your cousin. ♪ from boston. ♪ it means, “ok-to-beer-fest”. another sam octoberfest? nein. make it ten! i like this guy. (cheers) the news continues. let's hand it over to laura coates on "cnn tonight." >> anderson, thank you so much. i'm laura coates and this is "cnn tonight. as they say, 98 days to go before elections, it's election night in america once again. the polls are now closed in michigan and kansas and parts of arizona. five states had primaries today including key battlegrounds that could shape the race for which party will be the majority. democrats once again? or republicans yet again? no, donald trump is not on the

ballot. that's true. but he is casting a pretty big shadow as he continues to endorse some, it's not always clear, i might add, who he is endorsing, more on that in just a moment. and the timing will be pretty interesting here. it isn't just post january 6th. it's post the first series of january 6th hearings. we'll see whether it impacted voters and which way it did. it hasn't seemed to impact the platforms, though, of candidates in several swing states. some continue to echo the baseless fraud claims and there is a whole slate of them in arizona who are running for top positions like governor and attorney general, secretary of state and senate, you know, consequential office holders for those who run elections. also closely watched, the senate race in missouri. trump has endorsed an eric. okay, but which eric did you mean to endorse, sir? rivals eric greitens and eric schmitt both claim trump meant

them and trump for his part has yet to clarify, now, on election night. it seems to be causing a lot of chaos and confusion in an already tumultuous race. meanwhile you have the fates of a trio of republicans who voted to impeach then president trump over the insurrection and their seats, well, they hang in the balance tonight. let's get the latest from cnn's national correspondent and anchor of "inside politics," john king is at the magic wall. john, polls have already closed in missouri. what can you tell us about the race there? >> one of the erics, laura, is leading in the senate republican primary. that would be the state attorney general, eric schmitt. only 4% of the vote counted, we need to count a lot of votes tonight. eric schmitt is leading with 40% of the votes. eric greitens, the former governor who resigned in disgrace amid scandal, is running a distant third at the moment with 17.2%. you see a lot of yellow here,

congresswoman hartzler, a republican congresswoman, this is where her district is. she's running strong at home, if you will. but a long way to go as we count the votes here. that we're even talking about this race is what's significant. this is a republican-held seat, roy blunt is retiring, republicans should hold it in november. democrats think it's possible if republicans have all the chaos you're talking about, it's possible to keep an eye on this one. we'll keep counting votes. >> who new eric was the new cher? that's a new fad, i'm setting it up here. you also have three congressional republicans who voted to impeach trump, they're facing primary challenges tonight. >> let's bring up the state of michigan have we have some votes in one of those races. two of them are in washington state, we'll get those results later. grand rapids, michigan area, again, results are early, only 5% of the vote in but peter meijer is the incumbent, he

voted to impeach donald trump. trump has vowed to exact his vengeance on him. his challenger, gibbs, is ahead with 63% of the vote. republicans around the country are watching this tonight. even after the january 6th hearings, even after all this damning testimony from donald trump's own aides and allies, that he knew it was a lie, do republicans still want to punish those who voted to impeach him? we'll keep counting. >> here to help us put all of this in perspective, cnn political analyst ron brownstein and former adviser to george w. bush, scott jennings. this is a focus group in and of itself, people pay to have these moments here. i wonder, what does it say that trump still casts a very large shadow?

are his endorsements really that impactful? i wonder sometimes, are we giving him too much credit, do we overtalk the influence he may have, i know the "eric" thing is funny, but is it oversized? >> if you look where he's had the biggest amount of movement in candidacies, take ohio, j.d. vance, trump came in late and delivered the nomination to j.d. vance. in missouri he's endorsed one eric or the other and maybe both of them. i think it's likely schmitt will win, the votes aren't counted yet. i think he does cast a big shadow. it's most helpful in bigger primaries where you have lots of candidates. ron knows, you know, you've run, in these big primaries -- >> and you've won, by the way, i'll give you credit, you've run and you've won. >> a lot of candidates say the same thing, same issues.

when somebody comes in that people trust or think they trust and says this is my person, it can make a big difference. >> i have a very serious question for you, ron. i want to know which eric do we think he was endorsing. i think these are the different people who it possibly could be and i'm wondering which of these people do you think. it must be -- is it eric holder? it could be any one. clapton? >> eric church? >> we're doing them all. >> he hedged his bets. the point, to scott's point, looking at trump's personal win/loss record is the long metric, because it's not only his like tap on the shoulder. it's the fact that he has reconfigured the republican coalition over these last six years in a direction that makes it more likely for trump to style candidates to win. the party is more dependent on the kind of voters who respond to a trump appeal, culturally conservative, nonurban, noncollege, older, evangelical

voters and the kind of white collar, culturally moderate, economically conservative vote verse been drifting away from the party. it's not only who trump is endorsing, it's who is endorsing him. there are very few candidates in the country anywhere in the country who are running away from him. the entire baseline has moved in a trump direction. that has implications not only for the primaries but the general elections as well. >> that's exactly right, and what i'm thinking about is less his impact on these particular candidates and more so just his impact on the republican party and what it says now about the republican party, that these are who your people are. regardless of which eric we're talking about in missouri, they're both pretty terrible. i mean, they both believe the election was stolen. they believe, you know, in conspiracies and lies and peddle them for their own personal

gain. that is who the republican party, sadly, is now. >> i want to play what kari lake had to say about the idea of pushing the baseless claims. it's kind of a page out of what trump said more than a year ago now about the idea, if i should lose, here's what happened. >> the only way they can win is if they load up the voter rolls with dead people, people who have moved, and imaginary friends. >> so when you hear that, of course, it's a bit of a deja vu but the real issue to me as well, and abby, to your point about this is who the republicans are, i do wonder if that's going to backfire for democratic voters or for republican voters in the long run because there was a time not too many years ago when it was, i need you to have a platform and i'm going to go towards the platform as opposed to i'm going to go towards not voting for somebody in particular. i wonder if the focus is consistently on, look, these are the republicans, that's who they are, as opposed to democrats,

are you going to talk about the economy, are you going to talk about the issues that matter to people? is that a real concern? >> democrats, you can have policy differences in a platform. when we're talking about the republican party platform, they're literal changing it, like in states like arizona, where if you don't essentially believe that trump won the election, you're not a republican anymore. there is a very big difference there. and again, it is really horrifying to watch this continue to happen. and it's going to be on democrats. do we educate voters enough to talk about how extreme this is and where these folks have gone? because it's not attached to reality anymore. and that's a terrifying thing. we already have people in elected office who believe in these conspiracies, who are not attached to reality, and are we going to have more people like that elected and what does that mean for the future of our democracy if they are? >> i want to ask you, scott, about reality, but you just told me you have a pet pig now so i'm not really -- i don't know how

tethered we are to reality in this moment in time. i'm giving you a hard time but it's a cute story. but seriously, when i think about reality, is she right? >> well, i mean, my rebuttal to that is, republicans would argue that democrats aren't tethered to reality on the economy. they're passing a bill right now -- >> come on, there's a difference here. >> that says we're going to reduce inflation and it doesn't reduce inflation. we have tax increases now identifying as tax cuts. they're not tethered to reality on the issues that matter to most people. >> no. we're talking about democracy here and facts about an election. we're talking about facts here, not policy differences. cold hearted facts about an election. >> you're not terribly familiar with my views on this. >> no, and i respect -- >> this election -- >> hold on. i want to hear all of you. it's important to the audience as well. you poll on this all the time. what is the reality in the

polls? >> by most objective measures, this should be a very rough election for democrats. the first midterm is always tough. 9% inflation has not been the case in 40 years. the president's approval rating is 40%. there's a lot of headwinds working against presidents. but i will say as a declarative statement, if democrats avoid the worst, especially in senate and governor's races, it will be because what have we're seeing tonight, which that republicans have the potential to nominate too many candidates who simply are not good fits, can't compete, particularly in the white collar suburbs who have been moving away from the party in 2018 and 2020. they have the potential to have a slate in arizona and in michigan that is going to be relatively easy to portray as extreme up and down. they may get through anyway. the underlying current is such that some of these candidates who are out of the mainstream are probably going to win. but republicans are making it much tougher on themselves than

it might have been by nominating some of these candidates who i think are going to be very hard sells in places like maricopa county, oakland county, michigan, the suburbs of philadelphia. that is a consistent pattern and it is linked to trump's influence in the party. >> let me ask you, how does abortion rate in these conversations? >> very much. >> is it galvanizing to get people out, do you think? it's a settled issue at this point. >> in the states it's not settled. if democrats avoid the worst, like i say, in november, it will be primarily, i think principally, because republicans continue to lose ground in white collar suburbs and abortion is a big part of that. it's helping democrats re -- there are a lot of center right, white collar voters who voted for biden in '20 because they didn't like trump, have been disillusioned with biden's performance, are open to republicans, and are now moving back because of the confluence of issues like abortion, guns, january 6th, and the nature of some of these candidates. >> now do the hispanic voters in

texas and nevada because you have whole other blocks of the electorate that went to democrats huge in '16, '18, and '20, but are now moving to the republican party. >> no, you're right. >> i'm glad you validated him before he went back to california. that was a tender moment. that was nice. that was a nice moment, ron brownstein, thank you. abby, everyone, stick with us, we'll be right back. there are brand-new developments on missing text messages sent on or around january 6th, go figure, but not from secret service. why were phones wiped of key pentagon officials? yes, it's true. a cnn first is next.

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the trail of deleted january 6th texts, well, they now stretch all the way to the pentagon. cnn was first to report on court documents showing that phones of several key trump aides were apparently wiped at the end of the administration. now we know specifically secretary of defense chris miller, former chief of staff kash patel, and former secretary of the army ryan mccarthy, were among the officials whose phones were wiped. all are considered key witnesses to january 6th. dod is just the latest department unable to find text messages from that day. the texts of multiple secret service agents were also deleted. homeland security also can't seem to find texts of the acting secretary and his top deputy, in addition to a seven-hour gap in the white house call logs. same for the white house diary on january 6th. then there are the reports of documents being burned by the white house chief of staff.

flushed documents found clogging the white house toilet or torn up so they had to be taped back together, preferably not after they were in the toilet because i feel bad for the person who had to do that. boxes of classified documents were also sent to mar-a-lago instead of where they're supposed to be sent. it's called the national archives. i'm joined now by a digital forensic investigator, gary kessler. gary, i'm so glad you're here, because while people are wondering where these messages are gone, and oh, they're just gone, they've gone poof into the ether, i'm always wondering is there a way to get it back. are these really gone or are they gone for now? because when you delete a text message, they don't really go away fully, right? >> well, it depends how efficiently the wiping was done. if in fact wiping is the correct term. so on a cellphone, as you justified observed with your question, if all you do is delete a message, then the

message is somewhere still on the phone. even if it's not accessible to the user of the text message app, for example, there are still fragments and snippets on the phone although they can be difficult to find unless you have the right tools. now, on the other hand, if they truly wiped the phone, the most effective way to do that is of course android phones and iphones for the last at least five years, the operating systems are automatically encrypted and there's a decryption key in the system area of the memory of the phone. so the most effective way to wipe all the user data is going into the system area and deleting the decryption key and then it doesn't matter what's in the user area, it's never going to be retrievable. >> what you describe would have to be an intentional act. is this a common thing to have done, is it more likely, in the work that you've done, that people are sort of deleting it on their phone thinking they

can't actually see it? is it difficult to go in in the wiping as you're talking about, do you know if that's what's normally done in the course of a change in administration? >> well, i can't speak at all to what the administration might do. in the work that i've done, when -- usually you have somebody who is not terribly sophisticated, and they're just deleting messages, and very frequently we can get them back either from the phone or we can get them back from itunes backup or cloud backup or something like that. if in fact i want to reissue a phone, and that's been one of the comments that's been made, you would possibly want to wipe the phone so that no remnants of the old user continue on with the new user. and so yes, it's a deliberate act in that it's purposeful. it is not necessarily a nefarious action. >> that's an important distinction, we should note that

we don't have information yet that this is somehow nefarious. but the idea of sort of the details of how one were to do this i think is fascinating because just the idea of deleting it versus wiping is going to be the key inquiry going forward. gary kessler, thank you for your expertise. >> thank you. i want to turn now to miles taylor who was chief of staff at homeland security during the trump administration and elliott williams who served at both the d 0" doj and dhs. he made a good point, just because you delete it and it's deliberate, doesn't mean it's nefarious. but all these coincidences, i mean, at some point, if it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck, quack, quack. so where are we right now? >> we all know this, if you delete a text message, it's kind of a sketchy behavior. so that right away is a red flag.

and when i just heard him speaking what stood out to me is we were talking about wiping, you were talking about flushing things down the toilet. one thing is clear. in the trump administration, there was not good preservation of records. it's clear procedures weren't followed. and this is a problem. however, i will caveat this by saying when i saw the news about dod today, i started to think that this is less a big criminal conspiracy and more a culture of incompetence. you have these senior officials who turn in their phones, they kind of wipe them, they put them away. the presidential records provisions have not kept up with the 21st century. i'm more interested not in the text messages of these senior officials but in their depositions. what were these people doing? also, has anyone asked for their personal phones? i know a lot of people in government used their personal phones. elliott, i would be interested in your take on whether they're asking for their personal phones. >> it's an official record, if you're conducting government business on your personal

phones. we would have seen it at the department of homeland security, a lot of these folks believe they're the men on the wall saving america from tyranny and utter ruin and the idea that investigators from congress and the justice department can go poking around your emails or text messages is offensive to them. so of course we're going to delete our things. the problem is for it to be a crime, there has to be an investigation. there's got to be, you know, a subpoena or something like that. and as of january 6th, on that day, investigations, criminal investigations hadn't really been opened yet. so you're going to have a hard time right now, based on the information we have, charging any of those folks with obstruction of justice. >> that's true, and i note that, but by the same token, i feel like there's something odd about a moment where most people were watching and it was essentially like frozen, almost like a mosquito in amber, watching "jurassic park," and those are the days that you don't think to preserve? i want to play for what you the attorney general merrick garland had to say, he was asked whether he was concerned about the

missing messages. here is what he had to say. >> are you concerned about the missing texts? >> i don't want to talk about particular cases. with respect to our own investigations, we'll pursue all facts as far as we need to pursue them and we'll purr sue them with all the tools we have under the criminal law. >> one of those tools are the inspectors general. at this point, i'm not always focused, although i'm a prosecutor, i'm not always focused on the only end game is criminal prosecution. sometimes it's the investigation to find out what happened to things. how do you feel about the ig's looking at this reminded? >> heads need to roll, let's be clear. even if people aren't charged with crimes. individuals have been fired or resigned from their jobs for far less. in 2012 the head of the general services administration resigned because they used government funds to hire a clown. this is far more nefarious and terrible. >> miles is afraid of clowns.

>> let's not make it about clowns. >> i'm conflicted about clowns, they make me happy but i'm a little bit frightened of them too. needless to say, you can lose your job for that, you ought to lose your job for overseeing the possible destruction of evidence. >> if on your personal device you sent an official communication, then that -- >> what does that mean, official communication? you mean talking to a colleague? >> what did hillary clinton get knocked for, for years and years? the emails. why? because they were on private email address. the thing that i think -- in fact i've heard no one talking about this yet. i know some of these government officials were conducting official business via text messages because it's what they used to do during the investigation. >> let me send this word document to my personal email so i can work on it at home. that becomes a government record. >> does that mean the entire phone becomes the record that can be obtained validly by the government?

or does that mean the record itself? is it text by text, is it page by page? and if everything's gone already, how do you begin? >> it's a great question. look, it was widespread practice in that administration to use encrypted message apps to communicate. people were using that. i'm not saying that we know for sure that senior officials during january 6th were doing that. all i'm saying is that, you know, if people are really worried about private email being used for official business, text messages, which we're looking at now, absolutely were between senior officials. and that should be something that is probed in this instance. >> look, it might be lawful, but it's awful, literally. it's conduct, to use a cute little catch phrase, but it's conduct that even if you can't be charged with a crime, even if you can't lose your job for it, our government shouldn't be engaged in it, full stop. >> unlawful and awful. >> we covered clowns, we're rhyming now. it's a beautiful tuesday. it's tuesday, right? it's election night in america,

of course it's tuesday. up ahead, one of the country's most popular music festivals has just been canceled, music midtown in atlanta, called off in a decision likely linked to gun laws. we'll take on the controversy with the president of the atlanta city council, next. e. aspirin helps reduce the chance of another heart attack by 31%. be sure to talk to your doctctor beforere you begin an aspirin regimen. why woolite? because its specially formulated to protect your clothing from damage in the wash. like fading, stretching and pilling. woolite has a first of its kind formula that keeps today's fabrics looking like new. woolite damage and darks defense.

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my chemical romance, future, and jack white, a few of the headline performances that tens of thousands of music fans had hoped to see at next month's iconic music midtown festival in atlanta. organizers abruptly called the event off yesterday, however, citing circumstances beyond their control. no more details were offered. but sources say that georgia's gun laws are what's to blame. there's one law in particular that allows firearms to be permitted in public spaces, and that includes parks, i might add, which gun advocates say conflicts with the festival's weapons ban. joining me is doug shipman, president of the atlanta city council. doug, thank you for peekbeing h tonight. what's the issue here, that the

festival, a private entity, wanted to ban weapons and the georgia law said no, bring the weapons, you're entitled to do so in a public space? is that it? >> so we've had consistent laws that have been opening up access to guns, the ability to carry guns in various spaces. it was a 2019 georgia supreme court ruling that said on public property you couldn't have gun restrictions. in this case there was concern there would be legal jeopardy because of the restrictions, any restrictions on public spaces. >> they can't contract away that requirement or that ability to bring it in, they can't say as part of an entertainer's rider, look, there can't be weapons, that's enough to trump this? >> so i came out of the entertainment industry before i was in elected office. there are often riders from

artists. there are also insurance issues related to security plans. those things did not have any impact on the state law. and this state law has been written in a way that limits local officials from being able to make more restrictive laws. in essence the state has said, we're going to make the law and you can't change it at the local level. there's one other issue here, more recently this year we also have a permitless carry law that passed in georgia. so the proliferation of those who can carry without a license, without training, has expanded. so also the fact that you couldn't have a restriction on weapons also in a situation where we know there are more guns that people are carrying out naturally led to a lot of questions around liability. >> it's hard to think about this in a vacuum. we know what happened in that horrible tragic las vegas shooting that took place. there was a music festival going on, there were concerts happening. there was natural concern that one would obviously think of. there's also the economic notion. the cancellation, it means a $50

million loss, they believe, to the atlanta economy, according to some reports. this was supposed to take place next month, it featured 30 plus artists, it would have hosted local food venues. what is the economic impact and does this forebode harsher conditions going forward, people will say let's not go to atlanta. the north carolina governor tweeted out in response to this very notion, saying come on up to north carolina, we're ready to welcome you to one of our amazing outdoor spaces to help you host a fun and safe festival. when you see this and what it could mean for the economy and for businesses or entertainment going elsewhere, what's your reaction? >> it is a major concern. there was a study done a few years ago that you cited, $20 million in direct spending, $30 million in indirect economic impact. this festival hosted 50,000 people a day for two days.

we know that people come nationally for it. it's a major festival that's been going on for 25 years. but it's not the only one. we have a festival called shaky knees that happens in another park, another one called sweetwater that happens in another park. this will not be the only festival that cannot happen in a public space. they might be able to find a private space, but we don't have a large outdoor private space that makes sense, like some other cities. it may have to move out of the city. these economic ramifications are significant in big dollars, but also very significant on small businesses, locally owned food trucks, folks connected to our music industry which is a very vital part of what we do, will be impacted. i would say one thing, the tweet that you pointed out, we know we're always in competition with other cities like austin and miami, nashville, for music and for economic development more broadly. and i do have a concern that people are going to maybe not even bring new things that could

be coming here because of what they're seeing. so i think the economic ramifications could be quite extensive and could be much larger than just the midtown music cancellation. >> but will it shape policy? i wonder, are you hearing from your constituents and the voters and the electorate more broadly in georgia in reaction to this, has there been some backlash? >> this festival is really focused on young people but it's also won that a lot of us have attended over the years who have been in atlanta, it's one of those memory maker kind of moments. i have been hearing from those who are quite upset. we have an election for state legislatures, governor. when our state legislature goes back in session, we'll look at the implications of this policy, whether it was an intended or unintended consequence, clearly there are economic implications. there are ways, we know we have gun restrictions in airports, stadiums and other private venues, we certainly could have

a carve-out for ticketed events, larger events, music festivals. i hope we'll look at those policies because this is going to damage the atlanta economy going forward, no question about it. >> i wonder if it will be the blueprint for other states who may have similar conflicts, for entertainers who choose where they go and where they go to spend their money. doug shipman, thank you so much. >> thanks for having me. look, it's now tomorrow in taiwan. we'll take you live to the other side of the world for the very latest on the storm over house speaker nancy pelosi's historic visit. china is still threatening retaliations. an update on the flaring tensions will be next. discount just by having a clean driving record for three years. get a whole lot of something with farmers policy perks. (driver r 3) come on! ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-a-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ i grew up an athlete, i rode horses... i really do take care of myself.

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just minutes ago, house speaker nancy pelosi gave an historic address before taiwan's parliament. she's now meeting with taiwan's president. in making this trip, pelosi defied hesitation from the white house and also threats of retaliation from china. in her address, pelosi spoke of america's friendship with taiwan and she pledged more cooperation. here with me now with more is cnn's senior international correspondent will ripley who is always on the story. tell us what you know. >> reporter: well, you know, we are just, like everybody else, watching very closely to see how

nancy pelosi, the speaker of the house, second in line to the u.s. presidency, is received here in taiwan. so far it has been a very warm welcome, even though the taiwanese government was pretty much radio silence before her plane landed, once it did, taipei 101 lit up with a welcome message. as you said, she's meeting with president tsai ing-wen. she also had a chance to meet earlier with members of taiwan's parliament where she gave a speech and talked about the reasons she's here and really in stark contrast to what we're seeing right now from mainland china with these military exercises happening just off the shore. listen. >> we come in friendship to taiwan. we come in peace for the region. and our chair of the veterans affairs committee, mr. tekano, representing our veterans, understanding the value of peace and the avoidance of conflict. >> pelosi made it very clear that the reason why she's here

is to show solidarity with the island of taiwan which has been under an increasing amount of intimidation, militarily, and diplomatically from mainland china. >> there was that piece show wrote in "the washington post" as well talking about where she was there. you mentioned the flight, we see images of her landing. speaking of that flight, there's some new reporting that cnn has about that flight to taiwan. what did you learn? >> reporter: that's a flight i've taken myself. normally it's only about 4 1/2 hours, at least under a 5-hour flight for sure, that's how long it would normally take. speaker pelosi's flight took more than 7 hours, they were trying to avoid potentially this -- i don't know if we have the map handy or not, but the six locations around the island of taiwan where there are military drills that have been taking place since the overnight

hours shortly after speaker pelosi arrived. these military drills, some of them so close to the shore that it's possible that people living along the coast could actually hear them. certainly if anybody were to try to head out in the water a little bit closer to these drills, they would find a large amount of activity, which is very, you know, provocative, certainly, especially because some of these drills, the coordinates that were released by the people's liberation army might have actually gone into taiwan's territorial airspace. we don't know if that has happened. we don't know if that's going to be publicized by the taiwan military and the defense department if it does happen, because they certainly don't want to dial up the tension here, and they have been unchar uncharacteristically quiet, they usually tell us how many times a day a plane has flown into the zone. they're trying to stay as low key as possible while they're

trying to show nancy pelosi around. they hope her experiences that she'll take back to washington will help shape policy if and when the time comes when china does make a move on taiwan. >> i hope speaker pelosi addresses the idea of why there was a diversion, if there is a broader issue at stake. will ripley, thank you so much. we'll be right back. ["ononly wanna be with you" by hootie & the blowfish]

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look, they don't color queen before nothing. beyoncé's new album renaissance is already breaking chart records, but it's also buzzing with controversy. a song on the album called heated is being criticize for including an ableist slur. listen. >> ♪ ♪ ♪ >> disability rights activists say the word spat was used in that particular lyric is offensive to people living with spastic cerebral palsy. according to the cdc, people with spastic cerebral palsy have increased muscle tone. this means their muscles are stiff, and as a result, their movements can be awkward. a rap for beyoncé tells cnn she's updating the song. the word, quote, not use

intentionally in a harmful way will be replaced. happy, elliott, and scott are back on the right now. and i should say, the most person excited to talk about beyoncé scott jennings, and an odd revelation of sorts. but i bring this up because, look. and it can be uncouple at times to talk about the things that people react to, that have a visceral reaction, that can lead to the so-called cancel culture things. and lizzo just change a lyric as well. it's not unheard of for people to be online and that the use of a term is offensive and can no longer be used. i think you put it past, elliott, the idea that, look, sometimes you get the information, you realize it's offensive, and then what you do then is up to you. >> yeah, no, i agree. language of all's overtime. i will give you the floor -- >> you had a smirk. we knew -- >> i'm ready to pounce on this. i'm not defending the thought police. let me use a better example for

you. the state song of conduct heat, my old kentucky home, for 130 years had the word dark ease in it until overtime people realize this is not language that we in a civil society ought to be using. and they changed it. and i think there ought to be room for people to recognize that, you know it, i've grown my whole life saying the word spas, but maybe that is not like we ought to be using. that doesn't take anyone away from all of us to purge the world's pass from our vocabulary. you can still use most of the english language. so my question is, how are you affected by? it >> while, i think we're all affected when people who are creative artists, beyoncé, one of the most renowned artists in our culture, one of most talented people, that's alive today, when they have to go around policing their artistic expression because they may, might, possibly offend a handful of people. i'm not as denigrating the people that have this disease, not at all. but it's obvious she was not intending to hurt harm or

offend anyone. and i'm just saying, when you start bending over for the speech police on one small issue, the floodgates are open. and how are you going to have artist expressing themselves if they are constantly calibrating against these people who are sort of professional, you know, professionally being offended by everything. >> abby, what's your thought? >> you know, i hate calling at the speech released, here. what we are talking about our disability advocates. and when you look at where the term comes from, spastic cerebral palsy, i mean, there are a lot of folks who do not understand that or even know where that comes from. but now that you do, and you are hearing from these advocates, we should listen, right? and we should have respect for that. heck, you watch -- there are homemade so many things that you look back and say oh that did not age well. even something like gilmore girls, right, the first season of that, you have rory using the r-word. and just very nonchalantly. and i watch that now, and i go oh, my goodness, this should

not be happening. but it did, because once you learn, what that word meant and why was offensive, you took it out of our vocabulary. and i think, you know, again, kudos to that -- the disability community who continues to actually lift this up and explain what it is. because i think right now we are on cnn, talking about spastic cerebral palsy, when i think a lot of people didn't even realize what it was. >> i think this is where the american left is failing, because they are speaking a language that -- and they are thinking about things in a way that most people in america do not even recognize. and this idea that we are going to go around and nitpick every -- >> they're trying to cancel beyoncé. for goodness sake. this is where the left is falling short. >> first of all, the beehive is not going to cancel beyoncé. you hear the buzzing right now. >> i want to get back to the

evolution of language, right. explain to me how -- >> are you offended by this? >> it doesn't matter i'm offended by this. that is not the point. >> there is a constituency that could be affected by virtually everything. how are you going to -- eventually, is this the goal? to have nothing? >> i'm not trading you by making this about kentucky, your home state, but literally you have a state song -- >> you are comparing -- >> because overtime i would evolve. think overtime, the r-word, a word all of us used, that we now know is abhorrent and should not be used. >> who is going to be in charge of hearing the list of things? >> i think we're making -- >> we're having a conversation. >> it's about educating the. we're having the conversation right now. and it's also having grace, right? when folks are not aware. and the fact is, lizzo changed her lyrics, fiancée changed her lyrics, i understand, you know, if it was really frustrating to see this happen just six weeks after, you know, lizzo was told

what happened and why it was wrong. and then you have beyoncé doing it. and i understand that frustration. but she changed it, and she apologized. and i think it sets the tone for the rest of the music industry to pay attention. >> you know, scott's christmas card this year was also the album renaissance. -- i've exposed to everyone. >> i've been a fan for a decade. >> scott jennings, elliott williams, thank you for this conversation and the sport. we will be right back. they customize your car insurance,, so you only pay for what you need... and a blowtotorch. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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>> hey, that's it for us tonight. don lemon tonight starts right now. hey, don lemon! >> hi, laura coates, a big night in america, election night, we are going to get to. it great show. i will see you tomorrow. >> see you later! >> this is don lemon tonight. it's election night in america, and coming in from primaries in