Transcripts For CNNW CNN Newsroom With Brooke Baldwin 201708

CNNW CNN Newsroom With Brooke Baldwin August 14, 2017

And called them thugs. The department of justice has opened a civil rights investigation into the deadly car attack that killed one innocent american, and wounded 20 others. To anyone who acted criminally in this weekends racist violen violence, you will be held fully accountable. Racism is evil. Those who cause violence in its names are criminals and thugs, including the kkk, neonazis, White Supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we thiol dear as americans we are a nation founded on the truth that all of us are created equal. We are equal in the eyes of our creator, equal under the law, and we are equal under our constitution. Those who spread violence in the name of bigotry strike at the very core of america. Two days ago a Young American woman, heather heyer, was tragically killed. Her death fills us with grief and we send her family our thoughts, our prayers and our love. We also mourn the two Virginia State troopers who died in service to their community, their commonwealth and their country. Troopers jay cullen and burke bates exemplify the very best of america and our hearts you go on to their family, members and every these three fallen americans embody the goodness and decency of our nation. In times such as those, america has always shown its true character, responding to hate with love, division with unity, and violence with an unwavering resolved for justice. So, sarah, we saw the president earlier. He is supposed to speak within this next hour, specifically on china. Im assuming no mention any longer of this is supposed to be an event to talk about china, but of course there are reporters going into that room. You never really know at what point whether he sorbs stewed to see if he addresses it, brooke. I think its certainly a possibility, but you saw how uncomfortable the process has been for him. The fact he made that statement a muted disavowal, and it took him days before he came out today and read off a teleprompter to fully say things that he was disavowing the kkk, and those groups are evil ant wont be tolerated. Sarah, thank you. Well stand sara, thank you. So let rewind. What brought us to this big Statement Today because it was a bit of a miss. Thats exactly right. We can tell this was put together pretty rapidly. This event was not on the president s schedule, or the updated one. We know the without put this together and biczarly spoke about the stock market before he actually got into denouncing kkk members and neonazis and White Supremacists. Were told by the white house he was spearheading this, and he was advised to speak out by his chief of staff and other white house officials, but it draws into question, if he didnt want to say it, why didnt he say it in his original statement 48 hours ago . In the meantime over the weekend you get the statement denouncing the groups on background, well, why does it need to be on background . Why dont they use the name . The reality is President Trump is a politics, like many, he was booked into a corner, the criticism fast and furious, even from his supporters. He had to do this today. The initial instinct was to not do this. Hes on a working vacation. He was playing golf, a lot of his advisers werent there. They were flatfooted on this, no question, but it fits into a pattern of how he responds to hate groups like in. Some of them are his supporters, all of his supporters are not racist, of course. Heres the president. As a conditions of market access. We will com pat the piracy that destroys american jobs. We will enforce the rules of fair and reciprocal trade and weless help forgotten employees. This is what i promised to do as a candidate for this office and this is what im doing right for you as president. Ambassador lighthizer, you are empowered to consider all available options at your disposal. We will safeguard the copyrights, patents, trademarx, trade secrets and other intellectual property thats so vital to our security and to our prosperity. We will uphold our values, defend our workers, and we will protect the innovation creations and, thank you. God bless america. Thank you all very much. Its a very big move. Thank you. This is just the beginning. I want to tell you that. This is just the beginning. Raytheon, congratulations. [ applause ] reporter mr. President , can you explain why you did not condemn the hate groups over the weekend. They have been condemned. Reporter why are we not having a press Conference Today . You said on friday we had a press conference. We just had a press conference. Can we ask more questions. It doesnt bote mer at all, but i like thank you everyone. Reporter mr. President havent you spread a lot of fake news yourself . All right. So let hayes sponld to all of that. Gloria borger, first here. That was the voice of jim acosta shouting questions to the president why didnt you condemn the clashes, and he said theyve been condemned, and think i think he was yelling back at jim, youre fake news. Right. How do you respond . Well, look, i think the president didnt want to talk about it anymore, honestly. You think . I think i think he believes he said what he finally needed to say 48 hours ago, and i think the questions all to be asked about, quite frankly why he didnt say it 48 hours ago. And, you know, i think if you sort of want to take a step back here. I this is this is a president weve seen over the last six months lacks a sense of history and a sense of the gravity of the job of the presidency. And lacks a sense of understanding of the leadership thats needed from the bully pulpit at moments like we just saw over the weekend . Charlottesville. And at a time when he needs to Start Building credibility instead, he sort of squanders it. And so i think that everybodys been grappling with what occurred on saturday, and condemning nazis and kkk members ought to be one of the easiest things that anyone can possibly do from the bully pulpit, yet it took a long time. David chalian, what do you think. His statement was quite trong today. He came out and hit the notes that i think the country was eager to hear from him on saturday. So i do think it begs the question, why was that not his initial instinct . What have we learned now fundamentally about the way that Donald Trumps world view is put into action as a part of the presidency of the United States of america . What did we see on saturday that this was not part of his initial instincts of how to respond, and that this only came after 48 hours of pressure from his fellow republicans, from the press, from critics, wherever he couldnt find comfort anywhere in what he had said saturday. He realized he needed to fix the problem, but fixing the immediate pr problem isnt answering the fundamental question about where his initial instincts were on saturday. Nia, you heard the president say he addressed it. I want a supporter saying why is the media so fixated about this . And basically this and one woman has been killed, but, you know, thats just how one perspective. What did you how did the president do today . You know, i think thats right. Its not just the media. I have a woman who you mentor, whos actually going to the university of virginia in charlottesville, and lots of people around the country are going to charlottesville and perhaps going to the university of virginia. People are afraid form the images we saw on our Television Screens on saturday, i think we are frightening to many, Many Americans. I dont think the president as of yet has addressed that real fear that a lot of americans have that this is something that has happened on american soil. People shouting against jews, shouting against africanamericans, raising nazi salutes. I think he came up short again today in addressing that fear. He typically identifies threats, some of those threats are imagined, right . This idea that all of these people voted illegally, for instance, and he addresses those, right . The whole idea that Illegal Immigrants have committed crimes. Hes talked about that. He sought to address them in real ways. I think here, people who might still be waiting on the policy prescriptions that might come out of this. How big of a threat are these groups . Those were big crowds we saw there. They themselves have said that they feel emboldened. Is this something that the federal government is going to treat as a real kind of broad scourge . Or will they treat it as a oneoff, a one investigation that obviously of a Justice Department is looking into, so i think hes got a ways to go. I talked to one republican, asked him, do you think the president can come back from this . And one of the things he said, he asked me, did president bush come back from katrina . That was a real watershed moment. He wasnt able to come back from that. Of course he was in his second term, but it left a lot of doubts about his president. His empathy, his empathy for certain groups of americans. I think this president has a long way to go in terms of closing that gap for Many Americans who still doubt how he feels about these groups. Thats a great group. Cornel brooks, people, of course, have been wondering, testing the mettle of a man in the face of crisis, and one young woman was killed and separately the two state troopers. But imagine a pulse nightclub shooting or something of that magnitude, and you have to wonder how he would respond based on the course of the last 72 hours. Im afraid of how he would respond. Let us know this this moment was not a failure of message in terms of the White House Office of communications, but it was a fa failius of morality in the heart of our president , donald j. Trump. His response today followed an anonymously sourced white house statement that clarified what the president most obviously failed to say, and it followed an initial statement that did not call out the nazis, did knotts call out white supremacist and the klan. It gave the impression that the president was trying to have his hate cake and eat it, too, in terms of having the white house disavow and condemn these White Supremacists by name while he failed to do so. This was a moment where he did the rhetorical minimum, but his sincerity and stature as a president will be measured as how he sponges as a manner of policy. Number one making thursday the resources are devoted to going after the criminals, or as he put it, thugs. He can fire steve bannon. Let us know that steve bannon was the architect of the breitbart platform for the altright aka White Supremacists. His smear presence perpetuates a de facto office of legitimacy of the altright. He can fire steve bannon, make sure that the attorney general goes after these criminals or this criminal, and any others who are posing a violent threat to the u. S. , and he can use his office as both a moral bully pulpit, but more than that an office that takes a clear stand against bigotry, antisemitism, and lets not forget misogyny. When they decent crate thes memory of a woman heather heyer, he speaks stott ugliness of this. All at once and certainly hanging over a cloud over charlottesville, virginia. The president needs to step up in words and deeds. Jeff zeleny, turning to you. Michael eric dyson said the same thing. He said bannon and also Stephon Miller needs to go. Whats the latest . Steve bannon, is on some thin ice. This is not a new situation. Over the last six or seven months, hes been at the front and then reteethed a bit. There are some who below he is a in fact the wall street journal editorial page, a friend to the president basically called him out and said, cut it out, stop fighting with us. The reality is steven bannon, there were some who wanted to he hung on because theres a lot of allies, and the base likes him, so well see how long he stays, but i think the reality is the staff aside this has been a revealing 340789 of what we learned about from this president himself, his own instincts, and in his response there, they have been condemned. It almost sounds like, okay, ive done it, i can economic it out of. The reality is if you listen to the words that someone else wrote, we need to rediscover the bonds of loyalty and love that bring us together. Speaking in the past tense, they have been condemned. Well see how much of a teachable moment this becomes. I think the president could benefit in a great way. He could bring people together, people who liked him and wanted him to succeed. I think this was a revealing exchange with ow jim acosta saying its a done deal, and i sort of heard like your fake news. He likes to say that to jim a lot. Its a reflex i think at this point. Jim followed up with what about your press conference. Last friday he said he would have a pretty Big Press Conference at the white house today. We know the one this morning was hastily arranged, and he said we just had one. Its not a press conference if you dont take questions from the reporters. Does the president think its a press conference when hes just delivering a message . Ive heard rumbling of that from without staffers, but that is not a press conference. It clearly shows what his instincts were on saturday with that very vague statement about many sides. Also today the reticence has been criticized, but then he too to we no the ceo has quit now the president S Manufacturing council over this response and minutes later the president lashed out on him a successful africanamerican c oeismt, lashes out on him on twitter. Was that a revealing moment for you . Sure. It took him less than an hour to respond to frazier leaving council that was it a Manufacturing Council or business counsl council with th president , but took him more than 48 hours to deal with this. This is a president who is never slow to criticize for people who thinking are doing him wrong, whether it was during the campaign, or ted cruzs names, or calling ken frazier out this morning. Which is it tells you a lot about the president. What you look to a president foris someone that can speak to everyone and saying this unacceptable, we will bring these people to justice. This is wrong, this is who they are, and this is not what we stand for. But his instinct which went unchecked over the weekend, was to do something very different. So its not a staff problem. It really isnt. Its a leadership problem. How does he then just listening to you david, let me go to you. Not that just the ceos are coming occupy, but members of his own party coming out. Talking to carl bernstein, hes been talking to republicans and they feel like you cant turn back from this moment. How does he move forward and unite this country. I think we saw a pretty significant break of his fellow part sans this weekend. I think you will see, or are already starting to see some praise for his remarks from those folks to try to turn the page on this moment a bit political for him, but you dont see some groundswell right now of statement after statement coming out praising what he did this morning. Usee some kind words from him, but i dont see those critics from saturday now just completely dropping their criticism. It was a bit of an earthquake of a moment in terms of until, but i do think theres an important political point here for the president , which is hes already at a huge deficit on these issues, on the stature of the presidency, on hi 21, americans are against him, so this is already a leadership deficit, and he dug his hole a little deeper this weekend. It is interesting to see the number of ceos coming out against the president of the United States against racism and his response today. Absolutely. The reality is the moral reality is this is not about democrats or republican, about blue collar or white collar. This is profoundly about american values. Where you have neonazis, klansmen descenting on the university of virginia, and literally discrating that campus and community with violent extremism, and where you have the president who is slow on the trigger. He responds in a nanosecond with respect to ken frazier acting as a matter of conviction and conscience to his moral failure, but he takes a political eternity to respond to a young woman being killed on the campus of being killed inshalt charlottesville, virginia, and so this is a serious moment. Its a serious moment, and it goes beyond anything his advisers can tell him. This is not a Public Relations problem. This is not a matter of polls, this is a matter of conviction. The fact of the matter is people want to look into the eyes of the president and see character, a soul, see somebody who cares about them, cares about all of them. Whoever you are and wherever you come from, you want a president who literally cares about people. What we saw over the last couple days is a heartlessness that is frankly very disturbing. Its also a matter of safety and security, right . Thats right. The nazis and White Supremacists after this incident, they essentially said were coming back. You can expect more of this. Well see what the white house what Donald Trumps response is. I think those folks, if you listen to what they say, they see in donald trump an ally in the white house, right . So i think many people think its incumbent upon this president not only to denounce them, but say to those folks you dont represent me, donald trump. Because they certainly feel like when they make those make America Great hats david duke has said White Supremacists put donald trump in the white house, because they feel like his vision of america comports with their vision of america. This isnt just a moment. This is likely unfortunately going to happen again. Well see what we hear out of this white house. You know, he could have said what i was thinking about what nia is saying, david duke tweeted over the weekends, remember we voted for you, and all of that, the president who personalizes everything, could have personalized this and said if you are supporting me, i dont want your support, period. I disavow you, period, because david duke said that. Why not respond to that and say i dont i dont want you to support me . Go away. Well, he still has time. He still has time to come down on them, and nia is right, these folks are saying were coming back, heres hoping that they wont, and what happe

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