During his opening monologue Tuesday night, CNN Tonight host Don Lemon tried to shame voters thinking of voting for President Trump because of the strong economy despite his behavior.
Lemon also brought up President Trump saying he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin when he said he had nothing to do with the meddling in our elections and the President’s decision to believe the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia when he said he had nothing to do with the death of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi before describing those leaders as “the President’s friends.” Lemon proceeded to contrast the President’s “friends” with his “perceived enemies,” which he argued included former Vice President Biden and former FBI Director James Comey.
The CNN host read aloud an excerpt from Comey’s op-ed in The Washington Post, which described President Trump as a “liar who doesn’t care what damage he does to vital institutions.” After he finished reading the excerpt, Lemon warned that despite Comey’s “strong words,” “the conventional wisdom is if Americans are satisfied with the economy, happy with their paychecks, the President will win re-election.”
At this point, Lemon began to address the audience directly, asking “Is that you? Could that be you? This President siding with brutal dictators but happy with the economy, happy with your paycheck, so it doesn’t matter what he does?” Lemon brought up the famous phrase from the 1992 Presidential campaign, “It’s the economy, stupid,” adding “that could be read in a number of different ways.” He repeated the phrase “it’s the economy, stupid,” perhaps in an effort to convince voters that basing their vote on the strong economy is misguided.
Lemon closed his monologue by trying to find a silver-lining for the Trump-hating left, asking “What if in the contest between money and morals, money doesn’t talk?” According to Lemon, “we are starting to see evidence that a lot of voters are driven more by their views about race and gender than their pocketbooks, thank goodness.”
A transcript of the relevant portion of Tuesday’s edition of CNN Tonight is below. Click “expand” to read more.
CNN Tonight With Don Lemon
05/28/19
10:04 PM
DON LEMON: This is CNN Tonight. I’m Don Lemon. We’ve got a lot to talk about; the kind of people this President sides with, the kind of people he thinks are his enemies. Because what he is doing is absolutely outrageous. Okay? There are no two ways about it, not even going to try to pretend otherwise. It’s absolutely outrageous and I’ll give you some evidence to back it up. We’ve got to talk about this President siding with a murderous dictator. Not for the first time. And this one is over a former Vice President who served this country honorably. Now, apparently, this President is terrified, terrified of running against Joe Biden. Why else would he, in the middle of a state visit to Japan, when any other President would be trying to defend American interests, why would he echo North Korea’s attack on Joe Biden with his own tweet calling him low I.Q? Why would he do that? Making matters worse tonight claiming he was being nicer to Biden by calling him a low I.Q. individual instead of a low I.Q. idiot. It was Biden himself would say, come on, man. He has too much class to say anything else. There is literally no possibility that anybody…that anybody could miss the insult in all of this; a gleeful and childish insult against the candidate he seems to fear the most, even though his own aides have, according to The New York Times, pleaded with the President to ignore the former Vice President. Biden’s campaign calls Trump’s comments beneath the dignity of the office. And they’re right. But there is so much more. And I repeat. So much more. And all of this happened while the President was on a state visit to Japan, while he was downplaying the fact that North Korea has test-fired short-range ballistic missiles, missiles that a U.S. government report notes Pyongyang is trying to fit with nuclear warheads, violating U.N. Security Council resolutions. And all of that apparently just fine with the President as long as Kim Jong-un is on his side.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You tweeted about North Korea yesterday. Do you believe that they violated U.N. resolutions with the, the short-range missile launch and does it give you pause at all to be appearing to side with a brutal dictator instead of with a fellow American, the former Vice President Joe Biden?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, Kim Jong-un made a statement that Joe Biden is a low I.Q. individual. He probably is based on his record. I think I agree with him on that. But at the same time, my people think it could have been a violation, as you know. I view it differently.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: He sure does view it differently. Go right ahead, Kim Jong-un. Launch all the missiles you want as long as you keep slamming my opponent. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Let’s remember exactly how murderous…murderous Kim Jong-un is, just in case you forgot or you are condoning this sort of behavior. Okay? Kim Jong-un starved his own people. He executed his own family members. And let’s remember that he is responsible for the brutal death of American student Otto Warmbier even though this President was perfectly willing to take the dictator’s word on that one, too, his word that he had no idea what happened to the 22-year-old American who was in prison in North Korea for 17 months.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRESIDENT TRUMP: He felt badly about it. I did speak to him. He felt very badly. He knew the case very well, but he knew it later. And you know, you got a lot of people. It’s a big country. A lot of people. And in those prisons and those camps, you have a lot of people, and some really bad things happened to Otto, some really, really bad things.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why are you…
PRESIDENT TRUMP: But he tells me, he tells me that he didn’t know about it and I will take him at his word.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Terrible. This President is awfully willing to take the word of a strong man over his own people. Let’s not forget Helsinki, July 2018. When President Trump stood next to Vladimir Putin and said he didn’t see any reason Russia would interfere in our election, taking the Russian President’s word over his own intelligence chiefs.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRESIDENT TRUMP: My people came to me, Dan Coats came to me, and some others, they said they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin, he just said it’s not Russia. I will say this. I don’t see any reason why it would be.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Let’s remember the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia now; the man behind the vicious murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Our own CIA has assessed that with confidence but our President refused to accept that and sided with the Saudis again and again.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRESIDENT TRUMP: I spoke with the Crown Prince yesterday, and he strongly said that he had nothing to do with this. He’s got many people now that say he had no knowledge. He told me that he had nothing to do with it. Saudi Arabia, if we broke with them, I think your oil prices would go through the roof. We have a very strong ally in Saudi Arabia. We have an ally that said they did not commit, at the top level, the Crown Prince, the king, they did not commit this atrocity.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Yes, those are the President’s friends. His perceived enemies? Well, they include the former Vice President of the United States, the former Director of the FBI, James Comey; the man he fired because he was doing his job, investigating whether Russia was attacking our democracy during the 2016 election. In a Washington Post op-ed tonight, Comey defends the FBI against President Trump’s baseless claim that the Bureau spied on his campaign. And here is the quote from The Washington Post. It says, “The president is a liar who doesn’t care what damage he does to vital institutions. We must call out his lies that the FBI was corrupt and committed treason, that we spied on the Trump campaign, and tried to defeat Donald Trump. We must constantly return to the stubborn facts…There was no corruption. There was no treason. There was no attempted coup. Those are lies, and dumb lies at that. Those were just good people trying to figure out what was true, under unprecedented circumstances.” Yes, those are very strong words, but let’s face it. For this President, nothing matters more than winning. And the conventional wisdom is, if Americans are satisfied with the economy, happy with their paychecks, the President will win reelection. Is that you? Could that be you? This President siding with brutal dictators but happy with the economy, you’re happy with your paycheck, so it doesn’t matter what he does? You know what they say. It’s the economy, stupid. That can be read in a number of different ways. It’s the economy, stupid. You know what I mean? But what if the conventional wisdom is wrong? What if in the contest between money and morals, money doesn’t talk? We are starting to see evidence that a lot of voters are driven more by their views about race and gender than their pocketbooks, thank goodness.
