Eighth Night of Protests Over George Floyd's Death; Religious Leaders Express Outrage, Slam Tear Gassing; What Will the Protests Mean to Trump in November; Trudeau Hesitant to Criticize Trump Over Protests; Stimulus Measures, Economic Reopening Boost U.S. Stocks; Washington Man Shelters Dozens of Protesters.
JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: What started out as a peaceful demonstration turned relatively tense as the National Guard use pepper spray on protestors not far from the White House. Also in Seattle, protesters there used umbrellas to try and block chemicals which are being sprayed as a form of crowd control by security officials. And crowds of people dressed in black stood on the steps of the state capitol in Boise, Idaho. They held a candle vigil for George Floyd, whose tragic death triggered all of these nationwide protests. More details now on what happened on Monday night, when there was an event just -- oh, good. Here we are. This is what happened Monday night, not far from the White House. The Attorney General, turns out, Bill Barr, ordered the security forces there, the police, other law enforcement, to use tear gas to clear these, what were peaceful protesters, away from a church so that the President, Donald Trump, could actually hold a photo op at that church. A sign that he was actually getting out of the White House and was not cooped up inside and was not scared in any way, I guess, of being amongst the protesters. Now, it was all for a TV moment at the end of the day. And a former minister of the church was among the crowd that night. She spoke to CNN's Jake Tapper.</s>REV. GINI GERBASI, RECTOR, ST. JOHN'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF GEORGETOWN: I was already stunned and shocked and deeply, deeply offended that they had taken what had become holy ground and had been holy ground for 200 years and literally desecrated it. Turned it into not a metaphorical battleground but a literal battleground with those officers and those heavy, heavily armed and just the aggression and the hostility and the innocent protesters, driving them off of church property, for whatever reason. At the time, I didn't even know why. That already desecrated that, already turned holy ground into a literal battleground. I could not believe, literally, what people were texting me as I was going back to my car, saying, is the President really there? And I could still hear the flashbangs and people were texting me saying, he's walking across the park. I could not believe it. I was saying, no, no, that must be sort of stock photos. No, I'm sure that's not happening. I couldn't believe it. And when I realized that people had been hurt and terrified for a political stunt. I like, offended hardly begins to describe how I feel.</s>NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR: Strong criticism also coming from the bishop of the D.C. Episcopal diocese, who said the President's actions appeared to be a stunt.</s>BISHOP MARIANN EDGAR BUDDE, EPISCOPAL DIOCESE OF WASHINGTON D.C.: It didn't seem to be an expression of faith or of solidarity with faith. It seemed to be, as we've said before, an opportunity to clothe himself in the mantle of spiritual symbols and locations to, in some way, bolster or reinforce his own authority and message.</s>ALLEN: And harsh words from the presumptive Democratic nominee for President, former Vice President Joe Biden, who spoke on Tuesday.</s>JOE BIDEN, U.S. DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The President held up the bible at St. John's church yesterday. I just wish he opened it once in a while, instead of brandishing it. If he opened it, he could have learned something. We're all called to love one another as we love ourselves.</s>VAUSE: And CNN's senior political analyst Ron Brownstein joins me now this hour from Los Angeles. Ron, good to see you.</s>RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Another busy day, John. Good to see you.</s>VAUSE: They're all busy days. OK, the President seemed to frame the way he wants to run for re-election during that national address on Monday. Here's part of it.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I am your president of law and order and an ally of all peaceful protesters, but in recent days, our nation has been gripped by professional anarchists, violent mobs, arsonists, looters, criminals, rioters, Antifa, and others.</s>VAUSE: An ally of peaceful protesters, unless they get in the way of a photo op. But nonetheless, Nixon, he ran and won on a law and order agenda. That was in 1968, a period of unrest. Nixon though was not the incumbent. Trump is. And after a disastrous response to the pandemic, the economic collapse, we've got a country which is more vulnerable than at any time in living memory. Has Trump got anything else to run on, apart from the imaginary American carnage out there?</s>BROWNSTEIN: Well you know, I was thinking last night that there isn't a lot of Nixon nostalgia in America, but certainly, the President is one of the Americans who is expressing a kind of nostalgia for 1968, as you suggest. In fact, kind of underlining the point this morning when he just tweeted out to words -- silent majority -- which was the phrase Nixon used for his political coalition in 1968 that was meant to kind of portray white mid-America. This is a very different country than it was in 1968. For one thing, as you mentioned, the President is the incumbent, and so, it's kind of hard for him to run against the forces of chaos that have emerged during his presidency. But even more fundamentally, it is a demographically and culturally very different place. When Nixon ran on the silent majority and law and order in 1968, 80 percent of our voters were white people without a college degree, who were the core audience for the Trumpian messages. Today they're about half as big a share of the vote. They're about 40 percent. And the President is suffering from significant, you know, alienation among both minority voters and white-collar white voters in the big metro areas that have been hit hardest by the pandemic and also by the protests over the murder in Minneapolis.</s>VAUSE: Yes. "The New York Times" asked Trump on Sunday about his plans to deal with the unrest, which has paralyzed parts of the country. Here's his answer. I'm going to win the election easily. The economy is going to start to get good and then great, better than ever before. I'm getting more judges appointed by the week, including two Supreme Court justices, close to 300 judges by the end of the year. You know, among other things, it would indicate he either does not want or does not have, or probably both, any clue about how to end the unrest because he just doesn't want to.</s>BROWNSTEIN: Well, I also think, as I've said to you before, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And every time the President gets under pressure politically, he returns to kind of the core tool in his toolbox, which is cultural and racial polarization. You know, there were some notes early on of sympathy toward Mr. Floyd. And occasionally, he still kind of mouths some of those words, but the core of it is I am your law and order president, I am going to crack down on thugs. Very different message from when right-wing protesters were mobbing the Michigan state capitol with automatic weapons and he was telling the Democratic governor to make a deal with them. Now he is saying Democrats are weak, the cities are being overrun. That is his message, you know, to his voters, that he, I alone can protect you against all of these dangerous and dark forces that are collecting in the cities and also against the elites who he says looks down on you. So, he always comes back to this place. But when you see the real- world consequences of this politics, both in the extraordinary price we are paying on the pandemic and then in the violence that he has kind of put gasoline on the fire, I think the audience for it shrinks somewhat. It's not that there's no audience for it, but it's clear that he's having trouble moving his support above 45 percent of the country.</s>VAUSE: Because the other part of this law and order strategy, is trying to shore up his supporters -- religious supporters, but I think using tear gas and flashbangs to move hundreds of peaceful protesters away from a church to take a photo op, that's not seen favorably by many religious leaders. Listen to this.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President? I know you stood right here and held the bible in your hand.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Upside down!</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But it is clear you don't have the bible in your heart.</s>CROWD: In your heart.</s>GERBASI: For him to turn that book into a prop, for him to turn that holy ground into a battleground, for him to turn that holy ground into a photo op is a sacrilege.</s>VAUSE: Trump was already losing support among evangelicals but is this one incident that he lost significant support or is it just sort of part of a toxic build-up?</s>BROWNSTEIN: No, I don't think he loses any of his support amongst white Evangelicals, because he is kind of their sword against all of the changes in American life that they feel are marginalizing their position. But what I do think this incident exemplifies is what I called a few months ago the Trump treadmill. And I wrote that when he told the four Democratic women of color in Congress to go back where they came from, even though they were all, you know, American citizens. And what I mean by that is that he constantly feels the need, as I said, to stir up these cultural confrontations to energize and mobilize his base, but he's on a treadmill, because each time he does this, he reinforces the doubts among many previously Republican- leaning white-collar voters about whether he is personally fit to be president. And you know, I think there's -- I'm sure there's going to be polling coming out in the next few days reaffirming what we've seen in earlier polls, that a majority of Americans believe he is a racist, particularly a majority of college-educated white voters. As an extraordinary statement about an American president, and one I think, again, the consequences of which are becoming more tangible to voters. That does not mean there's infinite tolerance for disorder in cities and breaking windows and looting, and there is, you know, the potential of a backlash if that goes on for very long. Americans want order. But I don't think that most Americans at this point believe that Trump is making the situation better. In fact, I think most think he's making it worse.</s>VAUSE: Just been told to wrap, Ron, but just to your point that most Americans believe he's a racist, but yet still has, what, a 40 percent approval rating. Which says a lot itself.</s>BROWNSTEIN: 45, yes, right absolutely. Look, there is a coalition that is open to his message that the changes in American life, economic, cultural, and demographic, are marginalizing them, but it is not a majority of the country. And if he wins, he's going to have to find a way to squeeze through, despite that again.</s>VAUSE: We've got to go. Ron, good to see you. Thanks so much.</s>BROWNSTEIN: Thanks, John.</s>ALLEN: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appeared lost for words during a news conference when asked about President Trump's handling of the U.S. protests. Here he is.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We do have Donald Trump now calling for military action against protesters. We saw protesters tear-gassed yesterday to make way for a Presidential photo op. I'd like to ask you what you think about that? And if you don't want to comment, what message do you think you're sending?</s>ALLEN: Several Canadian cities have staged demonstrations over the last several days, chanting "Black Lives Matter" and calling on leaders to acknowledge that racism is still a problem in Canada.</s>VAUSE: As it is in so many other places. Well we'll take a short break. Coming up, we'll hear from the NFL coach who says, when it comes to the National Football League, there's no discrimination. That's ahead.