November 2, 2018

CNN's John Berman introduced David Gregory and John Avlon for a segment about Trump stoking fear before the election.

"The fear that he is trying to stoke, the president, is undeniable and the lies he is telling now, undeniable, and we will talk about them and fact check them and talk about immigration, but before we do, I just want to set the stage for how the president is explaining why he's doing this days before the election," Berman said.

"It's because the political momentum was slowed down by the sending of bombs to people who are critics of the president and the murder of 11 Jews in Pittsburgh. I want to play the sound one more time just to frame this discussion. Listen to this."

TRUMP: We did have two maniacs stop a momentum that was incredible, because for seven days nobody talked about the election.

"I just want people to listen to that," Berman said.

"It's hard to believe we are surprised by anything, and I am not, and I mean, this is a president with no filter and says exactly what is on his mind," David Gregory said.

"The previous clip shown talking about women want security when he is talking about the caravan of immigrants seeking asylum, it's so clear the president is rattled for one thing. There was momentum built-up after the Kavanaugh hearings and he felt there was momentum that he also feels dissipated and that's why he had to have such a narrow pitch on immigration, as an immigration hard-liner to try and shore up Senate seats and those voters that would be influenced by a message like this. You look at a state like Missouri where there's a tough Senate race, and McCaskill said she appreciates what the president is doing to keep people from overrunning the border, and it's a narrow pitch, and it's certainly not going to work with a lot of the suburban districts in the House where Republicans are losing so much ground, but it shows the level of how much he is rattled at this point."

"I wonder if the family members of the 11 people murdered are most upset about breaking the president's momentum?" Camerota said.

"I am going to go with no on that," Gregory said. "This is stunning. For any other president this would be a statement that would be hung around their head because it really gives away the ghost about how callous and cruel some politicians can be, and viewing the targeting of the president's critics with pipe bombs as a momentum breaker, and yet there's a danger of taking it in stride with this president."

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