[Joshua Dubois, Co-founder, Values Partnerships:] twenty some had funerals and wade her way through hundreds of family members who were impacted attacks on the senator from that state. And what President Obama did, you know, he gave a public speech. But all the private moments were between him and those families. We weren't tweeting photos, you know, even I didn't share that passage until years later because I thought folks should know about the character of our president at that time and our former president now. It's a character issue. You know, something has got to change in Donald Trump's heart. It's not a it's not a Republican thing or a Democratic thing, it's a matter of character. Is he going to censor himself or is he going to do the right thing and finally censor people who are going through tough times?
[Don Lemon, Cnn:] Joshua Dubois, thank you so much.
[Dubois:] Thank you. This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon. A CNN exclusive. The mother of the El Paso shooting suspect called the Allen, Texas Police Department weeks before the shooting because she was concerned about her son owning a weapon. That is according to the lawyer for the family. She was told by police that her 21-year-old son was legally allowed to purchase the firearm. The mother did not provide her name or her son's name and police did not seek any additional information from her before the call concluded. Police say the shooter is a white supremacist, but according to Tucker Carlson at Fox News, white supremacy is not a problem.
[Tucker Carlson, Fox News:] But the whole thing is a lie. If you were to assemble a list, a hierarchy of concerns, of problems this country faces, where would white supremacy be on the list? Right up there with Russia, probably. It's actually not a real problem in America. The combined membership of every white supremacist organization in this country would be able to fit inside a college football stadium? I mean, seriously, this is a country where the average person is getting poor where the suicide rate is spiking. White supremacy, that's the problem. This is a hoax. Just like the Russia hoax. It's a conspiracy theory used to divide the country and keep a hold on power. That's exactly what's going on.
[Lemon:] He's getting a lot of blowback for those remarks. Here's what he said tonight.
[Carlson:] I want to take a second to pass on a sincere message to officials in Washington and particularly to our colleagues on the other cable news channels and it's this. Please, for the sake of the nation, calm down. Yes, America has problems. Yes, racism is one of America's problems. But so is a fading middle class. So is a terrifying drug epidemic that's killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. So is a national debt that's growing by a trillion dollars a year. These are huge problems and people know that. People know their country is in decline and it's making them turn to new political leaders. Donald Trump was one of those new leaders.
[Lemon:] I want to bring in now Mia Love, Wajahat Ali, and Rick Wilson. Rick is the author of "Everything Trump Touches Dies." OK. So here we go. Good evening. Mia, I don't have to tell you the powerful role that Fox News has essentially has there. They're essentially state-run TV for this administration. How troubled are you that so many of the president's supporters are being told that there is no problem in this country when it comes to white supremacy?
[Mia Love, Cnn Political Commentator:] Well, if anybody says that white supremacists doesn't exist, they're lying. They're intellectually lying, they're lying to you. And I think it's unfortunate to hear someone who has such a responsibility to get information out. Look, he's not we're not telling people to be afraid to go hide somewhere, but you have to be able to look at it, face it head-on and that's the only way that it's going to go away. You can't run away from it. And I'm hoping all of my colleagues that are out there, my former colleagues, people who I know that are good people who I've been, I worked closely with, to stand up and say this is not what we believe in and this has got to stop. If you can't find leadership in the White House then take it upon yourself. Say that you're going to stand up there and you are going to represent the best of what America has. And I just have one more thing I wanted to say. I spoke to a brother- in-law of mine who has spent his entire his entire adult life serving our country in the army. And he says the thing that threatens the United States the most is division within, and the fact that our enemies want to see us tearing each other apart. There is no other nation that's going to tear us down, there is no foreign entity, we're going to do it ourselves. So, I would hope that the people that are out there, leaders that are out there, politicians, parents at home to stand up and say this is not what we believe in. My kids who are of mixed race are really confused right now. They have no idea what to who to look to. And so, I'm telling them to look to me. Look at my Twitter feed because you're not going to find any other Twitter feed from the White House that's going to give you anything that's going to make you a better person or that's going to make you stand up for what America believes in.
[Lemon:] I had the pleasure of meeting Abigail just a couple of weeks ago, a very fine young lady. Yes, they should look to you for guidance. I got to tell you, though, let me ask you this Wajahat, because I think it's important to point out. This is what we did at CNN. And I want to make sure I get it all correct. Right? We reached out to Fox Corporation board members Rupert Murdoch, also Lachlan Murdoch and Dias, Roland Hernandez and Paul Ryan for comment. And I just want to go through what happened when we contacted them all, OK? So, Hope Hicks, Fox's spokesperson who represents Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch did not provide comment. Reached by phone, Hernandez hung up, and when asked about Carlson's comments, Dias did not reply to requests for comments. A representative for Ryan told CNN to contact Fox. Hicks, who represents Fox, did not respond when asked if the former speaker had a comment. OK. Then the seventh member of the Fox Corporation board Jacques Nasser could not be reached by CNN for comment. So, nobody is commenting. Maybe there's no accountability. I don't know what's going on. But do they need to answer for whether they support this, Wajahat?
[Wajahat Ali, Op-ed Writer, New York Times:] Well, they need to answer why they've given an hour every night to a white supremacist, Tucker Carlson. Because there might not be enough white supremacists in America to fit in a football stadium, but there is one for Fox News every night. His name is Tucker Carlson. If you don't believe me, Andrew Anglin, the leading neo-Nazi of the Daily Stormer says that Tucker Carlson is, quote, "literally our greatest ally." He says that Tucker Carlson's show is all of their talking points mainstreamed. So, you have to ask yourself if you are a Fox News patron or a supporter, why do you support Tucker Carlson's show when he is literally saying after a mass shooting attack an act of white supremacist terrorism that has killed more than 22 people in El Paso. He uses his platform to say that white supremacy is a hoax. And that is so insulting to any person of color, Don, especially black people because white supremacy is the original enduring sin of this country. It's an ideology of hate that says that white men in particular are dominant at the expense of everyone else. It has been globalized, thanks to the internet, and it has been mainstreamed, thanks to Donald Trump, the President of the United States of America, and the right-wing media infrastructure and right- wing politicians and especially people like Tucker Carlson. So, everyone who is watching right now, ask Fox News, do they agree with Tucker's comments? That's two nights in a row. Is white supremacy a hoax? Ask the people of El Paso. Ask the people who were killed. Ask their family members. Ask people of color, and for the love of God, stop it with he's euphemisms of saying that Donald Trump has racial trip ups and flare ups. I'm tired of it, Don. I'm tired of it. He's a racist. If my colleagues keep saying this, I'm going to call them out. Stop with economic anxiety. All the studies show it's racial anxiety. Confront the number one domestic terror threat to America according to the FBI, white supremacy.
[Lemon:] Rick, I got to ask you, because what he said tonight was not exactly what he said last night. Because last night he said
[Rick Wilson, Republican Strategist:] Right.
[Lemon:] that to keep a hold on power, they said it's a conspiracy theory used to divide the country and keep a hold on power. That is exactly what's going on. He called he said this is a hoax just like the Russia hoax. And then tonight he said, well, this is because people are upset and that's why people like Donald Trump get elected and to calm down and maybe you should see people for who they are or have some, you know, I don't know
[Wilson:] Yes, look tonight smelled
[Lemon:] Some sort of feeling about people I don't know what he meant by that, but go on.
[Wilson:] Yes, look, tonight smelled like an awful lot like although Fox has an internal philosophy of never apologize, never back down, that somebody finally said, wait a minute, every one of these idiots with a manifesto, it could be right off of Tucker Carlson's teleprompter.
[Ali:] That's right.
[Wilson:] Every one of these idiots that comes out and says America is browning and that we're being invaded and that we're losing a demographic war. It all sounds an awful lot like this I think this terrible and terrifying pseudo-intellectual framework they're trying to build around white nationalism by excusing it. By saying, oxycontin is causing white nationalism and economic anxiety is causing white nationalism. No, white nationalism goes of its own. It is a poisonous movement in this country and we have to be honest about it that Donald Trump has empowered it. He, look, let's not forget Donald Trump retweeted people like white genocide 99 during the campaign. And let's I hate having to recapitulate the whole Trump arc from birtherism to Charlottesville to the Central Park Five, all these things. We know what this man's character is. And what Tucker was trying to do for months on end was gussy it up a little bit and pretend that this new nationalism of his isn't driven by an underpinning of racial anxiety and hatred. And I think it's disappointing but understandable, the Murdoch's are not going to walk away from billions of dollars of ad revenue. That this has been they've been able to generate through shows like Tucker and Lou Dobbs and Sean Hannity and these other guys who go out every night and, you know, they wink and they nod to white nats out there from Tucker's show. As Wajahat pointed out, you know, Andrew Anglin and all these alt- right guys, they call Tucker our guy. They love the fact that he is vectoring the normies into their white nationalist movement in a way that is I find particularly dangerous, and I think that Tucker has a responsibility to face up to that. I think he was a little nervous tonight. I think there was something in the air that didn't quite sit with his normal confidence.
[Lemon:] Yes, listen, they announced he's going to be on vacation for a while. I think until the 19th. Or he did
[Wilson:] Of course. Vacation.
[Lemon:] I got to ask you, though, Rick, before I move on to Mia. I want to talk about the president. You heard what I read for Wajahat, how all these people, representatives of Fox who we reached out to, including the Murdoch's. Do they need to answer for whether they support this?
[Wilson:] Look
[Ali:] Yes.
[Wilson:] Rupert Murdoch is a capitalist first and a conservative second, I think. Because he has transformed the network away from even the original vision of what it was, which was a counterweight to what he thought was a liberal media to this nationalist, populist, anti- immigrant movement that I think has, you know, they're still monetizing the hell out of it. So, they do need to answer for it, but I doubt you'll ever get one.
[Lemon:] OK.
[Wilson:] They feel impervious. They feel like their market position protects them.
[Lemon:] All right. Mia, I don't have much time. Sorry about that. But let me ask you. I want to turn to the president. His behavior today attacking Democrats, praising himself. Why does it seem like hat he's more aggrieved by his press coverage than upset what he saw today, meeting with victims and their family members?
[Love:] Well, he started off it's really it's so ironic. He started off really well. He was exactly where he should have been, with the families. It should have really been a private moment. It should have been a moment where he would just connect with them. And that is part of the healing process. To let those families know I am with you, the people that did this to you, I am against them.
[Lemon:] Yes.
[Love:] But to go on and to have one of his workers actually one of his staff members actually send out a tweet, that was just it was such it was in poor taste. And then turn it into
[Lemon:] A video.
[Love:] You don't have there are ways to deal with people
[Wilson:] I agree.
[Love:] that you don't agree with.
[Lemon:] Yes.
[Love:] And, again, one of the things that have emboldened those people that are doing these horrible things is because they're watching the fights. They're watching the Twitter feeds and they feel like they're emboldened by this. There used to be a time where it was just a thought, right? And I remember Margaret Thatcher who would say well, I don't remember her but I remember my favorite quote is "be careful of your thoughts for they become words. Be careful of your words for they become action, so forth, and so forth."
[Lemon:] Right.
[Love:] We've gone past the thoughts, the words, and it's into action.
[Lemon:] Yes.
[Love:] And so, I think the only way to counter that is for people to take action themselves and to stand up against it and say, look, this is not OK. Those moments should have been kept private. They should have been just for the families. He did the right thing in being there with the families, but he shouldn't have gone after other people
[Lemon:] And created a campaign-style video about it.
[Love:] You don't fight evil with evil. Right.
[Lemon:] Wajahat
[Love:] Yes. A video. You don't fight evil with evil. Right?
[Lemon:] Yes.
[Love:] You don't sit there and say I'm going to shine a light on this with darkness. That's not how it works.
[Lemon:] Wajahat, there is this today as well. Jake Tapper has some exclusive reporting I want to ask you about. I just want to read from one senior source close to the Trump administration. It says "Homeland Security officials battle the White House for more than a year to get them to focus more on domestic terrorism. The White House wanted to focus only on the Jihadist threat, which while serious ignored the reality that racial supremacist violence was rising fast here at home. They had major ideological blinders on." So, the question is, why? I mean, why ignore the threats of white supremacy in this country? Maybe the answer is obvious, but I want to hear what you have to say.
[Ali:] Why go after your base? Ten years ago, in 2009, Daryl Johnson, a DHS analyst, was the first one to warn us all about the rising threat of white extremism.
[Lemon:] Do you remember when Janet Napolitano when she put out the report?
[Ali:] Yes.
[Lemon:] And then got out and had to apologize. And they rescind. It's crazy. But go on. Sorry.
[Ali:] But you know why, the Republican lawmakers and the conservative movement wanted to crush it because they said it would make them look bad, right? You fast forward. And everyone knows that if these suspects were Muslims I was just doing this thought experiment. Imagine if the suspects were undocumented immigrants or Muslims what would happen right now? Republican congressmen, I swear to you, would be calling to bomb some countries. So, we'd have a Muslim ban, a Muslim registry. But look what happened after Charlottesville. Very both sides are to be blamed. They're very fine people. What happened after Christchurch where 51 people were killed? And in his manifesto, he said, the terrorist said that Donald Trump is a renewed symbol of white identity and he shares a common purpose with me. That was in March. Donald Trump said I don't think white nationalism is a really big problem. And today, we just found out Republican Senator Johnson openly said on Fox News a few months ago there was a bipartisan letter that he sent with a Democratic senator asking DHS and DOJ what's happening with white supremacist terrorism. The DOJ did not respond to him, Don. So why is this not a major concern when the FBI director appointed by Trump two and a half weeks ago said that in 2019, just 2019, over 100 arrests happened in this country when it comes to domestic terrorism. Most of them were, wait for it, tied to white supremacy. Why is he not taking this threat seriously? And can you imagine if it was a Muslim or an undocumented immigrant.
[Lemon:] Yes.
[Ali:] Maybe then this impotent, weak pathetic president, this insignificant narcissist, a Bulgarian would actually be the commander in chief and the president of all Americans, not just white men who wear red hats.
[Lemon:] Thank you, all. In the aftermath of the deadly shootings in El Paso and Dayton, will there be any real changes this time? We'll talk about it next.