Transcripts For CNNW New Day 20170815

York. Alisyn is off. Poppy harlow joining me this week. Great to be here. Here is our starting line. Hours after caving to pressure to condemn White Supremacists and other hate groups by name President Trump retweeted a right wing conspiracy theorist who pedaled baseless stories. Thousands protesting the response outside trump tower and others topple the Confederate Monument in North Carolina. Even the late night hosts doing what the president did not getting serious and specific to address the deadly violence. The president s failure to quickly condemn those White Supremacists has led three big name ceos to quit one of his Advisory Councils completely as charlottesville prepares for a memorial for Heather Heyer killed for standing up to hate, all of this has the president s controversial chief strategist steve bannon appears to be on thin ice, laying low, apparently hasnt talked to the president about his future nor met facetoface with him in about a week. Je jeff, the president last night was met with a lot of protester. Reporter good morning, poppy. President trump is waking up here in trump tower for the first time in some seven months. He did arrive here late last night to thousands of protesters here on the streets of new york city, trying to put one controversy behind him, but overnight a tweet sparked a new one. Only hours after attempting to quell the outrage over his initial response to the deadly violence in charlottesville, President Trump retweeting a prominent supporter and conspiracy theorist. The retweet originated from jack prosobik, the Antidefamation League is a member of the alt right. It embraces misogyny and xenophobia, ant xenophobia. Posobic was granted access to the white house meeting in may. Hes pedaled a number of debunked conspiracy theories online, a claim about seth rich the subject of a fox story retracted and deleted and pizzagate hoax which alleges democrats were operating a child sex ring out of a pizza shop during last years campaign. On monday white house caved in. Racism is evil, and those who 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. Reporter cnn learned the president insisted on addressing the economy before making these additional remarks, which came two days after the death of Heather Heyer in charlottesville. Can you explain why you did not condemn those by name over the weekend . They have condemned. They have condemned. Reporter hours later shortly before leaving the white house the president took aim at the media for the controversy that cost him the support of three ceos on his american moving council. The ceo of intel becoming the third Business Leader to step down tuesday night saying in part i resign because i want to make progress while many in washington seem to be more concerned with attacking anyone who disagrees with them. The president s doover does not appear to have been enough for thousands of protesters who line the streets outside of trumps tower. No trump, no kk, no fascist usa. No trump, no kkk, no fascist usa. Reporter this is another stop on President Trumps working vacation, hell be here for the next couple days Holding Meetings later today on infrastructure. Were scheduled to hear from him this afternoon. Hes surrounded by some advisers but chris and poppy one adviser who is not with him is steve bannon, the chief strategist at the white house who is on thin ice, we are told, by several advisers. The president will be making a decision whether to keep him on board or to follow the advice of many of his supporters and close advisers to push him aside. Thats one of the things weighing on the president s mind, even as all this controversy still swells over charlottesville. Chris . Jeff, appreciate the reporting. So a simple question, whether or not the president has made the situation better or worse. Joining us is the vice mayor of charlottesville, virginia, wes bellamy. Good to have you with us this morning. What is the state and the mood of your city . Are things still calm there . How is it . Thank you for having me. Before we begin i think its important for to us express our sincerist condolences to sister heather as well as the two officers who lost their lives over the weekend. Our prayers are with their family. Now to your question i believe personally the mood on the ground is a group of individuals which we call the great city of charlottesville ready to move forward. Last night we attended a Community Meeting and i saw nearly 500 people in attendance, all different races, ages, nationalities looking to bring about solutions. I came here back to the park there was another vigil being held by a group of clergy members and different members here in the park and they all were standing together holding arms, ready to move forward, ready to show that our community is one of resilience, one of determination, and one that will not only not be intimidated but one that will progress and become even bolder and more united after this. So im encouraged to say the least. Did you feel that the president helped with what he said yesterday . I believe that 45 did make some strides in regards to specifically condemning the White Supremacists and the kkk. I must admit that i was rather disappointed in seeing the tweet that went out last night, and listen, i want to be clear. Im not one who sits on some moral high horse who says that ive never made mistakes or never done anything in my life so that i can condemn everyone else but what we are indeed looking for is leadership but i would love to move away from the remarks and the comments from 45 and focus more on whats going on here in the ground of charlottesville. Listen, today is three days after the tragedy that occurred and we still have more work to do and that work is getting done. We have affordable housing, criminal justice issues to address, equity in relations throughout the city to address and those are the things that were going to continue to do. Our Young Students start School Next Week and were going to make sure that our kids are ready for school. Were going to make sure they have the best opportunities to learn in mentoring programs, afterschool programs and showing them this is a community that cares and this is a unified place so again, im not as concerned with what 45 is doing. Im more so concerned with us progressing as a community and that work i can assure you will get done. Wes, quick question. Why do you refer to the president as 45 . He is the 45th president but is that intentional or is that just a quick term . Well thats just what i call him. I believe that when he begins to act as if he deserves to be in that office, and leads in terms of unifying people, then he will deserve the name of President Trump, but at this point, i believe that he has not done the things in regards to bringing this country together. He has not cdone the things in regards to making us a more unified place, neither excuse me, nor has he decided to condemn the individuals in a rapid pace or as he should or speak out in the way in which we believe he should, but again, im not here to talk about 45. Im here to talk about the great people of charlottesville, and we are a great city. Were not a perfect city, were a place of imperfect people looking to make this place better, but i guarantee you, we will be stronger and more united than ever. Wes bellamy, please keep us apprised of the situation down there and the progress thats made. Much love, build stronger together. We will. Poppy . Lets bring in our panel to talk about all this because theres a lot to get to. Errol louis is here, cnn political commentator. So much to talk about. I think its an interesting note that the vice mayor is just calling him 45. Lets get to that in a moment. However the retweet the president last night instead of doubling down on his comments calling out these white supremacist groups by name he chose to retweet someone who is not just controversial, this guy pedals in conspiracy theories, he pedaled the pizza gate experience theory which became dangerous. He made something up that democrats and Hillary Clintons team was somehow involved in a child sex ring in a d. C. Pizzer pizzeria. Its not just a Conspiracy Theory. Guy goes there a month later and shoots the place up. This is dangerous, and the president is retweeting something from him in the last 12 hours. Its really remarkable. This is, among other things, you have once again called dog whistle politics where this is a wink and a nod from the president to some of the worst elements of society, people who have spread conspiracy theories, hate, people who have taken us up to the brink of violence and occasionally we see people take the next step into violence. This is something that a responsible leader would go nowhere near. This is something that a white house would have been unthinkable prior to now, just to see Something Like that coming essentially from the oval office. We call them tweets because thats a technological term. Its a written statement from the president. From the president of the United States, right, and so for him to indirectly endorse Something Like that i think we all know by now what this is all about. Hes done this over and over and over again starting with the birther conspiracies he pedaled for years. All of these are signals and as we saw over the last weekend, people take that seriously and leaders of ku klux klan will stand there looking to the camera and say we are fulfilling a mission that begot from President Trump, it is shocking. The good side of all of this, there are others including Corporate Leaders as were seeing who are going to step forward and sort of fill a leadership vacuum that this president , for whatever reason, has chosen to lead behind. Leadership is often about moments, and moments are often a function of timing, you know, what the president didnt say initially matters. The timing of this retweet matters, right on the heels of supposedly doing the right thing, he does something that can only be considered the wrong thing, so lets bring in khouran demersian. Theyll say the vice mayor not saying the name of the president is disrespectful. When the president tweets something who pezalled the seth rich Conspiracy Theory isnt he asking for it . It depends who youre asking. Hes certainly setting himself up for more criticism, for more anger pointed in his direction. The last few days did not go well for the president of the United States. He did not read the country and the mood of the country correctly in waiting so long to amend his statement from saturday to include those groups, the kkk, White Nationalist, neonazis that he finally named yesterday, and its at best a little tone deaf to follow that up with this. The question is, are we in a position still where people want to give the president the benefit of the doubt that hes a little bit clueless and not malicious. People are leaving that fold when they say i dont want to mention him by name or things like that. The question is even before people of his own party. Youre seeing people saying yesterday there were calls for him to move certain people out of his Advisory Group from the white house that are fairly senior ranking like steve bannon and others. This is reaching a bit of a fever pitch if you even have members of the gop saying that right now. So i think the question is just he took a step yesterday that everybody said okay, maybe that was too late but at least it corrected the trajectory of what we were on. This now complicates that and makes it more difficult for a lot of people who were not very happy with him in the first place to keep swallowing the succession of events that are coming out of the statements the president s making officially but also his twitter account. They go together hand in hand. Three big named ceos have come out in the last 12 hours, 24 hours. The ce, of merck, intel and under armour. These are Huge Companies where it can be difficult to stand up to power structures like the white house in terms of what policy is going to be moving forward for say the big pharma industry, but they did it and the Washington Post Editorial Board praised them writing if theres a reason for hope at this dismal juncture is that americans who stand on principles are recognized and extolled for having done so by speaking truth to power. Mr. Frazier, the ceo of merck and others like him gallvanized the National Conversation and helped cauterize the wound inflicted by charlottesville, at least for the moment. The ceos do not like to do this. Thats right, it may be premature to conclude as the New York Times editorial page has concluded that theres a moral awakening going on, but i think of it more as sort of a vacuum left by the white house, moral leadership clear guidance, speaking in a timely and forceful way about common shared values that are really important to this country. The president has chosen not to do it. Its not as if he just forgot, not as if people didnt encourage him to say the right thing at the right time. I made a decision to sort of leave that alone as if it was none of his business or if it didnt matter. There are others fortunately who have stepped forward, these are men who lead major organizations who have thought deeply about what leadership means, who have sort of a Global Vision and global responsibilities and global constituencies. So theyre just filling a vacuum that this president should never want to have left open. Also know that there are big supporters of the president who voted for the. The who work under them. The next round of reporting im sure from Christine Romans and other people these are companies, ceos and brands that are admired, respected, people vote for with their dollars every single day. That should be short of an alarm frankly for a political leader that youre dipping in the polls and respected important powerful brands and personalities are walking away from you. That is sort of an alarm bell that should be going off in the west wing today. Also, remember what were talking about here, karoun. When we talk about health care, there are millions and millions of people who are affected by these policy things thats going to get people angry on different sides. Youre talking about tax structure, talking about Foreign Affairs they matter. There are a few things that are as uniquely dangerous as playing with hate. Ill tell you last night when i was considering the situation what were seeing from gop lawmakers, thousands of people including people who voted for President Trump, who were just aghast at what he didnt say when the moment demanded it and i went back to this book from david mccullough, one of our famous historians. During the mccarthy period in this country the senator who stepped up doesnt get a lot of credit. It was a female republican senator named Margaret Chase smith and she said something i think that bears reminding today, that she didnt want to see her Party Falling prey to the four horses of columnae, disparageme disparagement, fear, ignorance, bigotry and smear. Karoun it seems like were in a moment where his own Party Started to step up and said dont make us about this mr. President. Dont make us people who pander to the worst of us. We are and seeing people are saying look, you frequently heard probably over the years republicans say were the party of abraham lincoln. That doesnt match up with what were seeing today. There isnt necessarily for many republicans there is not room under the republican tent to include these white supremacist movements and others like them and so youre actually seeing this issue unlike other policy issues where as you said you can kind of say well i think this, i think that. You can have a legitimate disagreement about policy even if it gets heated and emotional. On this issue its about fundamental character. Its not about a piece of policy right now. Its just about who you are and who you are as american citizen and thats who you are as a country and you dont want your party to reflect something that is not that but including voices that martha message and that fundamental character is supposed to be. Thats part of why youre seeing so many people completely unperturbed by the idea they need to show loyalty up the chains of the white house on this issue saying no this was wrong, you need to fix what youre saying, mr. President and maybe you need to make some changes in the white house as well if this is just the latest and most egregious of a pattern of things weve been seeing of letting that White Nationalist voice be not instantly repudiated. Also just to add to one quick thing that errol said the businesses that have left him, that hits trump where it hurts. Hes a businessman. So maybe this makes him listen and Pay Attention even more so. Certainly made him attack faster than he did when the event unfolded in charlottesville. Thats for sure. Thank you very much, karoun, errol, appreciate it. The deadly violence in charlottesville has come down to this image. This is the resonance that brings us back to what happened there. You see Marissa Blairs fiance, martin, getting struck by that car allegedly driven by one of the White Supremacists, after he pushed his fiance out of the way. Marcus, not martin. Marcus and his fiance, Marissa Blair will join us at 7 00 a. M. Eastern to tell us what theyre doing to build after charlottesville. It was incredible to hear from her yesterday. Now youll hear from them together. Pretty remarkable. Ahead for us late night comics finding it hard to laugh in the wake of whats that transpired in charlottesville and since, President Trumps response to the violence nearly reducing jimmy fallon to tears, his emotional charged monologue is next. A penny its ourr back to school one cent event at Office Depot Office Max. Notebooks one cent rulers, glue and 12pack pencils all one cent each hurry to Office Depot Office Max taking care of business about to see progressives new home quote explorer. Where you can compare multiple quote options online and choose whats right for you. Woah. Flo and jamie here to see hqx. Flo and jamie request entry. Slovakia. Triceratops. Tapioca. Racquetball. Staccato. Me llamo jamie. Pumpernickel. Pudding. Employee hey, guys home quote explorer. Its Home Insurance made easy. Password was hey guys. Its Home Insurance made easy. Your privacy makes you myt number 1 place to go number 2. I love you, but sometimes you stink. 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Tell your doctor if youve been someplace where fungal infections are common, or if youre prone to infections, have cuts or sores, have had hepatitis b, have been treated for heart failure, or if you have persistent fever, bruising, bleeding, or paleness. Dont start enbrel if you have an infection like the flu. Joint pain and damage. Can go side by side. Ask how enbrel can help relieve joint pain and help stop joint damage. Enbrel, fda approved for 18 years. Even the late night comics were getting serious last night in the wake of the deadly violence in charlottesville and President Trumps response. Take a listen. The fact it took the president two days to clearly denounce racist and White Supremacists is shameful. One brave woman in charlottesville, Heather Heyer, died standing up for whats right at the age of 32. I cant look at my beautiful growing curious daughters and say nothing when this kind of thing is happening. There were two sides, not many sides and one of the sides had nazis on it. All he had to do was condemn the nazis. If only the president was as mad about neonazis murdering people in the streets as hes been about Hillary Clinton the New York Times, cnn, joe scarborough, Kristen Stewart the cast of hamilton diet coke, nordstrom not selling his daughters clothes, me, the state of new hampshire, gold star families, meryl streep, the movie jango unchained and lady ghostbusters. Its an odd day when you dont have to exaggerate reality to make parody, but that is where we are. Lets bring back the panel, errol louis, karoun dermerjian and jeff zeleny. The country takes its own measure, errol and the president had an opportunity, he didnt take it for whatever reason and then he did and he retweeted this, this is not just another blogger. This isnt one of us. This is somebody who pedaled pizza gate and seth rich and you have to believe that the president knew what he was doing when he retweeted this guy that it wouldnt be just retweeting another opinion maker. Thats right. He knows full well and while he doesnt have a background in traditional politics, President Trump actually is quite gifted when it comes to reading the cultural mood and sort of steering his way through the thicket that brought him to the white house in the first place. I see that as just a wink and a nod back to the people that he is relying on or trying to cater to in some sense and sort of saying im not completely gone. Im still sort of here. Theres a little ambiguity here. I think also we know that he watches this show and other morning shows and is an avid watcher of the news but hes also an entertainer as part of his background. I think it cuts him to the quick that the late night comics are going after him. What is he going to do, call them fake comedy . No. He understands the culture is moving in a direction that is at odds with this sort of game of footsie hes playing with the extremists. He has to figure out if he wants to write off a large chunk of the country to play to his base and be the president of his base as opposed to president of the United States. We should note this is not the majority of any americans base. This is a fringe hateful unamerican part of this country. Karoun to you, last night in North Carolina another statue was brought down by protesters. You see it right there, a confederate soldier. There are more than 700 of these that remain across the country and i think if you dont live in the south and theyre not around you, theyre not here in new york city and not part of our everyday lives, what they stand for, the hate that they stand for, sort of the antiabraham lincoln message they stand for is being fought physically here. This is a symbol certainly and it is evidence of how so Many Americans are feel right now. Is this the beginning you believe of a lot more to come . I think yes. I dont think this is over or selfcontained in one weekend. It led to this point from origins that started before this point. Its not going to simmer down because this is not really over. I think a lot of people are frustrated. Youll probably see various other towns and municipalities and counties or whoever controls who, the areas in which these statues exist having discussions whether you should take them down, much likely talked about nationally when it came to the Confederate Flag and much like was i guess the touchoff point for much of why people gathered and conjugated together in charlottesville. Like i said, there were other fueling factors there, too. Because you had these movements looking for a reason to be able to get together basically and make this sort of a stand. But in places like North Carolina, i believe theres many parts of North Carolina where the process is either impossible to get the statues removed quickly, protesters taking matter into their own hands like in that video you just showed, there is fussration now authorities up the chain because people felt like they shouldnt have had to wait so long for the president to make statements. Theres concern in the country people really need to not let this moment go to make the point of these symbols, these movements they are not okay, and so i think that you will see this continue elsewhere. North carolina is a good example of that. Youll see this push and pull between much smaller groups that are espousing these messages of hate, and White Supremacy and the rest, maybe take steps where theyre trying to promote these issues you is ayou in boston, the Holocaust Memorial was damaged yesterday as well and then youll see others that want to defend the countrys moral standing and say that these measures and these statues and Everything Else is wrong. Take measures, too, as we saw in North Carolina. The president s reluctance has wound up translating into making him a symbol of something to be resisted in that way. Lets just show what happened in front of trump tower last night, the president coming home, ordinarily you expect it to be a celebration, thousands of people out there who were very much focused, jeff zeleny on what happened in charlottesville and playing to these fringe types and they were angry. They were out there. Now politically, in terms of why the president did or did not do certain things with respect to this issue and other ones that cater to the same base instin s instincts, Steve Bannons name keeps coming up wes is reportedly laying low right now. What do you make of the reporting on the stability of bannon within the white house and the basis of saying well, you know, thats why the president comes one these ideas is because of steve bannon. Do you buy that . I dont buy that, chris. The reality is President Trump is the one who is in charge of what he says, what he thinks he believes, what he doesnt say. So this is not a steve bannon phenomenon, a steve bannon blame. Steve bannon is on thin ice and he is on thin ice in the west wing, not because of charlottesville. Actually because of very different things, and i think its, you know, far too early to say steve bannon will be leaving the president s side. Hes been on thin ice before. He has repeated lies he has repeated lives here. Working up to his nine lives. The president did not address this initially. Yes he talked to steve bannon on the phone and other advisers but this is not something that you can blame steve bannon for. Separately, about the reason there is some anger inside the president s circle of advisers, including jared kushner, his soninlaw, ivanka trump, his daughter, theyve been mad at steve bannon for a long time but they believe that he is has been responsible for some of the leaks against h. R. Mcmaster, the alt right uprising against h. R. Mcmaster here, and that is largely having his fingerprints on it. Well see if he maintains and sticks around here. To conflate charlottesville necessarily with bannon he has more issues than that. Appreciate it. Thank you very much, panel. Another story newly released emails reveal a former Trump Campaign adviser repeatedly tried to set up a meeting with russian officials, including vladimir putin. 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Defense secretary james mattis warning north korea if it fires on guam, then its game on. Hours later north korean media kim jongun reviewed final plans to envelope guam in fire but will hold off to see what the foolish yankees do. Iran threatening to quit the 2015 nuclear deal within hours if the u. S. Hits the country with more sanctions. Earlier this month President Trump signed new sanctions into law. Irans parliament announced plans to counter u. S. Terrorist measures in the region. George popodopoulos made plans to meet russia. He is a selfdescribed oil and gas consultant. President trump caving to pressure finally calling White Supremacists and other hate groups out by name. Critics saying it is too little and too late. Is there anything the president can do to reverse the damage . Well discuss next. class ewwww boy sorry. dad dont worry about it. mom honey, honey, honey, honey vo at our house, we need things that are built to last. Thats why we got a subaru. avo love. 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A ronner with a cell phone had received calls from people around the president saying that we were wrong that he got it, that his initial response was measured because thats what the situation called for and youd see when he stepped up now he would say the right thing. He would call out people and start to unite this country and yet right after his doover, he retweeted propaganda from a right wing conspiracy theorist. Lets discuss what this means with cnn political commentator Symone Sanders, and brunnel che from the National Coalition for trump. Symone sanders, am i falsely combining or connecting these two events, do you see it the same way that the president coming out in one moment and saying these groups, the kkk, White Supremacists, theyre bad, what they do is evil, what they espouse is evil and this retweet from somebody who is pushing fringe stories like pizza gate and seth rich. Do you see those as connected or no . Ias connected and take it a step yesterday, and what he said yesterday seriously considering pardoning Sheriff Joe Arpaio who is a known racist. I really think that this is an example where the president s rhetoric does not line up with his actions and i was happy to see him some out yesterday and forcefully call out White Supremacy the kkk and neonazis. Brunelle how do you see it . Good morning, god bless you and God Bless America. As i stated yesterday the president came out on saturday he blanketedly said any bigotry on the left or the right is wrong and yesterday when he came out with the statement specifically naming kkk and neonazis, that was a cherry on top for me, and the love and compassion and the way that he expressed himself yesterday reaffirmed in me and so many others who have stood behind this president that he is truly taking his role as the leader of the free world seriously, and that he is the president of the you state, all of us, and so i think weve got to move forward on this. We just cant move past the fact that neonazis and White Supremacists killed someone on saturday as a direct result of folks wanting to take down a statue of a general of the confederacy. We cannot move past that. Youre so right about that and my condolences as a fellow american who passed as well as those hurt. What ill say is the president has come out expressly against this violence, but also too miss symone who were people on the left pouring urine on journal t journalists, all types of violence im waiting for people to come out and condemn that as well. You cant just condemn one and not the other. You condemn it across the board. Hold on i dont want you to talk over each other. Some of the thoughts get lost. Absolutely because i want to hear her. Brunel the two sides, many sides argument. Help us understand it better from your perspective, because i just want to be clear, do you see those who went there to oppose nazis as the same as the nazis . I believe that first of all, you had a situation where you had people marching, the people saying White Supremacists were marching and they had a permit and then you have these counter protesters come in, and any time you have a situation where youve got groups that are on extreme sides, like i said there should be like are those extreme sides to you . There should have been heavy police. Yes. You see somebody who opposes White Supremacists who want everybody on this panel to be eradicated from the United States as being equally as extreme as the White Supremacists . What im saying is that i dont believe that in black supremacy or White Supremacy or hispanic supremacy. Oh, well i believe we should address any kind of hatred and extreme across the board. It shouldnt be something that we are letting one get away with it more than any other. Thats not how it should be. I wanted you to articulate the point. Symone respond the idea White Supremacists were equaled equal extremists on the other side. Do you see that as what was happening in charlottesville . No, i think that is a false equivalency and i believe thats a a dangerous thing to say. This country is steeped and rooted in White Supremacy. We are two years shy of the 400th anniversary of the first 20 slaves being brought to, African People being brought to america as slaves, so this is, theres no such thing in my opinion as like black supremacy and latino supremacy and hispanic supremacy. Thats not true. It is. We have it every day. We fought a war because, a civil war in this country because people in the confederacy took up arms against the government because they believed it was their right to own people that looked like myself and brunel because it benefited them economically. Thats true. We tread into revisionist history waters and when we attempt to water down what took place this weekend, these were White Supremacists, White Nationalists. Im not what im hearing brunel when you say theres no room for White Supremacy, black supremacy, whatever. That is equating the two, to are me, and that is not the same. People were lynched in this country by White Supremacists. No one else killed anybody, used isis style tactic this is weekend except the White Supremacists. We need to call a spade a spade. If i may respond . What im saying to you miss symone is theres a lot of deep hurt in this nation all across the nation, and we have got to move forward. We have got to get out of this not allow this miniscule part of our population to overtake all of whats going on. Weve got a president in office who is working on immigration. Sympathizers with White Supremacists. Who is sympathizing with the entire nation. When donald trump ran for office he stood up for people across the spectrum and people across the spectrum whether you like it or not, or whether the media wants to accept it or not voted for donald j. Trump, black people, white people, asian, hispanic, muslims, christians put him in office so i take offense to people saying that oh well hes a supremacist and only for white people. The core people that put him in office no one said that on this panel. Lets hold it there, symome, brunel, when we come back lets talk about where we are and where we think well go from here because it could go in different directions. Lets come back and talk about it. Well be right back. Stay with cnn. And lifes beautiful moments. Ns get between you flonase outperforms the 1 nondrowsy allergy pill. It helps block 6 key inflammatory substances that cause symptoms. Pills block one and 6 is greater than 1. Flonase changes everything. Their leadership is instinctive. Theyre experts in things you havent heard of researchers of technologies that one day, you will. Some call them the best of the best. Some call them veterans. We call them our team. All right, were in the middle of an important discussion here. Lets bring by Symone Sanders and brunel donaldkye. Well fold this into how we move forward. Brunel youre a talented attorney and i understand youre making a case and we respect that here but i want to give you a point of clarification. I respect you, too. Thank you. Thank you for that. Look, were talking about what happened down there, yes, there was a permit that a local blogger got for them to come and march. There was also a finding of police that it would be Unlawful Assembly because of the torches and the violence and the threats that were being made. So we have to be very careful about ascribing any innocence to the motivations or actions by the White Supremacists who were there because it doesnt seem justified. I have no interest in defining innocence of any White Supremacists anywhere ever. I aunderstand that. Just want to make that clear. Heather heyer was not an equal opposite. Marissa blair and her fiance were not equal opposites to White Supremacists. They were down there because they stand against the same thing that you and symone and i do, frankly, which is that hate has no place in this country, and putting some people above others has no place. So when you say you had the extremists on both sides, thats what was going on and thats why the president was measured i dont think its an accurate premise, because the Heather Heyers, the Marissa Blairs her fearian say the overwhelming number of counter protesters were there because hate is wrong, not because they harbor their own hate on the opposite side of the political spectrum. Theres a reason that right wing extremists far outnumber left wing extremists in terms of investigations for terror in this country, so again, do you really see them as equal . What i would say to you is this counselor. Down there, there was violence on both sides, and ill also tell you, you had your own fellow journalists down there, had antifah throw urine all over your fellow journalists and there was violence on the left side as well down there, so thats all im saying. The violence and bigotry and hatred in any form should be condemned, and the president has done that unequivocally. He has stated it a, b, c, d, nazis, kkk and anybody else who is a purveyor of hate, we are not, youre not, we dont stand with you. He said it in the second instance. He said it nicely and passionately yesterday. Symone he said it in the second instance, not the first, and he retweeted a guy who panders to the right wing fringe right after we his do over as theyre calling it. In charlottesville theyve linked into arms and were seeing these different people and groups come across this country, and get together to say were better than these people. Were better than these White Supremacists. Where do you think we stand . You know, i think the problem with vague condemnation, as our colleague jake tapper tweeted on saturday is that you leave yourself open for interpretation, and i think with the president and what i think, what i view is a delayed response, he has left himself open for interpretation with some of the white supremacist groups. Folks have come together across the country and said hate has no place here but other folks have also come together some of the white supremacist groups. Other marches have been planned in boston i believe and berkeley, two that i know about for sure, berkeley, california. So i think we have to be, this is a really important moment for america. Folks have to be very intentional and we have to use really, really specific language, and i continue to call out White Supremacy because it is important that we understand that is what this is and White Supremacy is dangerous. White supremacy has killed people in this country and if we do not call it out, if we dont stand up to it, if. We dont take actions and actions meaning the Trump Administration reversing a policy that removed White Supremacists from being monitored by the counter extremism terror program, they need to go back on that list. Actions mean not considering pardoning joe arpaio, a known racist, actions mean not retweeting farleft Fringe Groups but also being really clear with these nationalist groups and noting we do not want your support and i dont think ive heard the president say that. Theres reporting in the New York Times this morning the notes steve bannon was counseling the president over this weekend, even though he seems like hes on the outs, he was counseling him and saying you dont want to alienate even though this is a small group, these are still supporters and thats concerning. Where steve bannon is involved, lets let him speak for himself. Im out of time on this segment. If i may all of us have to agree on one thing, theres one president of the United States. You can have a lot of advisers but you make up your own mind. Brunel well have you back as always your voice is welcome here. Thank you. Symone to you as well. Thank you for this conversation. God bless you and God Bless America and god bless donald j. Trump our president. All right, be well. Poppy . He is a hero and rightly being hailed as such for pushing his fiance out of the way as the car plowed into the counter protesters in charlottesville. The couple who also was such Close Friends with Heather Heyer, will join us live. Jooirnlgtsd boom. Love it. [struggles] show me the carfax. Start your used car search at the allnew carfax. Com. And lifes beautiful moments. Ns get between you flonase outperforms the 1 nondrowsy allergy pill. It helps block 6 key inflammatory substances that cause symptoms. Pills block one and 6 is greater than 1. Flonase changes everything. We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, it has no place in america. Better late than never. Im glad the president called evil by name. Its too little too late. Ones initial response is the most important response. Hours after condemning White Supremacists the president retweeting a prominent supporter and conspiracy theorist. Donald trump has no credibility on this issue. There is no place in my party for neonazis. Three ceos say they want out of the president S Manufacturing council. Were just not seeing that maturity yet from the president who is