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tv   The Lead With Jake Tapper  CNN  August 22, 2017 1:00pm-2:00pm PDT

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unfair to him, absolutely. >> kate anderson brower, thank you very much. we do appreciate it. >> thank you. i'm pamela brown filling in for my colleague, kate baldwin. jake tapper and "the lead" starts right now. >> thanks, pamela. president trump reportedly feeling aggrieved. about to hold a campaign-type rally in phoenix, arizona. what could go wrong. calling for unity in america. he's on his way to arizona where two disapproving senators are waiting. could his night be wiped away with one ad lib? posing as a bizarre steve bannon and telling a top news organization that bannon now runs again. why would an editor in chief share a smear of ivanka trump?
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he indicated he might not be the killer. now with just hours left to live, a condemned inmate gets a surprise lifeline from the governor, but why did this take nearly two decades? good afternoon and welcome to "the lead." i'm jake tapper. tonight president trump will take the stage in phoenix, arizona for an unscripted campaign rally, we're told. it comes after last night when the president laid out some details for the path to afghanistan. tonight will the president echo what he said in his scripted teleprompter address last night, urging americans to come together with love and in peace, or -- or -- as is his wont when speaking before adoring crowds and free from the constraints of his teleprompter, might president trump come closer to exploring something quite more divisive? that is the question.
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sara murray is live for us in phoenix. sara, elected officials are not exactly rolling out the welcome mat. the mayor asked him to delay his visit and senators there are at odds with president trump. >> reporter: that's right, you can expect president trump's words to be closely scrutinized as he takes the stage where both republican senators jeff flake and john mccain has challenged him. they will be attending the rally and everyone will see, what is the president's tone tonight? is it another talk about unity or something harsher? ♪ >> reporter: from commander in chief to campaigner in chief. a day after president trump addressed the nation on his afghanistan strategy -- >> i am here tonight to lay out our path forward in afghanistan. >> reporter: -- he's hitting the road in arizona amid deep divisions. even the mayor of phoenix i implored trump to hold off on
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tonight's event among angry simmers to president trump's reaction to the attack in charlottesville. he hopes to diffuse those remarks in his speech about afghanistan. >> there is no place for bigotry, prejudice and no tolerance for hate. >> reporter: then he outlined his approach to the near 16-year war there. an argument he said america should withdraw from. >> my original instinct was to pull out, and historically, i like following my instincts. but all my life, i've heard that decisions are much different when you sit behind the desk in the oval office. >> reporter: the president offering his signature tough talk. >> we are not nation building again. we are killing terrorists. >> reporter: but few specifics on how many troops he would
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commit or how he would define success, even as he promised victory. >> we will defeat them and we will defeat them handily. >> reporter: while he slammed his predecessor, trump's plan to use military might to wipe out terrorists and diplomatic pressure to cajole pakistan in many ways echo the obama strategy. now trump is asking americans to place their trust in him, at a time when many have misgivings, a "washington post" news poll shows 56% of americans disapprove of his response to charlottesville. only 28% approve. >> i do believe that he messed up in his comments on tuesday when it sounded like a moral equivocation or, at the very least, moral ambiguity when we
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lead moral clarity. >> reporter: but vice president mike pence is leaping to his defense. >> i know this president, and i know his heart. i heard him on the day when the charlottesville tragedy happened when he denounced hate and violence. >> reporter: before the president arrives here in phoenix, he'll be visiting yuma where he'll be doing a tour of border enforcement materials there. when he gets here, one of the things we'll be watching for tonight is what the president has to say about councilmember joe arpaio. he's been considering pardoning the sheriff. he's been held in contempt of court for a racial profiling case. so far no word from trump tonight. jake? with steve bannon and the president's fired chief strategist back in charge, the far right news website breitbart is blasting president trump's afghanistan strategy, that's a strategy opposite what bannon
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had advised and opposite the president's america first, anti-conventionist rhetoric. he was concerned about the damage bannon might be able to do from outside the white house, and now new e-mails obtained by cnn provide some insight into just how nasty it might get and how low the editor in chief of breitbart might be willing to go, including sharing a personal smear against first daughter ivanka trump. >> reporter: war was how breitbart's senior editor responded from the ouster from the white house last week. now bannon has tricked the white house into responding just as the fake bannon was sending e-mails to editor in chief alex marlow. the topic, the commander in chief and ivanka trump.
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hard to know given your description of evil. i don't know what motivates them. if they are semi-normal, then yes, they out by end of the year. the prankster shared numerous e-mails with cnn. marlow said he and several other top editors would do bannon's dirty work with trump house aides. i spoke that the man he thought was steve bannon, did five stories on globalist takeover, positioned you as hoping to stop it. have the surrogates do the dirty work. boyle, raheem, me, tony have been waiting for this, referring to breitbart editor rakim
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kassim. perhaps showing the links at which he's willing to go to push the trumps out of the white house. cnn asked about the e-mails decline to comment, but senior editor at large joe pollock, the man behind that war tweet, was e mailed, too. wrote the bogus bannon, reading on line how to bring forward my wrath. i would be doing this country a service if i did. responded, indeed. nobody can figure out what they do, responded the bogus bannon. seems they're making they the mask masked puppeteer. the response? excellent. the quote was literally falling over itself to attack those bannon sat and drank coffee with
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days before. this isn't the first time he tried this. he tried to fool top officials that he was reince priebus, among others, causing quite a stir. the top editor sheds light on the inner workings of the site that bannon once referred to as the platform for the all white. bannon told the weekly standard friday that he was, quote, back on his weapons at the breitbart machine. quote, i'm about to go back knowing what i know and we're about to rev that machine up, he promised. we did not get a response for comment from steve bannon, but we did get one from breitbart. the statement reads, quote, the obsession with breitbart news is simply a result of our effectiveness. this time an imposter revealed tongue in cheek e-mails that exposed the agenda that got president trump elected. if people want to know our thinking, they do not need to judge us on illicit comments
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that were meant to be private, they can simply read our page, end quote. did a photograph of women in mini skirts help convince president trump to keep the u.s. military in afghanistan? that's next. stay with us. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ at holiday inn express, we can't guarantee that you'll be able to contain yourself at our breakfast bar. morning, egg white omelet. sup lady bacon! fruit, there it is! but we can guarantee that you'll get the best price
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for the most important part of you... your brain. with an ingredient originally found in jellyfish, prevagen is now the number one selling brain health supplement in drug stores nationwide. prevagen. the name to remember. welcome back. continuing with our politics lead, an e-mail prankster posing as steve bannon with exchanges he had with breitbart editors that were about jared kushner and ivanka trump and not particularly nice. my political panel is here to discuss this and more. let me start with you. these e-mails from marlow, the editor in chief at breitbart, when he's talking about how he's going to be able to get jared and ivanka to leave the white house before christmas, i spooked them before, i did five stories on globalist takeovers.
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you'll have surrogates doing your dirty work for you, and then sharing this rumor we're not going to repeat about ivanka trump's personal life, i have to say, i've been around this town for a long time, i was pretty shocked. >> absolutely. and i think journalists, we can't imagine engaging in stories about those sources we reportedly cover and do stories about. we always wonder what happened with breitbart, if trump kind of strayed away from the populist appeals he had during the campaign, many of those perhaps shared by steve bannon who is back at breitbart. this is breitbart how people feared it would act, and bannon is now there so he has to own some of this for a president he worked for up until very, very recently. it will be really interesting to see what that relationship looks like and what comes out of this given just kind of the scope of this reporting that you've just released. >> just to be clear, steve bannon did not write any of these e-mails, it was someone pretending to be steve bannon. bannon has talked about weaponizing or using his weapon,
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breitbart. maybe i'm being naive. i find it hard to believe that steve bannon actually would want disgusting rumors about ivanka trump to be part of that. >> i think it's charming that you're shocked. there's very little that would shock me from the right, and mr. bannon describes it as a platform for the alt right. i do have to say just for political hygiene that i hated it when hillary's e-mails were hacked and published by john podesta. this is slightly different. it's not a cybercrime, it's not a hack and a theft. >> it's a hood winking. >> it's a hood winking. i don't mean to apologize for breitbart. i don't know those guys and i doubt i would like them if i did. it could be there was just a lot of bravado in that shop and it's still pretty shocking what they're saying. if i can offer a mild defense, it's not what they were saying in public. let's look what they say on the
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front page of the website, which is shocking enough for me. >> but they have been going after ivanka and jared, that's clear. although it's been about policy and things related to that, not about ugly smear. >> it confirms a lot of suspicions of people who see breitbart as something that they can utilize to get the conservative message out. it does confirm a lot of those suspicions. i think the question now is, how does this alter the profile of breitbart going forward? before this incident, and before we knew some of this was uncovered, it was seen as this platform for a lot of the anti-globalists or a lot of grassroots conservatives. the trump campaign used it very deftly. now does it render being changed, his profile being changed, or its effectiveness being altered because it's seen as a platform for personal ven
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did he tell vendettas, given he's going after the one thing that means a lot to him, which is family. and how does he react? that's going to be something interesting to watch going forward. >> the president has very clearly promoted breitbart. do you think, learning that the editor in chief of breitbart is smearing his beloved daughter, and i say that in all sincerity, his beloved daughter ivanka, do you think that will have an effect? >> i think it very well could. this is a president who, when he sees someone as enemies or challenges, particularly with his family who everyone is close to, i wouldn't be surprised to see a tweet about this when he's been sympathetic and some of the ideas he's espoused on the campaign trail, i think we'll see the president slowly start to turn and what effect that has on the base of reporters that still see breitbart as someone promoting their ideals, i think,
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will be very interesting in the days to come. >> you're right, we'll be watching this in realtime now. our president adores his daughter and she's an impressive woman, but he adores his base, too. he brags he could shoot a guy on fifth avenue and they would still be with him. so does he want to go against a good part of his base even if they're insulting his daughter. >> so president trump and his remarks about afghanistan kind of acknowledging it was something of a flip-flop. take a as
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he said in that speech, i've heard these decisions are different when you're in the oval office. it seems he's coming back to the reality that past presidents and people who work in the space have realized there is no easy quick win in afghanistan. the president really seems to recognize that seriousness. >> as has been said many times,
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there is no easy decision that comes to the president, because if it was easy, it would be done long before it gets to the president's desk. coming up, his dna wasn't on the murder weapon, and just hours before his scheduled execution, this convicted killer got another chance. was an innocent man about to die? stay with us. it's our back to school beeone cent evente. at office depot office max. 10 pack pens, one cent. composition notebooks,scissors, and plastic folders all one cent each! hurry to office depot office max. ♪taking care of business. heri think i might burst..... totally immersed weekenders. whatever kind of weekender you are, there's a hilton for you. book your weekend break direct with hilton.com and join the summer weekenders.
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it all adds up to our most reliable network ever. one that keeps you connected to what matters most. we have some breaking news in the national lead today coming in at the 11th hour. the governor of missouri just put a temporary stay on the death of a death row inmate in the few hours before marsalus williams was going to be put to death for murder. they did a dna test on the murder weapon and three out of four of the tests excluded him. why did it take so long for him to get a stay? let's go to scott outside the
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corrections center in bonn bonne terre, missouri. why did it take so long? >> reporter: lawyers in this case will tell you they've been trying to get this dna evidence entered into the rofecord and io this case for years and years and they've been stopped by the state at every single turn. this case is nearly two decades old. felicia gayle was murdered in 1998 inside her own home. she had more than 40 stab wounds and that knife was actually left inside her body. you mentioned dna testing was allowed on that knife. it's actually a relatively new dna testing technique they were able to use, and the results, according to the governor, were relatively inconclusive, meaning it was possible, according to some of these analysts, to rule that marcellus williams was not the suspect in this case, or at least his hand was never on the knife, but it wasn't possible to prove whose hand was actually on
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the knife. but the state will tell you, though, look, it's possible he wore a glove. in fact, it's likely that he wore a glove and the state believes there is enough non-dna evidence in this case to uphold his conviction. >> so what happens next in this case? >> reporter: yeah, so the governor has essentially handed marcellus williams a lifeline, albeit a very temporary one. so because of the risk of executing a potentially innocent man, the governor said, hey, let's look into this. so he is forming a board of inquiry which will essentially comprise offormerjudgeswho will have full subpoena power to look into whether or not this man deserves any clemency. but also keep in mind, jake, this case is also working its way, at least parts of it, through the supreme court. so it's unclear at this point what impact that decision at the supreme court could have on this board of inquiry. >> scott mcclain, thank you very much. appreciate it. when she was attacked on social media for naming her
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topping our world lead today, the ongoing efforts to find the 10 missing sailors after the u.s.s. john f. mccain and a tanker collided in asia. president trump said, we pray for our fallen heroes who have died while serving our country in the u.s. navy. matt, what's the late nest in t search? >> reporter: the search is still temporarily being called a search and rescue, and when operations resume when the sunrises here in singapore in just a couple hours, the navy says they're hopeful they might find some survivors, but the
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reality is the last 24 hours this has been more of a recovery operation, like you said. it was the commander of the fleet that confirmed to reporters on tuesday evening here in singapore that divers frr t for the u.s. navy had made their way into damaged sections of the hull on the u.s.s. john mccain and found the remains of some of those 10 missing sailors. the navy has not said how many missing sailors they've recovered at this point. they found a body in the waters near where that incident took place, that body in the process of being transferred back to the u.s. at this point they're still active. the priority is to try to find someone who might be alive, but as you know, the hours that go by, the possibility of finding survivors becomes more and more slim. >> the possibility is being raised, matt, whether a cyber attack could have played a role
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here. >> reporter: that question was posed to the commander of the u.s. pacific fleet, and like other top u.s. navy officials, he took the question and said they have no evidence of that at all at this point, no evidence of outside activity, any nefarious activity of other actors, so at this point he said there is no evidence of that. however, none of the top u.s. navy officials who have taken that question have said they're going to take anything off the table. they want this investigation into what caused this to be wide-ranging, so they're not going to eliminate any possibilities this early on. >> all right, matt rivers in singapore for us, thank you so much. appreciate it. is it the instagram version of let them eat cake? the wife of state secretary steven mnuchin going after a mother of three, but now she is singing a different tune. plus we are just minutes away from president trump's arrival in yuma, arizona where he will visit a customs and border protection office. all of that coming up. back after this.
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more on our politics lead. you know what president trump likes to do when he gets attacked? he punches back, ten times harder. he's not the only one in and around the white house who feels that way, apparently. louise linton, the sometime actor and third wife of secretary steve mnuchin is facing backlash after going after an oregon woman on instagram. it started with this post with linton touting her goods worth tens of thousands of dollars while disembarking a plane in kentucky which has the fifth highest poverty rate in the u.s. miss linton obviously a very
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public figure, and she was in an open instagram account flaunting her wealth. is there any sense in the trump administration that this was handled poorly? >> there is no word from the white house today about this incident, but we can imagine the optics of the situation certainly didn't look that great for louise linton. however, just moments ago cnn obtained an apology from ms. linton given to us from her personal publicist. it reads, i apologize for my post on social media yesterday as well as my response. it was inappropriate and highly insensitive. still, the post and the response quickly became the viral story of the day. in a bold example of insta-bragging, louise linton, the glamorous actress and wife of secretary steve mnuchin posted a picture of herself on her instagram account after a day in kentucky on official business. dressed all in white and toting
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an hermes purse and scarf, she continued to tout her designing with the readers. she also touted her husband. that post, which has been deleted, has caused a firestorm. a woman named jen miller said, glad we could pay for your little getaway. she then shot back a barrage of comments, asking miller if she paid as much taxes as she and mnuchin do, saying in part, quote, pretty sure the amount we sacrifice in a year is more than you would be willing to sacrifice in the choice was yours. linton, in a post of kissie f e face emojis told her to go chill out and watch "game of thrones."
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>> it was deplorable what she wrote in the first place, and then her response was even worse. >> reporter: this isn't the first time linton faced chris sich -- criticism. last year her post in zambia was blasted by critics for being full of racial insensitivities. she pulled the post and apologized. linton has been in a wealth of insults before, posting about her ancestors' castle in scotland. or living the high life where she appeared in movies. and where she met her husband in 2015. >> congratulations to you, louise, and your whole family. >> reporter: linton revealed flash i flashy details about her june wedding, featuring president trump and ivanka trump, and mike pence with linton wearing a
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custom-made ball gown and tiara. linton bragged about the different types of jewelry she intended to wear, most gifts from mnuchin. a spokesman from the treasury department said she will reimburse linton for her visit to kentucky and she was not compensated for plugging those designers. >> so that was her on csi actually playing marie antoinette? >> i cannot lie, this was part of "let them eat cake" yesterday. she actually played her. >> we'll be back to discuss this and much more. one of the things i liked about the trump campaign was the fact he would talk about the forgotten man and the forgotten woman. that is not that. >> it's absolutely not that. everything we heard from then-candidate trump, people are
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not talking about what the president said what he sees for the path in afghanistan. they're not talking about this campaign rally he has in arizona tonight. they're talking about the woman who posted on instagram and an average woman who happened to comment on instagram. this is a self-controversy. i don't think it will necessarily go anywhere, but it's a little ridiculous. >> the president has defended hiring a very wealthy secretary, saying it's good to have people who are successful handling the money in this campaign. perhaps that's part of the package. >> i don't want to overanalyze the statement about the trump administration. i think it actually serves as a lesson for those going into public office and those who are family with those going into public office. you come under an incredible amount of scrutiny. everything you say, everything you post on social media can become potentially a story. that is unfair, but it is the reality that people have to realize. so i think the greater degree of discretion and restraint when
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you're on social media is the lesson for a lot of these family members. >> if i could just say one point, first of all, that's the president touching down in yuma, arizona. we're going to that in a minute. we should just say -- and i agree with you because there is kind of a concept in politics that civilians are off limits. but miss linton is an actress, she's an author, a very public figure. her instagram account was open to everyone. this isn't a matter of people finding this on her private account. >> i still want to give her a pass, because being married to steve mnuchin, granted she's suffered enough -- >> aw. >> just kidding. perhaps we should say her instagram account was hacked by leona helmsley. this is what the government thinks about the middle class. trump said, i could shoot a guy on fifth avenue and not lose any
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voters. one of the things ardent trump voters don't like is when they learn that wall street bankers are actually running his economic policy. they don't like it. it's one of the few things that decouples those trump supporters from him. it's not just that wilbur ross, commerce secretary, is a billionaire, it's the notion that wall street, which he attacked in the campaign, is in charge. they are two goldman sachs guys, very talented guys straight out of goldman sachs. they're able people, but his base doesn't like that at all. this could teach them that, right? they could focus on this because it's such a pop culture story. >> one of the things that's interesting about the bannon departure also is bannon was privately talking about there being a raise on taxes on the wealthiest, i think people who made more than $5 million a year, and that was slapped down by a lot of republicans. but one wonders what the breitbart folks call globalists, but if, as you point out, if
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more and more of the president's base sees this woman as exemplifying what's really going on in the trump white house and the tax reform policy comes out from the house and senate and it actually favors wealthy people, who knows what will happen. >> that's a great question, and one of the things we were talking about earlier is whether or not the president will come to this woman's defense. she's someone married to a top cabinet official. she's kind of in the press being made to look a little ridiculous. she's apologized, of course, but the president has defended people close to him before. will he come out and say anything about this? it's probably something he shouldn't talk about, but he does have this campaign rally scheduled in which he tends to give more off the cuff, unscripted accounts of things. does he touch this? >> i don't think he would. a lot of what paul said is right, but i don't think people view the lens -- i don't think people view policy base like tax
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reform on a story like this. instead the president does have a very unique ability to message to working class americans about what their anxieties are, and when he does so, he does it well. the question is can he do it in a sustained manner so he can continue his economic agenda, not that an issue like this is going to define it. when we come back, president trump just touched down in yuma, arizona. he's going to visit a border patrol office there. will he be able to stay on message, a question kevin just raised. stick around, we'll be right back. permenant! 't have to be ditch verizon. keep your phone. we'll even pay it off when you switch to america's best unlimited network.
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we're back with our politics lead. there you see air force i in yuma, arizona. the president just landed there on the u.s.-mexico border. he is hoping to talk about his immigration strategy as fewer immigrants are trying to travel to the u.s. cnn's boris sanchez is live for us in yuma. bore is, what is the president's plan here? >> reporter: hey there, jake. the president is trying to highlight one of the areas of his agenda where he has seen some success. we've seen some success in terms of legislative efforts with the passing of kate's law and a crackdown on sanctuary cities in the house, those two bills now headed to the senate. we've also seen a tremendous amount of investment and a boost in funding to border patrol and ice, the departme ice. the department of homeland security directly attributes this approach to a 70% decrease
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in apprehensions of border crossing. there are several layers of fence, there is stadium lighting for miles, and back when it was installed in 2006, since then the department of homeland security says there has been a 70% decrease in the number of people trying to cross the border at this point. so the president is expected to tout that as a blueprint, so to speak, for the rest of the southern border. as you recall, jake, this was one of the bedrock promises from donald trump during the campaign. after his stop and a briefing with the department of homeland security, he's set to meet with a group of marines and then he heads to that rally in phoenix where it will be unscripted. we've seen him distract from his agenda before when he's in front of his most awe-struck
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reporters, jake. >> we're playing our little office game, is there a tweet for that? is there something in the donald trump archives that crickontrad what he's saying and doing now? november 30, 2011. the habitual vacationer barack obama has traveled more than any other president in history. let's talk about this rally tonight. president trump, i would say generally good reviews, although the speech was kind of short on policy for a speech last night. very positive reviews for his speech on monday. not such positive reviews for his ad libbing on saturday or his ad libbing on tuesday. tonight it's going to be ad libpalooza. >> the president, when he's in
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inscripted situations, tends to trample on his own message. he's been campaigning for weeks. we're not even through the first year of his first term and he's focused on getting reelected in 2020. it will be interesting to see if this is a rally that helps or hurts him. in so many moments we've seen the president, as he did last night, have a strong speech even if he admits he changed his position a little bit on afghanistan. will what he does tonight completely overshadow that speaking in a place in one of the states that launched his campaign where he has gotten into a back and forth with both of the state's sitting senators. i don't know if i see a lot of reward. >> credit where credit is due. the problem on the border has gotten better, it has improved under president trump. this is an opportunity for him to highlight that. it's something not only his supporters, but i think generally, the public can get behind, undocumented immigration, illegal immigration
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is bad. >> president obama also did that. >> it happened under other presidents, but it's hard for them to highlight that for fear of losing their base. >> i just highlighted it and undocumented crossings went way down under president obama, which, by the way, he put more unarmed people on the u.s.-texas border than wilson. >> i love how you focus on taxes. think of taxes as synonymous with the u.s. >> i do. he is speaking after he was stepped on by his credibility and incompetence. maybe he'll be in a sort of hostage performance that he had in afghanistan. i doubt it. i think this can be trump unhinged, unstable, uncorked. >> with every one of these
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events, the element of surprise is always there. and i think the toughest part -- >> fyi, there is president trump getting off air force i. >> the tough part of predicting how the performance is going to go is the president tends to draw off the enthusiasm of the crowd, and i don't think crowds like this are really driven by substantive policy discussion, whether it's about afghanistan or tax reform right now. >> what are they driven by, do you think? >> i think they're driven by the clash of political civilizations, us versus them, at least in these particular rallies. when some of that element starts to make its voice heard in these rallies, does the president feed off of it? that's where these rallies tend to become less of a message platform about where he wants to go on the agenda and they become more of these sort of free
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freewheeling spectacles we've seen in the past. >> he does love speaking before these crowds. it used to be difficult for them to get him to go to donor events, to people funding the campaign. he loved speaking to a crowd. in fact, they had to schedule events just to go to a state where he would be meeting with rich people. >> i've seen candidate trump and now president trump in front of a crowd that he's likely to see in phoenix tonight. he seems to relish the spotlight. he feeds off the energy of these crowds, and he seems at times excited and gleeful. i think there is a difference in that trump and the trump we see when the tell prompters are out when he's asked to make these bigger statements, and i think that's where the risk is. he gets carried away by the energy and excitement of the moment. >> that's what paul is looking forward to. >> his opponents like me see him as a total narcissist. he is. i think we'll see him there tonight. i don't want any teleprompters in the building. who won't be there is the former
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ceo and governor of arizona. he is not showing up. the president is at war with two popular senators in that state. >> and jeff flake will be in attendance this evening. we'll see if he actually endorses him. you can tweet the show at theleadcnn. we actually read your tweets. i turn it over to wolf blitzer in the situation room. happening now on breaking news. playing to his base. for a shocking response to violence, president trump is in arizona at a big campaign-like rally. temperatures rising. thousands are turning out in the scorching heat to protest the president's visit. but arizona's top republicans are keeping their distance from the president. does he have political retaliation in mind?