Style And Platform Laid By Democrats 2020 Candidates
DON LEMON, CNN HOST: The leaders trying to differentiate themselves from each other and take on President Trump. Senator Cory Booker says this tonight to Anderson Cooper while ICE agents are planning immigration beginning Sunday.</s>SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: His fear-based politics is undermining the safety of communities all around this country where now you have immigrant communities who are afraid to even go forward and report crimes, sexual assault, violence, robberies to local police because they are afraid of being deported, afraid of dropping their kids off for school. This fear-based culture, it's a toxic thing that he's doing.</s>LEMON: The former Vice President Joe Biden who is leading in the polls slamming the president's foreign policy.</s>JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The world sees Trump for what he is, insincere, ill-informed and impulsive and sometimes corrupt. Dangerously incompetent and incapable, in my view, of world leadership and leadership at home.</s>LEMON: Mayor Pete Buttigieg today unveiling details of his plan for racial justice which he calls the Douglass Plan named after abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Here's what he told Anderson tonight.</s>MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG (D), SOUTH BEND, INDIANA, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Everybody running for office right now, everybody running for president, has a responsibility to explain what we're actually going to do when it comes to systemic racism in this country, not just describing the problem but actually talking about concrete solutions across the fields of housing, education, health, homeownership, access to capital and economic empowerment, criminal justice and democracy. These are all areas where it's as though we're living in two countries.</s>LEMON: And Senator Kamala Harris slamming President Trump's attempt to put a citizenship question on the 2020 census saying this tonight to MSNBC's Rachel Maddow.</s>SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: So, what this president is contributing to is a faulty census that we'll have to live with for the next 10 years. It is highly irresponsible because it is yet another example of this president trying to interfere, and if not, weaken our democracy.</s>LEMON: Let's go big picture on the 2020 race with, let's put him up, dream team, and there they are. Keith Boykin, Angela Rye, Alice Stewart. So good to have all of you on. Good evening, everyone.</s>KEITH BOYKIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good evening.</s>ANGELA RYE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good evening.</s>LEMON: Keith, we're seeing candidates announcing new plans almost daily, right? I mean, you heard Mayor Pete on Anderson he's talking about the Douglass plan that he's going to announce to combat racial inequality. He polled at zero percent with black voters in our latest CNN poll, but, you know, there's a real push for these candidates to aggressively go after the black vote.</s>BOYKIN: There is. It's important because the black community is a central part of the Democratic constituency, the Democratic base. If you don't win black voters, there's almost no chance you're going to win the nomination. So, what you see is Kamala Harris got a bump after her debate performance when she challenged Joe Biden on the integration issue. She got a bump from African-American voters which gave her a bump in the polls overall, so she's seeing a result of that. Now Pete Buttigieg is trying to make an effort to make a play for that vote as well. You see other candidates have been trying to do the same thing. If you don't do it, not just in South Carolina but on a national scale, it's almost impossible to conceive a way you can make a way to the nomination.</s>LEMON: Angela, I had Charlamagne tha God on last night. And you know him well.</s>RYE: Yes.</s>LEMON: He was on the show last night.</s>RYE: That's my brother.</s>LEMON: He's hosted eight candidates so far on the show. This is what he told me about some of them and then we'll talk. Watch this.</s>CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD, CO-HOST, THE BREAKFAST CLUB: I think Joe Biden fumbles all the time. Because Joe Biden suffers from old white male entitlement where he just can't simply can't say I was wrong. Mayor Pete is great. You know, with his -- the Frederick Douglass bill that he passed, that's a specific black agenda. I think Senator Kamala Harris is great, you know. I think Elizabeth Warren is good. I think this is the first time that these Democrats have had to present a black agenda. I don't think Cory has an identity yet. I don't know when I want it to be yet.</s>LEMON: You don't know.</s>GOD: I think I want it to be Senator Kamala Harris only because I feel like, you know, Donald Trump is setting the stage for the first woman president specifically, a woman of color.</s>LEMON: So, well, Angela, where do we start? I mean, shall we start on Biden? He suffers from old white male entitlement. That's his words. Do you think that's right?</s>RYE: Well, I think that anyone in this country who has benefited from systemic racism and oppression starting with slavery 400 years ago absolutely benefits from that, right? I mean, that's just real. We had white kids in court saying that they had affluenza (ph) like it's a thing. So, yes. I don't want to spend a whole lot of time on that but absolutely it's an issue. I think with all of the other things that he's raised; I think that we're in a position right now where candidates should have to present a black agenda. I'm not satisfied.</s>LEMON: Like Mayor Pete Buttigieg?</s>RYE: Yes. I mean, he can call it the Douglass plan, but I would implore him, you know, to consider some of Frederick Douglass' speeches, right. Like don't pay homage by naming your plan. What did Frederick Douglass stand for, right? He stood for abolition in a very real way and black Americans are free yet 400 years later and I would argue no. So, I think that his plan needs to benefit from that substance. I know that Kamala Harris in her rollout at Essence talked about her black agenda and she referenced the black futures lab plan when they polled more than 30,000 Americans. You had Aisha on earlier, 30 -- more than 30,000 black people who had to talk about what their greatest concerns are right now. I think that's major and not enough attention has been given to that, not just by the candidates by us either. This should be all over everywhere.</s>LEMON: Yes, yes.</s>ALICE STEWART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Don.</s>LEMON: Alice.</s>STEWART: I think what we're seeing with the African-American community and the Democrats is very similar to social Evangelicals in the Republican community. You can't just call them up on a Friday night and ask them out for a date and then avoid them on Saturday morning for breakfast. They need to hear you want to take them out Friday night. You have an agenda for them, and you're going to follow it through. So oftentimes parties, Republicans and Democrats, will reach out to these different constituencies when they need them and not follow through. And as Angela said show them an agenda and follow through on that. I think that's really important. It's good to see a lot of these Democrats saying this is what I will do and I will follow it through. And it's critical not just to say here's what I plan to do but follow through, and I think that's what Donald Trump has successfully been able to do to say here's my agenda for the social Evangelical or my base, and he's followed through on that. And a lot of these Democrats I think laying out these plans, Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, a lot of them are saying here's what I plan to do, and the key is instilling the confidence in the African-American community but not just saying it today but that they will follow through.</s>LEMON: OK. Keith is about to jump out of his chair over here.</s>BOYKIN: No. I didn't --</s>RYE: Me, too.</s>BOYKIN: I just didn't want to get off track on this conversation. I don't really care about the social Evangelicals. I think Donald Trump was completely hypocritical in his response to them and everything he did.</s>RYE: Yes.</s>BOYKIN: All the pussy-grabbing and all the other crap he did is completely inconsistent and especially Evangelicals are not even relevant to this conversation. The point is, African-Americans are the base of the Democratic Party, and the Democratic Party has relied on African-Americans for 50 years now to get elected.</s>RYE: Yes.</s>BOYKIN: To presidential races and lower level races and the Democrats now owe something to the African-Americans. We've been -- we've been loyal to the party. Now let's have a chance to pay back what the party owes to African-American people.</s>LEMON: But I do get what she's saying.</s>RYE: You know, Keith.</s>LEMON: Hold on, hold on, Angela. You'll be next. I do understand what she was saying though, is that if we're going to elect you, meaning Evangelicals --</s>BOYKIN: Yes, yes.</s>LEMON: -- then you make sure you get the person on the Supreme Court who is going to do this, and I think that's what -- but you're right about the completely hypocritical when you look at --</s>BOYKIN: Yes. I just didn't want to get off on that because we'd be having an argument for an hour about that.</s>LEMON: OK. Go ahead, Angela.</s>STEWART: Yes. I didn't mean to go in that point. Keith is right, but my point is I think they are actually saying, OK. Tell us this today or tonight, but --</s>LEMON: OK.</s>STEWART: -- give me some assurance that you'll follow through on that.</s>LEMON: Go ahead, Angela. What did you want to say?</s>RYE: Yes, I think just quickly. I actually disagree that candidates have successfully done that. That was the exact opposite of my point. I think that there have been a few. It's not enough to Keith's point. We have been courted a long time two weeks before election day, and now I'm just starting to question frankly, Don, whether or not we are doing the work in putting demands forth, and I think my point about black futures lab was just that. This is for the first time when they said we're not going to decide what the black agenda is for black folks. We're going to talk to black people about what those needs are. And so, I gave kudos to some of the candidates that have done that, but I'm not seeing a black agenda for most of these candidates.</s>LEMON: OK.</s>RYE: So, I want to be very clear about that.</s>LEMON: So, Keith, Senator Kamala Harris is hitting Joe Biden again. He's on with Charlamagne tha God tomorrow. Charlamagne was on last night. ABC News has this clip. Watch.</s>HARRIS: I'm not going to let us engage on a debate stage for who is going to be the next president of the United States. I'm not going to allow us to engage in revisionist history, and I can't stand on that stage and allow certain conversations to be taking place because, remember, I didn't bring this conversation up about these segregationists. That had been going on for weeks. But I cannot be on that stage and not speak up to make sure that we are having a full accounting for American history on these issues.</s>LEMON: Is this something she should continue to hit Biden on?</s>BOYKIN: Well, it's something that Biden should just apologize for. He made a mistake.</s>RYE: Yes.</s>BOYKIN: Let's move on, Joe, but the more he drags this on --</s>LEMON: You mean about the segregationist. He did apologize on segregationists.</s>BOYKIN: I mean, apologize in the sense of he's -- he's deflecting by attacking Kamala Harris and making this an issue and giving this story legs. It doesn't have to be. He wrote a letter to segregationist Senator James Eastland basically thanking him for his support of his anti-busing bill. This is not something that's debatable. Nobody wants to talk about what happened in 1970, but it does have some impact on what's happening on 2020 if the candidate who has that record doesn't at least acknowledge it, apologize for it and move forward.</s>LEMON: Here's interesting. I just want to put these polls up, OK? South Carolina, this is a new Fox News poll, among black voters who make up the majority of likely Democratic voters, 41 percent, Biden, 15 percent, Sanders, 12 percent, Harris, 4 percent Booker, 2 percent, Warren. New poll out tonight from CNN. There's a new poll out from CNN, Biden, 25, and then there's a tight race for second. You have Harris at 16 -- I'm sorry, say again.</s>STEWART: Don, I think --</s>LEMON: Yes, it's a CNN poll of polls, excuse me. And then we have Harris at 16, Sanders at 15 and Warren at 15, so those are the numbers. They are pretty close. There was a big bump after the debate, but it looks like it's leveling back out again.</s>STEWART: Don, I think the key is watching these individual states. Biden is still doing well in Iowa, South Carolina, New Hampshire, and these are state-by-state races for these primary, and I think that's the key.</s>LEMON: I got to go.</s>STEWART: We get a lot wrapped up in these national polls, but the state-by-state races are critical.</s>LEMON: To be continued. Thank you all.</s>RYE: Thanks.</s>STEWART: Thanks, Don,</s>LEMON: I appreciate it. See you. It was one of the biggest shockers of 2016 and the 2016 campaign, and we'll go behind the scenes. What you don't know about how the Trump campaign reacted to the release of this tape.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I just started kissing them, it's like a magnet. I just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything.