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Don Lemon Tonight

Joe Biden Says Just Wait and See; Rudy Giuliani's Indicted Associate Willing to Spill Beans; Russia Campaigned a Conspiracy Theory; Bolton Charges White House Froze His Twitter Account; Is Biden the Fighter Dems are Looking For?; CNN Hero Najah Bazzy. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired November 22, 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.

There's lots of breaking news tonight. And we're going to catch you up on all the headlines this hour.

And this is big. This is what CNN has learned. We've learned that an indicted Rudy Giuliani is associate is ready to tell Congress that Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House intel committee met with an ex-Ukrainian official last year to discuss getting dirt on Joe Biden. That is according to the attorney representing Lev Parnas.

It seems like something it would have been good to know before the public impeachment hearings. Doesn't it?

And sources telling CNN the coming report from the Justice Department inspector general will say the FBI properly launched its investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election even though some mistakes were made by lower level employees. Not exactly the deep state conspiracy President Trump has been touting at all.

Sources also saying that senators were told in a recent classified briefing that Russia has been on a long campaign to frame Ukraine for interference in the 2016 election. Meaning, it's all been a Russian operation.

Yet, President Trump still pushing the debunk theory Ukraine was behind the election interference one day after his top expert on Russia called it a fictional narrative.

And speaking of Joe Biden. There's more from my exclusive one-on-one interview. We're going to touch on a lot of topics including whether he's the fighter Democrats are looking for right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Democrats say they want a fighter right now. Are you a fighter? JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: They do. I'm a fighter.

LEMON: They said they haven't seen that fighting spirit.

BIDEN: Well, that's not what the Democrats and the polling says. I mean, some say that they haven't say that because maybe I've been too polite in those debates. Maybe I haven't -- you know, for example -- I mean --

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: Well, is that changing?

BIDEN: Well, I'm looking forward to a real debate.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Well let's get to the coming report from the Justice Department's inspector general on the origins of the FBI's Russia investigation. We are learning a lot about that tonight.

So, let's get straight to Shimon Prokupecz with that story for us. Shimon, very interesting what we're learning. So, walk us through the reporting. What will the inspector general's report reveal?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, I think a lot has been made by certainly by the Republicans, the president, people at Fox News that somehow this report is going to blame -- place blame on the FBI.

The leaders of the FBI at the time James Comey, Andrew McCabe who is the deputy director and then at one point acting director of the FBI. That somehow, they were all wrong in what they did here in pursuing this investigation, the Russia investigation. That they were bias, that were some kind of conspiracy here.

That is not going to happen. In fact, much of it is going to say the opposite. That the FBI had the right to open this investigation, the Russia meddling investigation. That they had the right predicate legally, they had enough support to do this investigation. There was enough information contained that they had obtained that they can go ahead and open this investigation.

So, the idea that there were some kind of conspiracy, a witch hunt by the FBI to go after the president, to go after people in the campaign. That's not going to happen.

Look, there is going to be some sloppiness here. And I think that's what -- according to people we have talked to that's what the report is going focus on.

LEMON: Mistakes.

PROKUPECZ: Mistakes.

LEMON: He's going to make mistakes. FBI. Listen, that's serious. If you're an FBI agent or you work with the FBI and you make a mistake. No excuses for that. But this is lower level. This is not what the president and Republicans have been saying that it's sort of deep state.

PROKUPECZ: Right.

LEMON: This is going to shoot that down.

PROKUPECZ: And one of those mistakes we're told is that a low-level lawyer that was attached to the investigation altered some information in an e-mail that was sent that somehow was then used as part of the FISA report, the FISA warrant against Carter Page.

LEMON: We're going to get into that in just a moment. But I want to get now, I want to bring in James Clapper. He is the former director of National Intelligence. And I want to see what he thinks about this.

Director Clapper, thank you so much. This inspector general, Michael Horowitz is known to be a thorough investigator. He is coming back saying no bias at the top of the FBI. What is your take on this?

JAMES CLAPPER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, just pick up on something you just said, Don. He has a reputation for being, you know, fair but very tough. And so, I think without seeing it I'm sure this is a very rigorous investigation.

[23:04:59]

And if the reporting is right, I mean, I think this is generally good news. Good news for the country. Really. That while there may have been some procedural errors made. And that's not to minimize whatever this attorney did. Doctor an e-mail. So, it'd be interesting to see if there's any more detail on that.

But by and large there was no conspiracy. There was no deep state action here. And so, you know, that, again if the reporting is accurate of this, this is reassuring.

LEMON: Well, this -- let's be clear. This is the president's own Justice Department on the president's orders doing the president's investigation.

CLAPPER: Exactly. And although the Department of Justice I.G. was in that position in the last administration as well. But he has a reputation of being pretty tough. And so, if that's the way this came out, I think that's, you know, that's good news really.

LEMON: This report was looking into some of the president's most frequent claims, right, about the FBI. This is him on Fox this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And when you look at Strzok and Page with the insurance policy where, you know, the two lovers, the two great lovers from the FBI where he's saying she's going to win a 100 million to nothing. But just in case she loses we have an insurance policy. What that means, you know, we're going to take him down. We're going to take down the president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: That was just this morning. Director, where he likely knew that it wasn't true. I mean, this report goes right -- right in the face of all the deep state actors out there to discredit the Trump campaign and the Trump presidency that they claim so much.

CLAPPER: Well, exactly. It's certainly not surprising that the president and he probably does know what the Horowitz report is going to will say, would seize on, you know, the unfortunate series of texts exchange between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.

You know, they were removed early on certainly from the Mueller investigation back in, well, early on about three months after it started. Bob Mueller, you know, took the appropriate action. But nevertheless, the record of those texts there, and obviously the president is going to seize on them whenever, you know, whenever he wants to.

LEMON: Director, I want you to standby. Because we're learning that senators received a classified briefing this fall by intelligence officials saying Russia has engaged in a years-long campaign to shift the blame away from Moscow for interfering in the 2016 election and put it on to Ukraine.

I want to bring in Matthew Rosenberg who first broke this story for the New York Times. Matthew, thank you for joining us on this news as we're getting it this evening. So, walk us through this reporting tonight that Ukraine conspiracy theory is actually a Russian intelligence operation.

MATTHEW ROSENBERG, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: You know, this began soon after the 2016 election. Russia was eager to kind of shift the blame saying look, we're not the people who interfered. And they picked out there were a few individuals on the Ukrainian side who did want Hillary Clinton to win.

And they -- the ambassador wrote an op-ed, somebody who tried to leak parts of that Manafort ledger which it turned to be real. And the Russians are going to pick this up and then try to spread that out. They used oligarchs and other intermediaries to kind of get this to prominent Americans, politicians and some journalists. All of them we believe were unwitting.

And through this way kind of spread this idea that, you know, it's really Ukrainian interference you should be worried about. it's not the Russians. We didn't have anything to do with this.

And look, we see how this has taken hold. This has become a key kind of talking point for the president and some of his defenders, that you know, it's Ukraine interference we should be looking into. This Russia hoax has nothing to do with it. It's the Ukrainians working the Democrats, that's the real story here. And what we found is that really is was the goal of the Russian intelligence operation according to our intelligence agencies.

LEMON: This actually came up in Dr. Fiona Hill's testimony yesterday. Let's listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FIONA HILL, FORMER SENIOR DIRECTOR FOR EUROPE AND RUSSIA, NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL: Some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country. And that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did.

This is a fictional narrative that is being perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So, Matthew, this Ukraine conspiracy theory is having the exact effect the Russians would like it to?

ROSENBERG: Sure, it looks that way, you know. We've got the president on Fox News this morning saying, you know, of repeating the theory again. And now look, that theory has grown and but added to. You got all these different elements. It's become this kind of toxic stew.

[23:09:55]

Some of that -- some of these elements have been added by American domestic actors. It really has become this hodgepodge. And when the president himself speaks about it, he's talking about the CrowdStrike, the company, the DNC server. I mean, these confusing mess that it's very hard to keep track of.

But at its core this idea that it's the Ukrainians who were interfering not the Russians. That was, you know, the goal of Russian intelligence to get that into the American kind of bloodstream. And they sort of appear to have succeeded.

LEMON: Matthew, thank you very much. I appreciate that.

I want to bring back Director James Clapper. What do you think of Matthew's reporting?

CLAPPER: Well, I think it's right on. I mean, without having seen or heard the briefing this comports exactly with what the Russians would do. Right after, I mean, I think this all started about February of '17. Right after, you know, we publish our intelligence community assessment saying the Russians meddled. And there was a fall to all about that.

Well, what the Russians do was try to deflect. Put the blame on somebody else. And from Putin's standpoint he's succeeded on two fronts. One, he helps drive a wedge between Ukraine and the United States, which is very important to him because he doesn't want a democracy right on the edge of Russia. And of course, it plays to the narrative here and as indicated had

some success. This amplifies the phrase I have used I borrow from RAND corporation -- truth decay in this country, particularly when our very own president repeats that narrative.

LEMON: Interesting. So, the way they spread this conspiracy was different through relationships and high-level conversations. You think President Putin might have even fed this story line directly to President Trump?

CLAPPER: Yes, you know, I wonder about that. You know, just seeing replays of the clip from the Helsinki meeting when Putin denied that it was Russia. Well, it's hard for me to believe he didn't try to put the hammer on somebody else. And why not the Ukrainians.

LEMON: Interesting.

CLAPPER: So, I would be -- I would -- I'd bet that Putin planted that seed at least as early as Helsinki.

LEMON: Yes.

CLAPPER: Last June to get that narrative in the president's mind.

LEMON: As you know I spoke with the former Vice President Joe Biden today. He talked about the relationship that's needed to stand up to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: I'm going to be able to command the world stage. Every leader will know who I am. Our friends are going to know I'm with them and I'm not moving. And our enemies are going to know or those who are competitors know who I am. Vladimir Putin knows I know him and he knows me.

And the fact is that, this is what is needed on day one. We're in trouble. We're in trouble. This president is shredding our alliances. This president is yielding to Putin in a way that is just obsequious what he's doing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Dr. Fiona Hill cautioned the Russians are going to be back in 2020. Is President Trump's refusal to call them out almost serving as an open invitation to interfere to do it again?

CLAPPER: Absolutely. And the Russians will be back. Why wouldn't they be? They had -- they were imminently successful in 2016 --

LEMON: Right.

CLAPPER: -- and they're going to be back at it in 2020. It just it's going to be harder for us to detect what they're doing because they clearly have gone to school on the revelations about what they did in 2016. And by the way, a great interview with Vice President Biden.

LEMON: Thank you.

CLAPPER: And, you know, I'm glad to hear him say, you know, I'm going to stand up to our adversaries and I'm going to extend the olive branch to our allies, our traditional allies. And, you know, not be deferential to Putin and stop dumping on our friends.

LEMON: Director Clapper, Matthew, Shimon, thank you so much. I appreciate the reporting from each and every one of you.

Did a top Republican congressman try to dig up dirt on Joe Biden? Well, a lawyer for Lev Parnas says Congressman Devin Nunes approached the Ukrainian prosecutor trying to do just that.

[23:15:00]

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LEMON: So, here's what CNN is learning tonight. That an indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani is willing to tell Congress about meetings Devin Nunes had last year with an ex-Ukrainian official to get dirt on Joe Biden.

That is according to the attorney representing Lev Parnas. Remember Parnas was indicted on federal campaign finance charges last month. He also reportedly discussed Ukraine with President Trump at a dinner in 2018.

Vicky Ward is here with the details, along with Max Boot and John Dean. Good evening. What a tangled web this is. What -- what is going on? OK, this reporting is really, really significant. You have learned Lev Parnas' attorney this is about Devin Nunes -- the Devin Nunes Meetings to get dirt on Joe Biden. Go. What did you learn?

VICKY WARD, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: So last December, Devin Nunes made a secret trip to Vienna to meet with Viktor Shokin. Viktor Shokin is the former prosecutor general in Ukraine who is fired in 2016 because he wasn't doing his job. But he was fired under pressure from western leaders including Joe Biden who was then vice president. He has an axe to grind against Joe Biden.

Devin Nunes was looking for dirt on Joe Biden and his son in Ukraine. He was also looking for proof of this theory that Ukraine somehow meddled in the election.

LEMON: Right.

WARD: Nunes comes back from that trip. Lev Parnas, business associate of Rudy Giuliani whose been doing his own investigation into all this.

[23:20:04]

He is from Shokin who he knows that Nunes meeting has taken place. And Nunes then heats Parnas and talks to him on the phone and enlists his help in making introductions to Ukrainian investigators who might be able to find more dirt on Joe Biden. And you know, wants them, wants the two sort of, investigations to merge. What's fascinating is we haven't heard a word about this from Devin Nunes.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: Well, I was just going to say, Devin Nunes is sitting there during the impeachment hearings throwing out conspiracy theories and being referred to as, you know, the ranking member, right? And the gentleman from Adam Schiff, right, who is the chairman.

I just want to play some of what we heard from Congressman Devin Nunes during the impeachment hearings. Play.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DEVIN NUNES (R-CA): No conspiracy theory is too outlandish for the Democrats. You would think they would take some interest in Burisma, and you think they would be interested in Joe Biden. We need to subpoena Hunter Biden.

I think one of the mothers of all conspiracy theories is that somehow the president of the United States would want a country that he doesn't even like, he doesn't want to give foreign aid to -- to have the Ukrainians start an investigation into Biden.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So, according to your reporting he knew a lot more than he was letting onto. What does he have to say about this?

WARD: Well, he was extremely rude to two of my colleagues who went to physically confront him. His exact quote was, "to be perfectly clear, I don't acknowledge any questions from you in this lifetime. Or the next lifetime."

I mean, I will say, Don, that, you know, what also really interesting about this reporting, is the timing of Devin Nunes trip. He deliberately timed it. An aide told Lev Parnas this so that it fell after the midterm elections and before the Democrats took over the House which meant he didn't have to disclose the details of it.

LEMON: OK. Stand by. Don't go anywhere I'm going to bring in Max and John now. Max, give me your initial reaction to this news. What do you think?

MAX BOOT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: It's not terribly surprising frankly, Don, because, you know, for a long time I think we've known that Devin Nunes and some of these other Republicans and in the House like Jordan and Mark Meadows, they're not just defenders of Trump, they're really Trump's accomplices and they're trying to do very much the same things as Trump in propagating these crazy conspiracy theories and smearing the Democrats.

You know, with Nunes his history going back to 2017. I was, you know, famous ride to the White House and claiming to uncover evidence of that the Obama administration was behind this political wiretapping of Trump and all these other crazy conspiracies which we know is just not true.

And so, it's hardly surprising to me to find out that he might well be up to the same thing right now. But clearly, if he is doing these things, he needs to disclose it.

And it's shocking that he is, you know, he is accusing Adam Schiff and the Democrats, you know, of all these surreptitious contacts with the whistleblower, which is as far as we know is not true. But if he's actually engaging in a surreptitious machination that's pretty shocking and hypocritical, although given, you know, the complete lack of moral fiber displayed by Devin Nunes hardly surprising.

LEMON: To be perfectly clear, I don't acknowledge any questions from you in this lifetime or the next lifetime. That, John, that's not exactly a denial. I mean, how does this complicate impeachment. Because for the first time these efforts to dig up dirt on the Bidens involves a member of Congress. Right? One of the very members blasting the witnesses in public hearings.

JOHN DEAN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I don't doubt the what Nunes would or would not do. And that he would do something like this. I would give a caveat, though, in the circumstances that it's arising in.

He's got a very able defense lawyer, Lev Parnas, and this looks to me like a bid for immunity. Where they're trying to get the intelligence committee to grant what's called use immunity that makes it virtually impossible for somebody to be prosecuted after the receive that immunity.

The southern district would not be happy with that. And the Congress has been very good at cooperating with prosecutors.

So, I think he's going to have to deliver more than a Nunes misconduct to get that immunity and to get that testimony before the committee. Either of the House judiciary committee as well.

[23:24:55]

LEMON: All right. Vicky, thank you. We appreciate your very interesting reporting. Max and John will be with us on the other side of the break. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: So, John Bolton is back in the spotlight tonight with an interesting claim about the White House and his Twitter account.

Back with me, Max Boot and John Dean. OK. So, Max, here we go. This -- John Bolton is saying, that he's claiming that the White House froze him out of his Twitter account. Reporters caught up with him tonight. Watch this and then we'll talk.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why did the White House block their access to your Twitter account?

JOHN BOLTON, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR OF THE UNITED STATES: They attached software to it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And sir, sir --

BOLTON: And Twitter unattached the software to it.

[23:30:00]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you concerned that they are trying to stop you from testifying?

BOLTON: I don't know. You have to ask the White House. But I can definitively we have regained control of the Twitter account. Twitter detached the White House software.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So I guess we can call it Twitter gate, Bolton gate or whatever. But CNN is learning that Bolton was told by Twitter that some sort of software had been installed on his account. The function of that software, not clear at this point.

So give me your reaction to, you know -- because President Trump earlier today denied that the White House had frozen Bolton's account. What do you think?

BOOT: I don't know, Don.

(LAUGHTER)

BOOT: Honestly, this is so minor. I think there is an issue with when officials leave the White House that their Twitter account is considered public property and they have to create a new one. You know, frankly, this is not a huge issue to me. The larger issue here is Bolton going to testify.

LEMON: Yeah, the Twitter does not stopping him from testifying.

BOOT: No, exactly. It has nothing to do with the fact that he is dodging his civic responsibility to tell Congress what he knows about the shady dealings with Ukraine, the so called drug deal with Ukraine. And we had Gordon Sondland and Fiona Hill and other witnesses testifying that John Bolton knew all about it. And, you know, he is writing a book for something like $2 million.

LEMON: Mm-hmm.

BOOT: What he needs to be doing is going to Congress, raising his right hand, and telling the American people what he knows, especially because the defense that you're hearing from the White House is that's all hearsay, the people who were in the room aren't talking. Well, they need to start talking and Bolton is one of the people in that room.

LEMON: And Mick Mulvaney.

BOOT: Yeah, another one, too.

LEMON: Do you think he'll do it? Should he be testifying, John?

DEAN: He absolutely should be. My first reaction to the Twitter issue was that they consider those or reclaiming they were presidential records and that they have to go to the national archives, which is a legitimate claim. I'm surprised he didn't set up his own account immediately after wards.

But speaking of Twitter, Max, I re-tweeted an article that Max did today on 64 excuses for not having impeachment that will make you cry and laugh. They're all fact-based.

(LAUGHTER)

DEAN: So I hope -- and I'm one who does hope that Bolton will appear.

LEMON: Thank you, gentlemen. I appreciate it. More from my exclusive interview with former Vice President Joe Biden. Is he the fighter Democrats are looking for in 2020? What he says about that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:35:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Joe Biden wears his heart on his sleeve, often talking movingly about suffering personal loss and his empathy for others going through the same things. But he tells me he thinks the president is incapable of empathy. Here is more of my interview with Joe Biden.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON (on camera): One area that you have no issue and that's grief and empathy, and the current president does not have that. Why do you think that is? Why do you have it and why doesn't he?

BIDEN: Look, I don't think he's capable of empathy. I really don't. I've not seen a single thing that ever indicates to me that he has any understanding of what other people are going through. And in a sense, I wish I didn't have so much empathy.

LEMON (on camera): You faced a lot of loss.

BIDEN: Well, a lot of people have. A lot of people have faced more than I have. And they get up every day without the kind of help I have with my family. And get up every day and put one foot in front. They're real heroes. They go out every single day. And they do it. And so that's what America is made of. That's the soul of America.

And I just think that most of the people, Don, who come up to me on rope lines and they, you know, even the press now is getting it straight, why are these people hugging Biden, you know. They are hugging me because they are grabbing me and saying, basically, am I going to be all right. I just lost my son. I just lost my daughter.

Or a little boy will stand there, a little girl say, I stutter. And there's a whole group of kids that I keep in contact with, more than a dozen. That in fact because I let them know it shouldn't let them define them. It's not who they are. So, there's just a whole lot out there that I have learned a lot from loss. And I've learned a lot about the abuse of power and bullies.

LEMON (on camera): You have said that we need to build, meaning this country, build on Obamacare. Is that enough, especially with what people are facing now when it comes to debilitating disease, cancer, so on?

BIDEN: It's more than enough. Look, when I talked about it with Barack -- President Obama and I talked about it initially. We want to move on beyond Obamacare. Obamacare fundamentally changed the lives of millions and millions of people, covering over 100 million people with pre-existing conditions, children, et cetera.

But what I propose is to take all the cuts that have been made to Obamacare, take them back from this guy, meaning our president, present president, provide greater subsidies for people to buy into a goal plan in Obamacare that will become Bidencare, and add a public option, a Medicare option.

[23:40:02]

BIDEN: Look, here's the issue, it's not -- I understand my "Medicare for All" friends saying that that's a good thing to do. But guess what? You got to be honest. It's about $34 to $35 trillion over 10 years.

LEMON (on camera): You saying we can afford it?

BIDEN: Why not? Look, $3.5 trillion a year is more than the entire federal budget. You can eliminate everything that we do from the military to housing, every single thing.

LEMON (on camera): Got it.

BIDEN: And you can't do it. Lastly, here's the biggest thing. I think there should be Medicare for those who want it. That's my plan calls for. If you want to be in Medicare, you can choose my option. But these guys are saying no, no, my way or the highway.

We eliminate the 160 million people who have insurance that they work out with their employers that they like. If they don't like it, they can get in the Medicare plan I'm proposing and get covered and afford it. In fact, if they do like it, they can stay where they are. But under the other plan, we know best. Everybody is out.

LEMON (on camera): Democrats say they want to fighter right now.

BIDEN: They do.

LEMON (on camera): Are you a fighter? BIDEN: I'm a fighter.

LEMON (on camera): They said they haven't seen that fighting spirit.

BIDEN: Well, that's not what the Democrats in the polling say. Some say they haven't seen that because maybe I've been too polite in those debates. Maybe I haven't, you know, for example, I mean --

LEMON (on camera): Is that changing?

BIDEN: Well, I'm looking forward to a real debate. I'm looking forward to actually get in the stage and be able to debate. What we now have, as I said, is one minute assertions and --

LEMON (on camera): What do you mean by real debate?

BIDEN: A real debate. Have two, three people and actually go into it. Have more than 30 seconds to answer an attack. And what amazes me now is if you look at the 99th debate or whatever comes up, is you notice that the Democrats -- all of a sudden, most of the Democrats don't think Barack did such a good job.

Oh, I think he was a great president. I really do. And what I plan on doing is I go back in a heartbeat to Barack Obama to begin to build on what we did. What he did. And -- but now, it's like, you know, you have one candidate who is running that -- our second term said he should be primaried. You have people on the stage saying hundred years of -- I mean, this is -- Barack Obama did an incredible job.

LEMON (on camera): Do you think that you and the former president get enough credit for the economy that was built, that you built?

BIDEN: No, but it's understandable. It's understandable because, look, here's what happened. Everybody forgets everything landed on the president's desk but locusts. I mean everything. Think about it. It was the greatest recession short of depression in American history.

This man pulled us out of a crisis. This man with a little help from me was able to take us and get the car out of the ditch on the road and get it moving. We had successive growth, successive progress all the way through just we're getting to the place where we were going to tune that engine to go back.

The middle class, the middle class was finally starting to have some daylight. And look what happened. So I'm going back and build on what we did. Move because it's a totally different problem we face now. And -- anyway, I was proud to serve with him. Thank you, Don.

LEMON (on camera): Thank you for doing this.

BIDEN: Appreciate it. Thank you.

LEMON (on camera): Good luck to you.

BIDEN: Thank you.

LEMON (on camera): Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: A lot to break down from this interview. The former vice president says he is ready to fight. We'll discuss, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:45:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: You heard Joe Biden talking about the family tragedy that shaped his sense of empathy and his belief that President Trump is incapable of it. Let's discuss now. Ron Brownstein is here. And Keith Boykin, we will discuss more as well. Good evening to both of you. Thank you so much.

Ron, he suffered enormous personal loss, and I said, you know, most recently his son Beau, it's remarkable how well he's able to communicate that and people really pick up on that, I notice when I was out with him today, in stark contrast to what we have in office now. Could that help him in the end?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I find that like a lot of politics is the backdrop. Compared to the democratic field, Biden sometimes seems short on fluency. Compared to Donald Trump, I think he would seem long on decency and empathy.

I mean, you know, matching him up against Trump is a very different kind of look than matching him up against Elizabeth Warren or Pete Buttigieg who can just kind of march through policy and, you know, every sub clause.

The way that he relates to ordinary people, I think, would be a significant asset for him against Trump, who is good at expressing resentment, much less strong at kind of connecting with human emotion.

LEMON: He says he's a fighter not because Democrats tell me, well, I have -- where is that fighting spirit? That's what they ask me. We used to see it with Joe Biden. Democrats say they're looking for a fighter. A lot of progressives though aren't so sure. Can he turn that around, especially when he is critical -- he is critical of policies like "Medicare for All", that the base may be excited about?

[23:50:02]

LEMON: You heard his former boss as he calls him, Barack Obama, saying nobody wants to tear down the system. People want to improve the system. You know who he's speaking to.

KEITH BOYKIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah, two questions there. One is about the fighter part. The other is about the base. I think in terms of him being a fighter, first of all, I think that he has a history of being a fighter. There's a whole comment where he said the BFD words after the health care. But, you know, he fought for that. He fought for issues in the '90s. So he has a history. But when it comes to where we are in 2016, the base of the Democratic Party has changed dramatically.

LEMON: 2019.

BOYKIN: In 2019, I'm sorry.

(LAUGHTER)

BOYKIN: In 2019, the base of the Democratic Party has changed dramatically. It's so late at night. I keep saying 2016. It feels like it's been three years.

LEMON: Has it really changed?

BROWNSTEIN: That's the thing. His constituency is not the changed part of the party, right?

BOYKIN: Exactly.

BROWNSTEIN: I mean, 60 percent of the voters in 2016 were older than 45.

LEMON: Right. Now?

BROWNSTEIN: And now it will probably be -- it will be around that. It's true for every community, African American, college whites, non- college whites. His audience are more, you know, kind of middle of the road, middle of the country, middle aged, white Democrats and then African American Democrats, especially those over 35 and so.

LEMON: That's what he said to me today. He said, I don't believe. I asked him, I said, has the party moved too far to the left? And he said, no, I think some of the candidates have moved too far to the left, but I think the party is a centrist party. Go on.

BOYKIN: I don't know if I agree with that statement. I understand where he's coming from with that. But I think the younger voters are farther to the left. I feel like I'm very, very progressive. I teach a class at Columbia University. My students are far more progressive than I am. They're talking about things I wasn't even thinking about, especially not as a college student.

That's the future, I think, of where the Democratic Party is going to be heading. So the question is who's going to tap in to those ideas and excite those types of voters? Yes, Joe Biden is going to get the solid turnout. He may be able to get some of the Republican voters and independent voters as well. But who is going to motivate the base of the party? And Joe Biden hasn't been the person yet to do that.

BROWNSTEIN: You look at some of the polling, him with young people. It is a little ominous for Democrats how little enthusiasm he has in the democratic base among younger Democrats. But the millennials and post-millennials in the party isn't the only thing that has changed in the Democratic Party. You have a lot of the center right white voters who traditionally voted Republican who are coming towards the Democrats because they can't abide Donald Trump and there's an issue as well of who is going to be able to hold them.

LEMON: Don't you think voters are moved by getting rid of Donald Trump?

BROWNSTEIN: They are. But in the primary, you know, they have a choice, right? And that's not going to be his constituency. He has a pretty good idea who his constituency is, you know. It's centered among African American voters, but it also includes some of these moderate and middle aged whites.

LEMON: He pushed back on not being able to go the distance from Bloomberg and Deval Patrick, whatever. He also pushed back on Lindsey Graham.

BROWNSTEIN: The Lindsey thing. I mean, go ahead.

BOYKIN: Lindsey Graham, OK. Well, the Lindsey Graham thing is really disturbed me. I saw your comments earlier about this, your conversation with Joe Lockhart. I just look back at some of the things that Lindsey Graham himself has said about Donald Trump and some of the things he has said about Joe Biden. And it's almost like it's a different person.

Lindsey Graham was calling Donald Trump a kook and unfit for office and a racist xenophobe just a few years ago and he was praising Joe Biden as being a great human being. Now it's exactly the opposite. He's investigating Joe Biden and exonerating Donald Trump. What happened to this guy?

BROWNSTEIN: On Patrick and Bloomberg, they're operating on the same theory, right, that Biden cannot go the distance, that he will collapse early. We'll know -- we'll know in South Carolina.

LEMON: I got to run. Thank you both. Happy Thanksgiving to you.

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.

LEMON: Happy Thanksgiving to you, as well. Oh, we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Detroit's economic struggles are well known and it remains the poorest big city in America. The U.S. Census Bureau says more than one-third of Detroit's residents and nearly half of the city's children live in poverty.

Well, one of this year's top 10 CNN heroes is working to change that. She's a nurse who found her mission while making a house call more than 20 years ago. Meet Najah Bazzy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NAJAH BAZZY, CNN HERO: Working as a nurse, I went to visit this Iraqi refugee family and an infant that was dying. And there at the house, they absolutely had nothing. There was no refrigerator. There was no stove. There was no crib. The baby was in a laundry basket. I decided that this wasn't going to happen on my watch.

How is your apprenticeship going?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pretty good.

BAZZY: Nurses are supposed to fix things. We are healers. And this is just a place that heals the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Najah has helped more than 250,000 women and their children in need in Detroit. Go to cnnheroes.com to vote for her for CNN hero of the year or any of your favorite top 10 heroes. Thanks for watching. Our coverage continues.