. good evening. our second hour of a special edition of "360," less than 24 hours away from the republican national convention. a historic moment in time, campaigning remade by a pandemic. president trump trying to keep some semblance of crowd chanting, an element of conventions past while also trying to surpass the generally positive reception of a democratic convention for the placement of women of color on a presidential ticket. the president, however, battling not only unprecedented pandemic but the historic, economic fallout. this hour we'll discuss how unique this moment is in time

and what the president is hoping to do to reverse the negative polling off him and his administration. we'll also spotlight the split in the republican party as members of previous republican campaigns and some in conservative media focus their energies on defeating his attempt at a second term. and our own brian stelter will talk about his new book we start with a preview of what we can expect to see the next four days and nights with our own chief white house corporate jim acosta. >> heading into the convention the president and his team insist they have an impressive record to run on heading into this election and convention. the president out on the campaign trial the last several days pointing to what he considers to be his achievements from his first term. but anderson, the theme of this convention is return to american greatness according to campaign officials. that is an acknowledgment that things are not great right now.

the president has been insisting he has accomplishments to run on, but there's one big issue hanging over everything, and that is, of course, the coronavirus. >> we're going to win four more years. >> behind in the apostles and way weighed down by a pandemic, he's trying to pull off the ultimate sales pitch and convince voters his first term is a success story. >> i'm the only one probably that ever ran for office in this country that's achieved more than i said i would. >> the way he described his accomplishments in the battleground state of pennsylvania, sounds like mr. trump should be coasting to victory. >> we've secured our borders, brought back our manufacturing jobs, rebuilt our military, wiped out the isis caliphate 100%, killed our terrorist enemies, achieved american energy independence, and guess what, we're just getting started. >> but hold on. on the president's signature issue, the wall, there hasn't been that much winning. the administration built less

than 300 miles of new fencing along the border with mexico, but most of that construction has replaced older barriers already in place. and no, mexico did not pay for it. as the president promised four years ago. >> i will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and i will have mexico pay for that wall. >> reporter: instead, mr. trump is diverting billions from the military to bankroll his pet project and he's floating out the idea of setting up toll booths outside mexico. >> we're going to do a toll for money being sent back and forth. >> reporter: the president's claims on isis and energy independence are closer to reality, but on the economy, it's a mixed bag. >> they said manufacturing jobs would never come back. remember, you need a magic wand. where's the magic wand? we have the magic wand. >> reporter: after inheriting a healthy economy from barack obama, mr. trump provided over growth in the manufacturing sector but most of the gains have been in the south while key states, pennsylvania, michigan, ohio, and wisconsin were losing

factory jobs in the months before the coronavirus. then covid-19 decimated the u.s. economy under mr. trump's watch, sending the unemployment rate skyrocketing. jobs have come back, but the current recovery is far from certain. polls show most americans have simply rejected the president's handling of the virus. >> it will go away. >> reporter: months of predictions that the virus will go away have fallen flat, like his treatments of hydroxychloroquine. questionable medical advice from a president who unforget bly suggested americans inject themselves with disinfectants. >> and then the disinfect tant knocks it out in a minute, in one minute. there as there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning because you see, it gets in the lungs. >> reporter: the numbers are chilling. the u.s. leads the world in covid-19 deaths despite making up only 4% of the global

population. more than 5 million cases, more than 170,000 americans dead and climbing. when asked on fox what he would do with a second term, the president failed to provide an answer. >> one of the things that will be really great, you know, the word experience is still good. the word experience is a very important word. it's an important meaning. >> reporter: with another four years in office, aides say he will continue his focus on immigration where his crackdown on the border already resulted in the separation of thousands of children from their families. [ applause ] one area where the president would almost certainly leave his mark, the supreme court. mr. trump would have the ability to fill new vacancies on the high court, a tantalizing prospect for conservatives that comes with enormous consequences on critical issues facing the nation from gun control to abortion rights. >> jim, what are you hearing from the president's advisers about his plans for the next four years if he gets re-elected? >> it's a good question because

when the president gets asked this, he never has an answer. when you talk to advisers, they point to some of the talk that he has been advancing, that perhaps he might float a health care plan. obviously the administration has been trying to dismantle the affordable care act known as obamacare. he's been promising that he'll come up with some sort of health care plan. he hasn't do that. the president and his team have also talked about middle class tax cuts, but the president talked about that during the midterm cycle in 2018, never delivered on all of that talk. on the foreign policy front, one thing we should keep our eye on, should the president win re-election, he would like to have another summit with vladimir putin that you and i both saw in helsinki, finland. that didn't go so well for the president, but there was talk in the recent weeks the president would like to sit down with putin before the election. advisers say it could very well happen if he's re-elected and then inaugurated to a second term next year. >> jim acosta, thank you so

much. the convention is historic for many reasons, both in the way the virus changed campaigning. joining me to talk about it, douglas brinkley, cnn presidential historian. david axelrod, former senior adviser to the obama administration, and nia-malika henderson, political reporter. doug, the facts convey a nation that's mired in tragedy. more than 176,000 americans dead from covid, unemployment above 10%, fwlanationwide protests cag for racial justice. has the president faced anything like this? >> not when you're this down in the polls right now. i think he's modelled himself after richard nixon. he's been doing a lot on 1968, but trump would like to be nixon in 1972, the sitting president nobody likes or trusts, but the opposition in 1972, george

mcgovern was for acid and rock 'n' roll and vietnam war draft dodgers. in other words, a cultural war. and i think what trump will want to do is portray himself as being law and order in this convention, i stand for police officers against anarchy. i still think he's going to play a nixon. on the other hand, this is going to be a telethon. the democrats ran a virtual convention. this is going to be a pseudoconvention. like a pseudorally with oklahoma city with donald trump, a fourth of july extravaganza. he's going to try to pretend there's an audience to feed off of because even though the same donald trump has been the telepromter one, the one that seems to raise money for him is when he becomes unscripted and

spontaneous. he's not afraid to travel the land and doesn't always wear a mask. >> david, there was an article in the "times" this weekend about looking back in 1988 at how george h. bush ran against dukakis and eliminated his polling lead very effectively after the democratic convention by focusing on crime, painting do y dukakis as easy on crime. seems like that's a potential playbook for this president to follow. >> yeah. i mean, clearly that's what he wants to do. it was a different time, obviously, when there was more fluidity in the electorate. michael dukakis was 17 points ahead after the democratic convention, and bush over the next six weeks was able to eliminate that lead. by the way, that was largely

because of a negative ad campaign that was conceived and executed by roger ailes. i know you're talking to brian stelter about fox news later. but we're in a different time now. george h.w. bush was not the incumbent. donald trump is the incumbent. he's in the middle of a, as you point out, serial crises, which he has not been deemed to have handled well. so it's much, much harder. he would like to be the ininsurgent candidate, but he's the incumbent in the midst of a crisis and that changes the dynamic for him. but i think he will try to do what doug is suggesting. one of the smart things that the biden campaign did last week was really root joe biden in middle america, family, faith, connection to the military, you know, working class roots in scranton, pennsylvania, and the industrial heartland. this is one of the reasons why trump was so eager to stop biden

from becoming the nominee. he bought an impeachment trying to stop biden from b.c. the nominee because biden is cultur cultural culturally increant for him. voting starts in this week. they spent $1 billion the trump campaign and spent a lot of money trying to define joe biden and they haven't had success so far. if i were them, i'd be worried about where i'm sitting right now. >> to that point,nia, president trump especially now talks as though what's happening in the u.s. as if he's an observer, as if he's not the president. he's presided over all of this and his rhetoric obviously had an impact and his actions had an impact on what has happened. do you think he can convince voters these things aren't his responsibility? that it's all the deep state or democrats or whomever? >> we know he can convince his own voters, those base voters.

what is unclear, and certainly what we see in the polls so far, is that people are believing their own experiences. they're believing what they see in their own communities in terms of the economy. they're believing what they are experiencing in terms of whether or not they can send their kids back to college or whether or not they can deal with covid, a sick relative, things like that. americans have experienced for the last five months, seen this president in all of his rhetoric around covid, whether it is him saying that schools should open even if there isn't a real plan, whether it's his waffling on a mask, him talking about bleach and other unproven cures for this. i think that is his problem, how can he erase that. going into this there was thinking that, listen, there are many, many news cycles and you can wash that away. but we had this unprecedented period where americans were sitting in their living rooms

looking at this president day by day wish away this virus and it never happened. that's not the approach that you can have with a virus in that sense. so if you saw what biden was doing, he was, a, using regular americans to tell his story, and he was also using regular americans to say that donald trump didn't have empathy for regular people and that he was incompetent. so i think if you're donald trump, you really got to figure out how do you do that. from what i can tell, the sort of list of speakers so far, it doesn't seem like it's a lot of regular americans. seems like it's a lot of people who are sort of on donald trump's payroll or the white house's payroll, people who are his -- people he hired so i think that's going to be a tricky thing. how can they connect with average americans, suburban housewives he likes to talk about? that's the trick. they are in an advantage in the sense they saw what democrats did last week, but i think there's somewhat at a

disadvantage because they clearly didn't prepare for months in the way we saw democrats do for this virtual convention. >> doug, president trump is going to accept the nomination from the white house, which obviously flouts all sorts of norms and ethical considerations. how much impact do you think it has that this president is willing to break tradition? do people care? >> we cared. i cared when he was going to do it for a while at gettysburg national battlefield where people died and now he's doing it at the white house. but due to covid, he's going to get away with doing that. he wants to show that he has power, that he has air force one, that he's the one who got two people on the supreme court, kavanaugh and gorsuch. he wants to get some of those lincoln republicans, republican types, colin powell, johe doesn

to heritage the wall street crowd, so he has to remind them it's not just me, think of how the stock market is doing and i got a couple supreme court justices in. glen, it it's sad he's using the white house as his prop because it's the people's house and it belongs to both parties. but donald trump has insecurity problems, can't go to any other venues and wants to kind of flex his muscle and remind people i am the president and things were good on the first couple years economically and it'll come back again once covid blows through town. >> douglas brinkley, nia-malika henderson, thank you. still to come, an examination of republicans determined to prevent a second trump term and how their numbers are grown. the trump/fox news connection. a new book by brian stelter how the network shapes the way its audience views the president, his convention, and the campaign ahead.

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convention week is generally a time when parties amend wounds and present a united face for it public. this year, an unprecedented push is showcasing division within the party. the problem in 2016 that's only multiplied the last four years. jeff zeleny tonight has more. ♪ god bless the usa >> reporter: as president trump formally accepts the gop nomination again this week, some republicans are already speaking out. >> i'm one of many who voted for the current president, donald trump. >> reporter: voicing their regrets. >> it's been worse than what we've ever imagined. we're farmers and, like i said, conservative republicans. >> reporter: and warning fellow conservatives. >> you know deep down in your sunday school hearts what kind of man donald trump is, what kind of christian he is. you know, don't you?

>> reporter: these are some of the faces of the never-trump movement, a small slice of disaffected republicans, rank and file and former elected officials swimming upstream in trump's party, homing to make him a one-term president. after failing four years ago, the movement is multiplying. with the lincoln project, republican voters against trump, and bush alumni for biden whose slogan is we work for w., we support joe. this time they're using his words against him. >> i'm dispatching thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers. >> black lives matter! >> we dominate the streets. >> reporter: and hoping to get into his head, at least that's the goal of the lincoln project whose videos made by former aides to george w. bush, john kerry, and mitt romney are design to mock and needle the president. george conway, the husband of trump adviser kellyanne conway is a cofounder. the president has long belittled

never-trumpers as his grip as steadily tightened on the republican party. >> some of these people don't get it. never trump. by the way, never trump is disappearing rapidly. >> reporter: the second act of the movement may be an uphill battle, considering 95% of republicans in the latest cnn poll said they would vote for trump again. his re-election campaign has already spent $1 billion, while these groups have raised only a tiny fraction of that. yet two key points are different this time. trump's record and joe biden is not hillary clinton. >> joe biden just simply -- he isn't as scary for them. i think women are going to lose this election for donald trump. that is going to be the decisive and defining group of people. >> reporter: sarah longwell is a life long republican and political strategist at republican voters against trump. she spent the last four years studying his supporters from 2016 and senses a different moment now. amid the coronavirus crisis and deep economic pain. >> but at the same time, so many republicans are still with him.

why is that? >> there's always going to be a core of support that's never going to walk away from donald trump. you see it all the time, these college-educated republicans in the suburbs, women. women are walking waetsaway fros guy from droves. you need bigger coalitions to win elections and his political coalition is slinds hrinking by day. >> what's the potential impact of these republicans speaking out against donald trump. as you say, it's still a pretty small number. >>. >> there's no question the vast majority of republicans do support president trump or certainly they're going to vote for him. but as we saw at the democratic convention last week, there were a growing number of prominent republican officials and former officials who are coming out for joe biden. but it is actually the rank-and-file voters, some of these individual testaments that these voters are sending in that strategists believe will have a

bigger of course teffect than o. it's saying i'm a conservative, but i don't like what this president has done. there is no doubt that the trump campaign has so much money to spend than any of these groups, but they just need a sliver of republicans in the suburbs, college-educated men and women to change their mind this time. so certainly if nothing else, this gets under the president's skin. >> zeleny, thank you so much. coming up next, more on the anti-trump sentiment within the republican party. three republicans and a democrat weigh in. we'll be right back. that? [man] uh, mine. why? it's just that it's... lavender, yes it is. old spice, it's for men. but i like the smell of it. [music playing]

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we look ahead to the republican convention this week. there's a prominent group of republicans who have raised money and sponsored tv commercials critical of president trump. they call themselves the lincoln project. among its founders is the president of kellyanne conway, george conway. they made commercials like this that get noticed. >> there's morning in america. turn under the leadership of donald trump, our country is weaker and sicker and poorer. and now americans are asking if we have another four years like this, will there even be an america? >> joining me now to discuss, cnn political analyst amanda carpenter, scott jennings, rick santorum, senior political

commentator along with former michigan governor. governor santorum, anti-trump republicans are hoping to pick off moderates that didn't vote for hillary clinton. given the slim margin of victory like "n" states like pennsylvania, wisconsin, michigan for donald trump, his his campaign need to appeal more to these moderates or women, suburban women, college-educated women and men? >> he's obviously clearly trying to do that. the whole focus on suburban women and the issue of crime and the weakness of democrats and the defund the police, all those things are actually playing right into -- look, the chance that donald trump has in this election is that the democratic party has gone very hard left, and joe biden has seemed to have gone along with them. i know the convention was very much about trying to make him just the joe we know and he's a good guy, but his policies have

really thrown in with bernie. that's the opportunity the president has. you're right that joe is not as unpopular as hillary clinton. he's not disliked like hillary clinton. but hillary clinton's policies are much more moderate than joe biden's policies. and i think that's the opportunity the president has. >> scott, i mean, you worked for george w. bush. he isn't supporting president trump's re-election at all. senator santorum mentioned going after going after suburban women voters. does it help with the president is calling them suburban housewives and claiming that low-income housing and moving into their neighbors and going to be run by cory booker for no apparent reason? >> yeah. it struck me that what happened some strategists gave him a meeting and said here's some data and instead of internalizing that and then messaging on it, he just parroted what he was told by a

demographer. no, it's not the way you do it. the way you communicate is talking to people about what they care about. what people care about, the contrast donald trump wants is public safety a return to a good economy and so on and so forth. he can absolutely make that contrast by talking to them as human beings, his people, as saying i am in touch with what you want and i have policies that will get you where you want to go. that's how you talk to people in a campaign, as senator santorum knows. they need to talk to people like they're some other demographic group in a spreadsheet is not the way to do it. >> president trump didn't have the support of establishment republicans in 2016 either and we certainly know how that turned out. what do you make of what he needs to do or what he can't do? >> well, i mean, it just seems like he's doubling down on the same failed strategies.

he's going to launch another fear-based campaign. i'm sorry, suburban republican women are not going to be scared of cory booker unless he brought yucky cupcakes to your house. he doesn't -- you can keep giving him this advice, but that's not who he is. look at what happened in the 2018 midterm elections. donald trump tried to scare everyone and say a caravan is coming and i'm going to send the national guard to the border to stop it and monitor it. and then republicans got blown out. democrats swept the house, flipped 41 seats by the biggest margin in history. and still donald trump -- now his big idea is to send law enforcement to polling stations to make sure there's no voter fraud. he can't get away from this fear-based campaign and it's shrinked the party. he hasn't grown the party. you see at the democratic national convention where you have the former ohio governor speaking out on behalf of joe biden.

>> governor, could the anti-trump republican support actually backfire? the progressive wing of the democratic party has concerns about joe biden not being progressive enough. are you worried about die hard liberals staying home on election day? >> no, not at all. it's not going to backfire. people are fired up. the enthusiasm -- the poll that was out this morning noted it's up significantly after the convention. that effort at trying to have a very broad coalition, which the democrats did do at the convention by reaching out both to all of his former rivals in the primary as well as to republicans. he had five high-profile republicans speaking -- is exactly the kind of strategy that you use conventions for, which is, as amanda was saying, to broaden the tent. the independents are the largest bloc of voters, larger than democrats, larger than republicans.

if people are categorizing themselves at independents and moving away from republicans, that is a huge opportunity for the democrats to continue to broaden their tent. and right now -- there was a georgetown poll that had independents supporting joe biden by 16 points. so his strategy, if it is to base it on fear again, is really speaking to one segment. he is not building a coalition and it's a coalition that will be necessary for him and it's what joe biden has done. >> senator santorum, what do you make of the argument the "times" was kind of pointing to about what george w. bush did in 1998 against dukakis to destroy his large advantage in the polls after the democratic convention, roger ailes, very fear-based campaign. is that a road -- will that work

this time? >> well, let's just be frank about this. both parties use fear. i mean, you know, they'll take your social security away, they're going to destroy medicare. the idea that the republicans are the only ones -- donald trump is the only one that uses fear is ridiculous. the democratic convention was full of trying to scare people away from voting for republicans and donald trump. i mean, look, i agree that it's important for both parties. you have a question about the other party, but i think the more important thing for this president to do is to paint a positive vision, how he's going to make your health care better, how he's going to, you know, get you -- >> they don't have a health care plan at all. i mean, like, he's been promising this. how do you do that? >> yeah. anderson, as someone who's been working very closely with the administration and others to craft a plan, there's a plan

there. the president hasn't announced it yet. i'm hopeful he does. but there is a consensus among republicans for a consumer choice health care plan that is going to be an incredible improvement -- over the current system and providing access to care, high quality and choice. the president has embraced the elements of it. i'm hopeful he'll be more comprehensive and support it that many members of congress and most conservatives have embraced. >> scott, this leaked audio of president trump's sister saying president trump is cruel and has no principles, i don't know what it says about mary trump that he's recording donald trump's sister and publishing this stuff. i mean, that's, you know -- that can be interpreted how far you want to interpret it. but she said what she said. does it matter at this point? are things so baked in -- are the lines so clearly drawn that this is just, you know, for

those who don't like the president, this is catnip and for those who do like him, this is just something to brush aside? >> yeah. i mean, this is more anti-donald trump porn for the biggest trump haters out there. look, the president is the president, so he's going to get elected, re-elected, or not based on his record. i can't imagine the kind of person that would go around recording their own family members because they were upset about an inheritance and leaking it right after another family member died because they hated another family member. it seems rather empty and hateful to me. but i do think that the lines are drawn, which means there's little persuasion to be done, which means there's a lot of turnout to be done: one thing i wanted to respond to amanda, she was talking about the size of the party and that's a good point because one thing incumbent presidents have the time and resources to do, we saw this in 2012 with obama, that's use their resources to register

voters that you think are likely to vote for you. studies have shown and our work has shown in '04 if you register someone to vote in a presidential year, they're likely to cast a ballot in november. so my suspicious is that if you believe that there aren't that many people to be persuaded by either party, what the trump campaign and the rnc have been doing is trying to put new people in the pull, alter the composition of the electorate. that would be a smart thing for them to be doing. there is voter register evidence out there that some republicans are registering in some states. did they add new people to the pool that weren't around last time. how fox news has shaped the trump era. what it may mean for the next 72 days ahead of the election. brian stelter has a fascinating new book and he joins me next. uh uh, no way come on, no no n-n-n-no-no only discover has no annual fee on any card.

now that the rent's due but they've cut your pay. now that the virus has cost lives but your healthcare costs too much. now that our president has had months but he still doesn't have a plan. what happens now? joe biden knows how to lead through a crisis because he's done it before. when our economy was on the verge of collapse, joe biden led the largest economic stimulus in a generation and saved millions of jobs. now joe biden is ready to lead us through this crisis. he knows rebuilding our economy starts with fighting the virus, increasing testing, getting more protective gear for healthcare workers and calling for mask mandates nationwide. as president, he'll get working families back on their feet by lowering healthcare costs and helping small businesses recover. so what happens now? we elect a president who will build back better. i'm joe biden and i approve this message.

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about what's been going on behind the scenes and that's the subject of a new book by host of "reliable sources" brian stelter. it's called ho"hoax" and he joi me now. i just began the book, brian, but based on your reporting for this, what do you expect the convention to look like, particularly through the president's favorite media outla outlets like fox? >> that's right, position's ratings declined during the democratic convention. fox's viewers turned off kamala harris and joe biden speeches. some of the audience did not even want to hear from the democrats. that speaks to how, i hate to use this word, how radicalized some have become. president trump hijacked the gop and fox news, so what i expect this week, i think the gop, of course, is going to put on a fox news show. we're going to see celebrities,

internet personalities that are well-known to fox viewers but not well-known to the rest of the country. it will be very interesting to see how much the republican party tries to reach out to the rest of the country or only appeal to the fox base. >> i was talking to some of our earlier guests about the "times" article pointing out the road map that the republicans took in 1998 against michael dukakis that was very effective. it was pointed out to me that roger ailes, who created fox, was one of the architects of that road map. >> yes, and roger ailes is the ghost that still looms over fox news today. he was forced out of his job running fox during the last gop convention, on the same night that president trump, now-president trump accepted the nomination and gave his speech in cleveland. ailes was forced out, but you know what? people there feel like there's no leader now. i talked to hundreds of people in and around fox news, because i feel like it is the most important untold story of the

trump years. the president has his brain poisoned by the nonsense and misinformation that he hears on fox. so what i wanted to know from sources inside the building was, who's in charge? who's making sure that accurate information gets to the president and millions of viewers? and the unfortunate answer is nobody. the place is kind of -- it's one of those situations where as a source said to be, the inmates are running the asylum. yes, there are consecutives, there -- executives and a management team, but the place is run like feif doms. trump filled the vacuum and became the president of fox news because nobody else was really running the show. >> yeah, it seems like -- i think of it as city states. where there's tucker carlson city states, sean hannity, they

each have their power centers. your book has a look at the messaging during the pandemic came from things he saw on fox news. coronavirus is such a big topic. how did you how will it be addressed in the republican? >> this is why it matters so much. i was writing this book before the pandemic. i thought i was done when the pandemic upended our lyives in the united states. they misinformed the president and that had consequences. i start with the pandemic because it is the crisis everyone feared that this president would face. because he was so glued to the tv, he distracted the country, he got fooled by the hosts on fox. and that caused further damage. i think what we're seeing now from right-wing media, not just fox, we're seeing a real downplaying of the pandemic once again. they've moved on mostly to other

stories. that's what we'll see at the convention as well. there will be in a moment, please of the death toll, but we're not going to hear much about it compared to the democratic national convention. fox is more anti-democrat than they are pro-trump. if biden takes office in january, fox will pivot right to the anti-biden narratives it's already promoting today. >> the name of your book is locati"location" . >> the i was interested to see that -- i talked to the homeland security official who has come forward to reveal what he saw behind the scenes. he worked very closely in the department of homeland security with the president, the head of homeland security. twufrl one of the things he was saying was lou dobbs for a time was a

de facto chief of staff to know what the president was going to say because that's what the president was watching. >> alllou dobbs, who has a pret small audience, actually, but he has a big audience with the president, and that's what this comes down to. because the is the presidency is so addicted to television, his aides has to watch, and it's this twisted version of a reality show that nobody actually signed up for, not even trump voters. i don't think they expected the president to be this obsessed with fox. it's this twisted feedback loop, the likes of which we have never seen in america, and it's not good for trump voters or any americans. i think, anderson, the country deserves lots of versions of news coming interest lots of directions, right wing, left ring, everything in between. but fox is more of a conspiracy network, more of a misinformation network because it's trying to please the president. the big revelation to me is there's so many people inside

that network who don't like the status quo, who want it to change, who think they're doing a disservice to democracy. that is what i think has changed in 2015 and 2020. >> is that right? you really found that? >> i found this all the way from production assistants on the bottom floors to anchors on the top, at all levels of the network. even hannity admits to his friends that the president is off his rocker sometimes. >> one of the arguments you make in the book is president trump filled the leadership void at fox news, that when roger ailes resigned, do you see that with controlling the focus on this convention? seems like the executive producer, he wants to be on every night. he's going to be on every night. >> right, this is the trump show. four nights of the trump show. but it does seem like most of america is tired of the show. even a lot of trump fans are tired of the show. that's the interesting dynamic where you go deeper and deeper down a rabbit hole.

you've you talked about the crazy conspiracy theories. fox doesn't pedal that stuff all the time. they do hint at it. they wink. they nod. mainstreams some of this stuff. that's what makes this channel not just, you know, something that might be, you know, foot pie on the dial. you see what's on the air. you roll your eyes. no, it actually becomes dangerous when they talk about on tv and fox. or when the pandemic is down played. that is what makes this actually a channel that distorts the truth in a way that is dangerous and i got to say, there are a lot of people inside fox that know it. and i hope they start to speak out and tell the truth. >> all right. brian salter, thank you. the new book, "hoax." fascinating. >> next, a one-two punch headed for the u.s. gulf coast. two shushhurricanes expected to strike. okay... okay! safe drivers save 40%!!!

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back to back hurricanes are expected to bring storm turnlg to the gulf coast. mandatory evacuation orders are in effect for the louisiana coastline. hurricane marco, that is now a category 1. and expected to make land fall tomorrow, then there is tropical storm laura who is expected to become a hurricane could be a cat 3 storm when it approaches north carolina. what is the latest on marco? >> very good news, anderson. in fact, earlier today marco was a category 1 hurricane expected to make land fall tomorrow

afternoon as indica afternoon a category 1. i can not recall a time when we seen such a dramatic change in the forecast in such a short period of time. marco undergoing shear now. the winds coming in from the southwest. you can almost see the cloud cover gets pushed to the north of us. that is starting to weaken marco. it could make land fall in southeast louisiana? it could. but right now it's looks as it gets closer to shoreline of louisiana, more and more of these winds are going to become stronger. it's possible, it's possible it may not even make land fall and fizzal way. making its way towards maybe the grand isle. they're under mandatory evacuations. then start to slide along the coastline brit just erodes. the that will be fantastic news. it doesn't mean they swroent slowing. but the track is now a little bit further to the south. so it's possible it stays maybe off shore and it fizzles away

and moved torn towards eastern texas. forecast does still call for the hurricane warning to remain in place in red. and tropical warnings extended some what. but with this shifting down southward, that is good news for the impacts. they are less. the surge is four to six feet in some areas but probably toward the lesser end. that is the first bit of news. >> and tropical storm laura? >> laura, this is a big concern. it has been surviving the high terrain of hiss phispanola. water rescues going on and flooding in jamaica. it is over guantanamo. if it stays south along the coastline and over water, the system is only going to get stronger. it's not that the mountains are not affecting it. the longer it stays in the very warm waters, it heads towards the border of texas and louisiana, it may get even stronger than the forecast from

the national hurricane center which called for it to be a strong category two. if it does get stronger and stays to the southern end of that track, it could mean maybe a major category 3 or a four. but that's what we're watching. the watches and warnings are only for marco now. this is wednesday night. if it does get stronger, i fear massive evacuations in galveston and louisiana. but again, you have over 600 oil and gas platforms here. we've already seen over 114 of them evacuated. but if marco can just loosen the grip and undergo that shear, that is one bit of good news. i think laura could be devastating in the days ahead. it's been a kradzy season. >> a lot to watch for. thank you very much. get all the updates on the storms, of course, on cnn as well as republican convention. our special coverage starts tomorrow night prime time and new episode of "united shades of america" starts right now.

>> this episodes of "united shades of america" from late 2019, months before the pandemic with the country and also months before george floyd was killed by minneapolis police. and the wave of protest that's followed. at the time i was welcomed into people's homes. i was able to have the kind of intimate conversation that's have become impossible during the pandemic. you see handshakes, high fives and hugs. now i'm grateful to have had that opportunity. i look forward to being able to do it again some day. i hope you enjoy this episode. >> look, i know a little bit about a lot of things. i'm at noig guy with wikipedia stuff in conversations. the there is stuff that wikipedia is like, no, read a book, talk to the people you know and keep your mouth shut. >> explain all of it to me. >> i'll try. >> for me, ven ez