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Don Lemon Tonight
Andrew Yang (D), Presidential Candidate, Is Interviewed About His 2020 Platform; Trump Caved In On His Initial Tariffs Plan; Trump Turned His Speech Into A Campaign-Style Rally; Why President Trump's Words Matter; Dayton Police Release Video And Timeline Of Mass Shooting. Aired 11p-12a ET
Aired August 13, 2019 - 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 blurring the lines today between his official capacity as president and as a candidate for reelection in 2020.
Taking a few hours out of his week-long vacation to make speech at a petrochemical plant under construction in Western Pennsylvania, calling it an example of U.S. energy dominance. But even though the president's trip was funded by taxpayers, he went into campaign mode.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: In 2020, we're running, so you better get out there and make sure we win.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: The president also used the occasion of what was supposed to be an official event to bash Democrats. I'm going to talk to one of the Democrats vying to run against the president.
Joining me now, entrepreneur and Democratic presidential candidate, Andrew Yang. So good to see you again.
ANDREW YANG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's great to see you as well, Don.
LEMON: Thank you so much. So, let's talk about today. The president used an official speech to launch an attack on his opponents, to pat himself on the back for a whole host of things, and to tell a bunch of lies.
His former friend and coms director, you know Anthony Scaramucci, said today the emperor has no clothes. So, the emperor has no clothes but what is it going to take to beat him?
YANG: Well, we have to start solving the problems of the American people that got Donald Trump elected. And right now, he's crowing about GDP. GDP is at record highs while financial insecurity, stress, anxiety, even suicides and drug overdoses are all also at record highs.
So, we have to improve the reality on the ground for more Americans and that's how beer going to beat him in 2020.
LEMON: Can we talk about your signature proposal?
YANG: Of course.
LEMON: A $1,000 a month in universal basic income for every American adult. You're calling it a freedom dividend. Why did you focus on that and how is that the solution to what ails America?
YANG: To me, the driving force behind Donald Trump's victory in 2016 was that we blasted away four million manufacturing jobs in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, all these swing states. And when I dug into the numbers, unfortunately, retraining programs didn't work, and many of these communities are struggling to find a path forward.
Martin Luther King championed a freedom dividend in essence in the '60s, and one state has had a dividend just like this for almost 40 years, Alaska, which is paid for by oil money. And we can pay for a dividend for all Americans using technology money because right now you have trillion-dollar tech companies like Amazon paying zero in taxes.
If we get some of the gains from this economy into our hands, then we'll create a trickle-up economy. And that's what the freedom dividend is meant to kick-start.
LEMON: How will they pay for universal basic income?
YANG: You mean how will we as a society?
LEMON: Yes.
YANG: Again, if you have a trillion-dollar technical company like Amazon that's closing 30 percent of our malls and stores paying zero in taxes, then that is going to be hard to pay for a lot of things.
But if you give the American people our fair share of every Amazon sale, every Google search, every Facebook ad, every robot truck mile eventually, then we can easily afford a freedom dividend of $1,000 per American.
LEMON: But you know what they say. They say that Amazon creates jobs, gives people jobs. It improves neighborhoods and on and on and on. Do you disagree with that?
YANG: Amazon is doing a lot of the job creating, but it's also doing a lot of job destroying on the other end. They recently even just came clean and said that they're going to spend billions of dollars trying to retrain their own employees.
But you know who they're not going to retrain? The 30 percent of retail workers who work in the malls that are closing because Amazon is soaking up $20 billion in business every year. They're retraining their own people, but they're not going to retrain the mom and pop business owner in New Hampshire or Iowa.
LEMON: I want to play this moment from the CNN debates last month. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
YANG: You know what the talking heads couldn't stop talking about after the last debate? It's not the fact that I'm somehow number four on this stage in national polling. It was the fact that I wasn't wearing a tie.
Instead of talking about automation in our future, including the fact that we automated away four million manufacturing jobs, hundreds of thousands right here in Michigan, we're up here with makeup on our faces and our rehearsed attack lines, playing roles in this reality TV show. It's one reason why we elected a reality TV star as our president.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: I mean that got thunderous applause there. I was on the stage that night. People loved that line. They also loved it at home and on social media. So, the question is how does a Democrat run against that reality show that's happening now?
YANG: You know, Don, it's been a joy running for president because people have been digging into the ideas behind this campaign, and a lot of these ideas take a little bit more time than a 60-second sound bite. No offense because I'm thrilled to be here.
But my popularity rose in large part because of long form conversations on the internet. People have been reading my book and finding out about the fact that we're in the midst of the greatest economic transformation in the history of our company.
LEMON: Yes.
YANG: What experts are calling the fourth industrial revolution. We need to have a real conversation about what that means for our society.
[23:04:56] LEMON: Race. Let's talk about that. It's going to be front and center in this campaign. You said the other day on CNN that you had no choice but to call President Trump a white supremacist. Why go that far?
YANG: Well, we have to judge people by their words and actions. And over the recent number of weeks, Donald Trump's been saying things that have no place in American politics much less coming out of the White House.
And so, if you're asked, do you think that Donald Trump is a white supremacist and you have this record of actions that have been incredibly destructive, I mean, there's no greater responsibility than being the president of the United States and sending a leadership message in terms of what the values of this country are.
And so, if he's denigrating people who are Americans and saying, go back to your country, if he's calling for pushing back an invasion and other things that end up inciting very, very negative, in some cases, tragic actions, then you have no choice but to call it out.
LEMON: Yes. Why do you think his use of race is not a deal-breaker for some voters?
YANG: Americans have been looking around for quite some time wondering what the heck is going on with their kids' future, with their path forward. Unfortunately, it's made Americans open to some terrible ideas and terrible leadership, and that's what we have to try and dig into.
It's going to be a years-long challenge, but in my opinion, all of these things are tied together. That the fact that Americans have seen their income stagnate while their expenses go up, and that if you are a child born in this country in the '90s, there's only a 50-50 chance you're going to do better than your parents, whereas that used to be like a 90 percent plus chance. The American dream is dying, and people are looking for answers.
LEMON: What do you think about reports speaking about race and being insensitive -- the reports that the president mimicked the accent of some Asian leaders at a fund-raiser?
YANG: You know, I did hear that, and that's not shocking to me. I heard a story from some people where he had this giant banquet in Chinatown then he walked out without paying the bill saying, you know, my being here was reward for your restaurant enough.
So, the fact that he insulted Asians by imitating our accent, I mean, that's not a surprise unfortunately.
LEMON: Yes. You know, you talked about being able to have longer conversations which propelled you to the fore. You talked about people in your book and people wanting someone different.
You and Marianne Williamson, you're not considered mainstream candidates. Why do you think that -- do you think that that helped propel you, that you have different ideas, that you're different than everybody else, that you make comments like we got the makeup on our face, and we're trying to come up with a perfect sound bite so that we can somehow be like a reality TV show person?
YANG: The tough truth, Don, is Donald Trump became our president in large part because a lot of Americans are fed up with what they've seen coming out of Washington. They feel like their leaders aren't really serving to answer the challenges of this time.
And so they're looking unfortunately, in some cases, to really terrible leaders like Donald Trump. But they're looking for answers that might not be coming from traditional politicians.
I've had many Americans say to me you don't sound like any other politician I've ever heard, and they don't say that as a bad thing. They're not, get me a politician right. They're like, you don't sound like any politician I've ever heard. Tell me more.
LEMON: Yes.
YANG: So that's a, that to me, is a very clear sign of the fact that Americans are looking for real solutions instead of sound bites.
LEMON: You know, as I was preparing for the debate, there you have many, many fans out there who sent me --
YANG: Yang, Yang. Thank you.
LEMON: So, you tweeted --
(CROSSTALK)
YANG: Elon Musk, thank you.
LEMON: Yesterday you tweeted that most people still don't understand this campaign. What are people missing about you and your campaign?
YANG: Well, I think most Americans are hard pressed just to pay their bills. They're not digging into different candidates in 2020. If they've heard anything about me, they've heard there's an Asian guy running for president who wants to give everyone $1,000 a month.
LEMON: I thought you were going to do the line that says an Asian guy who likes math. But go on.
YANG: The opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian man who likes math. And so, what they don't understand about this campaign is that in many ways the freedom dividend is about everything but the money, where I gave $1,000 a month to a family in Iowa, and I just saw him when I was there this past weekend. And he said to me, you know what I did, Andrew? I bought a guitar. And now I've been playing shows, and then this band wants me to play in their show next week, and he was beaming.
When I saw him a couple months ago, he was frankly not beaming. He was taking care of his ailing mom who has cancer. He was quite depressed seeming. Sorry, Kyle, but you seemed depressed. And then two months later, he's like, he seems like a new person.
I mean $1,000 a month means lower stress, better health, better mental health, better relationships, more optimism, more arts, creativity, generosity, a more open culture and society.
And so, what people don't understand about my campaign is you think, gimmick, $1,000 a month. This is about expanding the way we see ourselves and our role in society and our value because if we allow the market to determine our value, we are screwed over time because the market is going to turn on more and more Americans.
[23:10:01] LEMON: I want to ask you one quick question.
YANG: Please.
LEMON: You know the whole thing about the Democratic Party is moving too far to the left, right? Socialism. You're there in Utah. What do you think of that whole argument?
YANG: Unfortunately, I think the socialism capitalism dichotomy is really unproductive and I'm out of date. I'm going to quote a friend of mine, Eric Weinstein, who said, "we never knew that capitalism was going to get eaten by its son, technology."
I mean, when you were coming up with these economic structures, you could never foresee things like artificial intelligence that could do near limitless work for next to know additional cost.
So, we have to start trying to solve the problems of the 21st century and saying are you a socialist, are you a capitalist, is just not helpful. We just need to take the best of both worlds, if you will. And the freedom dividend, what I'm describing, sometimes people say, like, that's socialism. It's capitalism where income doesn't start at zero. Markets function better. Businesses function better. Consumers do better when we have money to spend.
LEMON: Andrew Yang, thank you.
YANG: Don, such a pleasure.
LEMON: You as well. Good luck out there.
YANG: Thank you, sir.
LEMON: The Trump administration backing off on its tariff hike on popular Chinese goods including cell phones, toys, video game consoles. That after days of turbulence in the markets over fears of escalating trade war, an escalating trade war.
Are the president's policies threatening the strong economy he likes to boast about? Let's discuss that with Catherine Rampell and Philip Bump and Daniel Dale right after this.
[23:15:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: The president backs down on his tariff hike on China for now anyway, but are his policies threatening the economy?
I'm here with Catherine Rampell and Philip Bump, also Daniel Dale.
Good evening to all of you. So good to have you on. Thank you so much.
Daniel Dale, get to the studio next time, OK? So, I'm going to start with Catherine. President Trump has often claimed that consumers don't pay for his tariffs. Listen to this, and then we'll talk.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We're taking in billions and billions of dollars from China in the form of tariffs. Our people are not paying for it. The tariffs are not being paid for by our people.
We've collected close to 59 billion in tariffs so far. And, in my opinion, the consumer has not paid for it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: But he's also saying this today about the decision to delay some tariffs.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We're doing this for Christmas season just in case some of the tariffs would have an impact on U.S. customers which so far, they've had virtually none.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: OK. So, I don't know why they don't turn the helicopter off because it doesn't take that long to start the helicopter. I think it's --
(CROSSTALK)
CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Above my pay grade.
LEMON: I digress. It's a whole distraction thing. Right? So, people can't rally -- it doesn't take that long to start a helicopter. Right? So, anyway --
RAMPELL: On tariffs.
LEMON: So, which is it?
RAMPELL: I think the jig is up here. You know, Trump has been claiming for a year, year and a half, despite all evidence, despite many studies from erudite people at Ivy League schools and elsewhere showing that the tariffs are 100 percent or close to 100 percent being passed along to Americans. He has claimed Americans are not paying the tariffs.
Of course, today, he decided to delay some of those tariffs, not all of them by the way, because he was worried about Americans paying the tariffs, right? I mean, he was worried about the holiday shopping season.
So, you kind of, can't have it both ways. I think he's also worried not only about blowback from consumers who might turn on him ahead of the election, but also ruining the economy, of course.
LEMON: Yes. So, he caved?
RAMPELL: Yes, of course he caved. Of course, he caved.
LEMON: All right. So, he caved. The stock market has been surging, right? It surged today after that, but what's he's going to do if this -- Philip, to you -- if this tariffs this trade war heats up again, or maybe it won't. Maybe he'll say it will delay them indefinitely. I have no idea. But what does he do after this if he wants to start the trade war -- when he's going to do it again?
PHILIP BUMP, NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, WASHINGTON POST: It's going to be interesting. One of the things we saw today was him taking a political action, a response to an economic move that he made by reversing these tariffs. We've seen it also in the case of these farmers who have been hit with retaliatory tariffs by China.
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: You think the right thing for him to do you think?
MUDD: What? Subsidizing the farmers?
LEMON: What he did today.
MUDD: Well, I mean, I think broadly speaking, most economists would agree that the tariff process that he's been -- this war that he's been undertaking with China has been a mistake and has been potentially damaging to this economy.
LEMON: Go on, I'm sorry I interrupted you.
MUDD: No, no, that's fine. So, you know, I think it's sort of, been interesting to see the way in which he allows his politics to guide how he actually plays his cards on this, which I don't know what that tells us about the long-term fate of this.
But I mean, the economists, when you speak with them, talk about what the impact is on American consumers. You know, something like $830 per household, and that was an estimate that was even before the tariffs were ramped up. That's significant effect.
At the same time, it is putting the global economy, not just the American economy -- it's putting the entire economy globally at greater risk. That's something for Trump politically is potentially going to be problematic. And I think therefore something that he is going to restart paying a lot more attention.
LEMON: Daniel, Trump giving a speech in Pennsylvania today about energy and manufacturing. I just want to play some of the false statements the president made that you called out on Twitter. Here it is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We didn't have a new mill built in 30 years, and now we have many of them going up. We have a massive deficit, which are bad. They send us thousands and thousands -- millions of cars. We send them wheat. Wheat. That's not a good deal. And they don't even want our wheat. They do it to make us feel good.
We were losing all our cases in the World Trade Organization. Almost every case, lost, lost, lost. They thought we were stupid. And then I came along. Now we're winning a lot of cases.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: So, unpack that for us, Daniel.
DANIEL DALE, CNN REPORTER: Thank you for giving me that montage. So, yes, steel plants were being built before the Trump administration although others were closing of course.
[23:19:57] No, it is not true that all the U.S. sends Japan in exports is wheat. Japan is the fourth largest export market for the United States at $120 billion a year. Wheat isn't even the number one agricultural product.
And so, the idea that this is all the U.S. exports, and not only that, Japan doesn't even want to buy the wheat but it's just doing it out of pity because it is so dominating the United States is absolutely absurd. So, this was another official speech, not even a rally, where the president was just telling lie after lie.
LEMON: Catherine, the Treasury Department reporting Monday that the deficit has increased by 27 percent this time over last year. The White House Office of Management and Budget predicting the deficit will be over $1 trillion before the end of the fiscal year. That's a staggering number. What does that do to the economy?
RAMPELL: Well, in the near term, it juices the economy, right? I mean, we had this massive fiscal stimulus in the form of both tax cuts and greater spending, and in the near term, that, you know, pumps a lot of money into the economy, stimulates demand. In the long term, it does very little.
In fact, economists generally believe that when you pile on a lot of debt over the longer term, that can actually slow down growth. So, you know, what's funny is that it hasn't even juiced the economy all that much. Like we borrowed something close to $2 trillion for these tax cuts for the wealthy and for corporations, and we're back at the same GDP growth rate that we were at when Obama left office.
So, you know, we spent all this money, and we don't really have a lot to show for it, and it's really going to hurt us in the long run.
LEMON: But it was because -- this is due in part because of the 2017 tax cut as you talked about there. But he said the tax cut would pay for itself. It's not, is it?
RAMPELL: Well, that was never true. No, that was never true. That was always a lie. There was not a single independent credible outside forecaster or analyst or economist who believed that to be the case. Even those who were supportive of the tax cut, they all said it was going to be costly. They all said it was going to add a lot of red ink to the U.S. economy.
They basically all said that it was going to be top heavy. It was mostly going to help corporations and the wealthy. The fact that the White House and that Republicans on Capitol Hill claimed otherwise, you know, just has no bearing with reality.
LEMON: What happened to all the deficit hawks, Phil?
MUDD: I think there's this massive number of people who advocated for one thing during Barack Obama's presidency and now are either silent or advocating for the other, no one more so than President Donald Trump who repeatedly over the course of President Obama's presidency and during the campaign itself was harping on the deficits and how we need to watch out for this, and so on and so forth.
And you know, he lambasted the Republicans for making budget deals with Barack Obama because we have to address the deficit. He said at times, you know, he would come in and he'd be able to fix the deficit just like that.
He doesn't care about it anymore because he recognizes that it's not really great politics for a president to care that much about the deficit quite frankly. But this is one of any number of situations where both he and his party have completely reversed from where they were four, eight years ago.
LEMON: I want to play something else, Daniel, that Trump said today. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I love cranes. I love trucks of all types. Even when I was a little boy at four years old, my mother would say, you love trucks. I do. I always loved trucks. I still do. Nothing changes. Sometimes, you know, you might become president, but nothing changes. I still love trucks, especially when I look at the largest crane in the world. That's very cool. You think I'll get to operate it?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: You might remember these photos. They're from 2017 of Trump in trucks. So, what -- can you fact check his love of trucks, please?
DALE: I cannot fact check his love of trucks. But I do have a thought about this. You know, I wrote a piece coincidentally today about how Trump likes to refer to men, especially men in uniform as, quote, "central casting."
He seems to have notions about what a real man or a man's man looks like. And I think when he gets in these environments with workers, union workers, you know, blue-collar kinds of guys, he sort of performs masculinity as if he's not familiar with this kind of masculinity.
So, he's like these guys, you know, these real dudes, they like trucks. I'm going to say I like trucks, or he'll say, you know, when I was a kid, when I was a developer, I used to go down to the work sites with guys like you.
And so, it's sort of this forced effort to relate to these people who he doesn't seem to fully understand although he does have obviously a political grasp of their political desires. So that's my psychoanalysis of the president's love of trucks.
LEMON: Well, I like trucks. I'm going to fact check the guy loves trucks. I love trucks.
DALE: Yes, fair enough.
LEMON: I had so many Tonka toys and trucks when I was a kid, the dump trucks, whatever. But Catherine, today, -- sorry.
RAMPELL: A lot of talk of vehicles on this episode.
LEMON: So today also claiming that -- he's claiming that he's losing billions of dollars being president. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[23:24:59] TRUMP: This thing is costing me a fortune being president. What about the five billion that I'll lose? It's probably going to cost me, including upside, down side, lawyers, because every day they sue me for something.
These are the most litigious people. It's probably costing me from three to five billion for the privilege of being -- and I couldn't care less. I don't care. You know, if you're wealthy, it doesn't matter. I just want to do a great job.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Is there any evidence that that's true, any of that?
RAMPELL: You know, I think there's a really easy way we could settle this question.
LEMON: Taxes.
RAMPELL: He could release his tax returns because right now we have no base line for knowing how much he was worth before, how much he was bringing in before, how much he's making now, where the money is coming from, who he still owes money to, what kind of debt may have been forgiven.
I mean, there are a lot of ways to disguise a bribe that don't involve handing over a sack of cash, you know. You can write off some debt. You can refinance some debt. There are a lot of sneaky ways for him to make some money. So, if he wants to, you know, lay it all out for the American people, I fully support that effort.
LEMON: Thank you all. Yes, did you want to say something?
MUDD: Well, I was just going to bring -- so there has been -- he actually has taken something of a hit. But the reason he's taking hit is because retail prices, retail rents are not what they used to be in Manhattan, but he doesn't focus on retail. He focuses on things like coal mining back to Daniel's point. That's all I'm saying.
LEMON: Thank you, Daniel. Thank you, Philip. Thank you, Catherine. I appreciate it. We'll be right back.
[23:30:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Whether it's inflamed rhetoric about immigrants or re-tweets of conspiracy theories, this president reminds us all the time that words really matter. Let's get the big picture now with John McWhorter. He is a professor of linguistics at Columbia University.
(LAUGHTER)
LEMON: Why are you shaking your head?
JOHN MCWHORTER, PROFESSOR OF LINGUISTICS AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, WRITER FOR THE ATLANTIC: Because I know where we're going, and I'm a sad man.
LEMON: Are you -- why?
MCWHORTER: Because of this business of invasion.
LEMON: Yeah.
MCWHORTER: These words that he's using. People invading, and so people are coming in and they're invading. Now, if we're talking about a president who has the historical awareness of roughly a kitchen cabinet or a spoon or a Tonka truck, then maybe it's understandable in a formal sense.
But many people have "invaded" this country and created these sorts of things that probably Donald Trump likes. So Italians -- he's talking about 100 years ago swarthy Italians who "ate too much garlic." They were weird and dark-skinned, and they didn't really belong here. That was the rhetoric of people like Donald Trump.
And yet it seems that Italians have given us many things that we like. Nobody today thinks of Italians as somehow un-American. I'm not talking about spaghetti and meatballs. I'm talking about randomly, good fellas, mean streets, "Wolf of Wall Street." These good movies that people like Donald Trump sit, you know, eating their popcorn and watching. That's Martin Scorsese.
Italian people or more to the point just Italian people being Italian people and we think of them as Americans. They were thought of as aliens. But today, here we are, and people who are Latino are coming in and the idea is that they are just too exotic. Maybe they eat too much garlic, their skin is a little darker, and they speak this different language, Spanish, which frankly is an awful lot like Italian but that just won't do.
All of this is ahistorical. You have to not only live in your own time. That is one of many of the failures of the person who calls himself our president.
LEMON: Say that again about not living --
MCWHORTER: You must not live only in your own time. You must think about history and not, like, 2,000 years ago, what about 10 minutes ago?
LEMON: Right. Why do you think -- you know, he says that -- the president sees this as a political issue for him. The Democrats are calling him racist. He doesn't like it. Why does that bother him so much to be called racist?
MCWHORTER: Well, you don't want to be called racist because you are somebody of limited mental awareness. Yes, I mean it and I'm not taking it back. And you think that to be racist is to either burn a cross on somebody's lawn or to call them a -- let's bleep it out. Let's pretend that I said it. So, the idea is that that makes you a racist.
Otherwise, you're not a racist and now we can all play monopoly and eat our hotdogs. No. Being a racist is not only burning a cross on somebody's lawn. It's thinking that people who are of a different whatever than you are inferior to you for no justifiable reason.
So, he's somebody who calls you dumb, and it's interesting that he only refers to black people as dumb. That indicates that he has a certain sense that black people tend -- not always -- tend to be dumb. That is a kind of racism, too.
He hasn't gotten the message, which means that he's angry because he doesn't understand that racism is not a concept as simple as what is a dog, what is a cat.
(LAUGHTER)
MCWHORTER: He doesn't understand.
LEMON: This is what he's had to say about African-Americans in a speech today. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When I was running, I was saying, "We're going to do this. We're going to create jobs." Everyone -- you know, big yawn. And, you know, we like "Let's give him a shot. What do we have to lose, right?" I said that with African- Americans. They had the worst crime rates, the worst education, the worst everything. They had like 10 things. I'm reading it off a list. I looked. I said, "What the hell do you have to lose?"
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: He says African-Americans have the worst everything. Dissect that language. What is the message there?
[23:35:00] What's in that message?
MCWHORTER: Well, it's pretty simple. He's going on -- I mean, if I wanted to be a really sober pundit, I would say that he's a little antiquated. So the idea is that we're talking about underclass circa 1985. We've got these inner city communities that A, B, and C. But really, let's just break it down. Today, the idea that there's something really, really tragically wrong about black America or a certain segment of black America, I think we're missing something because there's a hideous opioid crisis that is tearing poor white communities apart.
If the man would just pretend to read one F-ing book, "Hillbilly Elegy" by J.D. Vance, nobody is black in it. These are white people who are suffering in the same way as these black Tupac people, who he seems to think of because his ideas about race were minted in roughly 1966.
And so he's got this idea that there's this black underclass who are the most hideous poster children on earth. Now, that was never true. But at this point, anybody who bothers to open their eyes in the morning understands that underclass is now a race-neutral concept and it really disturbs me to see him, as the president, talking about black communities as if they were alien places, as if it was like -- it's like as far away as New Zealand.
LEMON: Yeah.
MCWHORTER: It's tragic. He's not fit for the office.
LEMON: OK. I've got like 45 seconds left here. "The New York Times" also analyzed conservative media and how language from them and President Trump was echoed in the El Paso shooter's manifesto. They found that words like invasion which we talked about, replacement, and flood were used to describe immigrants hundreds of times. Why are these words so powerful, John?
MCWHORTER: Because they imply that somebody is an outsider that they don't belong here. And what Trump doesn't understand is that this is a country of immigrants, and he thinks, well, really? What he's really thinking, and I'm not going to pretend that I don't think it, is well, it's for white, reserved, possibly northern or western European immigrants.
But what is so wonderful about people from Northern Ohio or Queens, New York? I mean, really, and I live in Queens. The idea is that America is always changing. It's always in transformation.
There are many things that this country can be because it was founded as not being one culture, not to mention that anybody who comes here after about 10 minutes basically becomes like somebody from Northern Ohio anyway, and God love Northern Ohio. And so the man has the mental scope of a glass of water.
LEMON: Thank you, John McWhorter. You're like a professor or something.
MCWHORTER: I try.
(LAUGHTER)
LEMON: Thank you. We'll be right back.
[23:40:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LEMON: Police in Dayton, Ohio, working with extensive surveillance video, piecing together the moments leading up to the mass shooting in a neighborhood of crowded nightclubs a little over a week ago that killed nine people and wounded 17 others. They still don't know the gunman's motive but say he had an obsession with violence and a desire to commit a mass shooting. Here's CNN's Gary Tuchman.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is a picture played out in grainy surveillance video of the methodical plans of a mass murderer.
PAUL SAUNDERS, LIEUTENANT, DAYTON, OHIO POLICE: Now he's traveling eastbound. You'll see that he has the backpack and he's in long sleeves. The backpack is weighted down. It's not empty.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): Tonight, police are laying out the timeline of last Saturday night's mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio for the first time, showing video they say shows Connor Betts was acting alone. Betts' night begins, police say, without his weapon as he enters Blind Bob's Bar with his sister and a friend at 11:04 p.m.
He then leaves the two of them and goes to Ned Peppers Bar at 12:14 a.m. Police say it's crowded. He stays there for 30 minutes. When he leaves, he walks right past a police car.
SAUNDERS: He was aware of where they were.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): At 12:46 a.m., the shooter heads back to his car, where police say he changes his clothes and grabs a backpack that is hiding his weapon.
SAUNDERS: Now he's wearing the backpack, wearing a long-sleeved shirt. The pack on the right hand side shows how he went. He's going to cut back over to the alley. This is from the record store so we can catch him cutting that same path right here.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): Investigators say Betts is alone, and they don't believe his sister or friend, who would both be shot, knew he was carrying his assault-style rifle and body armor in his trunk.
RICHARD BIEHL, CHIEF, DAYTON, OHIO POLICE: We don't see anyone assisting him in committing this horrendous crime. It also seems to strongly suggest that his companion had no idea what he was going to do nor did he have any knowledge of the weapons that were in the trunk of that vehicle.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): At 1:05 a.m., the 24-year-old opens fire. Police say they can tell he is firing because the crowd reacts.
SAUNDERS: So this is the patio for Blind Bob's. Now they're moving. They just heard shots. And we know that he's been firing because just past this umbrella is the taco stand on 5th Street. That's where our first three fatalities occurred, one of them his sister. TUCHMAN (voice-over): Police say as Betts crosses 5th Street, he is still shooting. This, they say, is when officers react.
SAUNDERS: So he's engaging right now. That was the shooter that just went by.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): Investigators say Betts was shooting for 32 seconds.
SAUNDERS: You're going to see the shooter continue to run right here, and it's going to end right here.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): Before police take him down.
[23:44:59] Gary Tuchman, CNN, Dayton, Ohio.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LEMON: So what does the timeline say about what led the Dayton shooter to carry out his massacre? We'll discuss, next.
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LEMON: Police are releasing surveillance video, a detailed timeline, and an extensive account of the deadly mass shooting last week in Dayton that killed nine people. So what have we learned? Let's discuss now with James Gagliano, a former FBI supervisory special agent, and Neill Franklin, a former Maryland state police officer.
Gentlemen, good evening to both of you. Thank you so much.
James, I've got to give it to Dayton's police chief. I've got to give him credit. He's come out with a lot of new information in a very short amount of time this week when he and his community there are reeling. They went through a horrific massacre.
[23:50:00] Are you surprised at the level of transparency coming from this investigation?
JAMES GAGLIANO, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST, FORMER FBI SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT: Not at the level of transparency. That's expected. But, Don, I was blown away by the granular level of detail. I have 25 years in law enforcement, three years now here at CNN trying to break down and demystify these things. I have never seen a press conference with that level of detail.
LEMON: I'm glad you said that. When I watched it today, I was, like, that is a press conference.
GAGLIANO: Absolutely. And when you look at that department, getting on that gunman in 24 seconds, that's one thing. I mean, nine people lost their lives and 26 people wounded. It could have been so much worse. But now, as the investigation continues, we try to get to causality and had to prevent the next one. I thought they did an outstanding job. LEMON: Let's bring Neill Franklin. Neill, according to the chief, there is a debate going on over whether the shooter intentionally targeted his own sister. So, we already knew that the shooter had arrived on the scene with his sister -- his sister's name is Megan -- and another friend.
But we are learning that they split up from each other, and the three were still in contact, though. So the shooter knew that his sister was at that taco stand right by the alley where he first started firing. And here's the chief again. We will let him talk and then you and I will discuss.
NEILL FRANKLIN, FORMER MARYLAND STATE POLICE OFFICER: OK.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIEHL: I will tell you that a lot of us have been involved in this dialogue. You know, we all have been reviewing this evidence including the homicide detectives who are deeply immersed in this. We have radically different views in that regard. If we can't agree on the interpretation of the evidence where some are saying, "Absolutely not. He was not intentional," some say, "No, it had to be," I would say it's inconclusive.
The evidence has been debated in both directions with individuals in our organization familiar with the evidence, arguing both directions. And if we base on what we know now, which is a key factor here, if we can't seem to make that call conclusively, that we're divided about how whether that was intentional or not, I think it's inconclusive.
We may get a better insight through historical data looking back. But based on the evidence from that night, I don't think we can make the call.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Isn't that -- Neill, isn't that very important in terms of weighing the shooters possible motive?
FRANKLIN: So I think this is very important. But at this point in the investigation, it's been conclusive. As the chief said, they're split. We still have a very long way to go in this investigation. The FBI is going to dig really deep into the details of this. Tons of interviews need to be done. As the chief said, the historical data, the deep looking in, trying to look into his mind.
Of course, that will be done again looking maybe through private papers, his computer, any computer that he may have, anything that they can find. They're going to dig really deep into this guy's history going back, the relationship between him and his sister.
I just -- Don, as you ask about this, this is one other thing I want to point out. I think the chief said at one time, when he went back to his car, that he also changed a tire. So, if that's true, what was the condition of the tire? Was the tire in good condition? Did this guy plan to get away? And when he went back with his weapon, he took a path almost directly to where he knew the police were.
Again, another question is, did he intend to attempt to eliminate the threat? He obviously knew they were there. He walked right by them on his way back to the car after leaving Peppers. So there's still a lot more to be done.
A lot more investigation needs to occur. Luckily, he had an incomplete ballistic vest. He only had the strike panels in the front. I don't think he expected those police officers, at least one officer, to flank him as they did.
LEMON: As quickly as they did.
FRANKLIN: -- and were able to eliminate the threat.
LEMON: Quickly as they did it.
FRANKLIN: Yeah, very quickly, 23 seconds.
LEMON: Listen. You just talked about it and you just discussed it as well. You think about how fast the shooter was killed, as you said, number of seconds, James, after that shooting began. How many people do you think could have been killed if it were not for the rapid response from law enforcement?
GAGLIANO: Just watching the video tape and I've watched it numerous times, and think about what they briefed today at the press conference. Two hundred and fifty gig bites of video to go through. The important piece in that is to determine did anybody else provide material support, meet with him, give him encouragement, provide him supplies, those type of things.
It could have been much worse. The police chief also pointed out this was a man who was fascinated by violence, fascinated by previous mass shootings, and fascinated by violent ideations.
[23:55:00] And the fact that they were able to stop him in 24 seconds is nothing less than Herculean, Don.
LEMON: James, Neill, thank you both. I really appreciate it. Thank you for watching. Our coverage continues.
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