president has a real thing for july the 3rd. if you remember, it was one year ago today he was at mt. rushmore, a huge rally there at the height, if you will, of the pandemic. so the president keeping up his traditions. back to you. joe johns reminding us of something that was only 12 months ago but feels like 20 years ago. thanks so much, joe, for being on the road for us. let s discuss tonight s appearance and so much more. with me my friend from the white house briefing room, white house correspondent and washington bureau chief for the grio, april ryan, former advisor to former president bill clinton, paul begala. april, it is not very typical for former presidents to hold rallies just months into his successor s term. former president trump is not very typical. i guess the question right now is does this help his party that he s still doing this? well, the party has some issues right now. they re trying to create the narrative about january 6th.
with the texas governor, other high-ranking officials. you look at this video and everything they re trying to create this image that he s on a presidential visit, he s still president. i don t think there s any question at this point in time he s the head of the republican party, the leader of the republican party. him being in this position at this point heading into the midterms, is it good or bad for republicans as they try to regain control of the senate and the house? i think it s terrible for republicans. i don t see that as a democrat but as somebody who can read a scoreboard. he s the first president since herbert hoover to lose the house, the senate and the white house in just a four-year period. when republicans did that 88 years ago, they didn t rally around hoover, they sent him off to stanford and let him live the rest of his life in academia. the fact that they re rallying around a guy that cost them everything they had politically is astonishing. by the way, cost thou
fueled. this girl is awesome. she s patient and will do what she s got to do. watch for some great times when she comes back from these 20 days. i think that is unquestioned. gail devers, it was a pleasure to talk to you. thank you for taking the time. i really appreciate. it thank you for having me. he s a twice impeached, one-term president. but his fans, his supporters, they are waiting for hours and hours for just the chance to see him. next, we ll take you live to florida where donald trump is set to hold his second rally of this week. you re live in the cnn newsroom. a quick programming note. tomorrow is july 4th. that means it s time to celebrate and there s nobody better to celebrate with than don lemon, dana bash, victor blackwell and ana ka cabrera. the fun begins at 7:00 only on cnn.
desantis wanted to do that as well on that trip and that s terrific. i m old enough to remember when charlie crist was the governor of florida and president obama wepgt went down there and crist gave him a half bro hug and then he lost his office. if trump, the loser, would get out of the way, but i don t guess trump is going to be doing that soon. it all connects back to the rally tonight. and to have it in florida, i m sorry to interrupt, phil. but to have it in florida. do you remember last year mr. trump wanted to have a rally in tulsa on juneteenth. we know tulsa, the site of one of the worst race massacres in history, in greenwood. how tone deaf. wherever he goes, he s going to it s 200 miles from surfside, i know that, where he s having the rally. but it s still going to pull perhaps some number of first responders away to make sure
indictments. funny, last week in ohio when he had a rally, we were just at the point when the indictments seemed to be very close and donald trump uttered nary a word about the prosecutors in new york and what they were doing. this does seem to be an odd time to hold a rally, given the trump organization indictments. also given the tragedy about 230 miles away from here involving that high-rise collapse, if you will. what we do know about that is that if there was any consideration given to postponing the rally over it, it was quickly dismissed. instead the former president s organization has sent out emails today asking people to donate to the families of the victims. so all of that still on the plate. it will be hours before the president. interesting, one other thing, by the way, phil, the former