Day Three of GOP Convention
LEMON: A wild, wild night in Cleveland because Senator Ted Cruz got booed for withholding his endorsement of Donald Trump in his big convention speech. The only person I can think to talk to is Billy Baldwin. He's an activist and a Ted Cruz expert and my political dream team is back with me, as well. Welcome, sir.</s>BILLY BALDWIN, ACTOR, ACTIVIST: Thank you for having me.</s>LEMON: Are you the second Baldwin? You're brother Steven was here the other night.</s>BALDWIN: I'm the anti-Steven.</s>LEMON: We could -- I know. You guys are on opposite sides, polar opposites.</s>BALDWIN: My entire family is on one side and he is ...</s>LEMON: And then there's Steven.</s>BALDWIN: Yeah. And then there's Steven.</s>LEMON: Is he the black sheep of the family?</s>BALDWIN: Actually, they call me the white sheep. My entire family is strewn with black sheep. But a couple of my friends refer to me as the white sheep.</s>LEMON: So, what are you making? You said, you know, I saw you here last night. You've been here the entire time, right?</s>BALDWIN: I've been coming to the DNC since 1988 and the RNC since 1992. I've been to a lot of conventions. And I've never, ever, ever seen a spectacle like I've seen this evening and quite frankly all week. There's been -- yesterday in prime-time a lot of the seats in the upper bowl were empty. We had technical glitches that I've never ever seen before where the screens were going out. What I saw tonight with actually the assistant to the Trump family, that woman, that African- American woman, I've heard her referencing things that I've never heard uttered before the Republican Convention before.</s>LEMON: Like?</s>BALDWIN: The LGBT community, black lives matters, there's a lot of cool stuff that she was discussing. And then of course Ted Cruz shoots his career in the foot and is booed off the stage. I have never seen. And he was actually doing quite well, I thought, up until then. And then he committed, I think you know, political suicide.</s>LEMON: Do you think at -- that's my question at hand. Everyone says --</s>BALDWIN: No, no, no, they don't think so because that's kind of his thing.</s>LEMON: But let's create a scenario where there is a political future for him. Go ahead.</s>DEAN: I can do it. I think he could lead the country one day and that's the country of his birth place, Canada. I think there is --</s>AMANDA CARPENTER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Donald Trump birthers, once again.</s>DEAN: We're not birthers --</s>CARPENTER: Donald Trump's got in the political scene trusting Obama's Birth.</s>DEAN: Well, Obama is born in Hawaii in the United States.</s>BAKARI SELLERS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: But you didn't live with that.</s>DEAN: I did.</s>SELLERS: Can we give a cry out?</s>DEAN: In Hawaii. But like Ted -- like Ted was born in Alberta, Canada which is a lovely place but it ain't United States.</s>BALDWIN: I will say a lot of people on the floor, whether they were Trump or Cruz or not are the delegates that run the Republican Party on the county level. And I just can't -- if this guy was opting for 2020, and punting as they say, for 2020 in hopes to take down Hillary for a second term, I don't think it is, but if that was the strategy, it's a failed strategy.</s>KAYLEIGH MCENANY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You know one thing we know about Trump, supporters are there intensely loyal. This is the entire establishment crowd. Donald Trump won in even (inaudible) in almost every state. These are the people Ted Cruz hopes to support and hopes to have. And I don't see a scenario where they forgive him for this.</s>BALDWIN: And precisely.</s>MCENANY: And then, then that, that Hillary Clinton.</s>LEMON: Yeah, but interesting -- Let me know in this scenario again where -- about the political correctness. Donald Trump says, you know, in one of his saying, that I like being politically correct. Well you know, we got to stop doing it. Ted Cruz was politically incorrect tonight. Why wouldn't Donald Trump embrace that?</s>BALDWIN: I just think, you know, Jeb Bush had the decency to stay away from the convention. He didn't ask to speak at the convention in prime time. Ted Cruz wasn't going to endorse it. I think there's a lot of egg on Ted Cruz's, more than an egg on Ted Cruz's face.</s>SELLERS: Makes them look small.</s>BALDWIN: I there's a lot of egg on the Trump Campaign's face and on the RNC. How did they even get this in a way that guaranteed that this wouldn't happen to that -- look, the first night was Melania and now all we're going to talk about for the next two or three cycles is Ted Cruz and that's not what they wanted coming out of this. This -- I've never seen in a -- this is a debacle. If I were Hillary Clinton, I would not announce my running mate on Friday. I would let them screw this up day three and day four. And let it bake throughout weekend.</s>SELLERS: I can -- I knew you would worry about it.</s>BALDWIN: Oh you did? I'm sorry.</s>SELLERS: No, no, no. I was just saying that the best thing that happened to the Democratic Party for next week is that we got this exhibition this week. But I do have to caution Democrats around the country. I mean, what we saw from the first three days of this campaign outside of the distraction from Melania and Ted Cruz is this theme that somehow America sucks. You know, I mean that was the pervasive theme throughout the entire convention.</s>LEMON: Yeah.</s>SELLERS: America sucks.</s>LEMON: America is terrible.</s>SELLERS: So, next week -- I mean I caution my Democrats not to spend too much time talking about Donald Trump. We know enough about Donald Trump after this convention, not to talk about Chris Christie really (inaudible). But talk about not what this country was or what it is, but what it can be.</s>LEMON: Hold on. Hold on. I have to say. But right now, we're discussing this earlier and I used to be at least -- I'm not a political person. And I'd sit back and watch people wonder, are your liberal or conservative? Me, I'm neither. I was so depressed by watching the first night's speakers, the second night's speakers, the country is awful. We're not safe. We don't have any money. We don't -- listen, I am a gay black man on Television. That's the -- That doesn't happen in other countries. This country is not that terrible. I don't care which side of the political --</s>MCENANY: It's called reality. When you wake up --</s>LEMON: The reality is not that awful.</s>MCENANY: When you wake up everyday and you see five cops dead here, three dead there, 83 dead overseas in Nice, and you see 143 dead this Paris. Things are not good.</s>BALDWIN: Where we were seven years ago compared to where we are today, we're in a much, much better place. There's a lot of problems. There's room for a lot of improvement. But we're lot --</s>MCENAMY: Thirty thousand dying at the hands of terrorism since of January 2015 and we're in a better place? False reality.</s>SELLERS: No, Kayleigh, Kayleigh, Kayleigh maybe you're very young, but some of us remember the 60's and the 70's. Some of us remember Vietnam, people coming home in body bags, our relatives coming home and not being the same. There's always been a strife, war, political strife.</s>MCENANY: Some of us remember the days when you could go to work out in San Bernardino and come home alive. And you could go out through the night --</s>BALDWIN: That's -- you're mongering.</s>MCENANY: You could go to a night club.</s>BALDWIN: That's one isolated incident.</s>MCENANY: One, no, no.</s>BALDWIN: How many of those were supported?</s>MCENANY: In the last two weeks, we've had six incidences. There used to be a day when you could go out to a nightclub in Orlando and celebrate your lifestyle and you wouldn't end up dead.</s>BALDWIN: Let me ask you something.</s>MCENANY: This is the world.</s>BALDWIN: This the kind of thing that goes on between the Palestinians and the Israelis that had gone on for decades. And the Palestinians --</s>MCENANY: And now it's happening here.</s>BALDWIN: And the Israelis have the best military and the best intelligence in the world right there with the United States. And it happens all the time there and it's been happening for decades. I've been wondering since 9/11, why that doesn't happen here more frequently. But clearly, that's not something that we want. But I'm wondering why that hasn't happened more frequently in the last ten years. I'm sorry, yeah.</s>SELLERS: I mean, no, no, no I just -- and I have to point this out. Because in Kayleigh's -- are very articulate sentiments that she just stated. She forgot to mention Alton Sterling of Orlando's. We're in the middle of the show, sir, hold on.</s>MCENANY: Who were mentioned tonight.</s>SELLERS: And no -- but no, no, no, which you forgot to mention them in everything that's going on --</s>MCENANY: I have mentioned them publicly several times.</s>SELLERS: But my only point is that yes, and they were mentioned tonight. And the most amazing part about when Ted Cruz actually mentioned out Sterling. Do you know the crowd did tonight? They sat on their hands. You know what happened when he mentioned the men who were nine in Charleston? They sat on their hands. So yes, we had a problem in this country but we are a lot better off than we were seven years ago.</s>BALDWIN: Let me just say one thing. Watch the contrast between what happens at the Republican convention and what happens with the more policy, more specifics, more solutions, more hope. It's going to be a totally different --</s>MCENANY: You obviously slept during my (inaudible) of speech.</s>LEMON: Even like this.</s>BALDWIN: Let me just finish. I am not hearing a Republican's say at this convention how awful this place is as much as they're attacking Hillary. It's a one-note attack. It's a recipe for disaster. When this convention is over -- I mean Hil1ary is sitting down with her campaign strategies right, and they were popping champagnes corks.</s>BALDWIN: Now listen, I expect that --</s>DEAN: Guaranteed. I know it will be.</s>DEAN: Tomorrow will be optimistic.</s>BALDWIN: And that's what their job is.</s>LEMON: Now I didn't expect this committee is going to be so negative about it.</s>DEAN: But it's not America's (inaudible), Barrack Obama's America.</s>BALDWIN: Well, that sort of thing.</s>CARPENTER: And that's part of the problem, there's not unity in the party. Everything is this, you know, Paul Ryan, another face, they're buying a new toy. You can choose Hillary or Trump and that's not --</s>LEMON: I think we've got a statement from Ted Cruz and we're going to do it after the break.</s>MCENANY: Oh, no.</s>LEMON: No one's going to stay with us.