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Don Lemon Tonight

Nearly 141,000 United States Deaths From Coronavirus, 31 States See Increase In New COVID-19 Cases; President Trump Says Southerners Love The Confederate Flag; President Trump Touts Masks After Downplaying Them For Months; President Trump Says He'll Resume Coronavirus Briefings; Some Republicans Push Back On White House Proposal To Zero Out Funding For COVID Testing And Tracing; Florida Educators Filed Lawsuit Against Requiring Districts To Reopen Schools. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired July 20, 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. As of tonight, nearly 141,000 Americans have died from coronavirus. At least 31 states are seeing an increase in new cases as compared to just last week. And a top health official in the Trump administration confirming that states across the Sun Belt are being hit the hardest by the virus. Florida reporting more than 10,000 new cases just today.

At least, 50 hospitals in Florida have run out of ICU space and Miami- Dade County, which has been especially hard hit by coronavirus, ICU capacity is now at 131 percent while President Trump is now encouraging Americans to wear masks after refusing to do so for months. The Republican Governor of Maryland is taking a swipe at the administration tonight. Governor Larry Hogan saying, there are growing indication that COVID-19 funding is no longer a priority for the White House.

And when November's election now less than four months away. President Trump doubling down, using race to appeal to his base, especially when it comes to the confederate flag, will it work? We are going to talk about it in the hour ahead. Joining me now is CNN's White House correspondent John Harwood. John good evening to you, thank you so much. Coronavirus, the cases are really spiking all over the U.S. but that is not why the president is changing his mind on masks and task force briefings, give me the real reason.

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, we know the real reason, it's because we have had two polls in the last five days or so, that show him down 15 points to Joe Biden. When you are an incumbent president seeking re-election, and you are getting hammered that badly, the only thing you can do is change course.

He fired his campaign manager a few days ago and now he is reinstituting the coronavirus briefings. And he tweeted out a picture of himself wearing a mask, and sort of, kind of, embraced mask wearing as something that patriotic Americans should do.

He put it in the mouths of other people, and many people say that is what you should do. But, I think you have to look at both of those developments and say, whatever the motivation, and Donald Trump's motivation is always what is good for Donald Trump, as opposed to other people, these are positive steps forward for the effort to contain the coronavirus to the extent that some people in the country will take their cues from President Trump and react accordingly. That is something that every American can be grateful for.

LEMON: OK, so, he, you know, you heard him earlier saying, it's a great time slot, and you know, the ratings are through the roof and so on. Can we --

HARWOOD: Right.

LEMON: You know, can we actually -- can we expect to actually hear from medical experts at this briefing tomorrow or will it be more lying and sugar coating from the president, and it this will be just about Donald Trump and re-election?

HARWOOD: Well, I think it will be both. I think, Donald Trump as he indicated, enjoys the showmanship, enjoys the time slot, enjoys the eyeballs looking at him. He may imagine that it's good for re- election, but of course, we know, that his performance since usually if he talks for an extended period in front of a camera, and gets serious questions, the results don't make him look very good as we saw with Chris Wallace over the weekend.

And so, those briefings actually hurt his re-election chances and that's why they stopped doing it. Nevertheless, they are going to start doing them and I think that because they are starting, and because there's so much pressure from states around the country, including some Republican politicians who has typically supported the president, I think there's going to be some expert testimony and expert discussion, Deborah Birx, Tony Fauci, Robert Redfield, people like that, I don't know which of those individually will speak, but I do think they can't afford to start this and just have President Trump get up there and deliver the nonsense about testing and cases being harmless and all that that he has been doing for several weeks.

LEMON: Yes, the sniffles, you know, let me ask you, you brought up the Chris Wallace interviews, I don't know if you are hearing anything -- are you hearing anything from the White House, or do they actually think that was a good look for the president, because -- not so much.

HARWOOD: Nobody thinks that was a good look for the president. He -- his answers were often incoherent. He didn't always track the questions. He would, Chris would ask him a question and he would repeat something back and say, well, you said this. Well, that's not what Chris said actually.

[23:05:10]

And calling on aids to provide information to refute Chris when there actually was no information to refute Chris, it was, it, may have been somebody's idea of how you turn the president around, put him out there on Fox News with their most, one of the most capable interviewers, but the results were not pretty for the president.

LEMON: No, not at all. And Chris did a great job on that, I have to say.

Also, tonight, the president said that he will, he will send federal law enforcement to cities run by liberal Democrats. He claims this is about law and order, but David Axelrod, who I talked to in just in the last hour, he thinks this is a 2020 version of his caravan, or his wall. What do you think?

HARWOOD: I think David's exactly right. The president is clearly in the case of Portland, escalating rather than deescalating the situation. This president imagines that he can recreate the silent majority of 50 years ago, in the same way that Richard Nixon and conservatives did at that time. Appeals to racism, among whites, and imagining the forceful put downs of protests, billy clubs and tear gas are going to galvanize, galvanize the silent majority.

That is not the America we live in anymore. We ran that experiment just out front of the White House some weeks ago when the president set federal troops or federal officers to rough up peaceful protesters and move them out so the president could walk and wave a bible in front of the church.

That was a signal event in his political decline. That was, that was an event that damaged the president. Nevertheless, he has a fantasy in his mind that this kind of old school political formula, is going to work for him. And there's no evidence in the polling to suggest that it will.

LEMON: It's this, John, I'm so glad that you bringing up the caravan, remember that whole thing that the hoard, the caravans are coming to get you and then -- that was a promise in 2016 or whatever, that was the tactics in 2016 and then the wall -- hardly any of the wall has been built, it's just been dilapidated wall that they are replacing. But I'm glad you reminded our viewers of the caravan and the wall -- thank you -- that Mexico was supposed to pay for by the way. Thank you, John, I appreciate it. I'll see you soon.

HARWOOD: Exactly.

LEMON: I want to bring in now, Andy Slavitt, he is the former acting administrator at the Centers for Medicate and Medicaid Services. Andy, good evening to you. Some Republicans are pushing back on the White House proposal to cut out funding for coronavirus testing and tracing. Why would anyone support this plan?

ANDY SLAVITT, FORMER ACTING HEAD OF THE HEALTH CARE FOR THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION, HOST, IN THE BUBBLE: Well, it's crazy. I think, you know, just to keep recap on what is going on. There's, we are now testing a -- only fraction, the CDC estimates maybe about 10 percent of the people that have cases. That means that it is growing by asymptomatic spreaders all over the country. And until that's under control, we cannot stop anything. So, the Congress is proposing and the House passed the bill asking

that we pass pressures to give us more testing capability, the ability to do contact testing and the president has said that he doesn't want any money for that. I think he thinks it is going to make him look bad and I think he feels that he wants America to turn another direction. I'm not sure which direction would be that will go away. And Republican governors -- Democratic Governors are sitting with the problem in their hands, saying that is going to lead to more death.

LEMON: Yes. We are learning that test results are lagging by up to two weeks in some cases, Andy. How is testing still a problem this many months in to this pandemic?

SLAVITT: Well, the original sin in this case, not to take a phrase that belongs somewhere else of course is, that you have a White House who decided to not accept responsibility. And the White House essentially said from the beginning, that it was the states that were going to have to take care of testing and that is because the president or the White House knew they were going to run out of supplies, the whole swabs and reagents.

So, here we sit in July with the exact same problem we had in March. Which is we don't have enough PPE for people in hospitals and we don't have the ability to test because they have not taken accountability. And so this is just going to mean we are going to have less visibility, we are going to lose more people, if things are going to spread out of control and of course, the economy won't be able to kickback up again.

LEMON: And it didn't have to be this way.

The president tweeting about masks. That's encouraging, but you say, you know, so much for, so much more, I should say, is needed than just tweeting about a mask and that he wore it at a hospital, by the way, which was, we are told, that they created you know, a space for him to have to wear this mask.

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SLAVITT: It's been in negotiation with his staff. I talked to the staffer today that persuaded him to make that tweet. And my comment to him was, you got one day in a row. And he laughed. Because the truth is, that you know, you can kind of out of bad moment or a good moment persuade the president to do something that is against his judgment because he thinks it's good for him or because you convince him.

And he does it in kind of a way that sort of demeans it as he does it by saying some people say. And then see the next day, he will run the other direction. I think that's exactly what happened when they put out a plan on how to reopen the country and of course the very next day, the president tweeted, liberate Michigan, liberate Minnesota, and essentially winking at everybody.

LEMON: Yes. So, let's talk about this early results from the Oxford vaccine. It shows both safe and induced as an immune response. Induce immune response. Reduce I should say immune response. What does it mean for the race to find a coronavirus vaccine?

SLAVITT: Well, I talked to a number of the people who have seen the data, both that data and the Moderna data and indeed, you know, creating a response is what you want to see. Now, what we don't know, is that how long will that response last? And we don't know if that response will reduce the severity of coronavirus or eliminate it entirely.

Nevertheless, its good news and I think we should treat it as part of a coming arsenal of things. Including convalescent plasma, including vaccines that will be here, I think in the U.S. probably sometime in 2021. But certainly our scientists are to be applauded for the job that they've done already.

And so, you know, it's going to be two steps forward, one step back. I think we should make sure to get too excited every time we see good data, but I think we are going to get there.

LEMON: Yes. I should say, I want to make sure that it's clear, that it's safe and induced an immune response. You understood what I was saying, right?

SLAVITT: I did.

LEMON: Thank you, Andy, I appreciate it, thank you so much. Now, I want to go to Nick Watt with the latest on the dire situation in Florida.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A better option, because --

NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: In Florida -- the Governor was heckled today. Florida's average death toll doubled these past two weeks. Monete Hicks lost two of her children to COVID-19. Brian Francis and McKayla, in the space of 11 days.

MONETE HICKS, LOST SON AND DAUGHTER TO CORONAVIRUS: I honestly can't say where they got this virus from because they basically was home bound. I mean the only thing we went to Orlando for a vacation. And all of a sudden, they came home sick. Wear your mask. If you don't have to come out. Stay home.

WATT: But the Governor still won't mandate masks. So in Miami, the city will find those with uncovered faces.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's bizarre that we have turned mask wearing in to something political. Imagine you were an alien coming to the planet earth. You would be totally astounded, puzzled and amazed, you wonder what is going on here.

WATT: Nationally we are now seeing three times the number of new cases every day compared to mid-June, and nearly 60,000 Americans are right now, hospitalized with COVID-19. Getting close to the grim record set back in April. ADM. BRETT GIROIR, HHS ASSISTANT SECRETARY: There's no question that

we are having a surge right now, it really is all hands on deck. This is serious. But we know how to stop this.

WATT: And in this graph, there might be some optimism, average new case counts are flattening just a little in our hot spots, California, Arizona, Florida, and Texas. Let's hope that holds a possible reason?

DR. ALISON HADDOCK, EMERGENCY ROOM PHYSICIAN, PUBLIC HEALTH DISASTER: Since the mask order went in to place, I have seen more people in my community who are wearing masks, who are doing more social distancing. I think some of this individual behavior changes are driving some of the improvement that we are seeing.

WATT: As New York City moves in to phase four opening today, Governor Andrew Cuomo has a message aimed at young party goers.

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): I'm telling you in plain New York speak, as a born and bred New Yorker, it's stupid what you are doing. It is stupid. Don't be stupid. What they are doing is stupid. And reckless, for themselves and for other people and it has to stop.

WATT: And he has a message for police departments. Make people wear masks.

CUOMO: They have to enforce the law. That is the only line between anarchy and civilization.

WATT: Nick Watt, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: All right, Nick, thank you very much for that. Next, answers to questions about kids, and the coronavirus.

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How can we make our schools safe? I will ask an expert.

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LEMON: Florida teachers, suing to overturn Governor Ron DeSantis' emergency order forcing schools in that state to reopen. That as we learn more about what role kids play in the spread of the coronavirus. Let's discuss now, from former Harvard Medical School Professor, William Haseltine. He is the author of the new e-book.

It's called "A Family Guide to COVID." And it is much needed so, doctor, thank you. Professor, I should say, thank you so much for joining. You talked in the e-book about how virus transmits in children.

The virus transmit in children, now researchers in South Korea have found that children between the ages of 10 and 19 can transmit the virus just as much as adults and that children nine and under transmit the virus at a lower rate. What does that mean though for reopening schools?

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DR. WILLIAM HASELTINE, CHAIR AND PRESIDENT ACCESS HEALTH INTERNATIONAL: Well, I think that every parent knows about cold viruses. And this is a cold virus for the very bad habit. We know, if you send your kids to school, they come back with colds and they give those colds to you? That is exactly what happens with this virus too.

And what the Korean study shows, is yes, kids nine to 19, spread the virus like adults, but kids a little bit younger, don't spread it so rapidly, but the catch there is they have three times as many contacts as the older people.

So it averages it out the spread about the same. And as you've heard earlier in your program today and reread across the country, young children are getting severely ill and unfortunately some are dying.

LEMON: I want to play this for you. This is Missouri's governor, what he said today about the kids going back to school. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. MIKE PARSON (R-MO): These kids have got to get back to school, they are at the lowest risk possible. And if they do get COVID-19, which they will, and they will when they go to school. They are not going to the hospitals. They are not going to have to set in doctor offices. They are going to go home and they are going to get over it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: What do you think of that, is that message dangerous--

HASELTINE: I think he should talk to the mother who just lost her children. I have friends whose son, grandson barely made it. Just barely made it. They rushed him to the hospital, he needed six people to attend him, to get him back alive. And he was in the hospital for weeks and he will have heart damage for the rest of his life. This is not a joke.

So, let me say, there's a very thorough study that everybody should take look at. Our national academy of sciences which includes medicine, science and engineering put out a detailed report on the question of should kids go back to school? And I have to say, the most unsettling part of that is it admits outright, we don't know the answers.

And therefore, if you don't know the answers you don't proceed blindly. There's something else I would like to say that I talked about in the book a lot. And that is a hierarchy of risk. People when they considering to send their kids back to school should think, first of all, what is the risk? How many people around me are infected? You can find that out by looking at your zip code or your county? How many people are there, if it's more than one or two per zip code, you could be in trouble? The second thing is, do I have a risk? Am I sick? Is my kids sick?

Does he have diabetes? Is he over weight, does he have asthma or does anybody in my family have that that is at higher risk? Then you start to look at the schools. And I can tell you, that there is no guidance and the national academy of reports said the same thing. There is no federal guidance. There's a very vague rules and some very vague questions. And it's driving teachers and parents completely nuts.

They don't know, we have some answers in our book. And I'm writing a new book on the topic of how you decide what to do for your kids in school. For both your k-6 and your k-12, which are two different kinds of problems. But it is a huge problem that I think this is going to be the tipping point where people don't think mostly about politics, they think about their kids. Is this world safe for my kids and who has made it safe and who has made it more dangerous?

LEMON: Professor, thank you for your time, I appreciate it.

HASELTINE: Thank you.

LEMON: Protests by professional athletes against racial injustice is spreading tonight. Several players and coaches for the San Francisco Giants including their new manager Gabe Kapler, taking a knee during a national anthem before the team's exhibition game tonight against the rival Oakland A's. Kapler has spoken out about racial issues and athletes roles in sparking change.

President Trump doubling down on divisive rhetoric, stirring up culture wars as the election nears. But is he stereotyping his own supporters?

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LEMON: Need to report some breaking news to you right now. President Trump's former attorney, Michael Cohen, is suing Attorney General Bill Barr. Cohen is alleging that Barr's sent him back to prison as retaliation for a tell-all-book he is writing about his years as Trump's fixer.

Cohen calls it a violation of his free speech right and he is seeking his immediate release from prison. President's former attorney, Michael Cohen, suing Attorney General Bill Barr over free speech according to Cohen, about a book that he is writing.

We will continue to follow that story and give you updates as we get it. Now I want to turn to the 2020 presidential election. Less than four months away. Can you believe it? The president doubling down on a tactic that has work for him so far and that promoting divisive or racist rhetoric in an effort to appeal to his base. Like for instance, going on Fox News to appeal to southern voters who he claims love their confederate flag. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: When people proudly have their confederate flag, they are not

talking about racism, they love their flags, it represents the south. They like the south. People right now, like the south. I say, it's freedom of many things, but its freedom of speech.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[23:30:00]

LEMON: So let's discuss now. Liam Donovan is a Republican strategist and a former National Republican Senatorial Committee aide. And Mitch Landrieu is here, as well. He is a CNN political commentator and former mayor of New Orleans, of course. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining.

So, Mayor Landrieu, I'm going to start with you. People right now like the south, he says, you know, what does the south mean to this president?

MITCH LANDRIEU, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, FORMER NEW ORLEANS MAYOR: Well, the president has a misunderstanding of what the south is, what people believe, where they came from, and what we revere. People from the south are patriotic. We can certainly tell the difference between people that are trying to rip the United States of America apart for the cause of preserving slavery and those that are not.

I'm a white guy, I'm from the south, and I don't remember the confederacy well at all. I don't think that represents who we are in the south. What he is doing is, again, trying to recapture the southern strategy that was implemented by President Nixon. There's a long sorted history about it.

I think people in America can see through this really, really clearly. I don't think they are going to buy it this time. I think people understand what the confederacy was about. And this is not about the First Amendment. This is about what America is, who we are as people, what we trust, what we believe in, and what we think is good for the country.

LEMON: Listen. It's your personal business. If you want to fly a confederate flag at your home, that's your business, right? If you want to carry it around, you want to wear -- that is your own personal business. The difference is people are saying it shouldn't be affront in businesses and federal buildings and that's the difference, right?

LANDRIEU: Well, there's a clear difference. I mean, everybody has got a First Amendment right to say what they want, when they want, so long as the reach of your fist does not meet my nose in terms of your personal behavior.

But in terms of the government, putting monuments on public property in reverence of the confederacy, it is a completely different story, or having the names of army or marine or navy bases named after confederate soldier who sought to destroy the country. The public can tell the difference between two. The president is doing what the president does. We know who he is. The question is who are we? That's what this -- that's not what this election is going to be about.

LEMON: Liam, I want to bring you in now because you've quoted in The New York Times, The New York Times article titled "Trump Promotes Caricature of What Conservatives Want."

Here is what you said. "His intimate connection with the base is one of shared grievance, but when it comes to what they're for, it inevitably comes off like a cartoon version of what a New York billionaire would think conservatives believe."

Are you saying that he is stereotyping his own base, Liam?

LIAM DONOVAN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST, FORMER NATIONAL REPUBLICAN SENATORIAL COMMITTEE AIDE: Well, I think when he makes these sorts of comments, whether it's about the confederate flag, whether it's about how we should treat, you know, abortion, he says things that come across both as instancy and as tone deaf.

He doesn't quite -- you know, he hasn't thought through these issues. He doesn't have any sense of sort of nuance. He just comes in there with this sort of hand-fisted lines that don't connect in the same way that it does when he is, you know, throwing haymakers at enemies that Republicans share.

So, I think that is where he is on shakier ground. It's showing in an environment like this where you need more than just harnessing anger because people are scared, people are concerned about their jobs, they are concerned about their health and their safety.

And so I think, you know, this is something that worked in 2016, a time of relative peace and prosperity against someone who can project all these negative feelings on. It's a lot harder in this environment where the fundamentals are turned upside down. We are in a profound state of disruption. He is running against somebody who is a relatively, you know, sort of vanilla figure that is much harder to turn into a super villain.

LEMON: Mayor, from the start, Trump has uttered some of the most blatantly racist sentiments. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

D. TRUMP: When Mexico sends its people, they are not sending their best. They are bringing drugs. They are bringing crime. They are rapists.

They didn't put themselves down as neo-Nazis, and you had some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): Why do you keep calling this the Chinese virus? There are reports of dozens of incidents of bias against Chinese Americans in the country. D. TRUMP: Because it comes from China.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): So what you're saying is racist.

D. TRUMP: It's not racist at all.

CATHERINE HERRIDGE, CBS NEWS SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Why are African Americans still dying at the hands of law enforcement in this country?

D. TRUMP: And so are white people. So are white people. What a terrible question to ask. So are white people. More white people, by the way. More white people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So, listen. People think it's a strategy. I mean, could it -- isn't it that the president is just really racist?

LANDRIEU: I think that there's no question that he is. And this is really simple. This is not hard. When you judge people not based on their behavior, individual behavior, but you judge them based on the color of their skin, you judge them based on their religion, you make broad characterizations of them because of immutable characteristics.

[23:35:06]

LANDRIEU: That is the very essence of racism. It all comes from the same fruit of the poison, the tree of hatred. People know what that's like. Americans are not foolish, notwithstanding this very difficult time that way. And I have a great faith in the American people, that when called into this moment, they are going to do what they have been called to do.

We have sorted events in our history based on race and it really is it's troubling to have that amount of vitriol coming from the most powerful person in the world. It is clear that President Trump issues the power of the presidency to divide us. That is not what the power is supposed to be used for.

And I think the people of America are going to turn away from that. I don't think they are going to be susceptible to it although there are certain elements of our community that are susceptible to it. But I don't think it's going to work this time.

LEMON: Liam, listen. I am up against the wall because I have the breaking news here. But quickly, what is he going to have to do to turn these poll numbers around? It's hitting like -- quit doing things that he is doing now?

DONOVAN: Well, it's an approach of just trying to sit, tweet law and order, and beat Joe Biden up as, you know, the second coming of, you know, the sort of arch leftist. It is not just convincing. I think he needs to stand up and try to convince people that he is serious about getting this virus under control, keeping them safe, and trying to turn things back around for this country.

LEMON: All right. Thank you, Liam. Thank you, mayor. I appreciate it. President Trump is threatening to send federal law enforcement to cities of democratic leadership, including Chicago. Is it an abuse of power? Former DNI James Clapper is going to weigh in, next.

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[23:40:00]

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LEMON: President Trump is addressing the deployment of federal forces to Portland and saying more could be on the way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

D. TRUMP: We are looking at Chicago, too. We are looking at New York. Look at what is going on. All run by Democrats. This is worse than Afghanistan by far. This is worse than anything anyone has ever seen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So Chicago's mayor, Lori Lightfoot, responding tonight, saying on Twitter, "Mr. President or not, I don't care one bit what your name is. I will not allow troops in Chicago, and I will do everything in my power to stop you."

Let's talk to CNN National Security Analyst James Clapper now, the former director of National Intelligence. Director, thank you so much for coming on to discuss this topic. It's very important. It appears that President Trump may already be ramping up this campaign.

CNN is reporting that DHS is preparing to send 150 agents to Chicago for up to 60 days. And this new deployment really has you worried about what is happening in America, doesn't it?

JAMES CLAPPER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST, FORMER DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: It absolutely does, Don. I think this is scary. It's chilling. And you know, I watched the earlier segment when you interviewed Mayor Wheeler of Portland. And some of the images there kind of reminded me of John Lewis, you know, a great icon that we just lost in his struggle on the bridge in Selma.

I read a New York Times report tonight about United States Naval Academy commission officer graduate who had previously kind of ignored the demonstrations and saw fit to show up because he was so concerned about it, confronted one of the toy soldiers and said, ask them about his compliance with the Constitution.

And the response was, he got struck in his right hand with a baton and he got peppered sprayed. This is the sort of thing that goes on in banana republics or, you know, Hitler's SS or something. This is really scary.

And the nightmare scenario that concerns me is if -- let's just for the sake of discussion, not that I, you know, suggesting or know that it's going to happen -- is suppose Governor Pritzker, for example, in Illinois, decides to call out the National Guard, his own Illinois National Guard to protect the citizens of Chicago against these federal marauders, this is I guess the president's own version of martial law since the real military is kind of pushed back from doing that.

To me, it is a great concern.

LEMON: When you talk about third world countries and you mentioned Hitler tactics, you mean the tactics, not the beliefs, right?

CLAPPER: Yes, that's what I'm talking about.

LEMON: Yeah.

CLAPPER: The tactics. This is just not supposed to happen in this country.

LEMON: Yeah.

CLAPPER: And, you know, think about the legacy of John Lewis and what he was striving for, and then here we are in 2020, we haven't got there yet.

LEMON: Yeah. Listen. And some of the tactics that we are seeing from federal forces in Portland, I mean, quite honestly, they are brutally violent. Look at this. We are also seeing protesters snatched up by unidentified officers. Keep in mind that this is all being done on American soil to people exercising their right to protest.

And this administration is saying let's do more of this in more places. As you said, this isn't supposed to happen in America, but they are saying let's do more in more places.

[23:45:00]

CLAPPER: Well, yeah, but it's only going to be in democratic- controlled places. You know, we are not going to interfere with any of the Republican governors who are mismanaging the response to the pandemic. That's OK. We lost needlessly thousands of lives.

But in this case, you know, once again, play to the base, and use these extraordinary tactics. To me, it's just -- just speaking as a private citizen, it's a great concern.

LEMON: Yeah. Hey, listen, the incident that you mentioned earlier, director of the man wearing the navy shirt, we have it. We can discuss that. Let's play it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey! Hey! Hey!

LEMON (voice-over): Yeah, wow. I mean, when you look at that, are these federal officers abusing their oaths of office?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CLAPPER: Well, I certainly believe they are. And I also think this reflects -- these people have not been trained for this kind of a mission. They are dressing up like soldiers but they are not behaving that way. And in my view, they are violating their oath when they behave like that. I think it is absolutely reprehensible.

LEMON: Director, thank you so much. I will see you soon.

CLAPPER: Thanks, Don.

LEMON: Thank you. Oregon's attorney general, while suing several federal agencies over the actions taken against protesters in Portland, she joins me, next.

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LEMON: Federal forces are continuing to respond to protests with extreme violence this weekend. But President Trump says his officers are trying to help Portland, not hurt it.

Joining me now is Ellen Rosenblum, the attorney general of the state of Oregon. Thank you, attorney general. I appreciate you joining. You said that the president is getting bad intelligence if he thinks the presence of federal officers is not making things worse in Portland.

ELLEN ROSENBLUM, OREGON ATTORNEY GENERAL: Correct. You know, Don, every American needs to be concerned about what's happening here in Portland. As has already been noted, we're not the first city where this is going to happen.

This -- by bringing these troops into Portland and that's basically what they are, they're untrained troops, they don't know how to deescalate tense situations. We certainly have had some of that over the past couple of months.

Instead, they are escalating the problems here. And whatever intelligence the president is getting is just absolutely wrong. He needs to take these guys out of here, send them back home.

Don't send them anywhere else because I wouldn't wish that upon any other city in this country. This is all a political ploy and it is not only not doing good, it is doing harm, doing harm to the people of my state and my inner city.

LEMON: Attorney general, I have to say you've actually filed a lawsuit against DHS, the Marshal Service, CBP, and the Federal Protection Service. You say their actions --

ROSENBLUM: Yeah.

LEMON: -- violate the civil rights of Oregonians. Explain why you felt this lawsuit was necessary.

ROSENBLUM: Well, they are violating the United States Constitution. You know, the Constitution has not been suspended for federal agents any more than it is for anyone else. They are violating the First Amendment. This is a prior restraint on our peaceful protesters' ability to get out at night and to protest police brutality, to protest racial injustice.

They are also violating the Fourth and the Fifth Amendment of the United States constitution. So we had to bring this lawsuit for the reason that the people of Oregon are being harmed. And I'm the attorney general and it's my job as the top legal officer of the state to ensure the safety and also the legal rights of our citizens.

But also to send a message to Mr. Trump and to these federal agencies that they need to stop thinking that they can come and do good here. In fact, what they're doing is not only violating the Constitution by these acts of, you know, jumping out of vehicles, unmarked, rental vans, and grabbing people off the streets, but they are also causing physical harm.

They're actually causing physical harm. You just showed a video. And that particular gentleman, that case has now been included in a criminal investigation that I have opened here in Oregon.

LEMON: Yeah. In your suit, you specifically mentioned an instance where unidentified federal law officers arrest an individual, whisked him away in an unmarked van, similar to the one that we are showing on the screen now. Is the lack of transparency with these detainments part of the reason you think there is such a problem?

ROSENBLUM: Well, certainly a problem in that these federal agents haven't even indicated who they are. And, here, in Oregon, we've had some issues with some right-wing folks who come dressed similar to what these agents look like.

So Mr. Pettibone didn't even know -- that is the gentleman you're referring to -- he didn't even know who they were and he was whisked away. This beanie he was wearing was pulled over his face. He was taken away. He didn't even know where he was being taken to. And then he was released about an hour or two later after asserting his right to remain silent.

LEMON: Are there any other legal options that you have to get them out of your state?

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ROSENBLUM: Well, of course, our governor and our Portland mayor have tried to do that. They have asked them to leave politely and firmly. They have simply refused to leave. So I would say that, you know, our lawsuit is not about forcing them to leave the state. It is about forcing them to comply with the law, to comply with the Constitution.

We also are going to make -- bring them to account by investigating them criminally to see whether these actions that they have taken including striking an individual so severely with a projectile that he has been in hospital for a week and only now looks like he is going to recover but has had surgery, has had brain bleed, has had reconstructive facial surgery.

This is not -- this is not a situation where federal agents are coming in to help. They are harming. They are escalating. And apparently, they're untrained, according to a memo that --

LEMON: Yeah.

ROSENBLUM: -- has been received by the homeland security head. But apparently, he is denying it. So I haven't seen it myself. But apparently, these agents have not received the kind of training that you to have in order to come into a situation like Portland and do good.

LEMON: Attorney general, thank you for your time. Unfortunately, we are out of time. Come back and update us. Thank you so much.

ROSENBLUM: Thank you very much for having me.

LEMON: And thanks for watching, everyone. Our coverage continues.

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