Unhappy Outside But Happy Deep Inside
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: British company that operated the ship says armed guard took control but then let the ship go. Here is the president's response earlier.</s>COOPER: The news continues. Let's turn things over now to Don Lemon and "</s>CNN TONIGHT." DON LEMON, CNN HOST: This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon. So much for disavow. So much for the president's claims that he disagreed with the send her back chant that erupted at this campaign rally this week. Did anybody really believe he was unhappy with those chants? Because he wasn't. You saw hip standby and let it happen doing nothing to stop it. Did anybody really believe he would take back the racist tweet that started it all? He won't. Listen to what he said today.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: President Trump you not happy with the chant. However, the chant was just repeated.</s>TRUMP: No. You know what I'm unhappy with?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Instead, what you said in your tweet.</s>TRUMP: You know what I'm unhappy about? I'm unhappy with the fact that a congresswoman can hate our country. That's what I'm unhappy with.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, you're not unhappy about --</s>TRUMP: Those people in North Carolina that stadium was packed. It was a record crowd. And I could have filled it 10 times as you know. Those are incredible people. Those are incredible patriots.</s>LEMON: So, the president insisting that his supporters in the crowd chanting "send her back" that they were true patriots because they agree with him. And falsely repeating a slur that any of those four congresswomen or color hate our country because they disagree with him. That's why he tweeted in the first place. "Why don't they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came." Completely ignoring the fact that all of those congresswomen are American citizens. That tweet is why the chants happen. And why he let them go on for a full 13 seconds.</s>TRUMP: Omar has a history of launching vicious, anti-Semitic screeds.</s>LEMON: It is why just 12 minutes later, he was back on his love it or leave it refrain, telling the crowd this.</s>TRUMP: Hey, if they don't like it, let them leave. Let them leave. Let them leave.</s>TRUMP: They're always telling us how to run it, how to do this, how to -- you know what? If they don't love it, tell them to leave it.</s>LEMON: So, I'm sure you're away. We all knew "send her back" is turning into the new "lock her up." Equally hateful, probably even more hateful than that. It is dangerous and disgusting.</s>LEMON: Well, today the President of the United States showing his true colors. After yesterday's failed attempt to convince you he didn't like that "send her back" chant.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, if I may, when your supporters last night were chanting "send her back," why didn't you stop them? Why didn't you ask them to stop saying that?</s>TRUMP: Well, I think I did. I started speaking very quickly. It really was a -- I disagree with it, by the way. But it was quite a chant. And I felt a little bit badly about it. But I will say this, I did and I started speaking very quickly. But it started up rather fast as you probably know.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, you'll tell your supporters never to say that again. That that is --</s>TRUMP: I was not happy with it. I disagree with it. But again, I didn't say -- I didn't say that. They did.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But they were echoing what you said in your first tweet that they should go back.</s>TRUMP: Well, I don't think, if you examine it, I don't think you'll find that. But I disagree with it.</s>LEMON: He says he disagrees with the chant. He says he was not happy with it. Well, that was yesterday. Of course, less than an hour later he said this.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What is your message to the supporters who are making that chant?</s>TRUMP: Well, these are people that love our country. I want them to keep loving our country.</s>LEMON: And that brings us to today. The president no longer seems to have any problem with that chant. And refuses to acknowledge the racism of his own "go back to where you came from" tweet.</s>TRUMP: You know what's racist to me? When somebody goes out and says the horrible things about our country, the people of our country.</s>LEMON: Some fact checking to do on that a little bit later on. Showing us what he really cares about. What he cares about is the news coverage of his pretend disavow of those racist chants. Tweeting that the news media became crazed otherwise known as reporting the facts? Maybe. And immediately pivoting to claims about the size of the crowd. We know how he loves to talk about the size of the crowd. Right? The president doubling down and tripling down on his slurs against the congresswomen and seeming to lose track of how many there are, going from four to three because he doesn't like their politics.</s>TRUMP: I can tell you this. You can't talk that way about our country. Not when I'm the president.</s>LEMON: Actually, you can't talk way about our country no matter who the president is. That is the right of every single American citizen, the right of you and everybody, a right that is in the First Amendment of the Constitution. Remember that? Our government is prohibited from abridging the freedom of speech. But that's not stopping the president from attacking the congresswomen, attacking their right to free speech refusing to acknowledge what he has said about this country. Remember? Let's not forget American carnage. Which I should point out is from his inaugural address. Yes, he said this to America on the day that he took the oath to protect, preserve, and defend the Constitution of the United States. Here it is.</s>TRUMP: Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities. Rusted out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation. And education system flushed with cash but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge. And the crime. And the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential. This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.</s>LEMON: American carnage. But the president today just brushing aside his own hypocrisy.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In the past you said America is laughing stock of the world that you don't believe in American exceptionalism. Why is it OK for you to criticize America, but not Democratic congresswomen?</s>TRUMP: I believe all people are great people. I believe everyone is great. But I love our country. And I'm representing our country. And people can't go around speaking about or country and saying garbage. These women have said horrible things about our country and the people of our country. Nobody should be able to do that and if they want to do that, that's up to them. But I can't imagine they are going to do very well at the polls. And I say this, if the Democrats want to embrace people that hate our country, people that are so far left that nobody has ever seen it, that's up to them.</s>LEMON: Didn't really answer the question. Why is it OK for you to criticize the country but it's not OK for the congresswomen to criticize the country? He never really answered that. And he kept saying and they have said that this called the country garbage. That is not true. That's a fact check that I was telling to you about. OK? But did you hear what he said? He admitted this is all about politics for the president. Twenty-twenty is looming. All about branding Democrats as far left, as socialists, as extremists, as a party that embraces hate when it was hate and divisiveness that helped him to get to the White House. Let's not forget that he never missed a chance to espouse the racist birther lie that Barack Obama was not born in this country.</s>TRUMP: I want him to show the birth certificate.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why? Why? OK, why not, I guess?</s>TRUMP: There's something on that birth certificate that he doesn't like. People have birth certificates. He doesn't have a birth certificate. Now he may have one but there's something on that birth -- maybe religion, maybe it says he's a Muslim. I don't know. And if he wasn't born in this country, which is a real possibility. I'm not saying it happened. I'm saying it's a real possibility. Then he has pulled one of the great cons in the history of politics.</s>LEMON: Like I said, that was a lie. One the president repeatedly still clings -- reportedly, I should say, still clings to today in private in spite of the facts. And today, he wouldn't even allow for the possibility that the first lady and his own daughter might give him advice.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What did the first lady and Ivanka advice you about the chant? I know you guys talked about it?</s>TRUMP: False information.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You never talked about it?</s>TRUMP: No. I talk about it, but they didn't advise me.</s>LEMON: True to form for the man who once said this.</s>TRUMP: My primary consultant is myself. And I have, you know, I have a good instinct for this stuff.</s>LEMON: True to form for the man at the Republican convention, by the way. The man who compared this country to a third world nation and proclaimed "I, alone can fix it."</s>TRUMP: Our road and bridges are falling apart. Our airports are third world condition. And 43 million Americans are on food stamps. I have joined the political arena so that the powerful can no longer beat up on people who cannot defend themselves.</s>TRUMP: Nobody knows the system better than me. I, alone can fix it.</s>LEMON: The president didn't want to consider the possibility that the first lady might give him some advice. But there's another first lady who might be able to share some wise words with this president, another first lady. You know what and this is the former first lady. Michelle Obama tweeting this today. "What truly makes our country great is its diversity. I have seen that beauty in so many ways over the years. Whether we are born here or seek refuge here. There's a place for us all. We must remember, it's not my America or your America. It's our America." The former first lady right on the mark. Our diversity is what truly makes America great. He should listen. Thank you, Mrs. Obama. We've seen the president do the same thing again and again. Try to distance himself from his own racist statements only to double down later. Are his voters still buying what he is selling? That is a question for Van Jones, Max Boot, Alex Stewart, next.