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Don Lemon Tonight

Jury Wraps Up Day One Of Deliberations In Derek Chauvin Trial; Representative Waters Says Protesters Should Be More Confrontational If Chauvin Acquitted; Judge Admonishes Rep. Waters' Comment; Emmett Till's Cousin Joins George Floyd's Brother In Fighting For Justice; Marjorie Taylor Greene Scraps Planned Launch Of Controversial America First Caucus; Former Vice President Walter Mondale Dies At 93. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired April 19, 2021 - 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 (on camera): The jury has the case. Jurors began deliberating in the trial of ex-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin accused of murder and manslaughter in the death of George Floyd. They have wrapped up for the night and will resume in the morning.

In closing arguments, prosecutors telling jurors to believe what they saw in the video. Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd's neck for nine and a half minutes was excessive force that caused Floyd's death. But in his summation, the defense attorney is saying Chauvin acted as a reasonable officer would in that situation.

Also moving for a mistrial after Congresswoman Maxine Waters called on protesters to get her word, confrontational if Chauvin is acquitted. The judge denying the motion but warning the comments could be grounds for an appeal down the line.

So joining me now, Bakari Sellers, a former Democratic Senator from Alabama, Doug Jones is here. They are both CNN political commentators. Good evening to both of you, I appreciate it. Bakari, I'm going to start with you. The entire nation is waiting on this Chauvin trial verdict. One senior White House official telling CNN that thinking inside the West Wing is and I quote here, this was already a tinder box. It becomes more volatile by the day. What is at stake here you think, sir?

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, FORMER HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES (on camera): You know, that is a good question. This reminds me, the time we're in reminds me of 1968. Tom Brokaw who is one of my heroes, actually, had a documentary entitled Boom, in 1968, in February, at the Orangeburg massacre.

In April, you had the assassination of King. In June, you had the assassination of Kennedy. You had many soldiers coming home from war still being treated like second class citizens and it felt it's like the country was becoming untethered along the lines of race. This seems eerily like that year and that time frame. What we require

right now though is leadership. And this is a question in which Joe Biden has to look inward. This is a question in which many people have to look inward and see if they're prepared to lead on this issue of race.

It is something this country has never dealt with and unfortunately it takes black blood flowing through streets for us to have these conversations. And the question is now, are we going to have them? Are we going to have them seriously? Is it going to create any type of change in this country?

LEMON: Senator, Bakari just mentioned President Biden. What is the role of the new administration? Because we know the previous administration often fanned the flames of racial tension. That is when, you know, they were not setting the fires. I should probably say that.

FMR. SEN. DOUG JONES (D-AL), CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR (on camera): You know what, I think the role of this president and this administration is to remain peaceful. I know that this administration regardless of this outcome is going to want to have peace in the streets of Minnesota and peace across this country. And that's what I think Joe Biden is best at, reassuring people, talking to people, calming them down but making sure that people know regardless of this outcome.

And I think this is really important regardless of whether this is guilty for murder or guilty on manslaughter or a not guilty verdict that he is going to do things about law enforcement reform in this country. We have waited. We saw it fall last year. But I think that this administration is getting ready and they wanted to get through this case.

It would not have been appropriate. I think it would have been a bad move to push that before this case was completed. As soon as this case is over, I think you are going to see the administration move one way or the other. But their role is to also be reassuring. To let folks know, that they are not going to be forgotten and they are going to move forward to try to make progress on this front.

LEMON (on camera): Bakri, I got to ask you about this. About -- get your take on the defense using comments from Congresswoman Maxine Waters to call for a mistrial. Take listen and then we'll talk.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIC NELSON, DEFENSE ATTORNEY FOR DEREK CHAUVIN: Now that we have U.S. Representatives threatening acts of violence in relation to the specific case, it is mind-boggling to me, judge.

PETER CAHILL, HENNEPIN COUNTY JUDGE FOR DEREK CHUAVIN'S TRIAL: I'll give that you Congresswoman Waters may have given you something on appeal that may result in this whole trial being overturned.

(END VIDEO CLIP) LEMON (on camera): Here's what the Congresswoman said this weekend.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MAXINE WATERS (D-CA): We've got to stay on the street. We've got to get more active. We've got to get more confrontational. We've got to make sure that they know that we mean business.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON (on camera): Now, she says her reference to confrontation was meant in the context of the civil rights movement, the (inaudible) movements, nonviolent history. Words matter right now. But what do you think? Should she have weighed in?

[23:05:00]

SELLERS: I mean, so there are a couple of things. One, I think you said it best. No one with half a brain, I think I heard you say, would think that she was trying to incite violence. She was not inciting any type of violence. The confrontation that people from her area in generation mean is when you go sit in like they did February 1st in 1960 at a Woolworth's lunch counter.

That's the type of confrontation that they are talking about, confronting this ugly history of Jim Crow and racism, especially in our criminal justice system in pushing back. Second, and Doug Jones is a better lawyer than I, with my multiple attempts to pass the bar exam.

So, I know Doug probably knows this better than I. But I don't think that the Attorney or the judge was correct in this matter. This is not grounds for a mistrial and it is not even grounds for appeal. I mean, it is not even preserved or ripe. Because at no point did your honor actually ask the jury did they watch the news, did they hear the news? There's no evidence that a single juror was biased by this. That second.

And third, even more importantly, Don, if people are in the streets after this verdict, do you think they're going to be in the streets because of something Maxine Waters says? Or do you think they are going to be in the streets because of a not guilty verdict or a hung jury and the continuation of injustice.

Ain't nobody going to be out there after a not guilty or a hung jury talking about I'm not here because of Maxine Waters. I mean, let's do that thought experiment. It doesn't make any sense.

And I guess, lastly, people will talk about anything. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Kevin McCarthy will talk about anything except racism in this country. Mitch McConnell went to the well today to talk about Maxine Waters but he won't talk about George Floyd and racism? Like, that's absurd. Let's deal with the issue at hand.

LEMON: Yes. I can't believe you said ain't nobody going to be out there. But you did, that's why I left. So listen. SELLERS: I mean, I'm sorry. I was reverting. I was thinking to myself

like that. Like you can't be -- we are going to be in the streets protesting if it is not guilty or a hung jury and somebody is going to be like, man, I'm out here because of Maxine. No. I'm not here because you found his boy innocent, or not guilty. And that's absurd. That's why we're in the streets.

LEMON: Senator Jones, give me your reaction to the judge's comments, Congresswoman Waters really give the defense reason to appeal?

JONES: No. I think Bakari is absolutely right on that. I don't think so at all. And he was correct that there was no preservation of that error. You have to do more than just simply raise something. You've got to show that there is an effect. I think what I saw in the judge that this afternoon was just a frustration with a comment from Congresswoman Waters. And that's all that amounts to. And it was his comment. It was her comment.

I do think that the words were a little unfortunate. I understand what Bakari Selling -- Sellers is saying here, but at the same time, I do think words matter. People hear thinks differently and I wish he had used something a little but different.

But the fact of the matter is, it is going to affect this case. And Bakari is absolutely right. Nobody is going to, nobody is on their Twitter accounts now, nobody is on Instagram saying, you know, Auntie Maxine has told to us hit the streets and be ready, that's not happening. People are on edge about this.

And you know, Don, Bakari said something about 1968. I'm little older than him. To me, this is the inflection point of 1963 where children took to the streets in Birmingham, Alabama. Children just like they did last year after George Floyd's death. It was the youth of the country who have really called for changes here.

We saw the death of four children in 1963. We saw the death of Medgar Evers in 1963 and the world changed. It changed in part because of the youth and that's what I think is the real, I think, the connection between what we're seeing today and what we saw in the early 1960s.

LEMON: You're referring to 16th street Baptist church, four little girls, right? Is that yes? Thank you. Thank you both. I know what Bakari, you said that -- I know a Bakari Selling but that's OK.

SELLERS: I'm trying, I'm trying.

LEMON: Thank you, gentlemen. I appreciate it. I'll see you soon.

So, now I want to bring in the former captain of the Missouri state Highway patrol Ron Johnson. He was tasked with restoring peace in Ferguson after Michael Brown's death. Captain, thank you, I appreciate you joining. Good to see you again. Of course, I wish it was under better circumstances. We know about this. About businesses, you know, in town. You know, being, potentially being damaged.

Business around the courthouse boarding up. The store fronts in case of the unrest here. There is a curfew in some places. What else should officials be doing now to prepare for possible unrest? Possible unrest. And let's hope there is not when there is a verdict.

RET. CAPT. RON JOHNSON, FORMER INCIDENT COMMANDER IN FERGUSON MISSOURI (on camera): They should be talking to community leaders, protest leaders, and making sure that they're all on the same page and creating partnerships. And of course we would like to have this partnerships in place prior to incident like this. But they should be making sure that talking to business owners and everybody in the community so they can try to keep the peace and keep the community intact as much as they can.

[23:10:03]

LEMON: Yes. The video of Chauvin's knee on George Floyd's neck shocked the conscience of this country. Do you think that this case will have an impact on policing in America going forward?

JOHNSON: I think the verdict will decide that I think if the verdict is a guilty verdict, I really think that it will have a great impact and more immediate. But I think there is still a chance that even whatever way it goes. It will impact and then have some changes. But I think a guilty verdict will move that forward and a more speedier way.

LEMON (on camera): The prosecution took a very pro police stance in closing arguments today. Take listen and then we'll talk.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE SCHLEICHER, PROSECUTING ATTORNEY: This case is called the state of Minnesota versus Derek Chauvin. This case is not called the state of Minnesota versus the police. This is not an anti-police prosecution. It is a pro police prosecution.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON (on camera): What is your reaction, Captain?

JOHNSON: I think that it really depends on the verdict, how that is looked at. I think, I applaud the prosecution for what they said today. But I think if it is a guilty verdict, then I think that what they said will be true in a lot of minds. But I think if it's not guilty, then I think it will go back to, this was about policing. So, I think it really depends on that verdict. And so it is so important on how this case pans out.

LEMON: Listen, even in that though, Captain, you had multiple people from the Minneapolis police department testifying against Chauvin's actions, including the police chief. I mean, does that show that this case, you know, it's different than other officer-involved killings at least? And maybe the potential, may be the potential depending on the outcome as you said that it can have on policing?

JOHNSON: I think it is. We've never seen anything like it in our country in these cases. And so I applaud each member of that police department for standing up with courage and saying that we're going to speak up on what's right. We are going to speak a truth and we are going to say, that's not who we are. And so I think a lot of police across this country are applauding that, because that's not what policing is and should be in our country.

LEMON: Captain Johnson, always a pleasure as usual. Thank you very much. I'll see you soon.

JOHNSON: Thank you.

LEMON: Jurors are considering the actions of one officer. But for America, all of this is much, much bigger. Are we on the verge of the reckoning on race and just as so many people are calling for?

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[23:15:00]

LEMON: President Biden and top White House aides closely watching the Chauvin trial, set to be preparing for a variety of outcomes. The Press Secretary Jen Psaki saying the administration is in touch with mayors, governors, and local authorities across the country and there needs to be space for peaceful protest and reaction to the verdict whenever that comes in.

I want to bring in presidential historian, Jon Meacham and Penile Joseph, professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin. Good evening. Thank you to you both. Thank you so much. I appreciate you joining. Jon Meacham, let's start with you.

George Floyd ignited a movement. We saw all the protests against police brutality and racism. And here we are now on the cost of verdict, all these months later. So speak to us about this moment in history for our country. What is this? Put in it perspective for us.

JON MEACHAM, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN, AUTHOR (on camera): Well, where this moment stands is going to depend on how it all turns out. It's going to determine, it's going to depend on whether light and justice and reform come out of this or whether this is another sad milestone on a road that leads us away from justice away from fulfilling the declaration of independence and the genuine promise of equality.

So, I think we are as Churchill once said in a different context, this is not the beginning of the end. Maybe it is the end of the beginning of the police reform questions. The Floyd moment, I think, will always stand in, certainly presidential history, because the violence, the presidentially sponsored violence in Lafayette Square last June, I think in many ways, when you looked back in the campaign of 2020, we will see Lafayette Square as a moment where Joe Biden functionally became the President-Elect.

LEMON: Really?

MEACHAM: I do. I think that people saw, it was an embodiment. A manifestation of what everyone had worried about, about Trump. And you saw tear gas. You saw the military being conscripted into an assertion of unilateral civilian authority to stop nonviolent protesting. You saw the manipulation of the bible, of St. John's Church, a fabled Parish there in Washington.

And I think you saw in that tableau a manifestation of the authoritarian instinct that's so many people had warned about with Trump but not a lot of people had seen.

LEMON: I see you shaking your head to that Peniel. Do you want to comment?

PENIEL JOSEPH, HISTORY PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS, DIRECTOR OF THE CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF RACE AND DEMOCRACY, LBJ SCHOOL (on camera): Yeah. You know, I think -- I agree with Jon. I would use a different word than reform. I think that we're at really a political and moral crossroads in the country and it is sort of this choice between, you know, the beloved community that not only Dr. King but Black Lives Matter and other activists have called for, or doubling down on the politics of law and order.

And we've chosen law and order over the last 53 years. So I do think that we're at this moral and political fork in the road. And even the notion of saying that somehow Maxine Waters has sort of spoiled the justice system shows us the kind of desperation that's out there.

[23:20:09]

But is sounds historically, this reminds me of 1980 in Miami, you know, over town -- the over town rebellion that happened after four officers were acquitted in the death of a Black man, a Black motorist, who is former military veteran 1992 with Los Angeles in the aftermath of the Rodney King verdict in Simi Valley, 2001 in Cincinnati.

So there's been these verdicts that we've waited for, really, at least since 1980. This is going to be the biggest. But there is a kind of precedent here in terms of waiting for this kind of justice.

LEMON: Jon, let's talk about that a little bit more. I mean, mentioning the unrest in these cities. The cities are preparing for unrest now. How important will President Biden's leadership be after we have reached a verdict? How important will his leadership be navigating through what one senior White House official is calling a quote/unquote, tinder box?

MEACHAM: I think the president, I think Biden is particularly well equipped for this moment. He's been in public life for 50 years almost exactly. And he understands, I think, a fundamental truth about the country which is that we can keep saying this isn't who we are. But it is who we are.

And there is too much systemic racism, white supremacy is on the march. You know, I'm a white southerner. People who look like me tend to do just fine in this country. What the country has to decide is, at least enough people in the country have to decide, is that are we going to live up to the declaration of independence, or are we going to, out of fear, continue to hold on to a kind of exclusionary identity that isn't passive, right? I mean, the perniciousness of the white supremacist impulse is not

simply that it isolates white people. Is that it is innately, it forces the subjugation of others. That's why you saw, I think, rightly, the outrage about the Anglo Saxon caucus recently, the past couple of days.

You know, it is just, you know, George Wallace in 1961 when he was sworn in as Governor of Alabama, cited the wonders of Anglo Saxon civilization in the speech where he said segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.

And so I think President Biden is well equipped for this. And I think that you know, the presidency, as Franklin Roosevelt said in September 1932, it is pre eminently a place of moral leadership. And moral in this case, remember isn't just about ethical behavior. Moral, the root of moral is custom. It is how we talk to each other. It's how we talk about each other. It is how we are as citizens and we've experienced four years having a president who always encouraged our worst instincts and thankfully that's over.

LEMON: Jon, when this COVID thing is over, we are going to have to have a dinner party. And I'm going to invite you two dinner with all of my friends and you're going to be the guest of honor and I'm not kidding. And we are going to talk all of this stuff, I will fly you here and have you speak to my friends, so that -- because I think its --

MEACHAM: Let me tell you, Joseph is a lot smarter.

LEMON: Well, Joseph -- listen, Joseph is already on the guest list. So you're new to the guest list.

MEACHAM: He's trying to get to Tennessee from Texas.

LEMON: Peniel Joseph I should say. So, listen, --

JOSEPH: Don, can I say one thing, I think that optics matter and I think the fact that in Minnesota right now, we have so much National Guard troops and so much military personnel out. We send a message which I think is the wrong message that buildings and property count more than black lives, especially in the context of Daunte Wright.

The young 20-year-old who was just shot and killed. So part of what where we need to go, and I completely agree with Jon in terms of that moral reckoning is even before another black person gets shot in this country to expend the same kind of energy that Minnesota is expending on curfews and National Guard and sheriff's departments, on people who are poor, people who don't deserve punishment, who really are just struggling for dignity and citizenship.

And that really -- it moves me just to even think about the resources that are being are expended in Minnesota right now for the purpose of punishment and purpose to defend property instead of saving human lives.

[23:25:00] LEMON: Well, listen, point well taken. I think that's a very fair

point. But we must remember and I was speaking to some of our correspondents there on the scene today. Many of the business who stand being destroyed or damaged or looted are black-owned businesses who have gone through this before and they can't go through it again. They are going to lose their lively hoods, if this indeed happen.

So, you know, I don't know what the right answer is. But I would love to see anything happen if something is going to happen, without damaging the livelihoods of Black citizens and their businesses in that community. So I will say that.

Listen, Peniel, I want you to check this out. This is the vice president, Kamala Harris today, touring the Greensboro civil rights museum today. The building formerly housed the Woolworth five and dine where four college students started the famous sit-ins at the whites only lunch counter. I want you to give me your thoughts, because it is a powerful image to see the country's first black V.P. there on a day like today and following weeks of protests.

Peniel?

JOSEPH: Yes, I thought you were showing the clip. No, I think that's extraordinary, I think you know, we talk about February 1st, 1960, 61 years ago. And the Woolworth lunch counter sit-ins as sort of the new birth of American freedom and democracy and the fact that we have the first black woman, black south Asian vice president is incredibly important and incredibly moving.

I think we have to make our words as good as our deeds, right? So we celebrate this narrative of the heroic period of the civil rights movement. Jon has written beautifully about it. I try to make a living off it as well. But we have to connect those extraordinary times with how we're living today.

So, and I agree with you with what you said, Don. Black businesses should be protected. The first thing that should be protected though is black people. So I just would hope and urge everyone in Minnesota and in all 50 states, before the next black person dies at the hands of the police, to marshal the same kind of resources that we are marshalling in Minnesota, to try to protect property to invest in black communities, invest in the least of these.

All of us who believe in the bible, or some kind of God or some kind of moral reckoning. If we invest in poor people, if we invest in people being marginalized, we can prevent this from ever happening again. We have to have the will to do this, the moral and political will and integrity to do this.

LEMON: I think no one disagrees with you on that. Thank you both. I look forward to our dinner party after we're called off semi house arrest and you know, thank you. I appreciate it. I'll see you soon. Great conversation.

Two families suffering unimaginable losses decades apart. Now the relatives of George Floyd and Emmitt Till are bonding in their grief and their calls for justice.

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[23:30:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON (on camera): Since George Floyd's death nearly one year ago and especially now during Derek Chauvin's murder trial, Floyd's brother, Philonise, has become the public face of the Floyd family. Joining in his fight for justice is a woman named Deborah Watts, who happens to live in Minneapolis. But more than that, she knows the pain of injustice. She is the cousin of Emmett Till.

More tonight from CNN's Sara Sidner.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PHILONISE FLOYD, BROTHER OF GEORGE FLOYD: We're here. We're thriving.

DEBORAH WATTS, COUSIN OF EMMETT TILL: That's right.

FLOYD: We're going to be on a mission --

WATTS: That's right.

FLOYD: -- and we're here for justice.

SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The moment they met in Minneapolis, a bond was formed.

WATTS: Whew.

FLOYD: I must say --

SIDNER: A bond born of the deepest sorrow.

FLOYD: Do you know how hard it is for somebody to look at their child beaten to death? Do you know how hard it is for people to look at a person who has been tortured to death over nine minutes? It's not right.

SIDNER (voice-over): Each experienced a violent death in the family that became a catalyst for civil rights in America. Philonise Floyd is the brother of George Floyd. Deborah Watts is the cousin of Emmett Till. They met because Watts lives in Minneapolis and took to the streets after George Floyd was killed.

WATTS: Oh, my god.

FLOYD: I think about it all the time. I think about Emmett.

WATTS: Appreciate that.

FLOYD: Emmett was like, to me, like one of the first George Floyd's that people just recognized. Like they put him on the spotlight -- WATTS: Yeah.

FLOYD: -- but he didn't get justice.

WATTS: Didn't. Still hasn't.

FLOYD: He still hasn't.

WATTS: But we're still fighting.

FLOYD: We're fighting.

WATTS: I don't want you to have the 66-year journey.

(LAUGHTER)

WATTS: I really don't.

SIDNER (voice-over): For Watts, the pain has spanned generations. Her 14-year-old cousin, Emmett Till, was murdered in 1955 by white supremacists. Till's mother opened the casket at his funeral so the world could see the horror done to her child at the hands of hateful adults.

WATTS: And by making those efforts, opening in his casket, showing the world what his 14-year-old body looked like with a 75-pound cotton-gin fan tied around his neck with barb wire after being thrown into the Tallahatchie River, she exposed to the world, and I think the world stood up, the world spoke out, and the world was enraged.

SIDNER (voice-over): Sixty-five years later, the world spoke up again from Minneapolis to London.

[23:35:00]

GEORGE FLOYD, KILLED IN POLICE CUSTODY: Please. Please, I can't breathe.

SIDNER (voice-over): After watching Philonise Floyd's brother, George, gasping for air. His neck pinned down under the knee of an officer who refused his pleas for help.

P. FLOYD: People should die of natural causes, not because you get an overdose of a knee to someone's neck, not because you're beating somebody to death and dumping them in a river.

SIDNER (voice-over): Both families' pain playing out in the spotlight, both creating a wave of change and demand for justice for all in America.

In Floyd's case, cell phones and body cameras captured the incident of the white police officer kneeling on his neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds. He is awaiting his fate from a jury of his peers.

But the people who disfigured and murdered Emmett Till were acquitted by an all-white jury. They confessed to their crime a year later. Watts is still fighting for justice.

WATTS: This is what you're going to do. It does carry some disappointments. But also carries a lot of hope.

P. FLOYD: Yeah.

WATTS: Justice is going to be served in George Floyd's case, whether it is in the courtroom or outside of the courtroom. Justice is going to be served.

SIDNER (voice-over): The tragedies in their lives propelled both Watts and Floyd into lifelong work they didn't intend to take on. Both have started foundations to create healing and change through policy.

WATTS: The Emmett Louis Till victim recovery program is something that we're fighting for that affects the families.

P. FLOYD: I'm the big brother now.

SIDNER (voice-over): Philonise testified in front of Congress right after his brother's funeral. At this very moment, the Floyds are trying to get the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act pushed through Congress. Both families say this is fight of their lives for a better, more just America.

WATTS: Thank you for your strength.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

LEMON (on camera): So nice. Sara Sidner joins me now. Sara, good evening to you. You've been out there in Minnesota covering not just the Chauvin trial but the death of Daunte Wright. Within the past -- past week or so, we have seen families whose sons, brothers, fathers died at the hands of police come together. What message are they trying to get out, Sara?

SIDNER: The message from the families of children that were slain by police is stop killing us. I mean, that's the message. It is that simple. But there is also another message. That message is almost to one another and to the community and that's into Congress. That is change has to happen. Change has to be made. And that change has to come from the community but it has to also come in the form of legislation.

And so there is a lot of folks who are coming together, creating foundations, moving forward to try and get legislation in place that helps create that change, that reform that everyone is talking about.

But as you'll notice, you know, it is very difficult to get Congress to come together, especially for some reason on this issue to create reform when it comes to policing, especially policing Black folks in America.

LEMON: How are you holding up?

SIDNER: You know, I will admit that I have been very nervous. I've been asking people around town, some of the people that I have now known for a year and more, about how they're feeling and there is this underlying nervous, unease happening in people's hearts.

And you can feel it all over the city. It doesn't matter what color or creed or profession you are. You can definitely feel it all over the city. It is that not knowing what is going to happen and there is a real nervousness in the city at this point. Don?

LEMON: You be well. And you know who to call.

SIDNER: Thanks.

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: Thanks, Sara. Take care.

Marjorie Taylor Greene ditching plans to launch an America First caucus. But that doesn't mean her dangerous rhetoric isn't already spreading through Congress.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: GOP Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene scrapping the launch of her America First caucus after getting blowback from leaders in her own party. Despite confirming on Friday that the caucus was in the works, a spokesperson from Greene's office now saying the congresswoman is not launching anything.

A leaked flyer promoting the new caucus calls for a common respect for uniquely Anglo-Saxon political traditions and pushes conspiracy theories about election integrity. Let's discuss now. CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein is here. Ron, hello. Oh, my gosh.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Hi, Don.

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: So get this, Ron. By the way, the author of the new book, "Rock Me on the Water." Yeah, we should mention that. So listen, Republican congressman from Arizona, Paul Gosar, denies his involvement in launching the America First caucus but says that he will continue to work on America First issues.

I mean, these are nativist ideas and their conspiracy theories. They're going to have to -- they're going to have proponents in Congress, whether there is a caucus or not, whether a caucus even exists, right?

[23:45:00]

BROWNSTEIN: That's exactly right. I think the kind of consolidation of this into a formal caucus was embarrassing for the GOP leaders. But if you read through that document, you know, which skirts right on the edge of the racist replacement theory that basically says that immigrants are transforming the country to something unrecognizable, departs from American -- quote -- "tradition," it speaks for a lot of the republican not only caucus but coalition.

I mean, consistently in polling, roughly 60 percent of Republican voters agree with the statement that immigrants are invading our country and replacing our cultural heritage. Three quarters of Republicans in one recent poll said discrimination against whites is now as big a problem as discrimination against minorities. Ninety percent say Christianity in America is under siege.

In many ways, the GOP coalition after Trump, as we talked about, is even more centered on the voters who are most uneasy with the way the country is changing, which raises to me over and again the critical question, what do the Republican voters who are uneasy with this nativist strain, this anti-democratic strain that is spreading in the party, what do they do going forward?

LEMON: I want to -- let's talk about Ted Cruz, you know, a mystery wrapped in a conundrum, wrapped in an enigma. So, listen, he's tweeting pout that Democrats are the culprits behind Jim Crow, adding that the GOP is the party of Lincoln and that Democrats ferociously defended slavery. What is the point of playing the -- your party is racist, not mine game here?

BROWNSTEIN: Look, I mean, you know, I think that the they -- the Republicans very clearly see the price that Trump's open embrace -- more open embrace of any national figure since George Wallace of racist imagery and argument cost them.

I mean, their decline in suburban counties across America was real. Obviously, Trump turned out a lot of voters who are uneasy about the way the country is changing racially, but he had probably the weakest performance of any Republican ever among college educated white voters and other, you know, voters of many races in those white-collar suburbs.

So Trump -- so Cruz is trying to erase that stain from the party. He's trying to scrub it off by talking about James (INAUDIBLE) and and Richard Russell. And it's true. The southern segregationist Democrats were the arch defenders of segregation. But that was a very different political world and many of the voters who supported those southern segregationists, the modern equivalents, are very strongly voting Republican.

And in fact, Ted Cruz relies on the voters who are the most uneasy. Eighty percent of Republicans, for example, now say in polling that the police killings of unarmed Black men are isolated incidents, not part of a pattern.

LEMON: Yeah.

BROWNSTEIN: The denial that systemic racism exists is one of the absolute glues that hold together the modern republican coalition.

LEMON: Yeah. Ted Cruz, that was then. But this is now. Take a look at the mirror. Thank you very much. I appreciate it, Ron. I'll see you soon.

BROWNSTEIN: Thanks, Don.

LEMON: Thanks. Tributes are coming in for former Vice President Walter Mondale, who died at 93. The life and legacy of the civil rights advocate, next.

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[23:50:00]

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LEMON (on camera): Here is some breaking news tonight. Former Vice President Walter Mondale has died at the age of 93. President Biden is paying tribute to his life at this hour, calling him a dear friend and mentor. Mondale served as VP under President Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s. More on Walter Mondale's life from CNN's Wolf Blitzer.

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WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Walter Mondale was a politician who always managed to remain Minnesota nice. Known all his life as Fritz, Walter Frederick Mondale was born in Southern Minnesota in 1928, the son of a Methodist minister and a music teacher.

WALTER MONDALE, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (voice- over): They taught me to work hard, to care for others, to love our country, and to cherish our faith.

BLITZER (voice-over): From the beginning, Walter Mondale was a steadfast supporter of social justice. By the time he graduated from the University of Minnesota Law School, he was deeply involved in the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, Minnesota's own wing of the Democratic Party.

As a DFL liberal and a disciple of Senator Hubert Humphrey, Mondale was appointed Minnesota's attorney general in 1960. Four years later, he was named to the U.S. Senate to fill the vacancy left when Humphrey was elected Lyndon Johnson's vice president.

In 1976, Jimmy Carter pulled him from the Senate to be his vice presidential running mate. When Carter and Mondale lost the election in 1980, Mondale was down, but not out.

UNKNOWN: The nominee of the Democratic Party, Walter Mondale!

BLITZER (voice-over): Four years later, he won the democratic presidential nomination and made history, picking the first woman ever to run on a presidential ticket, former New York Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro. But history was not on the side of Mondale and Ferraro. They were defeated by the 1984 Reagan landslide.

MONDALE: He has won. We are all Americans. He is our president. And we honor him tonight.

BLITZER: Mondale and Ferraro only managed to win his home state and the District of Columbia. Mondale stayed off the national radar until President Clinton named him U.S. ambassador to Japan.

[23:55:04]

BLITZER (voice-over): Always one to consider politics an honor and a duty --

(APPLAUSE)

BLITZER (voice-over): -- Mondale answered the call to serve again in 2002. He was asked to run for his old Senate seat in place of Senator Paul Wellstone, who had been killed in a plane crash less than two weeks before Election Day.

MONDALE: This has been one of the most unbelievable moments in Minnesota history.

BLITZER (voice-over): Mondale nearly lost the race. But he never lost his earnest love for social justice. He went back to practicing law and teaching at the University of Minnesota. A hall at the law school bears his name, as does the intramural hockey team, the Fighting Mondales. He may have fought doggedly for what he believed in, but supporters described him as such a nice man. Proving, to the end, Mondale was a man of Minnesota.

MONDALE: We kept the faith. We stayed the course. We fought the good fight. And every one of us should feel good about that.

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