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Don Lemon Tonight

More Than 63,000 New COVID-19 Cases Today, U.S. Death Toll Passes 137,000; President Trump Shakes Up Campaign Leadership As He Struggles In Polls; Anthony Fauci Says He's Walking A Tightrope As People Try To Pit Him Against The President; New Police Body Cam Footage Reveals George Floyd's Last Words; President Trump and Ivanka Trump Post Pictures Endorsing Goya Foods. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired July 15, 2020 - 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, 11:00 p.m. here on the East Coast. Coronavirus surging out of control in the United States. Mostly across the south and southwest. Dr. Anthony Fauci expressing concern about the number of new cases being recorded daily in four hot spots, Florida, Texas, Arizona, and California.

Nationwide today more than 63,000 new COVID-19 cases reported. As of tonight, more than 137,000 Americans have died from the disease. And we have breaking news tonight on the Trump campaign. President Trump ousting Brad Parscale as campaign manager as new national polls show Trump trailing Joe Biden by double digits. Despite Parscale's demotion, Trump says he'll remain with the campaign to lead digital and data strategies.

Let's discuss now. Our White House correspondent, John Harwood and Amanda Carpenter is also with us, she is the former communications director for Senator Ted Cruz and the author of Gaslighting America. Amanda, I haven't seen you in a long time. It's so good to see you. Welcome back to the program. John, you're here every night, so, happy to see you.

John is having trouble, so I'm going to have to start with Amanda. Amanda, so I'm glad you're here, at least. So, we have seen multiple polls now showing Joe Biden with a double-digit lead over the president. They can change roles all they want, but can anyone fix this campaign? This is the president's own doing, correct?

AMANDA CARPENTER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, listen, the problem isn't that Donald Trump has a bad campaign. They're raising tons of money. They have a boatload of surrogates. The problem is that he has a bad presidency. And no -- no one, no (inaudible), not Kellyanne Conway, not Brad Parscale can spin the most important number of this election, and that's 100 -- at present, 130,000 dead and rising. And so what we need to see if Donald Trump wants to turn this around is to turn around his White House. And I have four words of advice. More Fauci, less Kayleigh.

LEMON: Wow. Why?

CARPENTER: People want real leadership. They want competence. They want expertise. We need it. We've been in lockdowns and quarantines since March. And it's like the White House woke up, looked at the calendar in July and said, oh, we better start thinking about school. And what was their plan? Well, open up five days a week. Figure it out according to these completely unworkable CDC guidelines. And if you don't, we'll take away your funding.

I mean parents I know, the first question when you talk to anybody is, what are you doing about school? What are you doing about school? I think a lot of people were good soldiers, you know, tried to suck it up, put on a brave face and got through the spring, but now you're looking at rolled back dates, September, October, school's not even opening.

There seems to be no end in sight and this has gotten completely away from Trump, and putting people like Dr. Fauci on the back burner really makes even the most ardent Republicans question him in their hearts.

LEMON: So, Amanda, I'm glad you're here because you were with me, you were with us in 2016, right? You talk about Kayleigh Mcenany. She was with us. Kellyanne Conway, she was with us as well. On the show almost every week.

Sometimes -- sometimes five nights a week, OK? So this is around the same time in 2016 the campaign, in the Trump campaign that they made the switch from Manafort to Bannon and Conway, remember? Just a coincidence? What's up here?

CARPENTER: Well, I mean, Manafort had some extenuating circumstances, like bad news stories saying that he got a boatload of money from Russian oligarchs. That's why it hit -- I believe that hit in August of 2016 --

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LEMON: I think it was around August 18th or something like that.

CARPENTER: Yes. Put Kellyanne Conway there. The question sort of is, Kellyanne Conway hasn't really taken an active role in the campaign. I feel like she's put this very concise lane for herself in the White House where she goes to the cameras if she wants to.

The problem is that there is just nobody that the public can trust, and so you take that away and then Donald Trump gives a rambling Rose Garden speech because apparently he can't do campaign rallies anymore. It's just where can you look to in Washington for guidance?

People really need guidance. This isn't just some who do you like better? Who would you rather have a beer with? It's I've been in my house for months. You know, my kids are asking me, are we going to have Christmas this year? I mean, that's happening. And, you know, a lot of people are viewing this election not as an election, but a countdown until we get change. LEMON: There's John Harwood, our White House correspondent. John, good

to see you. Glad that you can join us and you got the technical issues worked out. Tell us about how this campaign shake-up went down with Brad Parscale.

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, the president's been having problems for some time. He was -- has been behind Joe Biden for months. He's had some high-profile setbacks, in addition to simply being behind, like that Tulsa rally that Brad Parscale had touted as such a big deal and it turned out to be a dud.

The president had been complaining about his profile and the amount of money he was making from the campaign and the idea that he was calling in to campaign meetings from his pool in Florida and that he had a Ferrari and that kind of stuff.

So, that put a big target on his back. Of course Amanda is correct. The president's problems are substantive and they flow from him. There's never been a presidential candidate in the modern era who is so comprehensively directly personally responsible for his own standing as Donald Trump. Because that -- it has to do with his behavior, as well as his performance in office.

And what we've seen in the last few months is between the coronavirus, the racial justice protests. The economic fallout from the coronavirus, there has been an incredible storm of negativity around the country that's put people in the mood, as Amanda indicated, for change. And it's a very deep hole for him to get out of.

We've seen presidential campaigns make shake-ups in the past. Walter Mondale in 1984 installed a new campaign chairman just before his convention in 1984. The guy resigned a few days later. Mondale ended up getting hammered by Ronald Reagan. Both Al Gore and John Kerry replaced their campaign managers. That was in a pre-election year, though. This is very deep in the campaign to be making a change of this magnitude.

LEMON: We're glad that you finally got to join us, John. Thank you so much. Thank you, Amanda. Be safe. Both of you.

Now I want to bring in Dr. Jonathan Reiner, he's the Director of the Catheterization Program at George Washington University Hospital. Dr. Reiner, always a pleasure. Thank you, sir. In the middle of this deadly pandemic, the White House continues to attack our top infectious disease expert.

This is what Dr. Fauci said in a new interview published tonight, it's in instyle.com. He said, it's pretty tough walking a tight rope while trying to get your message out and people are trying to pit you against the president. This virus is killing hundreds of Americans a day and Dr. Fauci is dealing with this nonsense?

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: It's a terrible distraction. You know, what we need now is leadership. So, we haven't had leadership from the political sphere in Washington now for a long time. And that left us with the task force. But then the task force was sidelined. And now Dr. Fauci, who is really the only member of the task force who doesn't believe in spin, who tells it like it is, I think that comes from his Brooklyn background.

Now he's being pushed away because he's the person who is willing to tell the president what the president doesn't want to hear. But the public needs to hear that. And if you need to motivate the -- the public in hard-hit states to shut down, you need to -- they need to hear it straight. And they need to hear it straight from people like Tony Fauci. So it's incredibly dangerous to sideline him at this time in the pandemic.

LEMON: Dr. Fauci also said that he doesn't speak directly to the president anymore. And goes through the vice president. Is that concerning to you?

REINER: Well, do you think the vice president often goes into the Oval Office and tells Donald Trump what Donald Trump doesn't want to hear? I don't. But we need someone to do that. So, how do we know what the president is hearing?

[23:10:02]

Who is telling the president that the virus is out of control in the south and southwest? And now parts of the west? Who is telling him that? Who is telling the president, sir, we need to shut down large portions of the south and southwest? Is the vice president saying that? I don't think so.

LEMON: Doctor, Oklahoma's Republican Governor Kevin Stitt who aggressively pushed to reopen his state now has coronavirus. He was at Trump's Tulsa rally without a mask, but still won't impose a statewide mandate. Is this why this country is where it is?

REINER: Yes, absolutely, because we refuse to learn from our mistakes. You know, we got some things wrong in the first several weeks of this and then we learned the hard way. And you would think now that almost six months into our experience that we wouldn't make the same mistakes again. So, we didn't impose a recommendation for universal masking in the first two months of this pandemic and then we did.

Why now? In July are we still having this conversation? This is simple stuff. Simple stuff. We can put this virus down if you wear a mask. They have to do -- it has to do with community, right? There's a selfish streak that runs through us sometimes, and the selfish streak here manifests as individuals being unwilling to protect their neighbors.

And we need to hear it from our leaders. We need to hear unequivocally that you need to get tested, you need to wear a mask. If you get sick, you need to stay at home. That's how you defeat this virus. It's not that hard. We can do that. And we're starting to see some glimmers of hope from some of the governors, but we still have a long way to go.

LEMON: Dr. Reiner, thank you. I appreciate it.

REINER: My pleasure. Sure. LEMON: Now I want to go to Erica Hill with the latest on the states

where coronavirus is surging.

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ERICA HILL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Confirmed cases in Florida have now topped 300,000. In Miami-Dade County, where the positivity rate just hit 31 percent, the number of COVID-19 patients in one hospital system has jumped 226 percent in the last month.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're preparing for even more patients over the next couple of weeks.

HILL: Florida is one of 14 states reporting record hospitalization, 11 of those states are also seeing a rise in new cases over the past week.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: These alarming trends reflect behaviors from three weeks ago, and it will take several weeks to see if our behavior now, including the rollback of previously opened sectors, slows the spread of the virus.

HILL: Texas reporting a record number of deaths and new cases on Wednesday.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hundreds and thousands of people are dying in America today because we are distracted by issues that are not the central ones to controlling this virus. We got to get our act together.

HILL: At least 36 states now require a face covering in public. The latest to add a mandate, Alabama. Nationwide customers at Walmart and Kohl's can't shop without one starting Monday. In Charleston, bars and restaurants can now refuse service to anyone without a face covering.

MAYOR JOHN TECKLENBURG (D), CHARLESTON, SC: We've got to take this seriously. It matters to all of our citizens and it matters to our economy going forward.

HILL: Increasing concern about summer travel fueling the spread. And it's not just the northeast requiring visitors to quarantine. Chicago has a 14-day quarantine in place for travelers from 17 states. Canada will keep the border closed through late August.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We do not have a handle on this outbreak.

HILL: A new school year is just weeks away. One district in Arizona using these misters to disinfect classrooms. Philadelphia would use a hybrid model this fall. San Francisco will begin the year online. Houston schools will, too.

GRENITA LATHAN, HOUSTON ISO, INTERIM SUPERINTENDENT: I've had many sleepless nights, even up until this morning, wrestling with this decision. Given the threat of COVID-19, we will not put the health and safety of our students and staff at risk.

HILL: Local decisions gaining national attention as uncertainty grows about just what lies ahead. Erica Hill, CNN, New York.

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LEMON: Erica, thanks for that.

A single house party in Michigan being blamed for the spread of at least 48 cases of coronavirus. If you're thinking of going to a big party this weekend, don't. If you're still thinking about it, watch this.

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LEMON: Medical experts warning Americans over and over avoid large gatherings as coronavirus rages across parts of the country, yet there are actually people who are deliberately trying to get infected by throwing COVID parties. Here's what Dr. Fauci says about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALERGY AND INFECTOUS DISEASE: When I hear about these COVID parties, it just, you know, makes my head spin because when you get infected, what you're doing is you're not in a vacuum, you are part of the propagation of the outbreak and the chances are, we know statistically, that you're going to infect someone else who then is going to infect someone else.

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LEMON: Now officials in Michigan saying that they have identified at least 48 cases of COVID-19 that can be traced back to a large house party. The story now from CNN's Tom Foreman.

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TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The Fourth of July holiday fallout is landing hard in Michigan where officials say a single house party in the town of Saline has exploded into nearly 50 confirmed cases of COVID.

SUSAN RINGLER-CERNIGLIA, WASHTENAW COUNTY HEALTH DEPARTMENT: It sounds like from our investigation that there were some folks at the initial event with some mild illness, and that's probably one of the reasons that we've seen it spread so quickly.

FOREMAN: Indeed, authorities say the partygoers carried the virus to stores, restaurants, other businesses, a canoe rental place, camps, even connecting with athletic teams and a retirement community. Triggering confirmed infections in all of those locations, some even went to other states.

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RINGLER-CERNIGLIA: The case count does continue to go up. FOREMAN: Most of those infections hit people between the ages of 15 to

25, raising new concern about that huge lake party on the northern end of the state where health officials say people are also turning up with COVID, but Michigan is far from alone. In state after state, the warnings are stepping up from young people who have contracted the virus.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Take this seriously. It is not a joke.

FOREMAN: And officials who worry about environments that attract the young tired of being locked down. Parties, bars, concerts.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's just nothing about that environment that is conducive to slowing the spread of COVID-19.

MICHELLE ZYMET, ENTIRE FAMILY CONTRACTED CORONAVIRUS: He went to a, you know, someone's home. There was a few people there and I'm sure they were eating, drinking.

FOREMAN: Michelle Zymet's 21-year-old son went to a gathering of friends, came home. Now her whole family is COVID positive. Her husband John on a ventilator.

ZYMET: And it's scary that he's there all alone fighting for his life. And you let your guard down just one time. That's all it takes. And, look, you come home and you infect the entire house.

FOREMAN: This is precisely what health experts have worried about. People will go where they want to go and do what they want to do and potentially affect the health of dozens, if not hundreds of other people who did not make that choice. Don?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Tom Foreman, thank you so much.

CNN reviewing new body camera video of George Floyd's death. Our Omar Jimenez who has seen that video tells us what it reveals. Next.

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LEMON: Police body camera video viewed by CNN reveals what happened in the moments leading up to George Floyd's death. CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez joins me now. Omar, good evening to you. So let's start at the beginning here. This body cam footage starts with Officers Thomas Lane and Alexander Kueng responding to a call over a fake bill at the cut foods. What happens next?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Don. I literally counted less than 40 seconds after finishing a conversation with a store employee the officer, Officer Thomas Lane is literally pointing a gun in the face of George Floyd after knocking on the window of the car that he was in. Floyd is asking what he did. At one point he literally just puts his head on the steering wheel and just starts sobbing.

The officers, Kueng and Thomas Lane, are repeatedly asking Floyd to get out of the vehicle. Eventually they forcefully pull him out of the vehicle and struggle to get cuffs on him, which we see play out on video and then then begin to walk him across the street toward the squad car, toward where his eventual final moments unbeknownst to him would soon play out.

LEMON: So with the officer struggling to get Floyd into the vehicle, the body cam footage shows him fall to the ground in the position that we would later see him in that horrible cell phone video. Is that what happened?

JIMENEZ: That's right. So the first struggle was getting him out of the initial car, then the second and arguably bigger struggle came from trying to get him into the squad car. George Floyd said he was claustrophobic. He didn't want to get in. He offered to speak to the officers. Things escalate.

At one point, literally J. Alexander Kueng, one of the former officers, is pushing George Floyd in with all of his might on one side while Officer Lane is on the other side of the vehicle trying to pull him in. Eventually Floyd falls out on Lane's side.

Now, a little bit after that, now Tou Thao and Derek Chauvin have showed up, the other former officers in this. Chauvin has his hands on Floyd. They all go to the ground. And that's when we are seeing the infamously familiar position of Chauvin on George Floyd's neck.

Kueng on the mid-section of Floyd, Lane on the lower section as well. And at one point based on my observation, you actually see Chauvin lean into the pressure of his knee on Floyd's neck based on the body language that you see of him being upright with the knee on his neck and then sort of hunching over like that. Now, it is important that we did reach out to Chauvin's attorney but over the course of today, but they officially have no comment on that.

LEMON: Omar, thank you so much. I appreciate you joining us with that.

I want to bring in now Benjamin Crump, the attorney for George Floyd's family. Ben, good evening to you. As Omar reported, just a moment ago, 16 minutes into this body cam video, we hear what appears to be Floyd's last words when he says, man, I can't breathe. That wasn't included in the previously released transcript of Officer Lane. What is the family's reaction to all of this?

BENJAMIN CRUMP, ATTORNEY FOR THE FAMILY OF GEORGE FLOYD: Obviously, Don, they're devastated. You've met this family. You know it's very emotional. The fact that they are learning just how inhumane they were to George Floyd when they asked -- when he said I can't breathe, he was yelling I can't breathe, officer Chauvin says to him, Don, that, well, it takes oxygen to yell, quit yelling.

I mean, that's deliberate indifference. And that's what we filed in our lawsuit today because there is this pattern in policies of deliberate indifference to arrestees, especially black men in Minneapolis, Minnesota's police department.

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LEMON: You know, what's really striking, Ben, in the descriptions of the footages, how frightened George Floyd was while this was happening. Heartbreaking to hear about that.

BEN CRUMP, ATTORNEY FOR FLOYD FAMILY: Yeah. And Don, that's why we have to have transparency. I mean, you look at his face on the body camera images, when it's close up and personal, and you see the pain and the agony and the fear, the fact that he says I can't breathe 28 times, and he calls for his mama seven times, Don, we found out, like you said, the last thing he said, man, I can't breathe.

LEMON: Is Floyd's family satisfied with how the criminal case against the four officers arrested in George Floyd's death, how this is proceeding?

CRUMP: Well, Attorney General Keith Ellison has told them if there's no evidence that can sustain a first-degree murder charge, he will upgrade the charges. But right now, the family has confidence in General Ellison zealously prosecuting this case. It is our fervent belief that he should get full justice on the criminal side and the civil side now that we filed this federal wrongful death civil rights lawsuit.

The mayor and the city commissioner in Minneapolis who said all these things, now you can put your actions where your words are because, Don, we want to make it financially prohibitive that the police won't go out and wrongfully kill marginalized people and black people in America. That's what we want to achieve with this lawsuit.

LEMON: So, let's talk about the judge who is presiding over the case against these four former officers, refusing to allow news organizations to publish this footage. CNN and other media organizations have filed a motion to do that. Do you think that public deserves to see this footage, Ben?

CRUMP: Don, I think that's the purpose why we have body camera videos in the first place. As you and I have discussed on many occasions, it's about mistrust between communities of color and law enforcement. And so first, you have to have transparency plus accountability, and that's how we can finally bridge this distrust.

But if you're not going to even have transparency with the public, how can we take the legal system seriously? We have a precedence of Eric Garner, where he didn't even get a trial, and now five years later, they're still trying not to show us video and transparency. It's troubling, Don.

LEMON: Benjamin Crump, thank you, sir. I appreciate it.

CRUMP: Thank you.

LEMON: Nick Cannon fired by ViacomCBS today over anti-Semitic comments, comments he made just days after DeSean Jackson was called out for pushing similar conspiracy theories. What he said, the fallout, and why people need to keep speaking up about this. That's next.

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[23:35:00]

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LEMON: Nick Cannon has apologized for anti-Semitic comments he made on his podcast. Cannon had already been fired by ViacomCBS over a conversation with controversial hip-hop figure Professor Griff, a former member of the group "Public Enemy," where the two pushed anti- Semitic conspiracy theories.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PROFESSOR GRIFF, RAPPER AND AUTHOR: Let's look up the word "anti- Semitic."

NICK CANNON, TV HOST AND ACTOR: Right.

PROFESSOR GRIFF: Who are the Semitic people? And then we're going to get to the public enemy thing.

CANNON: Right.

PROFESSOR GRIFF: So I look up who are the Semitic people, and there is a list of Semitic people, and anyone can do this right now. You can look up who are the Semitic people, what are the Semitic languages.

CANNON: Right.

PROFESSOR GRIFF: Has absolutely nothing to do with any white people.

CANNON: Right.

PROFESSOR GRIFF: Not at all. So in order for me to be anti-Semitic, I'd have to be anti-black man, anti-black woman, anti-black people, anti-Africa, anti all of the people --

CANNON: Because the Semitic people --

PROFESSOR GRIFF: Are black people.

CANNON: -- are black people. So you all get that clarity. We're going to say that again. The Semitic people are black people.

PROFESSOR GRIFF: So I cannot be anti-Semitic.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So -- and then it went on to say other things. So let's talk about this. Political commentators David Swerdlick is here, Maria Cardona, Bakari Sellers. Bakari is the author of "My Vanishing Country." Good evening, one and all. Bakari, on the podcast, Cannon also endorsed anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that Jewish families control the banking and media industries. Give me your reaction to this latest incident, prominent black figure pushing anti-Semitic tropes.

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think when you look at it in the context of DeSean Jackson, when you look at it in the context of Stephen Jackson, when you look at Nick Cannon, when you look at Kanye West, when you look at Chance the Rapper over the last week, you see that ignorance and asinine thought and behavior had been something that's risen to the top.

I want to separate Nick and DeSean and Stephen Jackson just for a minute because those comments have no place and I believe personally they set the movement back. What you heard Nick Cannon say was not only ignorant and not only anti-Semitic, but it was actually ahistorical, as well.

[23:39:52]

SELLERS: And as someone who is out here calling out racism at every opportunity, somebody who is calling out institutional -- institutionalized systemic racism, I want Nick Cannon to simply understand that anti-Semitism, that this -- that this language has no place in our movement because it sets us back and it takes our eye off the ball.

Also, you know, brothers, especially the black boys, black brothers that I named, if you ever have a question, just DM me. Like, let's have a conversation. Let's have a conversation on the side. Let's -- let us actually hash this out.

We don't have to allow our ignorance to show. We don't have to have these conversations in public that are ahistorical. Let's actually sort this out before we get to this point.

LEMON: And this is by ahistorical, that means false. The history that they're talking about -- it's just not true.

SELLERS: Yeah, correct. It's not true. I mean, their rhetoric is not true. It's wrong. It's hateful. And like if anybody has any questions, I just -- i just rather us have this dialogue so that we don't have to show this out in front of the world when we're trying to have a movement to get people's knee off our necks.

LEMON: So, David, after initially not backing down, Cannon is apologizing to the Jewish community for the hurtful and divisive words tonight, saying that they reinforce the worst stereotypes of a proud and magnificent people. "I feel ashamed of the uninformed and naive place that these words came from."

So he seems to understand what Bakari and I were just talking about. Ahistorical that this is a false -- this is a rewriting of history, what he's talking about. Do you think he gets it now?

DAVID SWERDLICK, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't know, Don, and I don't know what he was thinking in the first place. I think it's good to apologize. Always better to admit you're wrong when you figure out that you were wrong. But just to follow up on what Bakari was saying, I think there are a couple of things at play here.

One, it's that, you know, in the moment, he was not, you know, exhibiting an understanding that if you're going to be against racism and you're going to be for black uplift, you have to be against all racism, including anti-Semitism because these things all go together.

I also think that, you know, I've seen some people defending Nick Cannon on social media, saying, well, he didn't say anything specifically anti-Semitic, but you don't have to use a slur to be anti-Semitic. If you're trafficking in these conspiracy theories that denigrate another race or religion or ethnic group, then that is anti- Semitic.

In terms of whether he gets it now, I think that, Don, you know, if I had to guess, he came out there with some half-baked information and wanted to sound like he was being deep and it turned out that he had more to learn. And again, it's good that he apologized.

And I don't know Nick Cannon. If I had to guess, I don't -- I bet he doesn't hate Jewish people. But what he said was anti-Semitic and now he's seeing some of consequences of people pushing back on that.

LEMON: And again, conspiracy theories, this is -- it's not true because there are a lot of people out there -- actually, I don't know how many. I shouldn't say a lot. But there are people out there who believe what they were saying is true, those conspiracy theories.

Maria, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wrote an op-ed in the Hollywood Reporter. It called "Where is the Outrage over Anti-Semitism in Sports and Hollywood?" He makes a point that if there is going to be outrage over systemic racism, there has to be more outrage over anti-Semitism. No one is free unless everyone is free, he says. Is he right?

MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: He is absolutely right, Don. And I think what this whole episode demonstrates is that you can't categorize your racism. If you believe that for some reason your race or your color makes you superior to another and in any way put down another race or another group of people simply because of who they are or how they look, that's racist, no matter what color you are.

And you need to -- and for people who are fighting against racism, this is the movement of the moment. Bakari is right. What Nick Cannon did is he set the movement back because this movement has so many allies now in the white community, in the Latino community, in every community.

Majority of Americans are now eyes wide open on this. These kinds of comments -- and when you don't call out racism in all of its forms and anti-Semitism is one of those, then you actually -- you do harm to the thousands and thousands of people who have been fighting against racism, against xenophobia, against anti-Semitism for so long.

So, yes, he is absolutely right, and it is incumbent upon all of us. We are all responsible to make sure we call it out in every form.

LEMON: Well, I think you said something that's really important. When you -- when you think that your race is superior to someone else, when you're having that sort of conversation --

SELLERS: Don --

[23:45:00]

LEMON: Hang on, Bakari. When you're having that sort of conversation, that -- that is what's at issue here, by saying who is the real Semitic and so on and so forth. Go ahead, Bakari. Sorry.

SELLERS: You know, Don, you and I have these conversations often. I want to be extremely clear. I don't want to ever go on national TV and play the oppression Olympics. It doesn't --

LEMON: You are reading my mind, Bakari. It's not an oppression Olympics, right?

SELLERS: Yeah, I don't want to sit here and say that, you know, I categorize my pain versus someone else's pain. I also -- it does me no -- I don't feel good coming on national TV and casting -- castigating and talking badly about another black man.

You know, one of the things we always say is that, you know, we can disagree with other black folk, but we'll never do it on national TV, right? So it takes that -- it takes that level, like Nick Cannon and Stephen Jackson and DeSean Jackson reached that level where I have to sit with you on national TV and say that this was wrong. I also want people to understand this one simple fact, though, that we are all in this together.

And as we -- as we say that Nick Cannon is wrong, we also have to begin a process of educating Nick Cannon because as he went down this pathway of this -- as David said, as he went down this pathway of being ahistorical, if anybody wants to talk about a relationship between Jewish people and black people and you don't mention names like Andrew Goodman and Mickey Schwerner, then you're not actually understanding that we're all in this together.

And so I want to use this as an opportunity, as DeSean Jackson has used, to emerge from this, to learn, to grow together and be better. And black people and black men with a platform, my pledge and my echo to you is, use your platform. We deserve better. We have to be better.

LEMON: Yeah. I have to say, I agree with you 100 percent. And from his apology, it seems that he is trying to do what DeSean Jackson did. And I will say to Nick, I've been trying to get in touch with you. Come on this program. Say your piece. Everybody, stick around. We're going to talk about the president and this picture of the Goya products in the Oval Office. That's next.

[23:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) LEMON: So with the pandemic raging, the president is taking the time to give a big thumbs-up to Goya, after the company's CEO sparked a backlash and boycott when he praised President Trump in a Rose Garden event last week.

First, Ivanka. Ivanka Trump tweeted a photo of herself holding a can of Goya beans with the words, "If it's Goya, it has to be good," in English and in Spanish. Then, today, the president posted a photo on Instagram, smiling with Goya products laid out on the resolute desk.

Back with me to discuss, David Swerdlick, Maria Cardona, and we are going to try to get Bakari back. He has got a technical issue. So Maria, there had been widespread calls to boycott Goya after the CEO praised Trump. But the president claims in a tweet today that the company is doing great. Now, the president and Ivanka are displaying these products like they're game show prizes. What's up with that?

CARDONA: It's, again, so bizarre. Look, the backlash to Goya is real. It was fast, it was furious, and it was fierce, as it should have been. What Robert Unanue did to praise the president at the White House was a slap in the face and a spear in the heart of the Latino community, who have been denigrated, dehumanized, and devalued since the moment that this president came onto the scene announcing his campaign, when he called Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals.

Then, his obsession with the wall, then his policy at the border of ripping babies from the arms of their mothers and putting kids in cages, when he wants to completely get rid of any kind of immigration from Latin American countries. I mean, the list goes on and on. We have talked about this nonstop.

And for Robert Unanue to say we are blessed to have a leader like Trump when, in fact, the majority of the Latino community, frankly, the majority of America, believes we are cursed or he wouldn't have the numbers he does, it is such a big disconnect. And then, of course, when Trump and Ivanka, you know, take pictures of themselves with Goya, it is yet another slap in the face of what Latinos have been suffering at the hands of the president.

LEMON: David, the president or his daughter, a senior-government advisor, have any business hawking Goya products from the White House or anywhere for that matter?

SWERDLICK: No, Don. They shouldn't be hawking a commercial product from the White House, a White House employee, who is also the president's daughter, and the president of the United States. It's crossing a line.

But I think bigger picture, part of the problem is that what we've known now for three and a half years from Trump, is that this is the kind of culture war got-ya game that President Trump and the people around him like playing best.

Robert Unanue, the president of Goya, has the right to say whatever he wants. We have freedom of speech. But then, the people who have been purchasing and patronizing his products have -- if they feel offended by what he says, have a right to say, hey, hashtag, we're not going to buy Goya products anymore. And then, the cycle goes on.

And where the administration, particularly the president, likes to jump in is to say, oh, now, were are going to support Goya products and say that anybody who doesn't support Goya products is against free speech, is for censorship, is things that all Latinos have to think the same, they're the real racists and it spirals on like that.

[23:55:02]

SWERDLICK: And this is something that gins up their base. That gets people who are -- who value Trump because he is a fighter against political correctness, gets them excited, serves no one, mischaracterizes free speech, and is obviously a distraction from what the president should be doing which is addressing a global public health nightmare. It's -- you know, it's just -- it's really sort of pathetic, quite honestly.

LEMON: Bakari, I'm glad you're back, but we're out of time. Thank you.

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: And we all have to keep in mind. Listen. There is a difference between the so-called cancel culture and accountability. OK?

CARDONA: That's right.

SWERDLICK: Right.

LEMON: So, thank you all.

SELLERS: So you're cancelling me? You're cancelling me, Don?

LEMON: I held you accountable for your technical difficulties. Thank you very much.

SELLERS: Oh.

LEMON: Thanks for watching, everyone. Our coverage continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)