Growing List of Dems Boycotting Inauguration.
COSTELLO: President-elect Trump heading to Washington just three days before he is sworn in, facing his historic low approval ratings and a growing number of Democrats boycotting his inauguration. According to a new CNN/ORC poll, more than half Americans disapprove of the way Trump is handling the presidential transition, and only 40 percent prove. He trails far behind his immediate predecessors, President Bush, Clinton and Obama, all had support above 60 percent. And Trump also faces a growing boycott among lawmakers, nearly one in five House Democrats say they will not attend the inauguration on Friday. CNN's Jason Carroll live outside of Trump Tower to tell us more about that. Good morning again.</s>JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And good morning to you again, Carroll. You know, at last count, 39 Democratic lawmakers now saying they are not going to be attending inauguration festivities. That number really increased significantly after Donald Trump came out and criticized Congressman John Lewis saying this was a man that was basically all talk and no action, and you look at history and that's not the case. This is a civil rights leader who is one of the freedom writers, arrested and beaten, and marching for civil rights during that tumultuous period of time. Congresswoman Barbara Lee, one of those Democratic lawmakers coming out and saying she simply cannot go to Washington to support the president-elect, and a number of Republican lawmakers, on the flip side, saying this is not about lawmakers following their conscience, they say it's more about partisan politics as usual.</s>REP. BARBARA LEE (D), CALIFORNIA: I don't want to celebrate, you know, a president-elect coming in that campaigned on a campaign of bigotry and divisiveness, and he continued to campaign even after he won the campaign on this platform.</s>REP. SEAN DUFFY (R), WISCONSIN: The Democrats lost. Donald Trump won. You may not like him, you may not agree with his agenda, just like we didn't agree with President Obama's agenda. But show up. That's your duty as a Republican congressman. Be part of the process.</s>CARROLL: What does the president-elect have to say about all of this? He is being basically upbeat about what is to come later this week. He says people are pouring into Washington in record numbers, and Bikers for Trump are on the way. In terms of some of those numbers, we should also note that a number of people showing up in Washington later in the week will be protesters who plan to voice their opposition to the president-elect -- Carol.</s>COSTELLO: All right. Jason Carroll, reporting live from Trump Tower. The partisan divide, well, it's now a canyon, like the Grand Canyon. There's a reason all the lawmakers are skipping Trump's inauguration. Back to that CNN/ORC poll, 80 percent of Republicans approve of Trump's handling of the transition, but only 8 percent of Democrats feel the same way. When asked if Trump will do a good job as president, 93 percent of Republicans say yes, and only 14 percent of Democrats think he will. With me now to talk about this is Errol Louis, CNN political commentator and political anchor of Spectrum News, and Lara Brown, program director for the George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management. Welcome to both of you.</s>ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning.</s>COSTELLO: OK. So, Errol, this poll suggests Trump is shaping up to be one of the most polarizing president-elects the nation has had in modern times, yet, this weekend, Mr. Trump tweeted this, quote, "For many years, our country has been divided, angry and untrusting. Many say it will never change. The hatred is too deep. It will change." Errol, will it?</s>LOUIS: Well, I don't know if putting four exclamation points after it and all capitals will do it. It's a little bit deeper than that. The reality, of course, is that this president-elect -- let's be clear, he is not that much of an exception, and we had a string of presidents who ran on polarizing programs, who divided the country and took advantage of the country and decided to win and govern with sort of 50 percent plus one. Donald Trump is clearly intending to do that. There are a number of things we could roll back the clock over the last six weeks of opportunities that he had an opportunity to bring people together and did the opposite, and the fight with John Lewis being the most recent and spectacular example. So, we're not I think going to do well by looking at his tweets, but we should look at his actions and his words. And the reality is, he does not intent to govern as a uniter. He may find some advantage there and that's what will move forward. But for a long time, what is broken about Washington is that you do derive political advantage and in this case, you win the presidency by being a divider.</s>COSTELLO: And our country is so divided. I'm going to throw some more numbers at you, Lara. We are split geographically, gender-wise, racially and education wise. Trump's transition approval numbers are 30 points higher among rural voters, 20 points higher among men and 20 points higher among whites. So, I know Errol got into this a little bit. But what do you think this means in terms of governing?</s>LARA BROWN, PROGRAM DIR., GRAD SCHOOL OF POLITICAL MANAGEMENT, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIV.: Well, really, what this is about is you can see what the basis of the campaign was, and we had a divisive election, and we had one in which the two sides did not see each other's views at all and there is a great deal of nastiness. The last time we had sort of numbers that were even approximating anywhere approaching this was actually during George W. Bush's, you know, transition time, and in the run up to the inaugural as he was questioned because of the inversion of the popular vote and the Electoral College, and yet, you know, George W. Bush was obviously in a much better shape than is Donald Trump currently. But it's also true that Representative Lewis protested and, in fact, boycotted George W. Bush's election back in -- or inaugural back in 2001.</s>COSTELLO: OK. So more numbers to throw at you. According to our CNN/ORC poll, most Americans do not believe Donald Trump will protect the U.S. from hacking and they don't believe he will defeat ISIS, they don't believe he'll build a wall, but a majority of Americans do believe that he will increase jobs and fix the tax code. So, what does that say to you?</s>LOUIS: Well, what that says to me is that people have a realistic sense of when the president-elect is speaking politically, what's realistic and what's not. The wall, we heard from any number of experts is simply a fantasy, it's kind of a metaphor. Something will be built, but it's not going to be what he promised. I think for a lot of people, it doesn't really make that much difference. The metaphor was intended to signal he'll be tough on the border. When it comes to the jobs, though, this is what people want, this is at the heart of his brand, not so much the wall, but his ability to manage the economy, his ability to sort of bring growth up towards 4 percent, and that's the number he promised and that's the number we should be looking at, his ability to change the trade deal, so that they'll be the kind of prosperity that he promised. I think his presidency will probably rise or fall more on that than almost any other single thing.</s>COSTELLO: So, just I want to touch on disunity one more time, and a lot of people are blaming Mr. Trump for that, and a lot of Democrats are going to skip the inauguration, Lara, doesn't that lend to the disunity in the country, too?</s>BROWN: Well, it does. There's no doubt about it. When one commits to politics in America, that actually means you should be committing to the process and not the results, and in fact, I think the Democrats are doing themselves a disservice by not showing up and not participating and not acknowledging what is the most signature achievement of the country, which is a peaceful transfer of power for over more than 200 years. So, there is I think a problem for Democrats in the, if you will, optics surrounding this. But I also think it's important to realize that Donald Trump, his honeymoon appears to be more like one following an arranged marriage. Republicans are not even as enthusiastic as one would anticipate, that they should be in relation to having a White House, and certainly everyone seems to be somewhat wary about what Trump's actions will be going forward.</s>COSTELLO: All right. I have to leave it there. Errol Louis, Lara Brown, thanks so much. I'll be right back.