so they can do more of what matters. benefits. payroll. compliance. trinet. people matter. it is 11:00 p.m. on the east coast. a cnn town hall and the once and perhaps future president now on record, being digested by voters in new hampshire and across the country. >> donald trump on this network for the first time since 2016 in the wake of a devastating civil case verdict, not to mention felony charges several weeks ago in new york, on the cusp

potentially of indictments in georgia, perhaps on the federal level from the special counsel, including in connection with january 6th. >> also the clear republican front-runner for 2024 at this point still lying about the 2020 election and january 6th, saying this when asked about those who attacked the capitol and people trying to protect it. >> will you pardon the january 6th rioters who were convicted of federal offenses? >> i am inclined to pardon many of them. i can't say for every single one, because a couple of them, probably they got out of control. when you look at what antifa, what they've done to portland, if you look at what antifa, look at what they've done to minneapolis, so many other, so many other places, look at what they did to seattle and blm, blm, many people were killed. these people, i'm not trying to justify anything, but you have two standards of justice in this country. and what they've done, and i love that question, because what

they've done to so many people is nothing, nothing. and then what they've done to these people, they've persecuted these people. and yeah, my answer is, i am most likely, if i get in, i will most likely -- i would say it will be a large portion of them. you know, they did a very -- [ applause ] and it would be very early on. and they're living in hell right now. >> so when it comes to pardons -- >> they're living in hell, and they're policemen and they're firemen and they're soldiers and they're carpenters and elect electricians, and they're great people. many of them are just great people. these great people attacked police officers, law enforcement personnel, injuring many in 2017. the former president said something similar about charlottesville and the white supremacists there, very fine people on both sides, talking about charlottesville where

white men were chanting through the streets, "jews will not replace it." very fine people on both sides. adam perez who is done extensive reporting on the january 6th riot. legally, did anything stand out to you about what he said? >> anderson, what stood out to me, at least, what i was waiting for, certainly in watching the town hall, was to see whether he created any new legal jeopardy for himself. and i think his lawyers might be breathing a little sigh of relief that he didn't. he didn't really say anything new to cause any new legal problems. he certainly seemed to embrace the idea that those people who attacked the capitol, his followers, essentially follow everything he says. that he has a very stronghold on them. and that's something certainly that prosecutors have noticed in the recent trial of a group of proud boys, leaders here in washington. they played that video, one of the videos, certainly from his

comments after charlottesville where he said to members of the proud boys to stand back and -- stand back and stand by. that is something that prosecutors raised simply because it showed, at least as they told the jury, that the former president has a strong hold on these people and that they essentially were acting as his foot soldiers that day. the idea that the former vice president, you know, and the danger those people were facing that day is something that he can just, you know, wash away by issuing pardons, is something that's kind of shocking, frankly. >> it's not shocking because the former president also said he didn't think his vice president, mike pence, was in danger on january 6th. he again claimed that the vice president did something wrong by not sending votes back to the state legislatures. talk about how those comments really align with reality. >> no, they don't. the fact is that the legal school tars, people on the right, conservative legal thinkers, all agree that the

vice president doesn't have that power. and that's the reason why the vice president decided to stack with the election results that everyone -- by the way, including the former president's own legal team at the time, inside the justice department, inside the white house -- had all concluded that there was not enough fraud to merit any more challenges. and so one of the things that the president, the former president, is still sticking by is this idea that the if the former vice president had only sent these election results back, perhaps things would have been different. i think he's right about that, by the way, that it is possible we would be in a different place. frankly, it's scary to think what that could have done to american democracy. >> evan perez, appreciate it, thanks. cnn's arlette saenz with new reporting on the biden camp on tonight, what's their reaction? >> reporter: to no one's surprise, president biden actually did not watch this town hall with donald trump this evening. president biden was flying back

from new york city to washington, d.c. one person traveling with me told me that the president simply did not watch. but his campaign team and democratic officials were very closely watching everything that donald trump had to say this evening. and they ultimately believe that several of the former president's comments will be able to serve as fodder for campaign advertisements and digital videos. one adviser saying, quote, damning content. advisers believe that they can try to hone in to some of the things trump said about abortion, default, and refusing to say whether he'd accept the results of the upcoming election. they think that they can use that in their arguments going forward. one area where democratic officials are really keen on focusing on is the former president's comments when it came to him saying he was proud of the decision to overturn roe v. wade. one democratic official said that was the clip of the night and called it a, quote, home run for us. of course, democrats have been

seeking to argue that trump and republicans would really put women's reproductive rights under attack. that is a message that you saw carried out during the midterm campaigns. it is something that biden is continuing to press heading into this general election. but ultimately, a source familiar with the campaign believes that trump's messaging and some of his efforts to kind of double down on extreme issues, especially when it comes to election den i'llism, that that is something that will alienate voters heading into 2024. that's kind of viewpoint from the biden camp at this point tonight. >> arlette saenz, thank are thank you very much. cnn senior political commentator, former illinois republican congressman, former january 6th committee member, and u.s. air force veteran adam kinzinger. thanks for joining us. i want to play just a little snippet of the smorgasbord of words that we heard from the former president today. here he is talking about the law enforcement response on january 6th.

>> over 140 officers were injured that day. >> and a person named ashli babbitt was killed. >> yes. >> you know what, she was killed, and she shouldn't have been killed. that thug that killed her, there was no reason to shoot her at blank range, cold, blank range, shot her. and she was a good person. she was a patriot. >> one person who was there -- >> there was no reason. there was no reason. and he went on television to brag about the fact that he killed her. >> he did not. the officer did not go on television to brag about the fact that he killed her. and the shooting was found to be in the line of duty after an investigation. we should note, donald trump tends to use the word "thug" only when he's talking about black men. this police officer is an african american man. but what goes through your mind when you hear him say that? >> well, first off, jake, as somebody that sent the last two years countering the lies, i'm not going to pretend like it was easy for me to see the former president get this forum

tonight, to lie to the american people over and over and over again. that said, when i saw him talking about the law enforcement response, first off, he's utterly 1,000% lying about the national guard troops. complete, utter lie. he can say it as loud as he wants and how often he wants to. number two, there is one reason ashli babbitt is dead. because donald trump convinced her that the election was stolen and she should go to the capitol to stop it. now, let's be clear what happened. she busted through a window and tried to jump through a window that would have opened up the entire crowd to fleeing members of congress. and i think had she actually gotten through that window, and more behind her, more people would have lost their life that day. because the police had no choice but to bodily defend the members of congress. so it was nothing but what we know it is, utter, complete lies. i think even worse than seeing him say it was listening to the

crowd laugh at the rape allegations, listening to the crowd not take seriously anything else. listening to the former president save say, i thought debt default was bad when i was president, but i'm not president anymore so i don't care if we default on our debt. he as nonserious person, and that was unfortunately -- there were members of that audience that were nonserious as well, that have been frankly abused. >> let's play that sound bite. obviously, for people who aren't paying attention, necessarily living busy lives, working, raising their families, the country is headed for a potential crisis. we're going to run out of money to pay our bills, money that's already been spent. and that is going to come up in early june, and there's a face-off between house republicans and senate republicans and president biden over this issue. it's called raising the debt ceiling. let's play a little bit about what donald trump had to say about that. >> i say to the republicans out

there, congressmen, senators, if they don't give you massive cuts, you're going to have to do a default. and i don't believe they're going to do a default, because i think the democrats will absolutely cave. because you don't want to have that happen. but it's better than what we're doing right now. because we're spending money like drunken sailors -- >> just to be clear, mr. president, you think the u.s. should default if the white house does not agree to the spending cuts republicans -- >> we might as well do it now because you'll do it later. we have to save this country. our country is dying. our country is being destroyed by stupid people, by very stupid people. >> you once said that using the debt ceiling as a negotiating wedge just company could not happen. you said that when you were in the oval office. >> sure, when i was president. >> why is it different now that you're out of office? >> because now i'm not president. [ laughter ] >> obviously the debt went up $6 trillion or $7 trillion during the trump presidency, and obviously he never wanted eed t

default. what's your response? >> the laughing crowd, oh, it's hilarious, we're three weeks from the greatest self-owned, the greatest self-destruction of our economy. for people who think we've been in debt default before, we haven't. there's people that mix this up with government shutdown. this is extremely different. for the president to not -- the former president to be so nonchalant about it, to not care, here's the thing, jake. i truly believe he means it. if we're going to default, let's go ahead and default, then it will ob biden's watch because he so is self-absorbed. all he cares about is how it affects himself. ladies and gentlemen, a debt default, you want to make the u.s. debt actually unsustainable? default on it. then there is no way to get people to actually believe in the faith in that debt anymore. you have a collapse of the u.s. economy. and for him to say simply, well, i'm not president, i don't care anymore. i believe it, i believe the only thing he cares about is himself. and the impact when he's president. it was -- it will probably be kind of the underrated comment

of the night, but to me it was one of the most scariest things he said. >> it's remarkable because he never posted serious spending cuts when he was president, ever, much to the chagrin of deficit hawks like speaker paul ryan and others who wanted him to, it's bad politics, why cut spending, bad politics. something you care a lot about is the war in ukraine being perpetrated by vladimir putin and russia. he wouldn't say whether he wanted russia or ukraine to win. did that surprise you? >> no, no. god bless kaitlin for continuing to ask him. but you know, he's really good at just walking away and saying nothing. he didn't want to say -- byron donalds earlier on this network didn't want to say he wanted ukraine to win because there's a little group of people in the gop that are somehow pro-russian, partially because it makes liberals mad, that's why they're pro-russian, and they don't want to make them mad. but donald trump, look, he's shown admiration for vladimir putin since day one.

have no doubt, ukraine needs to win this war. it needs to win this war, frankly, before there's any chance that donald trump could ever be president again. >> former congressman adam kinzinger, thank you so much. always good to see you. >> you bet. more fact-checking on what we saw on stage tonight. we'll give it a go again. a lot of lies. stay with us.

i think it's fair to say that tonight's cnn town hall was a challenge to moderate. something of a bear to fact check. the spewage of lies we heard from the former president was really something to behold. so we are bringing back cnn's sara murray who has fact check duty tonight joining us again. sara, thank you so much for signing up for this task, a nation salutes you. former president trump raised many eyebrows tonight with his comments about abortion.

give us a little fact check. >> yeah, that's right, jake. trump was defending his stance on abortion, and he claimed democrats and hillary clinton supported abortion in the third trimester. here is what trump said tonight. >> for the first time, the people that are pro-life have negotiating capability. because you didn't have it before. they could kill the baby in the 9th month or after the baby was born. >> now, let's add some much-needed context here. clinton's view is that mothers whose health or lives were in jeopardy should be allowed to terminate a pregnancy at any point until birth. under roe v. wade, states had the authority to regulate or ban abortion in the third trimester except when it was necessary to preserve the life or the health of the mother. we should also note that these kinds of late-term abortions at 21 weeks or later are rare. it's less than 1% of abortions in the u.s. that were late term in 2021, according to the centers for disease control and

prevention. the vast majority of abortions take place at or before 13 weeks. >> trump claimed tonight that he had every right to keep classified documents that he took from the white house after he left the presidency. this is obviously a source of contention. there is a special counsel investigation going on right now about those documents. he said that he had the right to do it because from the presidential records act, kaitlin pointed out that's a false claim, what he was saying was not true. what else did he have to say? >> that's right. trump also claimed he was negotiating to return these documents, then surprise, the fbi just shows up to search mar-a-lago. let's hear donald trump's misleading version of events. >> i was negotiating, and we were talking to nara, that's washington, to bring whatever they want. they can have whatever they want. when we left washington, we had the boxes lined up on the sidewalk outside for everybody, people taking pictures of them, everybody knew we were taking

those boxes. the gsa, government service, the gsa was the one taking them. they brought them to mar-a-lago. we were negotiating with nara, all of a sudden they raid our house. >> first of all, the presidential records act says when the president leaves office, the national archives gets custody and control all the presidential records from his administration, classified or not. there's nothing about negotiation between a former president and the archives about returning them. in trump's case, it took the archives months to get 50 boxes back from him. the archive found records with classified markings and they got the justice department involved. after a may 2022 subpoena, trump's lawyers returned an onflow with a few dozen more documents. then prosecutors obtained additional evidence that more classified records were still at mar-a-lago. all of that played out before the fbi showed up with a warrant to search mar-a-lago in august of 2022, jake. >> sara murray, that i cans so much. taking a bite out of that huge cheese wedge of lies we were given this evening.

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the former president came to tonight's cnn town hall in the front runner in the political primary, as well as ahead of president biden in an abc news poll, which may be an outlier. that said, polls and polarized views often go hand in hand. cnn senior data reporter harry enten can help make sense of some of the numbers. where's the president's lead tonight? >> it's huge! to quote the former president of the united states, donald trump. it's not only huge, it's getting larger. january, he was up by only 11 points over ron desantis. march, 17 points. jump ahead now, it's a 30-point

lead. he's over 50% of the vote. and i will note, anderson, every single other person who had that percentage of the vote at this point in a presidential primary when there was no incumbent running went on to win the nomination. so yes, we are a long ways until the votes actually get cast, but at this point, the only thing you can say is that donald trump is a prohibitive front-runner for the republican nomination. >> what impact did the allegations of sexual misconduct against the former president have in 2016? >> right. obviously, trump was found liable yesterday in court. you know, so i think it's very important to look back at 2016 because there were a lot of allegations made back then that trump had made it -- had made unwanted sexual advances towards women. what we saw was that the clear majority of voters believed those allegations, 54%. 41% said they were mostly false. yet despite the fact that 54% of americans or voters believed that those allegations were mostly true, donald trump still

won the election. so even if voters believed that verdict yesterday, believed that trump was liable, as the court found, that may not really hurt him in the polls based upon what we've seen in previous elections. >> what about when you look at just republican voters in 2016? >> i think this is an interesting cross-tale. you might say, oh, those allegations really didn't make a difference, even if people believed them, they still were willing to vote for trump. republicans did trump make unwanted sexual advances? among republican voters before the 2016 election, if you were a republican and believed that, no, he did not, trump won those republican voters by 92 points. if you were a republican and believed those allegations, trump won those gop voters, yes, but only by 20 points. the fact is, as you look forward to the general election, no, i don't think this will make a big impact in the primaries, what was found yesterday in the court. but if, in fact, slightly, just slightly more republicans have a more negative view of donald

trump, are more likely to believe he made unwanted sexual advances, i do think it could cost trump in the polls. obviously, we'll have to wait and see. but the fact is, this is just something we really have not really encountered before in american political history. so i'm just not quite sure how useful the polls necessarily are. we'll have to wait and see what happens going forward. >> appreciate it, thanks. joining the panel is cnn senior legal analyst and former prosecutor elie honig, as well as scott jennings. was there anything the president said tonight that investigators are going to be listening to closely? >> absolutely. so everything that donald trump said tonight, everything that he has said and will say publicly, is fair game for prosecutors. i assure you, they were watching and taking notes. i'll tell you two specific moments that jumped out to me as potentially usable evidence by prosecutors. first of all, in relation to january 6th, there was a moment when kaitlin asked him about his followers. she said, they listen to you,

and you know it. trump agreed. he said, "that's right." if you're a prosecutor thinking, okay there you go, that is the cleanest, clearest admission by trump that he understands that his words have an impact on the actions of his followers. that to me is the best piece of evidence that we've seen so far on that. then shifting to mar-a-lago, there was a point -- trump has said things like this before where he said, essentially, i took everything, i had the right to take all of it. one of the things you have to establish as a prosecutor is knowledge and intent. right there he admits, i knew we were taking anything. he argues wrongly that he had the right to take it. right there you say, none of this was a mistake, none of this was unknown to him. i think those are two really useful pieces of evidence that prosecutors are taking note of. >> scott, what do you think? >> yeah, just political analysis for me, if i'm the trump team, i'm pretty happy about how this whole thing went. i think they were trying to set up two wins tonight. the first was to try to just cement his lead in the republican primary by speaking the language that he invented.

he invented this language in 2016. there's a lot of imitators but only one master. and he's still got it. he was out there, regardless what you think of it, regardless of how you believe he presents the facts or lack thereof, he speaks to republican primary voters and his supporters in a way that no one else can. that was number one. number two, he wants the general election to be fought on the following grounds. the current president is enfeebled and unfit for office, and i am still out here throwing fastballs. and i think his team is looking at that saying, there's no conceivable way joe biden could sit through that kind of questioning on this network or any other and will not. and that's evidenced by the fact that he won't hold press conferences. on two critical issues, rekindling that fighting spirit, showing republicans what they want to hear, you heard the crowd. in setting up a contrast against an enfeebled biden, it's two wins for him. they have to be thrilled with this. >> i would add that there was a message relative to ron desantis, whose name was not mentioned, but it was basically

cloistered in tallahassee, on the road, but doing remotes with fox news and playing home games, essentially. so there was a contrast there. but i want to say one thing. i think that as happy as the trump people would be -- and i said earlier that i think that, for their purposes, this was a good night. i think the biden folks should be happy as well. because they want donald trump to be the nominee of the republican party. they believe that donald trump is a very vulnerable nominee of the republican party. and much of what he said tonight spoke to why they think he's a vulnerable nominee of the republican party. so as was mentioned earlier, he created a lot of new video for their advertising when it comes to the general election. so in this weird way, i think they both walk away from tonight saying this was a good night for us. >> well, nearly 70% of voters didn't want a trump versus biden

rematch. i'm a republican voter who doesn't want to see biden re-elected, i don't want to see donald trump re-elected. i think there's a significant swath of voters who watched, know biden's going to be the democratic nominee. this is very likely, to the point, donald trump is going to be the republican nominee. and there's basically no option for a large swath of the country that wants something else. now, i think most of the kind of floated ideas of different sort of third party lanes are frankly just going to be spoilers for the candidates in the game. i think that there's very much a lane for someone to still get in. i tend to agree with the congressman, donald trump's going to run away with the nomination. i would note, 2015, this time, jeb bush was still the front-runner. there are indictments that may come down, the fulton county investigation, the doj investigations. things could change, and there are gettable republican voters who will never support trump and never support biden. >> do you believe -- we heard that arlette saenz reporting the biden campaign said they've got a week's worth of material just

from some things that the former president said tonight. is that putting a happy face on it? >> oh, no, it's gold. the ads write themselves for joe biden. it's a good night for biden and for trump. the launch video for joe biden was targeted at donald trump running. it does not play the same way if it's a governor sununu, if it's desantis. it's extremism, storming the capitol, anti-democracy, fearmongering, white supremacy. they don't have a message if they run against a mainstream republican who is not in the lane that donald trump has put himself in. >> i think it's happy face. i don't think he said anything tonight that he hasn't already said. i mean, this is -- he was vintage donald trump tonight. everything was authentic to him based on his '16 and '20 campaign, based on his presidency. i don't think anything happened tonight that was unexpected. and so for republican voters, that's thrilling. and i know the democrats say they want him, but they're not acknowledging their own weakness which is that trump can do what

he does, and we know it's good for about 45% of the vote. i'm not sure what percentage of the vote biden is good for right now, because heck, half his own party doesn't want him to run again. >> first of all, more than half of joe biden's own party doesn't want him to run. second thing, we talked about the material per se. i would say that the trump camp has been looking at the last 2 1/2 years and say they have all the material they need on joe biden. but at the end of the day, you get through -- if you want to continue talking january 6th and all this other stuff, it always comes back to the core issues facing people in their ordinary lives. that's what they're focused on. as we lay up to the -- what appears to be the inevitable, people are going to have a very different question in '24 than they had in '20. the question in '24 is, okay, both of these guys have now had this job, who did the job better? if you want to talk about incomes, if you want to talk about border security, foreign policy, move on down the list, people mostly in this country will say donald trump did the

better job. >> why isn't january 6th a core issue? i mean, why does it have to be one or the other? why can't january 6th and democracy be on that list of issues? >> january 6th is something that was a major issue in our country. everybody acknowledges that. but people don't eat january 6th. people don't put january 6th into their gas tanks. >> you need democracy to have that. >> hold on. january 6th is not the end all, be all of an american citizen's existence. what's going on in foreign policy, our currency, debt, inflation. those respect core things. people compare leadership on things that matter to them. >> i think it's worth taking a step back and acknowledging the insanity of the situation where a lot of time was devoted in this town hall to questions around various investigations into the president, former president. when you have somebody who's running for president and the question is, which indictment are you talking about? which grand jury are you talking about? that's wild.

and yet we know that donald trump still has a completely viable chance of becoming president again. >> the question is -- >> so i think it's important to note that for a lot of voters, they see something like january 6th, they think, that's horrifying. they see things like classified documents, that's bad. but donald trump's reporters think he's in the foxhole with him, he's the wall against the establishment. >> i'm just saying, the question that is unanswered, and we'll find out, how many bricks can the load on -- how many indictments, potential convictions, scandals, how many problems can this does the republican base, at least, decide, this is all a part of a political persecution and does it strengthen him, as the first indictment did? >> thank you for joining us. the border, the former president's answers on securing it, plus a live report from el p paso, texas, hours before a pandemic-era restriction is scheduled to be lifted and officials fear a rush of

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hours away from the end of a covid-era public health order, title 42, used by the former president to allow authorities to expel migrants at u.s. land borders. the former president tonight likened it to the surprise attack on pearl harbor, calling it a day of infamy. he said he said completed his infamous wall. one of the moments fact checked in realtime by kaitlan collins. >> i did finish the wall. i built the wall. i built hundreds of miles of wall, i finished it. i said, we have to build more because there's areas, water going through a dam, areas where a lot of people are coming. you close up one, they come into

another. we started another 100 miles of wall -- >> you built about 52 miles of new wall when you were in office, mr. president. it wasn't the complete wall. one other thing -- >> no, but i have to respond to that. >> with your immigration -- it was only about 52 miles of new wall. >> this is what she does. i built hundreds of miles. some of the wall was up there, and it would be laying on the ground, rusted, rotten steel, rusted, rotten wood. look. and what the radical left crazy democrats did, if there's a piece of wood laying down, they consider that a wall. i built 30-foot walls to go down seven feet into the ground. >> in el paso, texas, what have you heard from people about the wall actually reducing the number of migrants crossing the border? >> reporter: anderson, it really does not. the way the federal agents have explained to me in the past is, it helps them get more operational control. in essence, it funnels the

traffic so that they can then apply the laws of the united states. let me show you what i'm talking about here, because we shot some drone footage today. what you're looking at here is el paso, texas. you see the border wall there. the vicinity and size of that wall is the united states of america. you see those migrants there, the large group of migrants who have turned themselves in to immigration authorities. that's exactly what that wall is designed to do. it gives them more operational control. it gives them more control of the situation. it helps them control when those migrants are going to be turning themselves in and also where. that wall has gates and migrants wait there until transportation arrives and immigration then transports them for processing for immigration processing. when you think of a wall, geography is very important. because you're not going to put a wall in a canyon or a mountain. but in south texas, for example, in the windy rio grande, it creates a lot of international

boundary miles. i talked to agents there who say that the wall is very effective. i think the key here, though, anderson, is that the wall is a tool, but it can't be the only tool when you talk about border security. >> we're about 24 hours away from title 42 expiring. what are officials actually expecting? >> reporter: you know, i was one of the few reporters who sat down with u.s. border patrol chief ortiz today. what he said was, we're already seeing the surge, that the surge has been happening for five to six days, and he really doesn't expect a huge change once title 42 lifts. he says he's not expecting 17,000, 18,000 migrants to be turning themselves in to immigration authorities. but he did acknowledge that there is a current strain on resources, and he mentioned that three border patrol sectors along the southern border are encountering more than 2,000 migrants. that was the rio grande, el paso where i am, and also tucson. the other thing that really stood out to me, because as you

know, once title 42 lifts, immigration agents will be applying title 8. his point to that was that the example he used, yesterday there's more than 10,000 encounters, but that only 17% of those, title 42 was applied. so for the vast majority, more than 80%, title 8 was already being applied. and so in a sense, he was downplaying the fact that they are more prepared than they believe, so it's not like they're going to have to apply title 42, or title 8, excuse me, to 100% of what they're dealing with already because they're already applying it to more than 80%. >> rosa flores, thanks. jake, back to you. we're back with our panel one last time tonight. tomorrow, there is anticipated to be a surge at the border, the u.s./mexico border, with the expiration of the trump-era policy that the biden people used for a little while too which allowed them to not hear

asylum claims with using the pandemic as an excuse. so the crisis at the border is going to get even worse. we all remember the i think empirically horrific policy that trump and his administration instituted to purposefully take kids away from their parents. family separation. it was a horrific policy. it was cruel. and it was ended, ultimately, by trump, after the outcry. he was asked about it by kaitlan collins. take a listen. >> another immigration policy you had was the zero-tolerance immigration policy that separated families at the border. if you were re-elected, are you ruling out instituting that? >> when you have that policy, people don't come. if the family hears that they're going to be separated, they love their family. they don't come. i know it sounds harsh, but if you remember, remember they said i was building prisons for children? it turned out that it was obama

that was building the prisons -- >> would you reimplement that if you're re-elected? >> we have to save out of country. >> that's a yes? >> no, no -- when you say to a family, if you come, we're going to break you up, they don't come. and we can't afford to have any more. >> so that's a yes, donald trump is going to reinstitute the family separation policy which cruelly stripped children from their parents. i think there are still some kids that haven't been returned to their parents. >> there are. >> i guess it doesn't surprise me, dana bash. but there he is doubling down on that. >> that's right. and that begs the question of just the humanitarian, the values, the sort of moral argument that joe biden made from the very beginning of his re-election campaign and made from the very beginning of his first campaign about that kind of promise to turn the ideals of what is really going on in america back to the way he thinks it should be. having said that, immigration is

a political achilles heel for the democrats. >> sure. >> and what we are going to see is that snowballing in a big way, almost certainly, after tomorrow when the title 42 policy reverts. and that is something that democrats understand they have to grapple with, and it is also something that donald trump rode into the republican primary nomination in 2016 on, and in large part, the presidency. >> i want the audience to realize this part, though. that when we're talking about the wielding of the government and why he wants people to believe in the power of the government and the decisions that are made, that does not apply for him when it comes to the executive branch and the enforcement of the law and power and the integrity of our actual justice systems. the asylum process, the idea of immigration and migration policies, all follow a due process principle. the idea of a notice, an opportunity to be heard in court, to be able to have an

opportunity to have one's right to speak and say why they should be here. he is saying that that should be afforded, the ultimate benefit of the doubt when the decisionmaker is him. but when it comes to a jury making a decision or about the due process of a trial, totally different. we saw a lot about the preview for 2024 and his campaign. we also saw a lot about the preview of how he will try to go and undermine people's belief in our justice system in saying things like, listen, the jury system can't be trusted, as it relates to him. the idea of a washington, d.c. or new york jury. so very focused on the tendency to compartmentalize when the government is good and when it's bad. it's not supposed to be selectively wielded. >> can i just quickly add to that? i think that is the big picture takeaway from tonight. does america want a president who is actively, over and over again, undermining the rule of law, undermining democracy? when he talked about the pardons

tonight, i got so many texts -- >> for the january 6th. >> all along this line. translation, violence in service of my interests is above the law. and that really is our big picture from tonight. the lies and that he does not think it applies to him. >> thanks, everyone. we're going to take a quick break, we'll be right back.

- [announcer] do you have an invention idea but don't know what to do next? call invent help today. they can help you get started with your idea. call now 800-710-0020. looking at the capitol tonight, the man who incited a violent attack on that building, the symbol of democracy. so he could stay in office against the wishes of the

american people. while that man faced some of those voters in new hampshire, many of them supported him then and seems like will continue to support him again this time. and he was clearly speaking their language tonight. >> and they were laughing and clapping along with hill. it seems he was not speaking to anyone other than voters who may already agree with him. the question is, will he ever do that and is he capable of it? an optimist may say that remains to be seen. the news continues here on cnn after a quick break. thing addig lysol laundry sanitizer kills 99.9% of bacteria that detergents leave behind. clean is good, sanitized is better. ♪ ♪ there is a better way to manage diabetes. the dexcom g7 continuous glucose monitoring system

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hello and a warm welcome t