bush and cnn commentator scott jennings. ott, good morning to you. >> good morning. >> let's start here with these visits, and i want to talk about the visits earlier this week to michigan. the president will be heading out to nevada today and tomorrow. we've got video of crowds, hundreds in some cases, thousands of people, with no social distancing. they're not wearing masks. how does the president credibly say that he's leading based on science, based on his own administration's guidance. and then he has these events? >> yeah, my recommendation to people going to large events would be to wear a mask. and i think the president should encourage people to wear a mask. i mean, it is a little hypocritical for democrats to criticize the president where we've got massive demonstrations going on all around the country where there's no social distancing either. i think trump supporters look at that and say why do the rules apply to us and not the other? s the bottom line, wearing a mask is the thing we should do and i would like the

let's bring in van jones and scott jennings. gentlemen, both of you, thank you for being here. scott, this is complicated legally. i know some people are not going to like me saying that. before the event and during the event and obviously this process after the event, why were they there and the efficiency of the warrant and what is it about policing? they are the hardest part. i get it, some body shot them. what bullet hit mattingly but walker said he shot. that would give the officer a reasonable suspicion of a potential injury to fire back. why is it okay a grand jury gets to determine it is also okay to kill an innocent third person? >> grand jury in kentucky are independent bodies. grand juries are independent bodies and they make their own decisions. the point you make about who shot the officers is not in question. the ballistics were clear, it was the shot that walker fired. it was a 9-milliliter. >> that's not my understanding of the evidence. you have not seen it. >> chris, i think it is important that you get it right because the attorney general talked about it toda

let's talk politics with scott jennings.s good to have you on "primetime" as always, the best to your family on saturday night. i will have a scroll going of the 41 republican senators who were saying you can't pick somebody this close to the election, it's not fair to the people. the hypocrisy is meaningless here because the opportunity is too great. is that a simple assessment? >> well, i think you're oversimplifying what they said in 2016. there was a difference. in that case the white house was controlled by one party, the senate pby the other. you had to go back to the 1880s to find a situation where someone was confirmed. in this case the party in the white house is also the party in the senate so they view it as a different situation and therefore a different precedent that would be in use here. >> i will get us to the political obviousness of this by knocking down the idea that you have to go anywhere for any kind of suggestion that what would be happening here is unusual. it would be completely usual. presidents who

let's bring in van jones and scott jennings, thank you for being here. this is complicated legally. i know people aren't going to like me saying that. you have to look before the event, during the event and then obviously this process after the event. why were they there. what this is about policing. the hardest part of the sell for people will be, i get it. somebody shot at them. walker says he's shot. that would give an officer a potential injury to fire back. why is it okay that a grand jury, his tool, gets to determine that it was also okay. couple things, grand jury's in kentucky at least, are independent bodies, they don't work for the attorney general. they get in the room, grand juries are independent bodies, they make their own decisions. the point you made about who shot the police officer is not in question, the ballistics were clear. it was a 9 millimeter bullet. >> that is not my understanding of the evidence. you haven't seen it, i haven't seen it. >> i think it's important that you get this right, because the attorney general talked about this today, and the ballistic

joining us now, cnn commentators bakari sellers and scott jennings. want to start with you, counselor, in your role as a lawyer here. as a legal move, how do you assess this? the justice department of the united states of america stepping in in a case where donald trump is accused of something in the 1990s? >> i think this is unheard of. most legal scholars would tells you this is patently absurd and there's no grounding for them to do so. look, donald trump has to handle and he needs to handle his personal business, these personal lawsuits on his own time. i don't understand the strategy behind having the department of justice come in and represent you. i will also say, and this is to add a renounce of whataboutism to this morning, that if we had a case where there was a democratic president, even let's say a bill clinton, who had the department of justice represent him in matters of a personal nature, you would have a great deal of issue and republicans would be jumping up and down and screaming that the house was on fire. and so i just think that t

. >> now to talk about this and more are cnn political commentator bakari sellers and scott jennings,ial assistant to president george w. bush. great to see both of you this morning. scott, do you agree that president donald trump could have done nothing more to fight the virus? >> no, i don't. i mean, obviously when you look back on the situation, the government was slow on testing. rhetorically i think the president has had some missteps. it doesn't mean everything he's done has been bad or wrong and he certainly did the right thing on china and travel issues and ramping up the defense production act and now ramping up warped speed. you can't look at the results and what the american people think about it and say it was perfect. obviously people don't believe that. i also think there are a lot of public officials in our federal and state governments would say the same thing. if we held them to the stale sa -- same standard, you'd have to say the same thing about them, too. >> and, scott, one more thing. do you think that holding a big packed indoor rally in henderson, nevada is the

now with a cnn political commentator who endorsed bernie sanders for president this year and scott jennings a cnn political commentator and former special assistant to president george w. bush. welcome to you both. >> good evening. >> scott, let's start with you. president trump's politically charged visit to kenosha tuesday was all about highlighting law and order issues and unrest in the city not about focusing on what triggered all this the police shooting of jacob blake. the president defended his teen supporter who is charged with killing two protesters. how is this all not racism and blatant political expediency? >> the democrats are claiming they are the only party that can get control of these cities and these riots that are controlled by democratic mayors. that's why the president went to wisconsin. >> president trump denies systemic racism exists in the u.s. he called police who shoot and kill people bad apples, choking and comparing them to a golfer who misses on a putt. >> well, it's clear that donald trump's tactic here is, he's like the arsonist who puts on a fire to set a bui

cnn political commentator scott jennings defended the change of heart to our chris cuomo. >> you didave different parties in power so that voters in 2016 had delivered mixed messages. you had democrats in charge of one institution and republicans in charge of the other. in this case republicans, the voters awarded them control of both and reaffirmed that control in the senate in 2018. and look, the constitution does not give the president the power to nominate this and the senate to rubber stamp it. you have two coequal separate branches of government that have a right play. >> president trump has already made the vacant supreme court seat a rallying cry for his re-election campaign. there's even a new campaign slogan. cnn's ryan nobles reports from saturday's trump rally in north carolina. >> reporter: president trump making it clear to his supporters in fayetteville, north carolina, saturday night he's not going to waste any time in picking a replacement for ruth bader ginsburg on the supreme court. trump did have a lot of kind things to say about the supreme court justice calling

bush, scott jennings. thank you for being here. carl, the president made no secret of the fact he wants this nominee rush three. >> trying to talk about a coup in which insurrection would result he's threatening almost. if he's not favored in the election results saying he's not necessarily abide by the results of the election. tlstz a lot of talk abo there's a lot. where we really need law and order is in the white house to restrain the criminality of the president of the united states but it's especially true as he tries to undermine the most basic aspect of our democracy and he's doing it in plain sight. at the very rally that we were just at on this air threatening about not abiding by the results of an election, questioning, undermining, trying to thwart the will of the people and throw down on our electoral system. >> they're at least planning to ask to prompt to recuse herself, if the supreme court does in fact hear a case that could impact the result of the election. is that a fair request? >> i think it is, given the conte

joining us now are cnn political analyst and political commentator and scott jennings a former special assistant to president george w. bush. john, you are always so good at giving us perspective. how are we supposed to process what we watched last night? >> we watched last night that degraded our democracy, almost by design. if there were any kids watching their first presidential debate last night we owe them an apology. really donald trump owe them an apology. joe biden showed up for a presidential debate and donald trump showed up to throw rhetorical thesis. he made a mess of himself and the process. we're better than this. we're better than what we saw last night. the president was unhinged. >> again, with don't owe the joe. one person did this. this debate was driven, the tone of the debate was driven by one person. it did devolve into chaos. one person devolved this into chaos. we need to be careful how we phrase this. if chaos is the headline, donald trump wins. he gets what he wanted. he wanted the circus. to an extent he got it. now we can argue is whether a circus for him is

and cnn political commentator scott jennings, former special assistant to george w. bush. t, you know mitch mcconnell very well. how do you see this playing out? >> well, number one, i don't think he's going to put up with any crocodile tears from the democrats about not filling the seat. obviously his statement over this weekend lays out he thinks there should be a nominee and there should be a vote. that's number one. number two, i think the timing on all this, anderson, is really vague. i think there's plenty of time between now and the end of the year a lot of people focussed on whether it would become before or after election day. i think that's unknown at the moment. and number three, i think the white house and the republicans have a number of highly qualified people to put forward that the most of the republican senators would be very excited about. so, i think the republicans are moving ahead. and they intend to see the process through. >> scott, you talk about crocodile tears of the democrats. you heard lindsey graham, you know what he had said previously in 2016

scott jennings who was with us earlier said he thinks this hurt the president with women voters, suburban voters that the president desperately needs. and chris christie, former republican governor of new jersey, who is one of the guys who helped the president prepare for this debate to an extent, thinks the president blew it. listen. >> i think on the trump side, it was too hot. you know, listen, you come in and decide you want to be aggressive and i think that was the right thing to be aggressive, but that was too hot. >> it was too hot. joining us now, terry mcauliffe, the former governor of virginia and former chair of the dnc who has endorsed biden, and ana navarro who is a republican who now supports joe biden. i'm going to spin the wheel, ana, and start with you. what did you see and what does it mean? >> i saw a completely display of dysfuncti dysfunction. i saw a stage where there was one adult and that was joe biden. i saw complete disrespect of the american people. the viewers who tuned in to try to watch a civil debate, to see who had plan to move this forward. donald trump wa

. >> joining us now cnn political analyst david gregory and scott jennings, the former special assistant to george w. bush and a columnist and bakari sellers, the author of "my vanishing country." great to have you all here this morning. david gregory, i want to start with you. you covered a lot of presidential debates, have you ever seen one like the one last night? have you ever seen a candidate conduct his part of the debate like that? what was your takeaway? >> well, i mean, it was just such a disaster and such an embarrassment for the country and i think, you know, what these debates are really about is that the narrow slice of the electorate that's tuning in that wants to actually learn something and take the candidates' measure is able to do that. that's what was so difficult on our air, in ohio an undecided voter was saying you know there's a lot of things that trump says that i actually agree with but it's the manner in which he says it that just sways me towards biden. i thought that really captured it well. i think it was so hard to follow in its ugliness. so hard to learn any

cnn political commentator scott jennings defended the change of heart to our chris cuomo. >> he did havent parties in power, so the voters in 2016 leading up to that vacancy had delivered mixed messages. democrats in charge of one institution and republicans in charge of the other. in this case, republicans, the voters awarded them control of both and reaffirmed that control in the senate, in 2018. lock, the constitution does not give the president the power to nomination this and the senate to just simply rubber stamp it. you have two co-equal separate branches of government that have a role to play. you're right about one thing, it is about power, and the republicans do have power in the senate and they have a constitutional duty to exercise that power however they see fit and that's what they're going to do here. >> joining me is deborah rody, professor of law and director of the center on the legal profession at stanford university. thank you so much for joining us today. before we look ahead to some of the pressing legal and constitutional issues that have been created with ruth bad

joining us now is scott jennings, a former special assistant of president george w.d, first of all, what's your reaction to "the times" reporting? >> substantively it's a huge story and something i think should matter in an election. it should be offensive to people if someone pays -- i don't know anybody who has paid that little in taxes honestly, who is above -- is out of college. maybe that was the last time i was paying that amount of taxes. i think that is highly problematic and speaks to some structural problems, things he can take advantage of and speaks to some of his own kind of shady behavior. that said, i don't think it's going to move any of his voters. they're locked in with him and i don't think there's anything that could happen. this certainly would not be the thing. i can't imagine what the thing would be that would move them away. it's possible if there are some people on the fence this could maybe sway them though at this point there are so few people on the fence. i don't know how big after factor it's going to be. he's going to tell his voters it

commentator bakari sellers, a former south carolina state rep, and cnn political commentator scott jennings, a former special assistant to president george w. bush. gentlemen, great to see you. scott, i'm interested in starting with you, because as a republican adviser, what did you think of how -- oh, you can't -- so -- i didn't know if that was a comment on my question, like or -- >> he agrees with whatever you say. i can tell by the look on his face -- >> the hand gesture. bakari, let's start with you in that case. president trump has basically forced joe biden to make this at the top of his speech and say that he doesn't equate -- that he thinks that rioting and looting is bad, and he considers that violent, and he doesn't consider that protesting. >> yeah. i think that the president had to thread a needle -- excuse me, the vice president had to thread a needle yesterday, and he executed that perfectly. look, the juxtaposition between the two men is something that democrats wanted to see. there was a forceful rejection of the violence, not the protesters, but the violence that came alon

joining us now, we have cnn political commentators, bakari sellers and scott jennings to talk about what's happening at the supreme court. gentlemen, good morning. >> good morning. >> morning. >> scott, i take it that what republican senators like lindsey graham have figured out that the calculus they're doing is that voters will forgive them hypocrisy for the getting the brass ring of a supreme court pick. i mean, is that what's happening this morning? the reason that lindsey graham is a human pretzel and forgetting what he said just two years ago, that's the calculus that's going on? >> well, i think there's two things. number one, i think for lindsey graham, and you can go back and look at his remarks at the time, a lot of things changed for him during the brett kavanaugh hearings. i think he believes that the way democrats behaved and acted and tried to destroy kavanaugh's life, i believe that was graham's words at the time, really changed how he viewed, how he should be dealing with democrats. i think you'll hear that out of him. and number two, as a raw political matter, in south car

scott jennings, a former special assistant at george w. bush and paul begala, a democratic strategist. gentlemen, thank you both for being with us on this momentous day. on this defining day. this is the first presidential debate. there's one thing we know, which is that the first debates tend to be the most important, paul. so as he takes this debate stage tonight, what does joe biden need to do? beating an incumbent is not easy. you did it when you were on the clinton campaign in '92, but what does joe biden need to do tonight? >> he needs an economic case. i think the country is ready to fire trump. and joe's going take his shots, i'm sure, at trump, and that's fine, that's good. but more importantly, he's got to make a case at why he's going to do a better job, especially on the economy. and this tax story allows him to do this. as biden likes to say, this is scranton versus park avenue. that's a good, simple, populist case. he can make that argument that the system is stacked against working people in places like scranton and in favor

scott jennings was on and thinks the president hurt himself with suburban women, a key swing group.is christie, the guy who helped him prepare for the debate, said this. listen. >> i think on the trump side, it was too hot. you know, listen, you come in and decide you want to be aggressive. and i think that was the right thing to be aggressive, but that was too hot. >> so even the guy who helped him get ready thinks the president blew it last night. who's going to tell him? what's the impact of this going to be? how is the president going to process this information? >> well, you just told him, john, because he watches you on the air, so you've told him. but nobody on the inside is actually going to tell him. but where chris is going with this is, remember, nobody remembers what you say. they just remember how you feel. and 90 minutes, somebody shutting that off is like, okay, there's something wrong with this guy. there's a screw loose running around inside the system. oh, wait a minute, he has nothing to run on. he's been a disaster on the economy, he's made us weaker as it relate

let's go to van jones, special adviser to former president barack obama and scott jennings, former president bush. thanks the both of you for being with me. 1.3 million new voters in north carolina since 2016. that's a pretty stunning number. look, it's a place a lot of people want to move. and now with coronavirus, i mean, it's exciting because there's so much unknown. but let me just show you the numbers again that we do know. 758,000 absentee ballots requested from the state, more than half from democrats. what do you make of that? does that concern you? >> no, it doesn't concern me. democrats have done a much better job over the years of socializing the idea of early voting and mail-in voting. republicans still culturally strongly prefer to vote on election day. i expect democrats tleed that. i think the numbers are reflective of the fact that generally speaking in all these states there's going to be a much higher turn out in the election than 2016. a lot of folks don't want to vote in person because of the coronavirus concerns. you are going to see an increase in people choosing to vot

joining us to discuss this is bakari sellers and scott jennings.hear in the president's words? >> well, i think it's something to be very terrified about. the president in his mind only believes that either he wins the election or the election was rigged. there's no third alternative there. but democrats, we have to calm down. i hear this question a lot, you know, what happens if he doesn't leave. we have to beat him first. and i think that we have to focus on what's hand, which is beating the president of the united states and beating him soundly. >> i don't know if it matters, bakari. what he said yesterday, it so d sounded like, he's okay with violence. if he loses, he's okay with violence. when brian karen said, but there's rioting in the streets, and he said, get rid of the balloting. >> we know that he's okay with his type of violence. we know that he's okay with violence done in his name. that's not new. but i wantcus on over next 40 d none of this will matter if he doesn't lose this election. so you have to focus on what you can control now

dynamic of the race has not changed, which is great news for joe, cakamala, and the democrat >> scott jennings't want to watch the next two debates. do they want the next four years to be like what we just saw tonight? >> yeah. i've been thinking a lot, anderson, about this "new york times" poll that came out over the weekend. it actually had donald trump at 46% job approval, which is pretty good for him. but only 41% on the ballot against joe biden. and i've been thinking why would you have a gap like that? but he's obviously losing some people who say i like his policies, but are something else, exhausted. and i am thinking about if those people were watching this debate tonight, how do they feel? and i also think about debates like this, anderson, through the lens of audience. and the main thing, in terms of job approval, all this four years, has been women. he does fine among men but women have never given him high marks. and i cannot imagine he did anything tonight that any female viewer who was thinking about supporting him would have appreciated. so if you are looking at it from a raw p