00] Then less than 24 hours later, he denied that he was even in the photo at all while admitting he went to a party in blackface as Michael Jackson and nearly demonstrating his moonwalking, well, until his wife told him that it was inappropriate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you still able to moonwalk?
PAM NORTHAM, RALPH NORTHAM'S WIFE: Inappropriate circumstances.
GOV. RALPH NORTHAM, (D) VIRGINIA: My wife says inappropriate circumstances.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Yes. You know what's inappropriate? Blackface. Inappropriate, period. And the governor is not the only one under fire for this. He's not even the only one in Virginia.
The number-three official in that state, Attorney General Mark Herring, says that he put on blackface too for a party in 1980 when he and some friends dressed like rappers, putting on wigs and brown makeup. No. Just no. OK?
He did apologize for his poor judgment, saying, quote, "This was a onetime occurrence, and I accept full responsibility for my conduct."
He has given no indication that he's going to resign, but he did step down today as co-chair of the Democratic Attorneys General Association. And the thing is it is not just Virginia. Blackface is way more common than you think. I told you that. It's way more common. It happened at fraternities in the '80s and '90s and even in the 2000s at colleges and universities, especially southern colleges and universities. It did happen. Even at some high schools.
Just two weeks ago, the Florida Secretary of State, Michael Ertel resigned after photos of him at a party in blackface as a Katrina victim were publicly revealed. And this is the one Chris and I were talking about.
This is a photo -- take a look at it -- Florida State Representative Anthony Sabatini with his face blackened in what he says was a high school prank. He and one of his best friends dressing as each other.
The representative's high school friend, who is black, agreed to that, telling the Orlando Sentinel, quote, "every year at high school homecoming week, we had things like '80s days and celebrity days, and we said, I'm going to be you, and you're going to be me. I don't know how it got to be seen as racial. That's all it was."
He told CNN, quote, "I've known Anthony all my life. Even after high school, me and Anthony still keep in contact. Anthony wasn't that kind of guy." Asked by the Orlando Sentinel if he would consider dressing in blackface again, Representative Sabatini said, quote, "are you joking? Of course not."
The photo originally came out during the campaign last fall. Here's the important part that didn't happen in Virginia. Voters had the chance to see it. They heard Sabatini's explanation, and they voted for him anyway. He won his race. That's different than Virginia. Voters didn't have that choice with the governor.
But the fact is blackface is a problem, even if it's a high school prank, even if you and your friends agree that it's funny. I'm going to speak a little bit later on in the show to a prominent historian who will help me explain exactly why to everyone. You want to watch that. And while blackface is the problem for the number one and the number
three official in Virginia, there's another scandal facing another top official. This is the number two person. This is the Lieutenant Governor, Justin Fairfax, denying an allegation of sexual assault.
Vanessa Tyson, a fellow at Stanford University and associate professor at Scripps College went public today issuing a statement describing an incident back in 2004 when she alleges Fairfax forced her to perform oral sex. Fairfax had no comment to CNN this afternoon.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We don't have any comment right now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Lieutenant governor --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: But he later released a written statement saying, quote, "Reading Dr. Tyson's account is painful. I have never done anything like what she says."
Fairfax is being represented by the law firm that represented Brett Kavanaugh when he was accused of sexual assault by Christine Blasey Ford. Tyson has hired the same law firm that represented Blasey Ford.
All of this, the scandals facing Virginia's governor, lieutenant governor, the attorney general, could change the face of that state. All three are Virginia's top officials are Democrats. If all three were to step down next in line of succession would be the Republican Speaker Kirk Cox. And that would turn Virginia from blue to red.
[22:15:09] But the reality is Governor Northam is not going to resign, and there's no reason to think that the lieutenant governor or the attorney general will step down either.
Like I said, the strategy here, the strategy of waiting for the next big thing to drive your scandal out of the headlines, is right out of the Trump playbook. The lesson of the Trump era seems to be, you can survive anything if you fight back.
It worked for Donald Trump when the Access Hollywood tape came out just one month before election day. After offering an initial apology, Trump doubled down calling the whole thing locker room talk, and later reportedly denying it was even his own voice.
It worked for Congressman Steve King, who has made a career out of one racist statement after another, most recently asking, quote, "white nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization, how did that language become offensive?"
It worked for Brett Kavanaugh, who responded to Christine Blasey Ford's allegations that he sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers with angry accusations of what he called a calculated and orchestrated political hit by Democrats. It worked for all of them. Compare that to Al Franken, who did not
fight back. He resigned in December of 2017 after multiple women accused him of touching them inappropriately. Franken apologized for some of the accusations but said in his resignation speech that his response to those women's accounts gave some people the false impression that I was admitting to doing things that, in fact, I haven't done.
So, is the lesson in all of this fight back and you can survive just about anything? Think about that. So do Virginia's governor and attorney general understand just how hateful blackface is, this is another -- blackface is, is another question. I'm going to ask a Charlottesville official, the city councilman, Wes Bellamy next.
[22:20:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Virginia's Democratic governor hiring a firm to help him with crisis management as he deals with the fallout from a racist yearbook photo. Northam has refused to resign after this picture was revealed on his medical school yearbook page.
But it's not just the governor. Virginia's top three officials all dealing with major scandals tonight. The lieutenant governor is facing allegations of sexual assault in 2004. The attorney general now admits he also put on blackface in the '80s.
Let's discuss now with Charlottesville City Councilman Wes Bellamy.
Good to have you on. Thank you so much, sir. I appreciate it.
WES BELLAMY, CITY COUNCILMAN, CHARLOTTESVILLE: Thank you for having me, good brother.
LEMON: Let's talk about the top three Democrat, Democratic leaders in your state now all dealing with scandals. What is the way forward? Is there a way forward here?
BELLAMY: Well, I think there's a way forward. And, again, thank you for having me on the show.
And I think since we've heard from both Governor Northam as well as a statement tonight from lieutenant -- excuse me -- from the attorney general, Mr. Herring, both of those individuals have stated that they are not going to resign. I actually had a conversation with Mr. Herring today, who I believe to be a good man. I believe him to be a fair person. I'm a personal friend of both lieutenant governor Mr. Fairfax, as well as Governor Northam.
And I think now we have to decide how we're going to shift this conversation to ensure that we make action and have tangible resources put behind the words. Specifically, when you look at blackface and just how disrespectful and how detrimental it is to the African- American community, what I'm looking forward to seeing now is the governor saying, well, listen, I apologize but also want to try to make this right, not just with my words but with my actions. So, I challenged Governor Northam as well as our elected officials who
are stating in which they understand where he's coming from, they're all sorry. So, are we going to put resources behind those apologies?
For example, are we going to ask Governor Northam, are you going to provide a multi-million-dollar grant in your budget for HBCU's, historical black colleges and universities in the commonwealth of Virginia? Are we going to ask Attorney General Herring, are you going to now think about the most bold and progressive criminal justice reform policies that you can when we know for a fact that many of the criminal justice policies that are currently on the books are only perpetuating white supremacy and systemic injustice and racism?
So, are you going to allow policies to be pushed forth that will benefit African-Americans since you are indeed sorry?
LEMON: Is that OK --
(CROSSTALK)
BELLAMY: And I think they --
LEMON: Is that OK with you if they do put forward those policies, as you say, and if they all double down and do it?
BELLAMY: Yes.
LEMON: Are you OK with them staying, then?
BELLAMY: Well, I think they've all stated that they are not going to resign in one way or another. So, I think the conversation --
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: Do you think that they should?
BELLAMY: Well, again, in my personal opinion, it really doesn't matter whether or not we think that they should because they've stated and wished that they are not.
LEMON: Right.
BELLAMY: Again, I know all three individuals. So now we have to shift the conversation into what we get back out of this. And this is an opportunity for the commonwealth. We have a stain on us right now, but we can come out of this in a positive light. We can have conversation. We can have a reallocation and redistribution of the resources. Let's do so.
LEMON: Mr. Bellamy, let me ask you a question.
BELLAMY: Yes, sir.
LEMON: And if I may I'll call you Wes if that's OK with you.
BELLAMY: That's OK. LEMON: Let me ask you this. I saw today, I have people who got in touch with me, they were upset because they said one major news organization changed, you know, changed it from blackface to brown makeup. Such and such put on brown makeup, and they were like, didn't say blackface.
Is there a difference to you than someone putting on brown makeup and someone putting on blackface? Same concept. What? Are they trying to water it down?
BELLAMY: Yes, they're trying to water it down. And this happens often throughout history. We see some media outlets who are not willing to specifically call out this injustice, this white supremacy, these racist tactics for what they were.
I think one thing that Governor Northam did on Friday night, which I was happy he accepted accountability for his actions and there was a reversal on Saturday. But he did say that he did put on blackface reinterpreting Michael Jackson, and then tried to do the moonwalk, which wasn't a good thing.
[22:24:59] However, him trying to take some kind of accountability I think is better than none. And then we heard from Attorney General Herring today stating that he apologized for him doing so.
It's not brown face. It's not brown makeup. We have to call it what it is. It's blackface. It's extremely disrespectful to not only the African-American community but all of us as a whole. And when we have these individuals who are in these positions who have done such, I think we have to ask ourselves now what?
LEMON: Yes.
BELLAMY: I'm not perfect. No one is perfect. Everyone has things in their past.
LEMON: Agree.
BELLAMY: So now we have to figure out since you're still in these positions, what can we do to actually make a change? And I think that the commonwealth of Virginia has the opportunity to do so.
LEMON: OK.
BELLAMY: There can be a shift in policy, a shift in resources. Let's do it.
LEMON: I got you. I got you.
BELLAMY: Yes, sir.
LEMON: Real quick because I've got to run.
BELLAMY: Yes, sir.
LEMON: One, you said you know all three of them and it's not up to you to decide if they should resign, including Fairfax, including --
BELLAMY: Yes, sir.
LEMON: -- for sexual a harassment allegation. Right? You said it's not up to you.
BELLAMY: Yes, sir.
LEMON: OK. So, then the other thing is, and I remember what I wanted to say to Chris but I think it's ore appropriate to say to you. This is black history month.
BELLAMY: Yes, sir.
LEMON: Do you think its -- what a lesson for black history month, right?
BELLAMY: A very poignant lesson. I'm an elected official in Charlottesville, Virginia, where in 2017 we had white supremacists, KKK members and everyone knows come to our society to try and show that their way was right. We now see blackface on the highest levels of the land, not only here in Virginia but in Florida and other places.
We still have an issue with race in our country, and anyone who tries to think that we're in this post-racial society is wrong. But we also have an opportunity for us to be able to come together and move forward with being able to do something tangible about these things.
LEMON: Thank you.
BELLAMY: And I hope that's the lesson.
LEMON: Yes. Thank you. I really appreciate your time. Come back.
BELLAMY: Thank you, sir.
LEMON: And keep us updated as to what happens. We appreciate it. Wes Bellamy.
BELLAMY: Thank you.
LEMON: We'll be right back.
[22:30:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Scandal spreading in the top tiers of Virginia's government, the state's attorney general now saying that he also put on blackface in the past. I want to talk about this now with Michael Higginbotham, a Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Baltimore, who is also the Author of Ghosts of Jim Crow, Ending Racism in Post-Racial America.
Good evening. I want to make the most of my time with you. One thing is, you know, I don't want to rehash. We all know what happened. Pretty much everyone knows what happened. I never thought that I would see the day for some of the racist behavior that I witnessed in the 70s, 80s, 90s growing up in elementary, junior high school, college, that I would see people actually paying the price for it.
F. MICHAEL HIGGINBOTHAM, PROFESSOR OF CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, UNIVERSITY OF BALTIMORE: Well, it's a different day today, Don, than it was in the 80s. We're in a battle for America's racial soul today. And it's important that individuals as well as political parties take the moral high ground. Clearly, there's a real contrast when you look at President Trump's response to Charlottesville, and you look at some of the other Republicans' responses to some of the racial rhetoric that he uses, and the Democrats' response in Charlottesville.
So when you start to think about this blackface humor, it's important for the Democrats to take the moral high ground on this racial insensitivity.
LEMON: So you think there should be a zero tolerance policy. Should they all go or should everyone be judged individually?
HIGGINBOTHAM: I think you have to have individual assessment on this stuff. And Governor Northam, you know, it's not the worst felony offense that he's committed, but it's pretty bad. And he knew. He knew in 1984 and 2019, individuals know this is wrong and problematic. They shouldn't have done it. There's got to be some consequences.
LEMON: Let's talk about then, since you teach this stuff. Why is it so offensive? Why shouldn't people do it? Help the viewer understand.
HIGGINBOTHAM: It's offensive because, Don, we have a long history of blackface humor going back to 1828. Thomas Dartmouth Rice, white entertainer, created a character called Jim Crow in New York.
LEMON: Right.
HIGGINBOTHAM: Performed onstage in New York and also around the country, sellout audiences. But the message of his character, Jim Crow, and Virginia Minstrels created additional characters. The message was negativity. The message was black inferiority. So you had characters that were immoral, were unproductive, were lazy, were foolish.
And the message that was being sent out to white audiences was this is how black people are. And most whites at that time, because of the rigidity of Jim Crow segregation had very little interaction with blacks. So this is how they found out what black people were like.
LEMON: What they thought they were like. So then what about -- can you claim ignorance, like hey, I don't mean in it that way. What about people who are, you know, dressing as, you know, Michael Jackson as they say or someone dressing up as Diana Ross or whatever? What do you -- can you say, hey, I didn't know or this is a different degree or what?
HIGGINBOTHAM: Well, certainly as part of an apology, you can say, hey, I didn't know because it's important to have forgiveness. Everybody makes mistakes. So as part of an apology, you have to be clear. You have to be timely and you have to be sincere. And so sure, as part of forgiveness, you can say, hey, I apologize. I did wrong. I didn't know it was bad. But candidly in 1984, everybody knew it was a problem.
And people -- I was in school at that time. If people had asked me, I would have said, of course you don't want to do that. Most people knew it was a problem. Now, the fact that it continues to go on means that people need to stand up, and that's why I am glad to see what's happening today, but there must be consequences.
[22:34:49] LEMON: Listen. I want you to look at this, right? Just think about how quickly this all snowballed. You have the number one and the number three Virginia official admitting to doing this. Plus down in the state of Florida, the secretary of state resigned last month after this photo, dressed as a Katrina victim in 2005. How many others are out there, elected or otherwise, that have this in their past?
How many others are out there, elected or otherwise, that have this in their past? I've said there are a lot of people out there who are like I hope they don't find that photo of me.
HIGGINBOTHAM: Well, I think you're going to find a lot more people that have this issue, no question about it. I think it's going to come out, because it was going on in colleges when we were in school as well as today. I mean incidents -- we keep hearing about incidents over the last decade about slave auctions, about people dressing up in blackface on these college campuses.
And so because it was so pervasive, because you had, you know, Hollywood musicals, even Bugs Bunny was embracing blackface in his cartoons. So you've had people growing up with this stuff, and they continue to do it. It's not funny. It's damaging. It's harmful. But it embraces this notion of white supremacy and of black inferiority.
LEMON: Yeah.
(CROSSTALK)
HIGGINBOTHAM: It's problematic, and people need to stand up against it.
LEMON: I want to -- I always -- I have said in order to -- if you actually want to pay homage to someone, if you want to dress as -- Halloween as Beyonce or as Cher or as Diana Ross or as anyone, you can do all of that, right, without putting on the color. I just got an e- mail from a viewer who said, blackface, Don. Yup, I distinctly remember dressing as Michael Jackson in the 80s for Halloween. I had the jacket, the glove, the black pants, the shoes, the wig, but no blackface. Everyone knew who I was.
HIGGINBOTHAM: Point well made. You don't need to put on the blackface.
LEMON: That's the point.
HIGGINBOTHAM: And that's when, you know -- and the governor knows he shouldn't have done that in 84.
LEMON: Yeah. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.
HIGGINBOTHAM: My pleasure.
LEMON: We'll be right back.
[22:40:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: President Trump in his State of the Union address -- for his 2020 re-election campaign. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Here in the United States, we are alarmed by the new calls to adopt socialism in our country. America was founded on liberty and independence, government coercion, domination, and control. We are born free and we will stay free. Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Sam Donaldson is a veteran journalist, and I want to bring him in to talk about all of this.
Thank you, Mr. Donaldson. I appreciate you coming on.
SAM DONALDSON, JOURNALIST: I am pleased you invited me, Don.
LEMON: You heard the president there talking about socialism. Is he laying out a line of attack that we're going to hear heading into 2020?
DONALDSON: It's too late. Over half of Americans are on socialist programs from the federal government. I am on Medicare. I am an old guy. And Medicaid, welfare programs, not just for the poor, for the rich. Hey, how about a sugar subsidy to the ranchers and farmers. Let's buy you some wheat since you can't sell it in the market. We are already on the way.
And Don, in a few years, we're going to have a single-payer system, I think. The public is pushing toward it. Unless you say, but that's socialism, well, no, I don't want that. But I do want good medical care, and I want the government to pay for it.
LEMON: OK.
DONALDSON: We're a socialist country already.
LEMON: So then there's a --
(CROSSTALK) DONALDSON: What does he know? He doesn't know anything.
LEMON: There's a duality there, because, you know, you're saying Medicare and Medicaid. And again, that's taking care of -- that's doing what we're supposed to do. When you say socialist, right, what do you think people think when they hear that word, socialist? And is that changing now? Is the definition morphing somehow?
DONALDSON: Well, I think they think what President Trump said it was. That is big government telling you how to live, what to do, when to do it. That's not the socialist countries as I understand it, in Norway, Sweden. I mean much of the established western world has socialism to a greater extent than we have, and their people get along. I think it's in this country, the fact that we came from this rigid in the southwest.
We got the right to do it ourselves and pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, and never mind those people over there who don't seem to have any boots.
LEMON: Right.
DONALDSON: That's dying. We are getting to be a better country. I've been listening to your program. You've been highlighting something that's been awful, continues, but we're getting better.
LEMON: Yeah. You know, it is after all, it's called social programs. That's what it is. Let's move on, though.
DONALDSON: Right.
LEMON: I want to talk about some 2020 contenders, if you will. Senator Elizabeth Warren has apologized for claiming Native-American ancestry after "The Washington Post" reported that she wrote American- Indian. It was on a registration card for the -- there it is. It's up on the screen, the state bar of Texas. That was back in 1986. She has been dogged by this story for a while. Does this change anything for her, you think?
DONALDSON: I think it does somewhat. She didn't handle it well at all, not that you can handle things that ought to have been there in the first place. She had family lore coming from Oklahoma. She had probably had some ancestry there. And let's say -- assume she was telling us the truth when she said I wasn't trying to do anything special. I just was proud of it.
Well -- but she kept on and kept on, and people have the right to wonder about that. Were you just using it for your political advantage? And then when she didn't immediately renounce it and say, well, you're right. I shouldn't put this because I can't prove this. She doubles down. She tries to prove it. And look, she comes up with something that's terrible, and she digs herself a deeper hole.
LEMON: Yeah.
[22:45:05] DONALDSON: Now, so you can think if you want that she wasn't quite coming clean with us to begin with or not, but she didn't handle it well. And we need presidents who know how to handle things from the get-go, not later on.
LEMON: According to a new CNN poll, more than 6 in 10 Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters say that former Vice President Joe Biden should run for president. Half of all Americans say that they would be at least some what likely to back him. What do you think? Does Joe Biden have what it takes to beat Donald Trump?
DONALDSON: Well, let's look at him. He's a Democrat, but he's a centrist-leftist. Yes, left, but enough to the center to appeal to people who aren't just in the far left fringe of the Democratic Party. He's likeable and he has experience. He actually has experience in doing things, not as an executive, but in doing things that in Washington you should have if you're president of the United States.
The problem is, Don, how does he get the nomination? The Democratic Party is moving sharply to the left. Young people, bless them, women, bless them, people of color, bless them. And he's got to convince them that he's the right person to take on Donald Trump. If he can get the nomination, I think he can beat Trump, sure.
LEMON: And if he's in step with the policies they want and the kind of America that they would like to see. Thank you, Mr. Donaldson. I appreciate it. Please come back.
DONALDSON: My pleasure, brother Don, a pleasure. You and Cuomo, you're two good guys.
LEMON: Thank you very much. He said he could never stump you on the political show. It was stump Sam Donaldson.
DONALDSON: Oh, they stumped me. His memory is fading. He's getting old, you know?
LEMON: Yeah. We'll talk about that later. Thank you, sir. See you next time. We'll be right back.
DONALDSON: OK, you got it.
[22:50:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: So more now on this growing political crisis in Virginia, the governor and now the attorney general, both facing blackface scandals. The state's lieutenant governor facing another scandal, he's being accused of sexual assault. Van Jones, Alice Stewart both here.
Good evening to both of you. Thank you for coming on. It's good to see you.
ALICE STEWART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Hi, Don.
LEMON: Van, number one and number three official in the state in blackface, Democratic leadership in Virginia imploding. People there have to be -- they have got to be reeling. Can they continue to lead now? VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Listen. Each one is different.
I mean the most recent one, you're talking about a 19-year-old kid doing something silly one time, admitting it, tasking responsibility and apologizing. That is a little bit more forgivable than a 25-year- old who doesn't just have blackface, whose got Ku Klux Klan. He says it's him. It's not him.
Look. There goes a bunny rabbit. Let me go home. It's not -- the governor is in trouble not just because of what he did when he was 25 but what he did last week, where he just, you know, couldn't seem to find a coherent story. So I think that the governor, he may try to hold on. He may be able to hold on. But I think you have got to take each of these things individually.
And I don't think every dumb stunt that a teenager does should hold them back forever. But if you do a dumb stunt, you need to be able to take responsibility for it.
(CROSSTALK)
JONES: The governor is not.
LEMON: We all do silly things, right, especially when we're young. Young people do silly things all the time. There should be forgiveness. Just real quickly before I get to Alice, Van, do you think that there is a difference because -- difference between publishing something like this in a yearbook, which means you're sort of being proud of it, right, or having a silly photograph and then someone digs it up that is not published? Is there a distinction there?
JONES: I think there is a different level of offense. If you're doing something silly in your living room versus you publish it. And again, it is not just a black face, it's also a terrorist organization, the Klan, and you're putting it out there, and then you never point out that Jesus is terrible. So I do think that -- listen, the punishment needs to fit the crime.
LEMON: Right.
JONES: And in proportionality and redemption and forgiveness, all those things still need to be a part of our culture.
LEMON: OK. So is this a Pandora's Box of sorts, Alice, in terms of going deep into people's past photos and comments versus their current actions?
STEWART: I think we're certainly getting to a point to where nothing will be off-limits. And it certainly started with the Kavanaugh hearings and further exemplified today. And anything and everything that you do, certainly on social media and now in your high school yearbook, will be subject to scrutiny if you decide that you want to hold public office. But I think I agree with Van 100 percent.
The way both of these men handled this is completely different. One can't seem to make up his mind, how we wants to respond. And the other, at least has showed some remorse and some sympathy, and trying to move this conversation down the road. But taking a step back, with the Democratic Party, I will say this. They want to be, and they have shown themselves to be the party that stands for women and stands up against racism.
If they want to be that party and they want to be true to the values that they uphold and they push so vigorously on Republicans, then they need to take a stand on this. They need to say the Democratic Party has no place and no home for racism, period, full stop and take action, and ask these men to step down.
LEMON: Isn't that what they've done pretty much?
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: Isn't that what Democrats have done?
STEWART: Some have and some have not. And look. Here's the situation here. The attorney general asked the governor to step down when this came out. And then when he found out and realized that he did the same thing, all of a sudden the rules are different. And look. I think once again, if you're going to be the party that says there's no place for racism.
[22:55:01] That has to go across the board, and if you're going to hold that same standard for Republicans, you need to be able to police yourself.
LEMON: I got to say, Alice, I got to say, not every Democrat -- but I mean for the most part, Van, maybe -- Democrats have said this is wrong. They want everybody to step down. They're not -- they want like zero tolerance policy. There maybe a few people in there. But for the most part, the entire party, this guy has no support among Democrats right now.
JONES: Yeah. I think that's true. You know, I think Paul Begala, I think, has a slightly different view of it. But pretty much every other Democrat has. And I have to say, that's a very different thing than -- for instance with Steve King and the Republican Party, who has done horrific stuff for years and finally now got a little bit of a peep of opposition. But nobody's calling for him to step down.
LEMON: I just want to (Inaudible) quickly because I am sorry we didn't get -- I wanted to spend more time with this. We'll talk about it more. This is a part -- I just want to read -- this is a part of Vanessa Tyson's statement, the professor accusing the Lieutenant Governor, Justin Fairfax, of sexual assault. To be clear, I did not want to engage in oral sex with Mr. Fairfax, and I never gave any form of consent, quite the opposite.
And then he says -- he responded by saying reading Dr. Tyson's account is painful. I've never done anything like this that she suggests. I take the situation very seriously and continue to believe Dr. Tyson should be treated with respect. But I cannot agree to a description of events that simply is not true. Alice, I think your point here maybe more appropriate about Democrats
needing to step up, because they certainly were out front when it came to Kavanaugh.
STEWART: Absolutely. And I think they were very out front when it came to Al Franken as well, in terms of policing their own.
LEMON: I have to go.
STEWART: Yet again, if they want to be the MeToo movement and let women have a voice and let all women voice being heard, and we believe the women, then Fairfax should step down.
LEMON: Thank you, both. I appreciate it.
STEWART: Thanks, Don.
LEMON: All right. Make sure this Saturday you check out Van's show. Van is going to sit down with 2020 hopeful, Julian Castro. That's "THE VAN JONES SHOW" Saturday night, 7:00 Eastern, always a good show. Thanks to Van and Alice again. Congressman Adam Schiff is crossing the president's red line. And the president is lashing out.
We're going to tell you how the House Intelligence Committee is expanding their investigation and how much President Trump, his family, and his business could be impacted.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
