you're out there -- i'm just curious now, because i want democrats to think and not just have crazy emotions. sometimes you're out there talking about nazi germany and all this sort of stuff. are you stoking up democrats where we can't even think as high minded as this conversation? >> it's not nazi germany we need to worry about, it's the friendly fascism of the 20th century. those who voted for hillary feel good that 20% did not want donald trump to be their president. take some comfort that your fellow americans are with you, number one. number two, we've got to get active here. >> i agree with that. >> let me just say that. >> i have to get one voice in here. you have to hear this guy. i'm going to bring in chris vatali. he's got something important to say to you. >> when i was a kid growing up, i listened to lee iacocca tell us how this country got screwed

on trade deals. right now germany puts a 19% tax on an american car that get shipped to germany. china does that to ensure production in china. nafta was supposed to make a mexican middle class. mexicans make $2.97 an hour. i don't think donald trump is necessarily a hater, i think he's a businessman. tell me why i should vote for him when his own union doesn't back him, and his own party doesn't back him on trade but he's willing to speak the truth? >> i can't tell you because what he says -- i don't know what he'll do. but what he says is that nafta was wrong. that's correct, it was wrong. the whole unfair thing that got set up. and democrats and republicans screwed the working class of this country. and the low unemployment that we have now is in large part due to

the fact that some people have jobs, but they don't have the union jobs, the middle class jobs that they used to have. so -- but let's see what he does with that because ultimately he's a billionaire who looks out. he has an idealogy that he believes in. it's called donald j. trump. that's what he's going to make sure he takes care of. i don't think he's going to take care of you, the working person. >> i think he's done more for me than any democrat has done in my lifetime. >> he hasn't done anything for you yet. >> he raised the issue, and that's more than any of them have done. >> let him talk, let him talk. he's a chrysler worker and he's from a state -- i think you heard him -- called michigan. >> and a county called mccomb. no other politician in my lifetime has ever brought this issue to the forefront, and the fact of the matter is we do get screwed on trade, and they tell these companies to be more global. well, when you add $9,000 to the price of a jeep when it goes to

germany, i'm frankly amazed they can sell any of them over there, let a lenlone a few of them. things need to change. >> when you're still screwed in michigan five months from now, two years from now, where are you going to be? >> how do you know he's not going to follow through, michael? >> there is nothing in his behavior. mant is the man is a malignant narcissist. >> i hate to be the one to say this. it makes me feel very odd. but he's not an idiot. he's got to get reelected by these guys. can't you give him a chance, at least on the stuff you agree with him on? >> i can't imagine he's thinking about reelection. i can't imagine he's thinking, i have to do this for four years? not fair. >> okay, listen. i got to get one more voice in here. thank you so much, sir.

>> thank you. >> give a round of applause. we have rebecca, a sophomore at the university. >> i grew up in an area that's been greatly politicized by financial gridlock. do you think they're going to be as oppositional as the gop was under obama, or do you think they're going to try to retruss the island for coalition? >> the democrats in congress, they represent the majority of americans -- the majority of americans wanted hillary clinton. the majority of americans did not want donald trump. it is the responsibility of this minority of democrats in congress to block, obstruct, disrupt and do whatever they can to prevent the onslaught that is going to happen with donald trump the american people do not support. >> wait a minute.

i keep feeling so odd, sir. >> i'm sorry. >> let me just push back on you. i'm on the left side of pluto just like you. but let me say a couple things here. >> i worked hard for you, sir. >> i appreciate that. listen, when the republicans did this, they blocked our president on everything. you know who suffered? those workers suffered, the kids in oakland suffered, the whole country suffered. are you saying that now democrats should have a policy of imposing that same suffering for four more years? you're saying we shouldn't even try to find any way out? >> your job is to stop the suffering that these people will cause, and let me tell you something, he's going to be inaugerated on january 20, and january 21st, which is a saturday, don't be surprised if the republicans call a saturday session of congress, and they'll call upon law after law after

law and have him sign it the next day, and it will be one piece of suffering for people after another. it is the democrats' job to stop the suffering that he is about to create for the american people. that is their job, and they have to do it, and they better be planning it right now instead of being the wimps they usually are. >> here's the messy truth for democrats. it's easy to say that, but when you have to go back to a district and you have to say, we're going to turn down infrastructure and that type of stuff, it's going to be tougher than that. >> i don't say turn it down, but they need to know when they go back to the district this spring, in the same way the tea party was there in 1929, myself and thousands like me are going to be at those town halls in the districts in the spring. and we will primary down these democrats if they don't do their job. >> consider yourself warned! listen, i want to thank you, and we had an honest conversation here tonight, but this is only the beginning. i hope that you are going to

take this conversation back to your dinner tables, back to work tomorrow, the water cooler and your communities. thank you very much. stay human. cnn tonight with don lemon starts right now. thank you, van, from "the messy truth" to breaking news tonight. i'm don lemon. president-elect donald trump taking his thank you, america tour to north carolina tonight. >> you went out and pounded the pavement, you organized your fellow citizens and propelled to victory a grassroots movement, the likes of which nobody, nobody has ever seen before. >> and trump officially introducing his choice for defense secretary, retired general james "mad dog" mattis. we're going to begin this hour

with semion masade. this is the second so-called rally. what did donald trump have to say and how was the crowd? >> reporter: the crowd certainly felt like they were at a campaign rally. a lot of energy from the crowd. unlike his first thank you rally that we saw donald trump at last week, donald trump was much more subdued tonight. it was very clear he was trying to stick to script, really trying to push his own message. at one point it was interesting, the crowd started booing the media and he stopped them and said, no, no, maybe they will go on to write the truth. it's quite a different change in tone and posture tonight coming from the president-elect. really seemed determined to have his message be the headline coming out of this rally tonight, and that message here really playing to all this military-friendly community, given this is only a few miles from fort bragg. here's a taste of what donald trump had to say. >> now today our brave men and women are the first in line

defense, defense against radical islamic terrorism, words that some people don't like to say, an idealogy of death that slaughters innocent men, women and children. we're going to protect our people, we're going to protect our country, believe me. in every generation, a new threat to freedom arises. and just as we defeated these threats, we faced generations in the past, and you understand that, so, too, will we defeat the forces of terrorism. it's unseen in many cases, but we're going to defeat that force, and we're going to defeat it strongly and quickly. >> now, there was a bit of showmanship coming on the part of donald trump when he rolled out his formal nomination for secretary of defense, general

james matadvertitis. we knew that last week, but the two appearing together tonight. mattis took the microphone for a few minutes. he only retired from the military three years ago. mattis speaking to that saying he's looking forward to serving in a civilian capacity, and if indeed he does get that waiver, the president-elect going on to say that he's confident he will get that waiver and added that a lot of people will be angry if he doesn't. >> senior political analyst mr. david gergen who was an adviser to previous presidents. mr. trump staying on script, nothing inflammatory. did anything stand out to you? >> what stood out to me was the discipline of the message, the clear attempt to be a uniter. he even caught himself. you know, sometimes we hear donald trump sort of instruct himself aloud as if he's repeating his adviser's words. he started talking poll numbers

for a second and then he said, we're not talking numbers, we're trying to bring everyone together. he clearly was not trying to have a barn burner, he really was trying to set forth his 100 days agenda and bring everyone together. the optics are so important to underscore here. this is the first time we've seen donald trump share the stage with one of his cabinet appointees. this one he wanted to physically attach himself to this guy, and i think that underscores how important he thinks this pick is. >> i'm in agreement, his tone was a little subdued tonight, but he did take another swipe at china. look at this. >> we will have two simple rules when it comes to rebuilding this country. buy american and hire american. on trade, our trade deficit now nearly $800 billion a year. north carolina has lost nearly half of its manufacturing jobs

since nafta. america has lost 70,000 factories. think of it, 70,000 factories since joining the world trade organization. so china joins the world trade organization, and since that time, we've lost so much. 70,000 factories. we're living through the greatest jobs theft in the history of the world. there's never been a jobs theft like what's happened to this country. >> so, david, even before taking office, donald trump is showing a strong man approach to governing, but how will that play on the world stage? will it be effective? >> we'll have to wait and see. clearly he's caught up to putin and he seems to think that's going pretty well. i think the big surprise is how tough he's been on china. we don't know the chinese response has gradually ratcheted up the last 48 to 72 hours. it looks like he really got

their attention. what he seems to do, don, what he did with boeing in his tweet and he's done with others, he picks up a board and smacks somebody in the snout and gets their attention. and that's what he's done with china, you know. he got their attention, but where it leads, i think, is very unpredictable, and analysts are are completely divided on that question. >> i heard you agreeing again. i'm going back to what david said about his tone and staying on message. do you agree with that? >> i do. the first rally was sort of spike the football rally. and this time there was a lot less of that bragadocio, and i think david was right, he was trying to unite people more. the substance of his message was to the troops, and it's important to remember how close he was to fort bragg and talking to that audience. introducing mattis, i think

that's why he took him there and showcased him. basically making the argument we're not going to intervene where it's not in our paramount interest. if it's in our supreme interest, we may go in. it is in our interest to go after isis, but his plan is to pull back. a lot of americans will welcome that. that's what he said during the campaign. there was nothing particularly new in his speech today, but it helps you get a sense of where his emphasis is and the prime importance he's placing on jobs and the fact he wants to pull back. i think he's getting ready to turn his portfolio over to the secretary of defense and secretary of state and others, and he's going to focus on rebuilding the country at home. >> is that really what he campaigned on, because he seemed to be much more aggressive in going into syria, going after isis. is that what he really campaigned on, david? >> he certainly campaigned on this notion of pulling back, of america first, of not engaging

in what he thinks were chaos conflicts. and this is why he was so adamant. you remember the entire debate about his support for the iraq war on the howard stern show, but he was so adamant to say, no, no, no, i was never for iraq even though the facts said otherwise, because he was trying to say this wasn't a democr democrat/republican thing, this is donald trump trying to convince americans of a new way forward that's less tangled in the middle east conflicts. >> stand by, everyone. up next, the contrast in both style and tone between donald trump and president barack obama. we'll be right back. around the world. the microsoft cloud helps our entire staff stay connected and work together in real time to help those that need it. the ability to collaborate changes how we work.

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donald trump becomes president in 45 days, and then we give up the leader we've had for the last eight years. joining me is john jones and former congressman jack kingston, a former senior adviser to the trump campaign. welcome to the panel. nice job. congratulations on your special tonight. >> thank you, big brother. >> good job. >> you said panic inducininduci? people are like, which way do i go? it was a great special and we'll discuss it at length a little later on in this show. donald trump was in front of a crowd toenight, probably his favorite place to be when the current president gave his

speech. could the tone of each man be any different? >> no. we have to play a clip. no. i mean -- and now that's the most amazing thing you've seen is that we're supposed to have one president at a time, by the way. president obama is still the president of the united states, by the way. he's supposed to be able to complete what he's doing. instead you've got the master showman stealing the spotlight over and over again, but they couldn't be any more different in their style or their approaches. the showmanship of trump and the style of obama is hard to digest in the next news hour. >> something huge happens to stand there and see him be presidential because he's shuuca showman. we heard donald trump earlier. now listen to current president barack obama talking about terror and the danger of giving terrorists too much attention. >> the terrorist threat is real

and it is dangerous. but these terrorists want to cast themselves as the vanguard of a new world order. they are not. they are thugs and they are murderers and they should be treated that way. today's terrorist can kill innocent people. but they don't pose an existential threat to our nation, and we must not make the mistake of elevating them as if they do. that does their job for them. it makes them more important and helps them with recruitment. >> so, david gergen, as you understand, he's making a nuance point about the psychology of dealing with isis. contrast that with donald trump's view for me. >> they're both very good speakers but vastly different styles. a couple points. obama is cerebral. trump is primal.

obama resorts to facts and logic. trump goes for emotions. i would call it the difference of logos versus pathos. it's a very different style. with obama, there's no drama. with trump it's all drama all the time. >> did you guys think when he said primal, that was an interesting choice of words? he chose that word very carefully. >> don't you think there's something about where he's coming from. it does have a primal quality to it, almost a primal screen. >> even though we saw contrasting styles there, we also heard barack obama there talking to donald trump, bafb basically. that was the other sort of audience member he was trying to speak to in those very comments. he was trying to make sure to set the stage on his terms that donald trump will step onto. >> but i do think that, as van alluded to, there is a little bit of lame duck irrelevancy to

the president at this stage. i just think that's the reality of it. donald trump's venue tonight was at fort bragg and they've had a disproportionate life in the last ten years, so for people who love that nickname and go woof woof in the crowd. showmanship and cheerleading. probably just pulling out that patriotism. very little criticism of the press and other people tonight. >> that's a good point there. i think that one of the things that may happen is that we may wind up missing barack obama more as time goes forward. there is a danger with the kind of rah-rah beligerence. president obama is not wrong.

they have studied the recruitment. whatever you do to make them think they have a voice helps the recruiters. everything you do to amp up their meaning, a lot of young people want to be part of something that's powerful, that's important, that means something something. by giving them all this important, you're helping the recruiters. that policy may change and we may wind up regretting it. right now it may feel great saying, yeah, yeah, we're going to get them, but it may feel worse. >> a big hamburger and french fries feels great every day, but it's not necessarily a good thing. >> the other thing i do think is important is that donald trump's message tonight is we're going to strengthen the pentagon and we're going to pick and choose our battles very, very carefully and barack obama's footprint of war is very different than bush's. we're in libya, we're in somalia, at least from the air. we're in yemen, again, from the

air. we left iraq -- >> representative, if i may, but i thought the criticism from conservatives on president obama was that he was not involved enough, he was too wimpy, and now you're saying he was too aggressive. the footprint of war was too big. what is the messy truth here? >> actually, though, and let me say this. there is a republican hat and there is a trump hat when it comes to this, because mr. trump has said repeatedly, i was not for the war in iraq, and there was a debate on that, as we all know. but i think his approach to the middle east is going to be different. i'm not certain what his program will be in syria, for example. we do know that he wants to talk to the russians about the defeat of isis, but not sure what this is going to mean to the assad regime in the long run, how you deal with refugees, how you deal with the rebels. but i don't know that the average american associates his

day-to-day life with what's going on in somalia, yemen or libya, and so when donald trump is talking about we're going to pick and choose our battles more carefully, i think there is a good sales point to that. now, having said that, i do agree with you, the republicans in congress, john mccain is one of them, may have some major foreign policy differences. for now, mr. mccain is being very quiet about their differences. >> some? >> well, he's been quiet about it. >> after mr. gergen, i'll give mine. >> i challenge the point that president obama is becoming less relevant or irrelevant as his days become numbered. i actually think what he's trying to do is set up a series of speeches and statements that shows he's turning over a legacy in a country that's in much better shape than when he got it. that's obviously true in regard to the economy, but he's also making the point that, look, we're doing better against isis

than we were. we're making gains against isis. >> whether people want to believe it or not. i have to get to the break, david. one last point. go ahead. >> i just want to say there are the hawks and the isolationists and trump makes promises to both. a promise to one is a lie to the other. at some point these things have to catch up. you're either going to go there and be more aggressive or you're going to stay at home. at some point this conservative populist alliance is going to have to be rebalanced if it doesn't break. >> thank you, gentlemen. i'll see some of you a little later shoethe show. others, have a good night. president obama delivering a warning to his successor about national security issues. e me td and i will pay for your movie and one snack box. can i keep the walnuts? sold. but i get to pick your movie. can i pick the genre? yes, but it has to be a comedy. a little cash back on the side. with the blue cash everyday card from american express, you get cash back on purchases with no annual fee.

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president obama is issuing a subtle warning to the incoming trump administration about some of their plans. fareed zakaria, gps right here on cnn. on the same day that president obama delivered his counterterrorism legacy, the president-elect held a rally. he introduced "mad dog" mattis, his pick for defense secretary. how much of obama's speech was about knowing he was passing the baton on to a successor with an entirely different world view? >> i think he was trying to lay

out his world view in kind of an honest way and point to the places where it was different, so he began, actually, by pointing out, look, here is my world view. we live in a dangerous world, we have incredible military power. we can use it but we have to be dischristm discriminate, and we do not want to be nation building all over the world, we want to use lethal power like drones and forces, not engaging in nation building. trump and obama have this broader overlap on this kind of coarse, strategic way they would use force than i think either of them is willing to admit. then obama moves to the differences, and that was very interesting and very pointed. >> the differences -- >> the differences, he said, you know, isis is not an existential threat. they are not going to destroy us. the only way they can destroy us is if we start cutting back on

our civil liberties, if we start turning our society into something different. he pointed out -- you know, he went through a number of issues on torture. he said, i've never -- i scale back the use of any kind of torture and not one intelligence agency ever told me that we were denied information because of it. you know, he went through a whole series of the kind of things trump has talked about. he said american muslims deserve as many rights as anybody else, including those that serve in uniform. we are not a country that believes in religious tests. he laid out these markers where the obama strategy is both different but is working. he started out by saying -- by presenting a strategy that i would be surprised donald trump has huge disagreement with. >> i think this is the reason this stood out to you. listen. >> but i've also insisted that it is unwise and unsustainable

to ask our military to build nations on the other side of the world or resolve their internal conflicts, particularly in places where our forces become a magnet for terrorists and in surge insurgences. instead, as we dismantle terrorists like isis and isil, we should ask analysts to do their part and those who can provide lasting security. >> and that is the point you made. >> i think that's been the core of obama's strategy in terms of the middle east, in terms of the fight against terrorism, and it would surprise me greatly if, when donald trump sits down and

thinks about it, he doesn't actually agree with it. because that's really trump's instincts. all we have with trump are trying to understand his instincts, and his instincts seem to be beat up the bad guys but don't go there and don't try to nation build. in fact, that has been the obama doctrine. remember, when barack obama came into office, there were about 180,000 american troops in afghanistan and iraq. we have 15,000 there right now. what he has done is he's found a way to fight this war with drones, with special forces forcing the iraqis to get much more involved and be very disciplined about not getting involved in syria. there are people that complain about that, but not donald trump, i don't think. >> president obama, when he first came into office, he said he wanted to close guantanamo bay. he argued about closing that again tonight and the ban of torture. here's donald trump on torture back in june. >> can you imagine them sitting around the table or wherever they're eating their dinner

talking about the americans don't do waterboarding and yet we chop off heads. we probably think we're weak, we're stupid, we don't know what we're doing, we have no leadership. you know, you have to fight fire with fire. >> so he has since walked that back a bit, but that's the sort of talk that won him the presidency. tough talk. >> people always say we shouldn't take donald trump literally, we should take him seriously. so let's assume there, as usual, he probably doesn't know exactly what the difference between waterboarding and torture and these variety of things. he's trying to say he'll be very tough. i think obama's point in the speech was, we were very tough but you did not have to violate american values to be tough. you don't have to register muslims in some kind of database, you don't have to apply religious tests, you don't have to use torture. the broader point that obama was making, which is very important, it really is one of the central,

intellectual leg asseacies he's trying to leave us with, this is not like social communism, this is not like fascist russia. this is a band of thugs. maybe there was a few thousand. maybe they can manage to do some spectacular act of terrorism, but they are not like the nazi armies marching through europe, they are not like the soviet union with all their nations. this is a very limited, specific kind of threat. we're going to beat them up, we're going to keep pressure on them, but let's not surrender our values because we get so freaked out by a bunch of guys who produce slick videos and once every three or four months manage to kill ten people in a cafe. >> and buy into a lot of rhetoric that people have bought into. fareed, stay with me. i have a question is where president obama reflects on being america's first black president.

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together, we're building a better california. fareed zakaria is back with me now. he sat down with the 44th president as his tenure winds

down. he is very cool, isn't he? >> he's very cool, very sentimental. the thing i'm struck by is there is a sparking quality. he talks about drones. it doesn't bother him a lot. he feels his job is to protect the country. if he needs to take out bad guys, he's going to take them out. >> tomorrow night at 9:00 p.m. here on cnn, fareed spoke to him about being the only black president. listen to this. >> the first line of your biography will most certainly not be something you did but who you are, the first african-american president. and yet you're half white, you were raised by three white people, your mother and your two grandparents. >> and an indonesian you can throw in there. >> and an indonesian. are you comfortable with this characterization of you? >> i am, actually. the concept of race in america is not just genetic, otherwise

the one drop rule wouldn't have made sense. it's cultural. it's this notion of a people who look different than the mainstream. suffering terrible oppression, but somehow being able to make out of that a music and a language and a faith and a patriotism. >> being black meant only the knowledge of your own powerlessness and your own defeat. >> barack obama once felt quite differently about race. >> and the final irony should you refuse this defeat and lash out at your captors, they would have a name for that, too. a name that could cage you just as good. like paranoid or militant or violent or nigger. >> at a reading from his first

book, "dreams from my father," he told a painful story from his childhood when his grandmother expressed fear of a man at her bus stop, his grandfather became very angry. >> she's been bothered my men before. do you know why she's so scared this time? i'll tell you why. before she came in, she told me the fellow was black. fear shook at my feet, ready to crack open at any moment. i stopped, trying to steady myself and knew for the first time that i was utterly alone. >> so that is closer to, when i lived in chicago, the barack obama i knew back in the early 2000s. he sort of spoke differently about race. in the beginning of his presidency, he was a little more hesitant to give the race

speech. now do you feel he's more open about it? has he changed? is it a more nuance way and more honest about race? >> you know, i think he's always struggled with this reality that he is biracial. he was raised by three white people. his mother is actually scottish-irish. he looked black, he was treated black, so he had to be black enough to ensure black america and white enough to ensure white america. i feel sorry for him because the poor guy is always navigating that. i think you're right, he started the presidency much more cautious, much more careful to be just the president of america who happened to be black. and by the end of it, after all those racial incidents and with the iphone videos and trayvon martin and all that, i think he found a more comfortable place where he could be both half white and half black, where he could speak to the frustrations

and aspirations of black americans. >> it's interesting, because i think that's an experience that a lot of people of color, especially men of color, have, even though they may not be biracial, right? you have to sort of code switch in order to gain confidence or make other people comfortable even though it's not fair that one has to do that. it must be an interesting experience to have to do it as a president. >> i think that's exactly right. as an immigrant i see that on the one hand you have to assimilate. on the other hand you have your roots. >> i can't wait to see this. hopefully you'll be back on tomorrow. barack obama talks about his triumphs and struggles in his years in the white house. "the legacy of barack obama" is on tomorrow night at 9:00. when it comes to his people, will donald trump be up to the job?

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learn how your business can save at pge.com/businessenergycheckup. together, we're building a better california. as donald trump's "thank you" tour rolls through the country, millions of voters aren't feeling grateful.

i'm joined by a senior adviser to van jones who just hosted "the messy truth," a town hall about trump and clinton voters. let's have another messy truth, we always do on this show. you talked to a voter who chose president obama twice but voted for donald trump this year. you asked him about trump's inflammatory statements on race. >> if you guys are, you know, raised the way that you were, you know not to say some of those things to people. why didn't it make you vote against him? >> because we hear it and we crumble it up and we throw it away and it doesn't allow us to make our general decisions on what we're going to do to provide for our family. we completely ignore that crap, that garbage, and we see what he has to provide for us outside of that.

>> that's tough. >> you and i, we would have gone back and forth about this, i don't know if i agree with you on that. they said the statements were distasteful but not disqualifying. does that trouble you? >> there was a moment when people were afraid that what was driving trump voters was the racially inflammatory stuff, that they loved it and were for it. and some people did love it. but there were people who found it disturbing, distasteful, but not disqualifying. it's heartbreaking that they would just ignore it. >> here is what i said to you when you said that because people voted for donald trump, that did not make them racist. i agree with you on that. but it does make them, because of some of the statements that were made, and some of the activity during the -- it does

make you an enabler. and by being an enabler, does that then make you -- what does that make you then? >> there is a heroic position of saying even if it's going to cost my family a job i'm going to vote against this guy because i want to be right by people of color and other folks. that's the heroic position. then there's the villainous position, i'm going to stick it to those darkies. i just don't think these people are the worst, because they're not the worst. >> that's what this conversation is about, i understand. >> it's messy. >> do they understand that muslims, people of color, especially women of color who voted overwhelmingly for hillary clinton, they don't have the luxury to ignore that because they're faced with it on so many levels every single moment of their lives, every single day? >> i think i learned, we are now all in our own filter bubbles.

they say, donald trump is only talking about isis, why are muslims worried? then you talk to to muslim families and they're worried about whether to leave the country. >> when someone says muslims should -- that's not a filter bubble. that's exactly what he said. >> to be clear now, to be clear, he said he wants to ban muslims from coming to the country. but the ones here now feel more vulnerable. >> the ones here see it as him talking about isis. >> they say, he's only talking about the bad ones. what they don't understand is, when i said white lash -- >> i'm going to get to jack about that. you understand, that whole one of the good ones things is insulting because we know the history, oh, you're not like that, you're one of the good ones. >> what the hell does that mean? >> weigh in on this and we'll talk about the white lash.

jack, what do you think about this conversation? >> for people who have seen their household income drop from 57,000 to $53,000 over the last 15 years, their number one issue is economics. they believe that their government has let them down. they believe that washington is about washington and not about them. and here comes a guy who says, you know what, blow it all up, i'm different, i'm not bought, i'm going to help you, i'm going to speak to the heartland. he took repeated trips. >> but the guy who said that was bernie sanders. he took that message but he also added some other stuff that was very disturbing, didn't he? >> let me say this. as a white man who grew up in integrated schools, and i would say in many ways was on the front edge of integration, i started in schools when they were white and then we had our first african-american young man come when i was in fifth grade. and i was in the first white

class to go to bernie harris high school in athens, georgia, a black high school at the time. and by the way, i've been beat up because of my race. i had been a victim of what would now be called a hate crime. but let me say this. i'm also secure in who i am racially and i don't need donald trump or the media or whoever to define me racially. and so, you know -- >> here's -- first of all, if you were victimized, i think that's terrible and i sure hope that you were able to get past that and get some healing. >> absolutely. >> but here is my question to you. don't you agree with me that that economic populist message that a bernie sanders had, that a donald trump often has, is one thing, but once you add into it some of these things that feel more racially charged, it rachets it up? >> that's at the top of

everyone's list, not just whites in the rust belt. >> we all have a filter. when hillary clinton has a rally and a terrorist's dad was in the back row, it was outrageous. she calls half of donald trump's irredeemable, highly offensive, but it was easy for liberals to say no big deal. that filter works a lot of different ways. >> shouldn't you only be insulted by that if you're not irredeemable? i'm asking the question. if someone says i'm racist and deplorable and i don't consider myself that, then i'm not insult. >> let me stick up for you, congressman. i thought that statement was completely unacceptable. >> i did too. >> if somebody said half the people at cnn are deplorable, even if i don't think of myself as deplorable, i would still be mad because i know half the

people at cnn are not deplorable. >> van, hold on. hold on, congressman. ien understand what you're sayi, van. you also have to look at the evidence of whether someone in a particular group or a particular supporter is deplorable. i would say where is your evidence that someone at cnn is deplorable? if you said where's your evidence that some of donald trump's supporters are deplorable or where is your evidence that hillary clinton's supporters are deplorable, you have to look at those supporters' actions and figure out if there are some. if you're not one of those, why do you take personal offense to it? because i've been called a lot of things, i don't agree with those things, as representative kingston just said, i know who i am, i don't need someone else to define my race. if i am not that, then why i am offended by someone calling me something that i am not? >> because no one running for the united states should say that. >> i agree. but you understand my point. >> i do understand.

>> i think there's a politically correct censorship that has permeated american universities in many cases and other venues as well where people can't speak their mind. >> i agree. >> van, you asked me if i got over being a victim of racial -- i did, but we were integrated in a very true sense. we were sitting next to black children. we were playing sports with black children. we were going to the shower in the locker room with black children. there was time to hold a grudge because you just kept moving through the next day. that was one of the things that the '60s had that today we don't have, the millennium children have almost gone back to segregated bubbles, if you will. i do think there's great stuff we've lost because of being worried about being politically correct. >> i think you're right about that. i don't think anyone would want to go back to the '50s, '60s, even '70s, but you're right, people are coddled now, on both

sides, liberals and conservatives no one wants to hear what the other person has to say, thus the reason we had van jones' special tonight, and i'm glad we did have it, and i'm glad we're having this conversation, and we'll continue, but unfortunately i have to get to the next hour. we went through the break. >> announcer: this is cnn breaking news. breaking news, donald trump thanked his viewers tonight on his "thank you" tour in north carolina. i'm don lemon, this is cnn. the president-elect was warmly received at a big rally and introduced james "mad dog" mattis to be the secretary of defense. a white supremacist speaking at a university tonight, thousands and students and other opponents are rallying against the address. a whole lot to get to. i want to begin to sunlen