Mitch McConnell Heckled Inside A Kentucky Restaurant.
SANTIAGO: Welcome back. I'm Leyla Santiago in for Christi Paul.</s>BLACKWELL: I'm Victor Blackwell good to be with you. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell is the latest politician to be harassed heckled while out at a restaurant. McConnell and his wife, the secretary of transportation Elaine Chao, there were at a restaurant in Louisville when this happened.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get out of here. Why don't you leave the entire country?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Leave him alone.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Dead mess.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He threw their leftovers at them?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I didn't know that.</s>SANTIAGO: Now other people in the restaurant, you just saw them. They came to McConnell's defense telling the man to back off while the couple had dinner. According to our affiliate WKLY, one of the men threw the senator's leftovers out the door. McConnell's office released this statement overnight saying. "The leader and Secretary Chao enjoyed their meal and Louisville last night and they appreciate those who spoke up against incivility. They hope other patrons weren't too inconvenienced by left-wing tantrums. As the leader often says, the Senate will not be intimidated by the antics of far-left protesters." The restaurant called Havana Rumba says it regrets the incident and wants everyone to feel safe eating there.</s>BLACKWELL: Now ahead of the midterm elections, President Trump is using incidents is like the one you just saw to open a new line of attacks against Democrats. Watch.</s>TRUMP: The choice for every American could not be more clear than it is right now. Democrats produce mobs. Republicans produce jobs.</s>BLACKWELL: The question here -- will the message resonate with voters ahead of the midterms? Let's talk about it now.</s>SANTIAGO: Joining us now deputy managing editor of "The Weekly Standard" Kelly Jane Torrance, and Brian Stelter, CNN chief media correspondent and host of "RELIABLE SOURCES." Let's go ahead and talk about this guys because we are seeing the president say, jobs not mobs. We're seeing images from the caravan. We're seeing McConnell playing out. How will the Democrats respond to this? Because President Trump has shown to be successful with such message in messaging.</s>KELLY JANE TORRANCE, DEPUTY MANAGING EDITOR, "THE WEEKLY STANDARD": Well, yes, Leyla, that is true. And I have to say, first of all, there are bad people on both sides as, you know, just last week, we had Nancy Pelosi who was facing some anti-communist protesters. Who -- yes, they heckled here and kept calling her a communist. They called here a piece of blank.</s>BLACKWELL: Actually, you know what, Kelly? Let me jump in here because we have that video. Let's play here. Great, great. Perfect, perfect.</s>BLACKWELL: Let's show it here. Let's watch it.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right here.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Communist.</s>BLACKWELL: And as we're saying there that heckling of and heckling by -- heckling of elected officials is not reserved to one party, right? So we're seeing this on both sides. Leyla's question was, what are Democrats going to do and is this going to resonate? Just to remind the viewers.</s>TORRANCE: Well, you know, there are bad people on both sides as I just said, but it is true that I do think we are seeing a bit more of this coming from the left. Now can you blame Democrats for it? In many cases these are obviously just people on their own making these statements but you have had a couple of people, not many, but a couple of people who have -- that encouraging such behavior. You had Maxine Waters as President Trump likes to remind people saying you got to go where they live and you got to go where they eat and you can't stop. Now of course she said that in the context when the new first broke about families being separated at the border. But I think a lot of people have taken that seriously. And of course, the biggest leaders of the Democratic Party are not saying that but there are some people who are and I don't see a lot of pushback happening on that. And so I think Republicans do have an opportunity here to say, to blame Democrats in a way. Now they have to be careful that they don't do the same thing and which we saw last week with Nancy Pelosi.</s>BLACKWELL: Brian, to you. We have seen some reporters actually on Twitter saying that this should not happen, that you shouldn't attack people, shout at people, heckle people in public. Wesley Lowery, CNN contributor had some thoughts on that. An interesting exchange on Twitter. Here's the core of the position. He says that, "Yelling at elected officials in public is protected first amendment speech and it's pretty disgusting to see journalist lecturing our fellow citizens for directly petitioning government officials." What is your take on that?</s>BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: I thought that was a really thought provoking point by Wesley Lowery because there has been a lot of attention, a lot of talk here on television, on social media among journalist and commentators saying, cool it down, bring the temperature down, let's try to be civil. HERE</s>STELTER: I think the problem with the core of this conversation is that we are living through an age of incivility led by President Trump. Obviously he is the most powerful official in the United States government and he is anything but civil. Certainly he was not calling out the Tea Party or other conservative groups that were engaged in protesting a number of years ago. Now it's very convenient for him to call out left-wing protesters and that is logical and of course, he is going to do that. I think the problem for the Democrats is that there is no person with equal stature. Nobody is loud or effective as president Trump to pushing back on his jobs not mobs rhetoric. It's obviously a slogan. It's propagandistic. He's going to say it over and over again until Election Day. I think it's a very effective slogan but there's nobody on the other side to counter him that is as loud as President Trump. I think the bottom line here is that there's a lot of hypocrisy to go around. To Kellyanne's point, you know, we are seeing examples of this kind of extreme behavior on both sides. We remember that incident with Sarah Sanders at the restaurant. Ted Cruz was confronted at a restaurant. We saw this most recent video of McConnell at the restaurant. However on the other side you have got Nancy Pelosi being shouted at by protesters. So there is a lot of this to go around and nobody's yard is clean. Right? If you're a neighbor and you've got a neighbor who's yard is really dirty you have got lot more credibility of criticizing them if your yard is clean, but nobody's yard is clean in this conversation. I think that is the fundamental problem.</s>SANTIAGO: So, Brian, you're saying there is no one on the other side but if it had to be, who is powerful enough? Who has the voice to take on the mobs not jobs 16 days before midterms?</s>STELTER: Yes. I still think Barack Obama has so much political capital, so much goodwill on the left. He is the most powerful communicator the Democrat Party has and actually Barack and Michelle Obama together are the most powerful communicators the Democrats Party has. I don't see Pelosi or others trying very hard to be combating Trump's daily lies. Right now they're not trying to -- they don't seem to be trying that hard to do it. So Trump does have the stage almost all to himself. But I think we should keep Lowery's point in mind that this is for the most part what we are seeing legal attempts to express grievances by the public.</s>BLACKWELL: Yes.</s>STELTER: Sometimes it is not pretty at all but most of the time it's legal and it's part of the First Amendment.</s>BLACKWELL: And, Kelly, that's an important point there where he draws the line at legal. Because there was also a message from Steve Scalise the GOP House whip who we know was shot during a congressional baseball practice in the morning and he tweeted, "I don't agree with Nancy Pelosi's agenda but this is absolutely the wrong way to express those disagreements. If you want to stop her policies, don't threaten her, vote. That's how we settle our differences." He, of course, knows better than most how this can escalate.</s>TORRANCE: Exactly, Victor. I have to say, I mean, harassing a 76- year-old man while he is eating his dinner is this petitioning your elected officials? I don't think so. I watched the video a few times --</s>STELTER: I mean, technically it is. Yes, it is the legal definition of petitioning the government (ph). TORRANCE. Well, I watched the video a few times. And, you know, I didn't hear this guy really talking about any issues. I -- mostly said, why don't you leave the country? Why are you here? Go away. I'm not seeing -- you know, some of the stuff, yes. I think you should be able to let politicians know how you feel but yelling at people, you know, just to name things while they are eating dinner, I don't think that is the way to go. And I have to say one of the things I don't like about this environment is everything now is so political. And of course, politics is my life. It's what I focus on. But politics should not be the only thing that human beings talk about and worry about and I think there should be a safe space and so to speak when you're in your private life that you can go out and have dinner. I was impressed by the other patrons who are telling this guy, come on, give it a rest. The last point I want to make it is just Nikki Haley I think made some great comments last week about how our political opponents are not evil, they are our opponents.</s>BLACKWELL: All right. Brian Stelter, Kelly Jane Torrance, thank you both for that. Brian, I heard you chime in there and say that this actually is petitioning one's elected officials so I want to make sure that while there was cross-talk we heard that point too. Thank you both.</s>TORRANCE: Thank you.</s>STELTER: Thanks.</s>SANTIAGO: All right. Staying on politics here. It is the race for Florida's governor that no one predicted. Republican Ron DeSantis and Democratic Andrew Gillum take part in a live CNN debate moderated by our own CNN Jake Tapper tonight at 8:00 Eastern only on</s>CNN. BLACKWELL: Hundreds of migrants trapped on a bridge to get to Mexico. Now President Trump is threatening two big moves to make -- Mexico let's them toward the U.S. border.