Transcripts For CNNW CNN Tonight With Don Lemon 20170815

This is cnn tonight. Im don lemon. The president earlier today with an attempt to clean up the mess after this weekends response to the Charlottesville White supremacist demonstration that turned deadly. Racism is evil. And those who is cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs. Including the kkk, neonazis, White Supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as americans. Well, that wasnt enough for some. Late breaking news. Two more ceos resigning tonight from president Trumps American Manufacturing Council under armor founder and ceo kevin plank saying in a statement, love our country and company. I am stepping down from the council to focus on inspiring and uniting through power of sport. And the ceo of intel announcing late tonight he is quitting the council, as well. Will the president sufferplily for waiting too long to blame White Supremacists . Political analysts Carl Bernstein journal and author and abby phillip, a white house report forethe Washington Post and david druck ker, correspondent for the washington examiner. Good evening to all of you. Abby, we have three ceos who distanced themselves from this president and have now resigned from the president s council beginning earlier today with the merck ceo, then the and under armor ceo, now the intel ceo. This is a big development. I think it signals that there is a tide moving in a direction that is not favorable to the president. I remember the days when a president ial tweet an angry tweet about someones company would really scare a lot of corporations out of saying anything negative about this president. Now youre seeing the opposite in the minutes after the merck ceo removed himself from the council, that companys stock went up. And thats a huge difference from where we were several months ago. I think in the broader scheme of things, theres really been a theme beyond just corporations. Its also been republicans in congress. Its been elements of the military, elements of the government, all sort of becoming more comfortable pushing back against this president. I think the cumulative effect of all of this is yet to be seen but it could mean that trump is going to have a harder time getting what he wants. There are people becoming much more comfortable saying no and thats being demonstrated every single day as we move forward, partly because its uncomfortable in some cases to deal with some of the chaos and the drama and at division that has become so closely associated with this presidency so far. David drucker, two out of the three ceos stepped down after the president s latest statement where he named White Supremacists and neonazi and criticized events in charlottesville. That could suggest at least in the mind of these ceos that the ceos of these companies that they represent, this is not cleaned you. This Statement Today didnt help. It should have come faster. The president clearly isnt the only person concerned about protecting a brand. Its striking when you have titans of industry disassociating themselves from a president ial council that is about jobs because they dont want to be associated with the president. They have all their reasons that they state but thats the reason right there. And i think the problem that the president had as fine as his statement was today 48 hours later, is that he has set his own standard for commenting on events all around the world and commenting very specifically both domestically and internationally, especially when it comes to things like radical islamic terror, he never hesitated to call something by name, call the perpetrators out by name to do so quickly and specifically. So the president was being judged against the standard he has set and thats why the bland statement on saturday and the length of time it took him to get specific was so glaring and so troublesome especially for so Many Republicans who decided to criticize him either implicitly or explicitly. These werent the usual trump critics, don. These were republicans like cory gardner who runs the Republican Senate campaign arm, people who work closely with the president. We werent just talking about jeff flake or john mccain or lindsey graham. It was across the party the president was being called out and asked to be specific. I think thats why this thing hasnt gone away. We saw with the president s tweet this evening a couple hours ago where hes obviously very upset about the Media Coverage that continues and again, he quickly and specifically called out the people that he was angry at, the media, and it is a comparison that goes back to how he handled this whole thing beginning saturday that i think sets this up to be a story at least for the next couple of days. So the ceo of intel tweeting Carl Bernstein or putting out a statement saying i want you to respond to this he says ive already made clear by abhorrence at the recent hate spewed violence in charlottesville and earlier today i called on all leaders to condemn the White Supremacists and committed violence. I resigned because i want to make progress. While many in washington seem more concerned, attacking anyone who disagrees with them, we should honor not attack those have stood up for equality and other cherished american values. Sti hope this change and remain willing to be when it does. That is powerful, carl. What do you say . Theres a lot of powerful current moving in washington today and its about the fitness of donald trump to be the president of the United States which has become in the open a question being debated by republicans with each other, is donald trump fit morally, ethically in terms of competence to be the president of the United States. And there are a lot of negative reports on that. The more people i talk to, senior republicans, high intelligence officials in the military who deal with the white house and with donald trump, they have lost confidence in the fitness of donald trump to be the president of all the American People. Its a new kind of debate that were watching going on. Its a crisis in the presidency such as weve never seen and what happened this weekend is a kind of demarcation line that were going to remember for a long time because the rules have now changed. Donald trump is not just about his base. Hes the president of his base but theres very little proof now that he is president of all the American People and that he can bring them together or that he can continue in a way that serves him to continue as president in an effective way because of how people are talking about him. Its also a journalistic question. We need to be reporting on what these congressman and high mishls, intel officials are really saying to one another about their view that this president is unfit to be the president. Carl, because theyll say one thing privately but publicly, they may not theyre not saying that. So i have to ask you, abby, with carl having said that, we havent heard much of a response from the president s remarks today. Should we read anything into that . What does that say to you . Well, i think republicans are sort of hoping that this goes away. Many of them are very upset and annoyed, frankly, that this episode wasnt handled well from the beginning. As many people have pointed out, this is extremely easy to do. Denouncing white sprooim supremacists and nazis is not hard. So for. stheres a lot of frustration. Theyre waiting for some of the dust to settle to see where this goes but you know, if youre a republican right now, youre looking closely at the president s twitter account. Youll see what hes been up to this afternoon. Hes been attacking the media for reporting on what other republicans are saying about his statement. Hes been attacking the africanamerican ceo of a publicly traded company. And he has been all over the map here. There has not been a followthrough on his comments denouncing White Supremacists and about unity. None of that. I think many people are probably rightfully holding back because you never really know whats going to happen on twitter a couple of minutes or hours after the president delivers remarks from a teleprompter in the west wing. Lets look at some of these, okay, david. Don, let me Say Something about that you mention there had a minute ago about the journalism of all this and people being unwilling to say it publicly. Ive been a reporter in washington for more than 50 years. I have never ever in 50 years heard people talk about the president of the United States in the way that members of congress and in the military and in the Intelligence Community are now talking about him. And there is a way to report this story. We dont know the extent, how pervasive this view of him being unfit is, but its a real story. Its not going to be people speaking on the record with their names. But we ought to be going out and talking to all members of congress, all members high up in the pentagon who we can reach and do a story that says what we found. Maybe my observations are somewhat wrong if theres pushback. But lets find out as reporters because i think its the real story and weve never seen anything like this. Go ahead, david. Don, i dont think its that hard to do. If you talk to republicans on the hill, the way they talk about the president six months in is that this is somebody who is new to politics and new to governing and still figuring everything out. So youve got to cut him some slack. I feel like a year ago, six months ago, you could sort of understand that as theyre trying to figure out how this guy who has never governed before and never a professional politician before was going to handle the job. But six months in, when you came to the job and youre bona fides were as a manager and executive that could get things done, what it sounds like now is that theyre coding him in a way that really is insulting to the man because what theyre really saying is look, you cant expect him to do the job yet because he doesnt note enough and hasnt had enough time to figure it out. Thats the kind of language they use. They use it in softer terms but its almost like theyve got nothing else to say at least for the parts of the job that he has not figured out yet. And for republicans, youve seen their patience with him grow thin. His patience with them has grown thin. He looks at them as subordinates and thinks hes not delivering for them. This is just another episode in an ongoing bat with them that theyre having together. To me the key and this is not about this episode but from the past couple of weeks when republicans got together with democrats and passed a bill that doesnt allow the president to negotiate a deal with russia without their signoff, that was saying they dont have confidence in this president to negotiate deals. Thats what hes supposed to be good at. I think that tells you a lot about the relationship the president has was members of his party on the hill. With voters, i think it may be different. This is somebody who called judge curiel a mexican. We fellow about the billy bush tapes and they still vote ford him. There is a lot of the tension between the president and republicans on the hill. Interesting. Having said that, abby, the president has done a lot of things to get his party to condemn him in the past. As david just mentioned, there was the access hollywood video. There was saying senator john mccain not a war hero because he was captured, attacking john mccain, Mika Brzezinski and megyn kelly. It seems like no what happens, they just continue to support him. Do you think this time its going to be different . David says theyre not ready to jettison him now, throw him overboard. What do you think . I think davids right. Thats the big question here. There are a lot of republicans saying i think pretty vocally that they disagree with the president s behavior, that they refuse to listen to his agenda that they believe that some of the things that hes said and done are not befitting of the office. At the same time, they kind of want the same agenda that he does. And when push comes to shove, when its time to pass tax refor, he i think its going to be hard for a lot of republicans to be on a different page from that. I mean, the devil will ultimately be in the details on some of this. I dont think we have seen yet the kind i have pushback in actual actions that would be required to making this moment something more than just i disavow what trump just said or did. But im going to support him anyway. Thats what republicans did throughout the 2016 campaign. Thats essentially what theyre doing now only time will tell. I will say though, we are more than halfway through 2017. As we get closer to the end of this year ask, political survival is going to kick in for most members of congress, especially in the house but a lot of members in the senate. They are going to focus on what it takes for them to win with or without this president and right now, at 34 in the latest gallup poll, things are not looking good. It does not make sense for Many Republicans to stand with the president at this moment. And youre going to see them exerting much more independence over the course of the next few months unless something dramatic happens where he can turn things around. Thank you all very much. When we come back, protests and vigils all across this nation in response to the white supremacist rally in charlottesville. A strong response from the American People coming after the president took days to cop out with a strong statement of his own. Why his hesitancy to condemn is a pattern. Thats next. When i received the diagnoses, i knew at that exact moment. Im beating this. My main focus was to find a team of doctors. Its not just picking a surgeon, its picking the care team and feeling secure in where you are. Visit cancercenter. Com breast going somewhere . Whoooo. Heres some advice. Tripadvisor now searches more. Than 200 booking sites to find the hotel you want and save you up to 30 . Trust this birds words. Tripadvisor. Buried just under the surface, the answer to it all. We want to need each other. President trump waiting a few days to condemn neonazi and White Supremacists behind the deadly violence in charlottesville, virginia. If history is any guide, his delayed action is not unusual. Over the years, donald trump has often been slow to call out hate groups and hate speech. Cnns Brianna Keilar reports. Reporter it takes a lot, too much even those in President Trumps own party argue, for him to strongly criticize and disavow hate groups. Take david duke. He rallied this weekend in charlottesville and supported trumps cappeddy early on. Did he endorse me or whats going on . I know nothing about david duke. I know nothing about White Supremacists. Reporter but trump did know about david duke. He had spoken publicly about hip as early as 1991 shortly after duke had an unsuccessful but surprisingly strong run for governor of louisiana. Did the david duke thing bother you, 55 of the whites in louisiana vote ford him. I guess it just shows theres a lot of hostility in this country. Reporter . July of 2016, trump tweeted this picture of Hillary Clinton against a background of dollar bills which originally came from a white supremacist message board. He called the controversy a creation of the dishonest media, even dismissing the images obvious use of the star of david. Its a star. And it actually looks like a sheriffs star. But i dont know. Not long after, he weathered scathing criticism from clinton who charged that he was embracing the socalled altright an ideaologically nebulous group linked to White Supremacy, antisemitism, antifeminism and xenophobia. Theres always been a paranoid fringe in our politics. A lot of it arising from racial resentment but its never had the nominee of a major party stoking it encouraging it and giving it a National Megaphone until now. Reporter and she took particular aim at trump for his obsession with president obamas birth certificate. Barack obama should end this and he should provide the public with a birth certificate. Reporter he took the fringe con piracy theory that president obama wasnt actually american mainstream and in october, he insisted to cnn that the socalled central park five, the young men wrongly convicted of raping and assaulting a woman in central park in 1989 were still indeed guilty. One of them yousef sal lom campaigned for clinton. Had donald had his way, i would be dade. Reporter at the time, trump took out ads in newspapers calling for new york to reinstate the death penalty. Its if theyre found guilty, if the wrom died but if she died i think they should be executed. Reporter they were exonerated years ago by dna evidence and the confession of the real perpetrator and the city of new york paid a 40 million settlement, but trump never apologized or admitted he was wrong. A rare condemnation by trump of the altright came shortly after his election when the White Nationalist Organization National policy institute convened in washington. Hail trump. Hail our people. Hail victory. Reporter pledging support to the president elect with a nazi salute and displaying racist imagery at their gathering. Trump finally said i disavow the group. Brianna keilar, cnn washington. I want to bring in michael higen both thomfrom the university of baltimore and the author of goestz of jim crow, ending racism in post racial america, and cnn president ial historian douglas brinkley, the author of right full heritage, frank lynn d. Roosevelt and the land of america. So glad to have you on to get perspective about this. Douglas, an as you see briannas story, President Trump has a troubling past when it comes to of race. Given that history, were you surprised that his original statements over the weekend that they were so weak . I wasnt surprised. I mean, weve talked a lot, don, over the past year how hes one part you know george wallace, donald trump. Hes got joe mccarthy in him, gerald k. Smith, father coughlin. He beats a fascist drum often and annever wants to criticize anybody on the altright. He sees them as his food soldiers. He does it only reluctantly and he tried to my mouth it over the weekend and it didnt work. The publics outraged. August 12th is going to be marked as a time when the name donald trump is forever kind of associated with indifference towards hate crimes, towards neonazi. So its a real low ebb and a president thats had miserable months but this means that people i think Many Republican senators dont really even want to be in a photo op with hip at this point. Mr. Higen both that many, what do you think . I think hes absolutely right. The president , you know, once again on issues of race is a day late and a dollar short. He could have easily, this was an easy opportunity for him to come out and reject unequivocally and clearly white racial supremacy. And he did not. The American People most of them are against this. And it would have been an easy call for the president to do so. He didnt. He missed an opportunity. It is an opportunity for americans of all colors to come together and say to the president that we reject this ideology. Do you think President Trump sympathizes with these groups or is there another explanation for why he struggles to condemn david duke and nazis, michael . Well, as Brianna Keilars segment showed theres a long history of President Trump embracing this ideology, and what he did during the Election Campaign i think shows that its very difficult for him now to reject that because you know, i mean its hard for a leopard to change its spots. He ran a racially dyedy vis advicive campaign. Many examples beginning with the wall, building a wall against mexicans, calling hem criminals that were coming in, know, stating he wanted a muslim ban and being very unsympathetic to minority victims of racial police brutality, racially moat have aed police brutality. So its hard for President Trump now to reject that approach once hes in office. Douglas, the white house announced the president is not going to be visiting charlottesville in the wake of this violence. Should he go . It would be appropriate to go. I dont know if he would be very well received. But thats a decision he has to make. I think what he needs to do is not go to charsville necessarily but fire steve bannon, bannon is a lightning rod figure. We all know hes bad news. Everybody knows hes sort of been spewing hate. Hes a leader of that movement. Just like general flynn had to get canned who was way far into the crazy right. We now have to get rid of steve bannon. Hes become a symbol of hate in america. And also i think the internet which is theres been a vast increase in white supremacist on the internet. Donald trump needs to lead a Government Action to rip down those hate sites. There are no more recruiting online. There are things you can do like banning of Confederate Flags. I was in gatlinburg, tennessee, Smoky Mountains and saw gift shops selling it on main street. Weve got to stop being so insensitive to in promoting a kind you have fake confederate narrative and thinking its okay because it gets you southern states. That was parts of nixons southern strategy in 196. Its made the south red, but this confederate mania thats kind of going on in some parts of the south, donald trump needs to disown it and stand up to it. I dont know if you can ban that, but i mean for africanamericans, its an akin to selling a was swastika, right, in a store . I think if you sell it in a store like i was by Smoky Mountain gateway in gatlinburg, if youre not allowed to say fire in i movie theater, why are you allowed to sell a Confederate Flag in a store window . Its inciting something. There are something in our society we cant have. That symbol of the flag just being marketed to people and put on barns and put everywhere is asking for conflict anymore than we can allow nazi swastikas to be tattooed all over the country in public squares and courthouses, nikki haley ripped down the Confederate Flag in South Carolina that began a process of this. Mitch landrieu took down robert e. Lee in new orleans, the statue. More of this has to continue. You can imagine where people where jews would not want to go into plays that bore their oppressors name but yet you have to go into schools named robert e. Lee high school. There are Confederate Flags still hanging in parts of the country. Why would anyone feel safe with the oppressors flag hanging over them or in a building they have to sit in, michael . These are tough issues, you know, we have a long lift of freedom of speech. First amendment rights and we have to be very careful the Supreme Court has decided some of these issues. We tend to err on the side of speech. And so it has to create a clear and present danger. I mean, thats the famous Oliver Wendell holmes decision, clear and present danger to current law on freedom of speech. And so weep, i think we need to make sure we have the proper balance. The flag certainly is a symbol, the confederate battle flag certainly a symbol of hatred, a symbol that creates fear in. Americans. And i think you know, its place is in a museum, not on a state capital. I think its very easy to set that distinction that it cannot be that flag cannot be flying on state or government property. Perhaps it would be better to educate folks, as well. So stay with us. When we come back, White Supremacists embracing at president s initial statement about charlottesville. Were going to break down why. Thats next. Wise man, im nervous about things i cant control. Affecting my good credit score. I see youve planted an uncertainty tree. Chop that thing down. The clarity you seek. Lies within the creditwise app from capital one. Creditwise helps you protect your credit. And its completely free for everyone. Its free for everyone . Do hawks use the stars to navigate . I dont know. Aw, i thought you did. I dont know either. Either way its free for everyone. Cool. Whats in your wallet . Peobut theyre different. Ind its nice to remove artificial ingredients. Kind never had to. We choose real ingredients like almonds, peanuts and a drizzle of dark chocolate. Give kind a try. Thats why at comcast were continuing to make4 7. Our services more reliable than ever. Like technology that can update itself. An advanced fibernetwork infrustructure. New, more Reliable Equipment for your home. And a new culture built around customer service. It all adds up to our most Reliable Network ever. One that keeps you connected to what matters most. We have breaking news tonight. Two more ceos quitting President Trumps manufacturing council, the leaders of intel and under armor join the ceo of merck in leaving that body. Back with me michael and douglas. When President Trump finally got to condemning them for violence, he mentioned other hate groups. Take a listen to this. Racism is ebola and those who is cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the kkk, neonazis, White Supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as americans. We are a nation founded on the truth. That all of us are created equal. What is he talking about when he says other hate groups . Is that a signal to his supporters on the far right . I dont know. I picked up on that also. It was to me a little disconcerting when he tried to roll out his economic package today as a signal that look, the death in charlottesville matters but im going to talk about Something Else first. It all depends how much of trump you want to study. But it was welcomed today that the president i thought, don, made those remarks. But the question is, is he just trying to get it out of his hair, blame the media, call it a pr problem or can he have some kind of epiphany to realize that the Birther Movement and his talk of the wall and his disrespect to latinos and latinas and on and on, whether the lgbt issue he brought out of nowhere a week ago to create disunity in our country, whether charlottesville woke him up. Did he have an epiphany. I down the ubt it. Well wait and see. Michael, in his first statement he talked about a need to cherish our history. We must love each other, in respect each other and cherish our history and future together. So important. We have to respect each other. Ideally we have to love each other. Some people said that was a dog whistle to the white extremists. Given that one of the goals of the unite the right rally was to protest the removal of a confederate monument. Do you think it was . I mean, i think that i think the protest the protest that was going on was to remove this monument. Thats why the White Supremacists were there. They were protesting. You think him saying we have to cherish our history was a dog whistle. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I think the president sends out a number of messages and if you look at the entire speech that he made on saturday, it was very disturbing. Michael, let me just you right hes tweeting by the way the black ceo, it took him 4 minutes. He hasnt talked about the other ceos. Hes tweeting about other things. Took him 45 hours to respond to express. Hes tweeting now this at right pro trump media figure who indulges in conspiracy theories, one is about seth rich, the other is pizza gate. Thats what hes doing tonight retweeting stuff like that. Thats your president , everybody. There you go. Thats a problem. I mean, he had an opportunity to say clearly and unquibcally and he should say it often that recondemns white racial supremacists. He didnt do that. This is an opportunity for americans to come together and reject that approach and condemn those supremacists. What do you think about now that hes retweeting this altright social media figure who indulges in conspiracy theories instead of talking about whats happening in this country, talking about White Supremacists and on and on . It just goes to what i was just saying. Today was inconvenient that he had to talk. He billed it as a press conference. He didnt. Hes sending mixed signals like gosh, look at the media, fake news is cnn and theyre pushing i did something wrong and now hes back to his tweeting and retweeting and he sees himself as a leader of the altright. He sees himself like a wallace or joe mccarthy. Thats going to be hard for mainstream republicans and conservatives to grapple with in the coming months because they are the great gop. They are the party of lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt and eisenhower and reagan. Theyre being attained by becoming the party of trump. And in the longterm game of history. Thank you, douglas, thank you, michael. When we come back, the group behind the rally in charlottesville blaming police for the violence. Were going to show how the police chief is responding. Thats next. That schwab billboard. Oh, not so fast, carl. Oh no. Schwab, again . Index investing for that low . Thats three times less than fidelity. And four times less than vanguard. Whats next, no minimums . No minimums. Schwab has lowered the cost of investing again. Introducing the lowest cost index funds in the industry with no minimums. I bet theyre calling about the schwab news. Schwab. A modern approach to wealth management. Looking for a hotel that fits. Whoooo. Your budget . Tripadvisor now searches over. 200 sites to find you the. Hotel you want at the lowest price. Grazi, gino find a price that fits. Tripadvisor. Cohigher ad higher parents arent perfect, but then they make us Kraft Mac Cheese and everythings good again. More a blow the went wrong over the weekend in charlottesville and during a News Conference today, the chief of police was asked if he had any regrets. I certainly have regrets. We lost three lives this weekend. A local citizen and two fellow officers. We certainly have regrets. It was a tragic tragic weekend. We had ingredients and worked out a security plan to bring the groups in and n separate entrances. Again, they decided to change the plan and entered the park in different directions. I want to discuss all of there now with cedric alexander, the author of the new guardians and richard cohen, the president of the southern poverty law center. And chris weeker. I got to tell you, before i get to the police response, the police would not have been out there had these mateful people not entered the streets. Richard, what did you want to say about the situation and how the president responded . Well, you know, the president has finally condemned White Supremacy, you know, and the problem isnt that he was late in doing it. The problem wasnt that he did it under pressure. The problem is that he still hasnt taken any responsibility, don, for his role any energizing the white supremacist movement. He makes it seem like he didnt have anything to do with it. He needs to take some responsibility. I think he needs to fire mr. Bannon, the person who proudly claimed that he made breitbart the platform of the altright and made Richard Spencer a hero. And then i think he needs to take some concrete actions to undo the damage that hes done, starting, of course, with taking telling the federal agencies to take White Supremacy seriously. Merely condemning it is not enough. Cedric, one of the main criticisms leveled at Law Enforcement, its been officers saying the protesters that they sort of stood back. Is that protesters on opposing sides that they werent kept separately that they werent separated that they had the chance to get too close together. What do you think of that . That caused all of this just to evolve. What do you think of this . Well, i heard comments from the chief there today and certainly having been a chief twice in two American Cities i know the challenges that comes with what he was confronted with, but heres the questions that hes going to really have to answer and the questions i would imagine thats going to come his way is that the night before and even days before, there was clear evidence as i understand or intelligence that had been gathered that this group was going to be violent. If that was the case, then there certainly should have been maybe additional preparation that could have been taken to get in between these groups. And i also have to account for the fact that the chief said something today that they were expecting them to come in one direction but they came in from a variety of different directions. And that certainly can be a challenge, as well, too. But i think going forward, that chief and that community and its leadership has to respond to really very challenging questions as to how much did you know and why did you not get in between these two groups prior to the violence that took place. Chris, so jason kesler who is a white supremacist who organized the unite the right rally released a statement saying the blame for todays violence lies primarily with the charlottesville government officials and the Police Officials who failed to to provide for their safety. If they had started to engage with these pro efforts as we saw, a lot of them came very heavily armed as you can see. Would they have risked a shootout and possibly more deaths . Well, its their job to protect the public, and let me tell you in, the 90s when these incidents were very common, you had to build up a good base of intelligence about these organizations and these types of events ahead of time. You have to know that these when these twos groups come together, theres a high potential something bad to happen. Chris, i just want people to be clear about the pictures were showing. Those were the members of this group who came there. The unite the right who were heavily arm right there. Those werent pictures of police officers. Sorry, yis, go on. I wanted to be clear for the audience. Yeah, i hate arm chair quarterback Law Enforcement in general. There should have been anticipation there were going to be armed individuals at this event that there was going to be a high potential for violence. Thats when you bring in officers in greater numbers than you think that you need and make sure these groups are separated. This something looked bad from the very beginning. Looked like it had high potential. Richard, did the right wing militia use this level of armament to intimidate Law Enforcement for exactly this purpose, do you think . You know, i think thats a good question, don. I think many people came there looking for a fight. I think they were looking for a confrontation with the counterprotesters perhaps with the police. It was a really, really dicey situation. We think its critical always that Law Enforcement officers have a really good plan, good intelligence and what i worry a little bit about and i dont want to speculate too much here, but i worry that perhaps the there would have been more Law Enforcement officers there had there been 500 black protesters who showed up im not so sure. You just took my next question to cedric because i got to ask him, i mean, what do you say to that . If this were a crowd of africanamericans carrying the same weapons, would there have been more pro active Police Presence there do you think. Most americans can answer that question tonight and say yes. Lets not even toy around with that. Thats one of the unfortunate situations here that continue to perpetuate this whole idea that certain groups of people are treated very different than others. But getting back to the whole point, quite frankly, in regards to whether police were intimidated by there group or not, i would tend to say no, they were not. I would tend to say the question i would ask was preparation made for this type of crowd. There was clear evidence, don, they were going to have problems with this crowd. And should better precaution could have been taken here again, i dont want to secondguess this chief. I know what its like to be in that position but those are going to be the questions thats going to have to be answered. Chris, i got to tell you, according to a bulletin obtained by Foreign Policy magazine confirmed by cnn, the fbi and department of Homeland Security issued an intelligence bulletin about the growing threat from the white supremacist groups earlier this year. The fbi and dhas believe that members of the Movement Likely will continue to pose a threat of lethal violence over the next year. Do we have a growing Terror Threat here at home that people are now the focused enough on . Yeah. Im sorry, go ahead. Thats a good question, don. Is that for me . Thats for chris. Yeah, thats a good question, don. I question whether were beginning to see a resurgence of the domestic terrorist groups of the 90s. The 90s were a very active period for neonazi, militias, antigovernment and we sort of took our eye off the ball there. We i shouldnt say we but the fbi, my former colleagues had a pretty good program of informant coverage, good intelligence, im not sure we have that now. This goes all the way back to 2015 when the Justice Department said there was a resurgence in particularly white supremacist violence. Weve seen some sporadic incidents that may lead us to believe that there is a resurgence in this white supremacist or far right Wing Domestic Terrorist Group activity. Richard, i know you have thoughts on that. Well get them right after the break. Dont go anywhere. Totally immersed weekenders. Whatever kind of weekender you are, theres a hilton for you. Book your weekend break direct with hilton. Com and join the summer weekenders. Are upgrading their watere filter to zerowater. Start with water that has a lot of dissolved solids. Pour it through britas twostage filter. Dissolved solids remain what if we filter it over and over . Oh dear. Thank goodness zerowaters fivestage filter gets to all zeroes the first time. So maybe its time to upgrade. Get more out of your water. Get zerowater. Except when it comes to retirement. At fidelity, you get a retirement score in just 60 seconds. And well help you make decisions for your plan. To keep you on track. Its your retirement. Know where you stand. To keep you on track. And in this swe see. Veryday act, when we give, we receive. She needs to go to college. I dont know how well do it. Never stop til we get there so, back, now, with my panel. Richard, i want to get in on this. Lets talk about the people around the president and also, lets talk about domestic terror. Here, is the adviser to the president. If its the white man. Its the White Supremacists. Thats not the problem. Go to the middle east and tell me what the problem is today. Go to manchester. What about america . I think mrhe looks like a fo in light of what happened in charlottesville. We have a long history since 9 11 of minimizing the white supremacist threat. The day after trump announced his kacandidacy on june 15, 201 nine people were killed in an africanamerican church. We cant take our eye off that ball, no matter what people around mr. Trump would like us to do. What do we do . At this rally there could be another rally taking place because this yup is group is the right and other hate groups are not going to stop. They rely on the federal resources at the atf and the fbi for intelligence. All they have is what they have in front of them in their own county. We need to get back into the domestic terrorism business and get our resources back up, build the intelligence back up. And when events like this are upcoming, you have to be anticipatory and do your homework. And deter that kind of conduct. Here in north carolina, we have special event laws. You can declare a special event and outlaw weapons in the venue. I think we need to see more of that. Cedric, what lessons can Law Enforcement draw from this weekends violence . And is it going to spread to other cities, where there are the same questions about removing confederate monuments. Two great questions. I certainly hope it does not spread to other cities. Heres what can circumvent that. We need a president at this very moment, to have this, those involved in altright, kkk, neonazi, for the president come out and consistently state, not being pushed to do so by a staff, about what the American People are saying, but take the leadership position to make this part of his platform for the next number of years, however long that may be for he careers. I think its important, what this country wants and needs right now, is begging for, the leadership from the commander in chief, to take a stand. Saying were a better nation than this. To be able to say that tonight is great. However, its clearly important hes going to have to demonstrate it through his actions. As you heard many others have said. Removing a number of people off his staff, clearly demonstrate that to clear example. I think you can go beyond that and make what is happening very concerning in this country, which is domestic violence, being opposed on others is unacceptable. He has to do something different. Absolutely. When you see all those people marching. No hoods, no sheets. You wonder how many walk among us every day. And we dont know about it. Thank you, all. Thanks very much for watching. Ill see you right back here tomorrow. I switched to tmobile, kept my phoneeverything on it oh, they even paid it off wow yeah. Its nice that every bad decision doesnt have to be permenant ditch verizon. Keep your phone. Well even pay it off when you switch to americas best unlimited network. 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A new kind of network designed to save you money. Call, visit, or go to xfinitymobile. Com. Good evening. The president arrives in new york city to growing protests for saturdays altright gathering in charlottesville, virginia, when a car plowed into a group of demonstrators