President Trump Continues Racist Attacks; Democratic Presidential Candidates Get Set For Second Debate; Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer is Interviewed About 2020 Dems & Beating Trump in Her State.
STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The two men have admitted that they were a part of this crime.</s>BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Got it. Stay on it for us. Stephanie Elam, thank you very much. And thank you for being with me here live in Detroit. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Let's send it to Jake. "THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER" continues right now.</s>JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: President Trump once called Congressman Elijah Cummings a terrific guy. I wonder what's changed. THE LEAD starts right now. President Trump launching a new round of attacks on Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings and his Baltimore district and hinting that the strategy may be part of his reelection campaign. Mice, mold and maggots in Baltimore area apartments, the president has mentioned it, but did he realize many were in buildings owned by -- wait for it -- his son-in-law's Jared Kushner's company. We talked to some of Kushner's tenants. Then, hours after this wild and tragic scene at a popular festival, new details revealed about the victims, including two small children and the killer, including possible white supremacist influences. Welcome to a special edition of THE LEAD. We're live outside the Fox Theatre in Detroit for the CNN Democratic presidential debates. I'm Jake Tapper. We're going to start today with the politics lead and President Trump digging in on a strategy of division and exposing a common theme by once again attacking a lawmaker of color. This time, he's going after Democratic Congressman Elijah Cummings and his congressional district of Baltimore. Trump launching at least 16 tweets since Saturday, calling Baltimore -- quote -- "a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess," and saying of the majority African-American district -- quote -- "No human being would want to live there." As CNN's Abby Phillip now reports for us, the president's campaign strategy of pitting Americans against each other seems to be getting nastier, with even one of his own former White House communications directors calling for more presidential self-awareness and less racism.</s>ABBY PHILLIP, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Trump today escalating his attacks on House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, saying his Baltimore district has the worst crime statistics in the nation, 25 years of all talk, no action. "So tired of listening to the same old bull." And expanding his attacks to include civil rights leader and TV host Al Sharpton, who Trump claims hates whites and cops. For the second time in two weeks, Trump using language like infestation to describe the places where people of color live. And combined with his racist attack on four Democratic congresswomen of color, who he told to go back to the countries from which they came, even though they are all American, Trump is now making racial division the centerpiece of his 2020 reelection campaign, warning Democrats that if they "defend the radical left Squad and King Elijah's Baltimore fail, it will be a long road to 2020." The president's aides insisting this isn't about race.</s>MARGARET BRENNAN, HOST, "FACE THE NATION": "No human being would want to live there."</s>MICK MULVANEY, ACTING WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: When Donald Trump attacks people...</s>BRENNAN: This is being perceived as racist. Do you understand why?</s>MULVANEY: I understand why, but that doesn't mean that it's racist. The president is pushing back against what he sees as wrong.</s>PHILLIP: Also underlying Trump's attacks on Cummings, his growing concern that the powerful committee chairman is using his oversight powers to investigate people close to him.</s>REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS (D-MD): It's not about not liking the president. It's about loving democracy. It's about loving our country. I'm begging the American people to pay attention to what is going on.</s>PHILLIP: Last week, Cummings said his committee will subpoena the text messages and e-mails of Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his daughter Ivanka Trump. Trump responding on social media, accusing Cummings of trying to hurt innocent people through oversight.</s>PHILLIP: And President Trump announced on Twitter this afternoon that he was meeting with a group that he called inner-city pastors. These are a group of pastors who support him and have been to the White House before. This meeting was planned a couple of weeks ago. But those pastors, some of them came out to reporters to defend President Trump against these allegations of racism. But they did not defend the specific comments that President Trump has been making all weekend about Elijah Cummings, Al Sharpton and the city of Baltimore -- Jake.</s>TAPPER: All right, Abby Phillip, thanks so much. And let's reiterate that -- the point that Abby made, but also Bill Kristol made on Twitter. Maeve, let me start with you. Bill Kristol, the conservative writer, tweeted: "What provoked Trump's attacks on Cummings? New facts about crime or poverty in Baltimore? Nope. It was that Cummings committee voted to subpoena work-related texts and e-mails on personal accounts by White House officials, including Ivanka and Jared." Do you agree? Is that what's behind all this?</s>MAEVE RESTON, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, clearly, that is what gets President Trump most upset. And -- but it's a really questionable strategy, in the sense that it brings on all the kinds of criticisms that are not helpful in terms of him appealing to the center of the country. But, I mean, he's always going after his political enemies and whoever has been you know after him last, as he sees it.</s>TAPPER: And, Rick Santorum, let me ask you. I mean, he does go after his political enemies, whether it's Bill de Blasio or Adam Schiff, et cetera.</s>RICK SANTORUM, CNN COMMENTATOR: I know all about.</s>RESTON: As an enemy.</s>TAPPER: But a lot of people, look at the way he goes after people of color, the way he attacks them, go back where you came from, rat- and rodent-infested district, no human being would want to live there, not the kind of rhetoric that I have heard you use. And you have been in this game for a long time.</s>SANTORUM: No. Look, I'm not going to condone the president's rhetoric here. I know the president is upset when you go after his family. He feels like he's been unjustly assaulted for now two-plus years, and particularly his family has been put -- put in that spotlight. The other thing, though, I do believe this president -- because I have talked to a lot of people around him and people that work with him. I do believe this president believes that he is doing more for the African-American and minority community than any other president in a long time. If you look at the economic numbers, they're strong. He feels very strongly that he has a case to make here. And so by pointing this out, inarticulately, he's really following up on a strategy which he believes he thinks he can go into these communities and say, look, I'm the person that's delivered for this community. And you have had these people who've been there for 25 or 30 or 40 years and look at the situation and look at what I'm doing and try to draw that contrast. He hasn't drawn it very well, in my opinion. I think he gets the personal animus in the way. But I think he has a good point to make.</s>TAPPER: But, Mayor Gillum, if that's what the president said, what Senator Santorum had just said, I don't think there would have been the uproar that there's been after going after the Squad and about Elijah Cummings.</s>ANDREW GILLUM (D), FORMER FLORIDA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: Well, there's also -- should be huge debate over what exactly has the president done for communities of color. He has incited situations of racism, where people are going into public spaces, restaurants at gas stations, being told to go back to their country. They are being called the N-word. There are videos that are endlessly online that basically trigger people of color to feel very, very insecure right now in this country. That's what the president has done. This is an environment of his total and complete making. This is also not just a response to people challenging the president's children. When I ran for governor of Florida, he said that I was mayor of the most dangerous city in America, in spite of the fact that I presided over a 20-year low in our violent crime rate. Now, what the president probably didn't know is that I was the mayor of a city that was almost 70 percent white. He assumed that, as a black mayor, probably, I was running a city that had crime infestations all over. Well, if the president wants to be offended by his children, he should look first to Jared Kushner and the units that he runs in Baltimore, Maryland, that have had hundreds of violations against them as a slum lord.</s>TAPPER: We will get to that in the next block. But I think, look, nobody, including and especially the mayor of Baltimore and people who live in Baltimore, would deny that Baltimore is a city that needs help and has problems. Senator -- I'm sorry -- Jen, let me show you this tweet from President Trump. It says: "Crazy Bernie Sanders recently equated the city of Baltimore to a Third World country. Based on that statement, I assume that Bernie must now be labeled a racist, just as a Republican would if he used that term and standard." Here is a little clip on Bernie Sanders after his visit to Baltimore in 2015. Take a listen.</s>SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Anyone who took the walk that we took around this neighborhood would not think you're in a wealthy nation. You would think that you were in a Third World country.</s>TAPPER: But there is a difference.</s>JEN PSAKI, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Of course. And, look, I think everybody should be focused on helping people in the inner city of Baltimore get the help they need. People would like more jobs. They'd like health care. They'd like all sorts of benefits that the government could certainly support. But there is a commonality and ability pattern with President Trump here. And I think that's important context. He's not attacking the Republican governors of eight of the poorest states in the country that are predominantly white. He's not attacking them. He's not attacking white Republicans who oversee states and rural communities that also have high levels of poverty, even higher...</s>TAPPER: Like Kentucky.</s>PSAKI: Like Kentucky.</s>TAPPER: Mitch McConnell's home state.</s>SANTORUM: Because they're not attacking him.</s>GILLUM: But that doesn't give you permission.</s>SANTORUM: That's the way the president fights back, I mean, the reality is. And contrary to what you're saying, Andrew, the presidents has done a lot, if you look at African-American poverty and wages and Hispanic wages, and poverty, he has done a great job...</s>GILLUM: He has benefited greatly from the economy that Obama set up for eight years.</s>SANTORUM: Obama blamed Bush forever. And now you're going to take credit.</s>TAPPER: Let's take a quick break.</s>SANTORUM: Come on.</s>TAPPER: While President Trump says no human being wants to live in Baltimore, thousands of human beings call the Kushner Company their landlord in the Baltimore area, and they claim they lack proper plumbing and have rats in the ceiling -- their story next. Plus, just a day away from the Democratic debate, Senator Kamala Harris unveiling a new health care plan, one that keeps private insurance. We will hear what Senator Bernie Sanders has to think. That's next. Stay with us.