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CNN TONIGHT

Latest on EgyptAir Crash; Candidateds Talk Tough on Terrorism; Sanders Eyeing Democratic Convention; DNC Offers Olive Branch to Sanders; Poverty Rate 40 Percent for Children in Richmond, Virginia. Aired 10-11p ET

Aired May 20, 2016 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:00:00] DON LEMON, CNN TONIGHT SHOW HOST: It is 10 p.m. on the East Coast, 4 a.m. in Cairo, where the sun is about to come up on the third day of search and recovery of this search and recovery mission.

This is CNN Tonight. I'm Don Lemon. Thanks for joining us.

A new clue tonight. Smoke alerts aboard EgyptAir flight 804 minutes before it crashed into Mediterranean. That says, EgyptAir and Greek officials say searchers have found seats, aircraft parts, suitcases and human remains. But so far, no sign of the plane itself or the black boxes.

And as Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump go head to head on terror, Bernie Sanders has his eye on the democratic convention.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BERNIE SANDERS, (D) U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And let me also say that we are going to fight for every last vote between now and June 14th.

(CROWD CHEERING)

And that we are going to take our fight into the democratic convention.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: We're going to talk politics. My political panel is sitting by here on the set to get to that conversation and more in just moments. But I want to begin with the very latest on EgyptAir.

Joining me now is CNN's Richard Quest, author of "The Vanishing of Flight MH-3870." Richard, thank you for joining us. New information from the flight data reveals that the plane's smoke detector was activated. What does that tell us?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: It tells us that something very nasty was going on the aircraft. And we know roughly where about it was taking place. A series of sensors, alerts came about, the windows and lavatory smoke

detector and avionics space detector and then a couple of computers started to fail. And it's at the front of the aircraft, all in the avionics bay which is the brain of the plane underneath.

Now, Don, we don't know why, and that's crucial, of course, because we don't know whether it was as a result of some bomb or incendiary device activity or whatever or a mechanical issue. But it does now help us understand why, for instance, the crew unresponsive, when they were called by the Greek air traffic controllers to be handed off to Egypt, we now know that most definitely was something going on the aircraft.

We know that either they had already -- the plane was already in extremist and breaking up or they were dealing with some most horrendous problems. And you do have this question, Don, of the smoke detection, was it fire? Was it explosion? Or was it smoldering of some other kinds?

So, we are getting closer, not to knowing the reason, but we're getting closer to knowing the location and the sort of issues that they were dealing with.

LEMON: I know that, Richard, your pilot sources are contacting you. What are they saying?

QUEST: This is the fascinating part about it. Some are saying that the computer failures are significant. There is a saying it's not. Some are saying windows may be open in the cockpit. Others are saying it's an explosion. Some are saying the plane was being flown in a particular way. Others are saying it was unflyable.

You know, I'm almost -- I'm all -- the range of options now is becoming ever extensive. And what it tells me, Don, because, you know, to try and understand this, what it tells me is all we really know is that whatever happened was at the front of the aircraft, and one of the most sensitive crucial significant parts of the plane.

The avionics bay, the E&E under the cockpit, it's where the communications are, so for instance, to anything happening down there could cut all the communications, which might well explain why we don't hear any may day.

It also tells us that the pilots on board were dealing with some of the most difficult issues that any pilot would ever want to deal with, which is perhaps smoke, perhaps flames on board that plane.

LEMON: Richard, usually once they start to collect the debris many times they will put the plane back together to try to figure it out, if that is indeed possible. So where is this debris going to be collected and analyzed and how long will that, will it take to get results?

[22:05:06] QUEST: Very good point. The debris is going to be collected. It will be taken to Egypt. Egypt is the state of occurrence. Egypt has responsibility for this. Egypt, let me be clear about this, Egypt is perfectly capable and competent for doing this investigation.

Any suggestions otherwise, they may fudge a detail here, they may obscure a detail there, what we saw with Metrojet, eventually they come to the conclusion that is the right conclusion.

So, Egypt gets the data. Egypt gets the debris. Now, Don, when they may need specialist help to read a flight data recorder, to open the black boxes, then, for instance, you get -- you get the French coming in or the British coming in or those who will have that extra expertise.

But for the moment, everything goes to Egypt and that includes, unfortunately, sad to say, an awful to consider, the human remains. Actually, you know, the loved ones of those who were on board.

LEMON: Thank you very much for the update on the missing airplane, Richard Quest for us in Beijing.

I want to get back now to our political discussion with Maria Cardona, Margaret Hoover, Stephen Miller, and Sally Kohn.

OK. So, we were discussing this, we had talked about Hillary Clinton's sort of nuanced response, that she has to be careful that it's not construed as a weakness. Donald Trump is using his, he's strong, he's coming out right away saying, OK, this is terror, we should all, you know, deal with it.

And then he makes the point about the second amendment, which everyone says is false, but Stephen says is true. You didn't get to make your point. You're saying what?

MARIA CARDONA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I was saying that in the first instance we saw one of Donald Trump's tactics, which is focused on fear, right? Talk about fear mongering, talk about what he knows people are afraid of and get people to support him and what he's saying.

In the second instance, talking about saying that Hillary wants to come and take your guns away, that's just a lie. It's just not true. Which is another one of his tactics. He has lived in a fact free zone for the past eight months in this campaign. And it doesn't matter how many people fact check him. We have PolitiFact fact him on this. You talked about it earlier.

It's false what he said. It doesn't matter to him. He continues to say it. And I think this is going to be a big challenge for the general election. But as long as Hillary focuses on the facts and explains where she's coming from, the problem Donald Trump is going to run into is you talked about this, this -- he has got to get Romney's voters plus. He's not getting any plus.

A lot of those plus, the communities of color, women, millennials, they actually have a very optimistic view about what this country is and where it's going. And the kind of words and policies and not even policies, I can't call it that, but views that Donald Trump is putting out there, it's dark. LEMON: OK.

CARDONA: It's about fear. And that's not what they're going to respond to.

LEMON: So, it plays very well by saying that Hillary Clinton wants to abolish the second amendment, by the way, which has been proven false by every political, you know, fact check that you can deem, that you can come up with, but you say it's true. It plays very well to the base.

But it doesn't play well, it may not play well as Margaret says in a general. Does that concern you?

STEPHEN MILLER, TRUMP CAMPAIGN SENIOR ADVISOR: Well, I want to answer two different things here. First of all, the question of banning guns, handguns were banned in Washington, D.C. The case that Hillary is saying she wants to overturn is a gun ban case.

So, if you overturn the case, they would ban the guns all over again. Now, let's talk about communities of color.

LEMON: They would ban the guns all over the country?

MILLER: They have -- they have -- it's exactly the same.

CARDONA: No, it's not.

MILLER: Communities of color have been disproportionately hammered by the toxic cocktail of radical gun control and terrible economic policies that are sending our jobs overseas.

Donald Trump is going to turn that around. Donald Trump also going to make sure we have tough on crime policies, reckless crime policies that are soft on crime, reduce property values, they drive jobs away, they hurt our schools, these are the policies Hillary supports.

And one more thing, on the question of nuance, you know when nuance would have been really great is in Libya. Did Hillary have nuance then? No, she rushed in, overthrew a dictator, unleashed ISIS and the whole western world is suffering with Hillary Clinton's extreme trigger happy recklessness.

LEMON: Sally Kohn.

CARDONA: Wow, then wise.

SALLY KOHN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: OK, so this is sort of funny. They're civilly, I mean, I don't even know what to do.

What Donald Trump is clearly preying on is our short attention span and the fact that whatever crazy thing he says, we're going to come on and talk about it. And we can say until the cows come home that what he said was a lie because it's a lie overturning Hillary is not the same thing, it's getting of the second amendment. The second amendment existed before Heller, come on. But we can -- keep saying that. We can say -- we can talk facts, but

facts don't matter anymore in our society.

(CROSSTALK)

CARDONA: That's what I was saying. That's what I was saying.

KOHN: Because we're all going to talk, just opinion and 99 percent of scientists can believe climate change is real, but it's still an opinion and we -- it's not a fact. This is crazy.

[22:10:01] Also, I would like to say that to call Hillary Clinton trigger happy while she's more hawkish than I would like is really the pot calling the kettle black and -- what we need...

MILLER: What more Donald Trump start.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: Let her finish.

KOHN: ... what we need is a president, who does not think with his thumbs. Period.

LEMON: OK.

KOHN: And that's what he's constantly doing.

LEMON: Margaret...

KOHN: He is not -- he is beyond the depth of his tweets.

MILLER: Hillary -- Hillary is the interventionist in this race.

LEMON: Our time is short. We've gone -- we've gone on...

(CROSSTALK)

MILLER: Donald Trump is not the interventionist.

LEMON: ... a lot longer. Margaret, give us the final word here on this -- do facts really matter? Because as I sit here, and I can say facts on both sides for Hillary Clinton and for Donald Trump and people are not going to believe what I'll say. They'll say, oh, my gosh, you're show for Hillary. Oh, my gosh, you're show for Donald Trump. The facts don't seem to matter. Sally has a point.

MARGARET HOOVER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.

LEMON: They don't seem to matter in this particular race.

HOOVER: I think the facts do matter. I mean, we have an informed and responsible citizenry who takes voting seriously who will go to the polls, you know, very earnestly and elect the next president of the United States. And it will be most likely either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. What it comes down to, though, is, and we all know this, all of us,

republicans and democrats know this, it comes down to essentially probably seven states, 35 counties, in those seven battleground states and independent voters in those counties, swing voters.

And the question is, who is running to win over those swing voters right now? And maybe right now matters less than in September and October. But that's who is going to win this election. And it doesn't -- so, what's interesting to me is you see Donald Trump running to the right after securing the nomination, rather than tacking towards the center.

LEMON: Thank you for staying for an extra segment. This is a fascinating conversation. I would like to continue to have this conversation with all of you. So, please come back.

CARDONA: Thank you.

LEMON: Thank you, Stephen. Thank you, Sally.

KOHN: Thank you, Don.

MILLER: Thank you.

LEMON: Thank you, Maria, and thank you, Margaret. I appreciate it.

When we come back, the latest on EgyptAir 804. Investigators talking to anybody who might have had access to the plane before takeoff, from Paris. What did they learn?

[22:15:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: New clues emerging about EgyptAir flight 804. Here to discuss now, CNN aviation analyst, Miles O'Brien, oceanographer, David Gallo, CNN aviation analyst, Les Abend, also David Soucie is here, the author of "Malaysia Airlines Flight 370."

Miles, the flight data information revealed that the smoke detectors were activated in this plane. So, what do you make of that?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, it takes you down two paths. The umbrella being that something bad was happening here on this aircraft. And could it have been some sort of mechanical failure, was there some cargo which caught fire, or was it some sort of incendiary device or even a small bomb?

If it was, in fact, a bomb, it couldn't have been a very big one or strategically placed one because it didn't blow this aircraft out of the sky. They were able to control it in some fashion or so it seems. So, a small device, in the category of terrorism, or some sort of mechanical issue.

And if it's the latter, that's a really extremely urgent thing that we need to address. Either way, it's urgent. But if there is a fundamental problem with this aircraft, we need to know about it. LEMON: Les, take us inside as a pilot, take us inside the airplane.

What happens on board the plane and in the cockpit when a smoke alarm is detected?

LES ABEND, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, you'll get a -- you'll get a warning and an indication possibly or you just smell smoke. And then we have a procedure, we have memory items that we have to go through. This is something we do on our training almost every time. And what we'll could, first thing is put on our oxygen mask and then our smoke goggles, we'll purge the system if necessary of oxygen, we'll communicate with each other through the mask.

And then we go to the rest of the checklist, which might be a smoke removal or more importantly, find the source of the smoke. And I would think in this particular circumstance, this was difficult to find where the source of smoke was.

LEMON: So because they're doing that, though, is that maybe why there was no -- I mean, that could be one reason why there was no distress call from the cockpit.

ABEND: Well...

LEMON: Is they're going -- they're trying to deal with it.

ABEND: They're trying to deal with the situation. They have to assess the problem. This is a very complicated checklist if you go through, it's very extensive. And to try to determine the source of smoke really takes some time.

So, you don't have time to communicate. You're aviating and navigating and then you're communicating. But then again, whatever was happening downstairs in the electronics compartment might have disabled the communications.

LEMON: I believe, David, correct me if I'm wrong, you have a stronger opinion about what happened because of the information that you're getting.

DAVID SOUCIE, "MALAYSIAN AIRLINE FLIGHT 370" AUTHOR: I tend to take a more simplistic view because I started as a mechanic working on airplanes and to me, you look at two things. Were these indication problems that were caused by something that caused them to fail and say, hey, there is something wrong here, or they're actually indicating that there was smoke in the cockpit.

So, there's two different ways to look at that part of it. Either way, we still don't know what started it as Miles said, that it still could be an incendiary device or was it caused by something else inside that was a mechanical failure. That's too early to tell in my mind. But to me, just looking at it simply, the window had a failure and that it progressed from there.

LEMON: OK. Let's talk about the debris that they're finding. And they need to find the bulk of this debris, correct? So, take us through this process. DAVID GALLO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, the first thing is to get as much

information from the surface of the ocean as they can get. Because that will help you. What we need to do is find out where the impact point was. And that will depend on whether the plane impacted as one piece or broke up in midair and scattered the debris over a large area.

And then begin the underwater search. And in this area, with the water depth there two miles, two and a half miles, it means mounting a full scale deep water expedition, which means a sophisticated equipment, a sophisticated ship and a team that knows what they're doing working in those water.

LEMON: This is very, very deep in the ocean, as you said a mile or so.

GALLO: About the same -- the deepest is about a little bit deeper than Air France's, 3800 meters, about 2.5 miles.

LEMON: How long did that take?

GALLO: Well, two years, calendar years, but about eight weeks at sea.

LEMON: We have learned that the plane was on the ground at Charles de Gaulle for an hour, an hour and a half, and we've been talking about the security sweep and how many people had access to it. So, how much of a security sweep could have been done in that amount of time? Who wants to go with that? Yes.

O'BRIEN: Should be enough time. Should be enough time to go through that aircraft. You know, what's the procedure? How they did it. What they looked at. Were they lax that day? You know, late at night. There is a lot of factors that go involved in this.

You know, the thing about security is you have to be vigilant every time and vigilant at a high level. The terrorists only have to get through that net once and there is -- they only have to exploit one weak link. That's the problem.

LEMON: Should the -- should the number of people who have, you know, access to the airplane or, you know, whether it is a ground crew or -- should that be limited or that's kind of -- is that impossible to do?

[22:20:05] ABEND: You need people to cater to the airplane, you need people to put the cargo on the airplane.

LEMON: Do you need 86,000 people at this particular airport to have a badge that gets them in secure area?

ABEND: Charles de Gaulle is a huge airport. And every airline has its own people for the most part. And, yes, you do. There is a lot of people.

LEMON: Eighty six thousand though?

ABEND: There is a lot of people involved with getting airplanes in and out.

LEMON: Yes?

ABEND: There really is. But back to what Miles was saying, you know, with reference to security, this airplane originated somewhere else other than Charles de Gaulle, so certainly the security check would have been done at the first departure, because it was up against the jet bridge. But it may not have been completed in the same methodical way once it got to Charles de Gaulle because it was a turn around.

LEMON: Yes. I want to continue talking about the number of people. Because if you look at the size, I mean, airports are gigantic, right. And this is what, the third largest airport depending on your calculations of what you're using in Europe. And so, 86,000 people may sound like a huge number of people, but...

ABEND: There is three shifts. It is 24 hours. So, the first two shifts are heavier than the others. And there is routable shifts as well. So, you're not just thinking I got this many of this, may of this, may of that, but let's just do that, let's take it divide it by three, 86,000 people, you're somewhere around 28, 29,000 people now, that's one shift.

LEMON: Yes.

ABEND: And how many millions of people go through that airplane -- airport. You know, in my mind, in my way of thinking, of course, I was a government employee for a long time, but in my mind, that's not enough people.

I mean, to me, the -- you look at the number of people going through, the number of people that are available on any particular shift, that's not that many people.

LEMON: You think there needs to be more people. But then if there are more people, is it -- are we kidding ourselves to think that you can put that number of people through a security -- accurate security checks and background checks, too.

O'BRIEN: Well, you know, it's interesting, though. We say 86,000 people beyond the security perimeter. But there are a lot of people who are, you know, cooking eggs for people inside the security perimeter but not on the ramp either.

LEMON: Yes.

O'BRIEN: So, the actual number of people who actually have access to that avionics bay, I'm sure that's a much smaller subset of 86,000.

LEMON: But when you're looking at someone who has the security clearance and, you know, at this particular airport, I have been told that they go through just like us and they get, you know, checked. Many times here, I'll see people that just, you know, they're kind of waved right through in American airports. I don't know...

ABEND: They don't do that here. LEMON: They don't do that here.

SOUCIE: But let me offer a point.

LEMON: Explain that. Go ahead.

SOUCIE: They don't -- it's been a point of contention between Congress thinks that to do this, very expensive, first of all, and Congress thinks that airlines should pay for that. But the airline say, no, this is not our burden, it's a national burden. So therefore, the government should pay for it.

So, they're in a deadlock. They're really in a deadlock right now. And in the meantime, we can pay the price.

LEMON: Yes. Let's talk about the recovery now because how many different agencies are involved in that. Does it matter where in the world it is as to what agencies become involved and how long it takes?

GALLO: Sure. There's water and we're just talking about this, the Mediterranean is almost different from normal ocean because it's a, you know, pretty much any spot in the Mediterranean that's claimed by sevel countries. So, but I think the key players here are certainly going to be Greece and Egypt and France probably. I don't know who else would be involved.

LEMON: And how depth are they dealing with this?

GALLO: Well, you know, in terms of the deep ocean, I don't think vary a dept. Because it's just a capability that those countries don't have. You know, that used to having to go to the deep ocean. But they've called for help from the U.S. The U.S. has some assets here and there.

It's appalling though, to think that we still are in a position so many years after Air France 447 that we still got to go through the task of going into this unknown world to retrieve a recorder to find out what happened when we could be streaming the information live from the plane.

LEMON: What are they up against? Because as I heard David earlier saying that the currents may actually be helping them out because it is sort of a circular current.

GALLO: Yes. It is a little bit less daunting than a thousands of miles from land where the currents are vicious and unpredictable. So it's a bit more predictable and it still doesn't mean it's routine and still doesn't mean it's easy. And it's going to take quite an effort to work the bottom, find the wreck and then do the forensic analysis.

LEMON: Thank you, gentlemen. I appreciate you spending your Friday evening with me. Really Thanks a lot.

When we come right back, the candidates going head to head on terror, but who would keep Americans safer?

[22:25:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Are the presidential candidates winning any votes with their tough talk on terror?

Here so discuss, Juliette Kayyem, CNN's national security analyst and author of "Security Mom," and Michael Hirsh, national editor for Politico magazine.

Good evening to both of you. Michael, early yesterday morning, when we were still learning about the fate of EgyptAir flight 804, Donald Trump tweeted this, he said "It looks like yet another terrorist attack, airplane departed from Paris, when we will get tough? Smart and vigilant. Great hate and sickness."

He has been talking tough ever since calling it terrorism and saying that he knows who did it. How is this playing with the voters?

MICHAEL HIRSH, POLITICO MAGAZINE NATIONAL EDITOR: Well, I think that obviously every time there is an act of terror, like this, it plays into Donald Trump's hands to some degree. He jumped the gun with that tweet as he did previously with the Paris terror attacks because there was no confirmation by that point and there isn't even now that it was an act of terror.

But clearly Trump's call for, you know, closing the borders, withdrawal, asking much greater demands of allies in terms of paying tribute to the United States and foreign policy, all of this does help him to create this, you know, scenario where Americans want to sort of hunker down behind our borders.

LEMON: Juliette, We talked about this when your book first came out, your book is called "Security Mom." And you talk about, you know, one issue voters. And homeland security is that one issue. Is Donald Trump directing these kinds of comments and this quick reaction right to that audience?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes, they are. So, the "Security Mom" is a demographic that came out of 9/11. A woman who were either, you know, democrat, independent or republican who voted because their sense of fear was very strong.

[22:30:00] And so they helped the republicans in 2002 and 2004. We saw her sort of recede for a little bit. And it's clear that what Trump is trying to do, he's not going to win the women's vote but he certainly have to close that gap, is to come on strong on security issues.

He doesn't care whether he's right or wrong. He may be right on this terrorism. But, you know, I told you so is not a foreign policy strategy. Even if he was right, it's not exactly the most brilliant thing to say that early in a morning when we're all still assessing what in fact happened.

But it is a tactic and it's a tactic that the democrats to retain the support that women are giving in large numbers to presumably Hillary Clinton will need to address. And I have to say, if there is an October surprise which may be even a

very minimal terrorism attack in the United States, I don't know how to predict that. I mean, I think that we can't know how the American public will react to that.

DON LEMON, CNN TONIGHT SHOW HOST: Michael, what do you think of that?

MICHAEL HIRSH, POLITICO MAGAZINE NATIONAL EDITOR: No, I agree. I mean, it probably should be Hillary Clinton's greatest fear going into the fall, whether it is September, October, anywhere close to the election, another San Bernardino, which Trump again invoked today, sort lumping it together with the EgyptAir incident, would definitely play into his hands.

And I don't know how much -- how many votes that might drive, but it clearly would be the kind of indictment as he would portray it of the Obama administration's anti-terror policies and their failure.

LEMON: Yes. They have reacted, had quite different approaches in reacting to these types of situations. Let's listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKA BRZEZINSKI, MSNBC HOST: Maybe perhaps that first tweet...

(CROSSTALK)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And I can practically guarantee who blew it up and the plane went down...

BRZEZINSKI: But listen -- listen, Donald, listen to yourself right now.

TRUMP: And the plane went down and so let me tell you this mind set of a weak Hillary Clinton which is four more years of Obama's not going to do it for our country.

We are being taken advantage of by radical Islamic terrorists and we are -- this world is changing. And another couple of planes go down, Mika, and you're going to have a depression worldwide, the likes of which you've never seen because nobody's going to travel, there will be no anything.

HILLARY CLINTON, (D) U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, Chris, it does appear that it was an act of terrorism, exactly how, of course, the investigation will have to determine. We're going to defeat them on the ground using our air power, equipping and training, and supporting Arab and Kurdish fighters, we're going to drive them out of Iraq, drive them out of their stronghold in Raqqah, Syria.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Reaction first from you, Michael.

HIRSH: Well, the irony, you know, of Trump's stance on this is that he's vowing to destroy ISIS and rebuild the military, but at the same time, he's preaching a kind of neo isolationism. Doesn't quite square.

Hillary will probably end up running somewhat to the right of him in terms of U.S. intervention around the world. Even though she does have vulnerabilities in her record. And, you know, it may well be that when -- if she continues to advocate strong action against ISIS, stronger, frankly, than her former boss, Barack Obama, has deployed, then she might be OK.

It might be kind of a wash in terms of the rhetoric of Trump versus the policies that she's advocating. But it is a vulnerability because she spent four years as Secretary of State, Obama administration was involved in the intervention in Libya, which Trump never tires of saying contributed to the rise of ISIS. And, of course, you know, if this terrible incident with EgyptAir is linked to ISIS that will be a weakness on her part.

LEMON: I want to get, Juliette. And Juliette, before you respond I think this is fair, you won't change your response, but I want to ask you, if -- we're used to politicians taking a more measured approach like Hillary Clinton's. But do we -- is it time for a politician like Donald Trump to start talking tougher and tougher on terrorism?

KAYYEM: You know, I have been in this world of national security my entire career. Mostly men. You know, it's mostly male field. So, like, tough -- words like tough and aggressive are not -- they're not policies.

So, you know, just the fact he says it, he's saying the same exact thing that got us into the war in Iraq. I'm absolutely certain that this is ISIS. You know, we're absolutely certain there are weapons of WMD. And it's just not the way that you want someone to lead this nation.

And so this term unstable or instability, that you saw this morning on that show, is a term that might work for Hillary Clinton.

Look, he's -- as a candidate, he's managed to offend all of NATO, Great Britain, Mexico, most of South America, you can't have a foreign policy, you know, with Australia, Israel, and Russia. Like, you know, so I mean, part of this is just if he wants to be president, you are going to actually have to govern.

[22:34:58] And the instability that you saw this morning, I think, was a sign of sort of the lack of temperament regardless of the substance that Hillary Clinton is clearly going to play up.

LEMON: All right. Thank you, Juliette. Thank you, Michael. I appreciate it.

When we come right back, Bernie Sanders says he's in it until the very last ballot is cast, but can Hillary Clinton get him on her side?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: When we thought it would be the GOP facing convention chaos, surprise, it's the democrats. Here to discuss is Lara Brown for -- from the graduate school of political management at George Washington University, Maria Cardona, CNN political contributor and super delegate committed to Hillary Clinton, and Sally Kohn, a Daily Beast columnist who endorsed Bernie Sanders.

Lara, you have two people here that say I know her, I'm in her -- what you say...

LARA BROWN, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY FELLOW: Her fellows program.

LEMON: A fellows program.

SALLY KOHN, DAILY BEAST COLUMNIST: A GW alum.

LEMON: All right. So now there you go.

KOHN: A GW kind of night.

LEMON: A mutual admiration.

KOHN: That's right.

LEMON: Thank you. So, Maria, Hillary Clinton send Bernie Sanders a very clear message yesterday, basically telling him to cool it. She said "I am the nominee and that is that." Is she running out of time to unify this party?

MARIA CARDONA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: No, I don't think so. And I think this is something that she discussed at length in the Chris Cuomo interview, which is that she was there in 2008. I was there with her. This stuff is tough. This is hard.

I know exactly what the Bernie Sanders supporters are going through. When you have this kind of passionate fight, where you put everything on the line, for your person, and you believe with everything in your soul that that person should be the nominee because they will be the best candidate and the best president of the United States.

[22:40:11] But then the math isn't there. The rules are there. And unfortunately, it just doesn't get to where you want it to be. At some point, you have to understand that the most important thing is to beat the republicans. And I think that is what Hillary Clinton was focused on.

LEMON: Sally, I was surprised, because you had been such an ardent Bernie Sanders supporter and you said lately you're having trouble being a Bernie supporter. Is this because of his tepid response after Nevada? Why do you want to draw from him?

KOHN: Yes, first of all, I remain a Bernie supporter, I remain committed to his vision, his policies, his ideas, what he stands for both in this race and I think he's been good for the race, he's good for Hillary.

LEMON: But? CARDONA: Absolutely.

KOHN: And I think he's going to be good for the future of the party and for the future of this country. So, bar none. There is no buts. And this is -- so, the reason I'm feeling a little frustrated is because Bernie's but that I thought the -- didn't come off right, did it? Wait I'm in television folks here.

No, that the -- I was disappointed by what happened in Nevada, yes, there were no chairs thrown, yes, it may have been played up by the media, we do like to play up violence and tension and friction and all of these things.

But at the same time the supporters behaved I think poorly in that moment and certainly not strategically or we might be actually talking about what happened at the convention.

But more importantly I'm disappointed in the response from the Sanders campaign. I would like to see them not issue a statement that has a big but and says that anger was justified and the system is rigged and blah, blah, blah, but actually just condemn that kind of bad behavior.

That it happened in Nevada and happens too often from not all, but a small set of Sanders supporters. There is no place for it, there is no place for it in a nonviolent progressive revolutionary movement. He's got to just be thinking about it.

LEMON: Yes. OK. And their permits have been issued for protesters and for protests in Philadelphia. Are you concerned about what's going to happen there?

KOHN: Listen, I'm a community organizer by training. I like protests. I like civil disobedience. I believe in everything that can come about through that kind of engaged direct participation.

And at the same time, part of the reason I'm motivated to support Bernie Sanders is because he's a candidate who stands for nonviolence. He talks about Martin Luther King.

LEMON: OK.

KOHN: He's against Hillary Clinton's hawkishness. This is not a nonviolent movement. We should be able to...

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: Go ahead, Lara. You want to respond to any of this?

BROWN: Well, I think what I want to say is that the difficult part is really that Senator Sanders just doesn't have a long-standing loyalty to the Democratic Party. So, part of what makes a candidate step aside and essentially rally around the nominee is a realization that the institution of the party is larger than the candidacy, that one is undertaking.

And this is where I think there is some tension in what is happening right now. You know, when Secretary Clinton, then Senator Clinton steps aside for then Senator Barack Obama, she was also very committed to the Democratic Party.

She and her husband had been involved with the Democratic Party for decades. And this is where I think there some issues in terms of Senator Sanders, you know, had not really been affiliated with, nor had he engaged and run as the democrat before.

He has openly admitted that really he's running for the democratic nomination because he sees it as a viable vehicle to the presidency. So, there are some issues and I think there will continue to be issues.

LEMON: OK.

CARDONA: Oh, well.

KOHN: Hillary Clinton is running for the democratic nomination because she sees it as viable too. And to be honest, I think -- I think Bernie would be a better -- you know, would do more for the Democratic Party if he also felt and if his campaign felt like the Democratic Party was doing more for him.

And I don't want to dismiss some of those concerns that, you know, from the very beginning, you know, there have been super delegates in the tank for Hillary, because she's the establishment candidate and super delegates are linked to the establishment, and, you know...

(CROSSTALK)

CARDONA: But you know what...

LEMON: But, Lara, why do you think republicans were able to get their acts together before democrats?

BROWN: OK. Well, it's important to understand that the two political parties are in different places historically and structurally. It is true that when a party is coming out of the presidency, that the fissures that have essentially been laying dormant for a little while start to re-emerge.

And the one, you know, real problem with this democratic process on the democratic side of the aisle was that there was always an assumption that there wouldn't be competition for Secretary Clinton.

And so, I do think and this is where I do have sympathy for the Sanders folks, because at the end of the day, there needed to be a vibrant competition at this moment to really help the party kind of resolve where it's going to go next.

LEMON: OK. Speaking of that competition, Maria.

CARDONA: Yes.

LEMON: I know you want to respond.

CARDONA: OK.

LEMON: But I want you to look at this polling before you respond, CBS News and New York Times.

[22:45:03] Bernie Sanders beats Donald Trump by 13 points, whereas Hillary Clinton only beats Trump by 6 points. And then a Fox News poll, Bernie Beats Trump and Trump beats Hillary. So, go on, are you worried and just don't?

CARDONA: No, I'm not worried. First of all, polls this far out mean nothing. Just ask president Romney. Who at this point was ahead in the polls. Number two, Bernie Sanders has never been the target of a sustained brutal attack by the republicans.

And, in fact, I think they want to build him up so that -- because they prefer to run against him because they believe they could eviscerate him in a general election versus somebody like Hillary Clinton who has sustained and gotten back up after 30 years of attacks from republicans.

The other thing, though, I want to say, about the rules for the Democratic Party, the Sanders campaign knew what these rules were from the very beginning. From, you know, a year ago, more than a year ago, when there were inklings about his running. They knew what the rules were. It wasn't until he started losing that they started complaining and saying that the system was rigged.

So, you know, are there ways that we can change the system to better reflect democracy? Absolutely. And you know what? Let's work with the Bernie Sanders campaign and their supporters to make that happen.

LEMON: All right. Stand by, everyone. We're going to continue this conversation. When we come right back, we're also going to talk about these reports that the DNC will offer an olive branch to Bernie Sanders but is it too little, too late?

[22:50:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Tension is rising for the democrats. Back to talk about it now is Lara Brown, Maria Cardona, and Sally Kohn.

Maria, we were talking about is it too late for the party to be unified. I know that you want to discuss some issues when it comes to super delegates but Maria is one.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Well, it's true. Yes. And I mean, let me just say, super delegates are not actually given a defense enough in our world today. I think what people don't really understand is that to be a super delegate, you have to be a party leader or an elected official.

That means that you are working for the party engaged with the party, doing party building activities, when there are no candidates at the top of the ballot. You are actually doing the heavy lift of trying to keep people engaged with the political party, in off years. And it does seem to me that actually it's only fair that these

individuals have a vote and have a say in this process about who actually will represent.

LEMON: I have to tell you, the only person in this room, and there are people here who are operating the cameras and our directors and everybody shaking their head no. Sally Kohn is going no. Maria is the only one who's nodding her head up and down saying yes.

(CROSSTALK)

KOHN: Thank you, Lara. Bring her camera on and I'll talk about this two. Look, I love Maria. I mean, liked love her.

LEMON: But here it comes.

CARDONA: Likewise.

KOHN: I'm not saying but, no buts.

CARDONA: I'm just counseling, no buts.

KOHN: But, just kidding. Listen, there is no question that having a system like that favors establishment candidates. By the way, that's part of the reason that, look at the history of the democratic -- there is no reason by the way we have to have party primaries in this country, that, and it's not remanded by the Constitution, right. We have no reason. There is no reason we have to have conventions all these things.

They've changed the rules, the rules have been changed over time and part of what they did was that they said, look, we want to have a more participatory process and let the voters have some say in who becomes the nominee. But we don't want to give them all the say so we're going to maintain some establishment voice in that process.

CARDONA: Fifteen percent.

KOHN: That's the reason for it. No.

CARDONA: That's it.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: But does it favor?

KOHN: It is worth a healthy debate going forward about whether to maintain...

LEMON: Hold on. Hold on. The super delegate set -- that's why I'm going to let Lara. Lara, does it favor the establishment candidates?

KOHN: Sit. Super delegate, sit.

LEMON: And then the super delegate will get the voters.

KOHN: I'm going to get my super powers and start talking.

LEMON: Does it favor establishment candidates?

BROWN: Well, here is the reality, what are you calling an establishment candidate? I mean, this is part of the problem. You know, to be active with your party, if you ever have gone to a precinct, local meeting in an off-year election, you get to meet, like, the five other people in your town who actually care about, you know, political issues.

And I will tell you, all of this sort of Johnny come lately to the party are in some way or another kind of like fans who support a sports team only when they're winning.

LEMON: Bandwagon jumpers.

KOHN: Bandwagon in the left, right?

CARDONA: But here's the thing.

LEMON: OK. Now go ahead, Maria.

CARDONA: What you said about -- what you said actually is not true about what happened in 2008. Hillary Clinton was the establishment candidate in 2008.

LEMON: That's true.

CARDONA: She started with support of the super delegates when Barack Obama actually started getting more pledged delegates than her, the super delegates, by the way, they have never overturned the will of the people, they started supporting him.

KOHN: They waited longer, isn't it?

CARDONA: So, let's get -- it doesn't matter, because at the end of the day, the candidate who goes into the convention, with the most pledged delegates, is the one who is going to win the nomination.

KOHN: Look, can I say two things here? First of all, the fact, and I said it before, the fact that we are now making even a distinction, when we talk about this between pledge and super delegates, to me is a victory for Bernie Sanders, that we were melding the two together.

(CROSSTALK)

CARDONA: We should have done that way too long.

KOHN: And we agree on that, number one.

CARDONA: Absolutely.

KOHN: And number two, let us not draw false equivalency between what is happening between the democrats right now and the republicans.

CARDONA: No question. That's right. KOHN: The democrats have a very healthy context between two candidates who have slightly different but both positive visions for how to help the American people and this country do better and fare better versus the republicans who have deep ideological divides about whether we kick people out of this country...

CARDONA: That's true.

KOHN: ... or lock people up more people in this country or ban more people from this country or tax, or give more tax breaks to rich people.

CARDONA: Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: But the republican side -- republican side is unifying behind Donald Trump for the most part, right?

CARDONA: Barely.

LEMON: OK. Well, at least...

CARDONA: They're not all there but, yes. I can say will be. That's right.

LEMON: On the democratic side, they're not having -- I want to ask you this, Lara. So many democratic leaders are coming out there and they're saying that they're concerned about a revolt from Bernie Sanders supporters at a convention.

So, what do you think? You think that's going to happen? I know Maria has talked to some DNC folks about that. What are you hearing about that as well?

BROWN: Well, I tend to believe what you'll see is those people who actually are affiliated as independents or declined to state. Those people may not join in and lean toward the Democratic Party when Hillary Clinton is the nominee. But I'm not sure that many of them would have anyway.

[22:55:01] In other words, if you look at really who has been voting for Bernie Sanders, in most of the states, she actually has won the majority of the partisans when they showed up in these ballots.

He has just won large, large numbers of independents.

LEMON: OK.

BROWN: Now, what that says about how strong the party will be in November is going to be another story.

LEMON: All right. Thank you. I have to -- I've got to run. Thank you. Have a great weekend, everyone. I appreciate you coming on.

CARDONA: Thank you. LEMON: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: In Richmond, Virginia, nearly 40 percent of children live in extreme debilitating poverty regularly facing violence and drugs.

This week's CNN hero has become an unlikely father figure teaching kids in Richmond's public housing the sport of mountain bike racing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What a lot of people can't see is that our kids have the equivalent of 10 suitcases each of baggage that they're carrying on that bike. These kids can tell me to piss off at any time. But what am I going to do? There are connections being made. This is a war to me. It's me against the circumstances that these kids live in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[23:00:00] LEMON: To see how Craig is fighting that war, go to cnnheroes.com to watch the full story. And then you can nominate someone you think should be the 2016 hero of the year.

That's it for us tonight. I'll see right back here on Monday. Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown starts now.