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CNN Live Event/Special
Mayor Pete Buttigieg Stands Out In Tonight's Democratic Presidential Debate; President Trump Says The Impeachment Saga Is Over; Democrats Spar In New Debate; Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) Is Interviewed About The Democratic Debate; Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D-IN) Is Interviewed About Democratic Debate. Aired 11p-12a ET
Aired November 20, 2019 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[23:00:00]
GLORIA BORGER, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: And I think with some success that even though he's young and he's only been a mayor, et cetera, et cetera, that he has what he calls the right kind of experience to lead him to become president of the United States.
And he also tried to compare his experiences as a gay American to African-Americans when he talked about when he was asked about his inability so far to appeal to black voters and said, you know, I know what it's like to live in a country that sometimes you don't recognize as your own. So, I think Buttigieg had a, had a very good night.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Nia.
NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes. And you heard Kamala try to take it to him, in a gentle way. Right? I mean, it wasn't the kind of --
JESS MCINTOSH, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Very gentle.
HENDERSON: Yes. It wasn't the fireworks that she really, I think reserved for Tulsi Gabbard in the beginning of the debate. But her whole argument is, listen, that she can bring the Obama coalition to bear in 2020 in a way that maybe Pete Buttigieg so far hasn't been able to. Right?
If you look at a lot of the folks who support him, you know, he was in South Carolina, for instance, a lot of the crowds he gathers are white. So that's folks are seeing as Achilles' heel.
Biden seemed to do well throughout most of the debate, you know, be, or whatever, and then stumbled near the end of the debate on this very issue. He's doing well with black voters. He seemed to be kind of feeling himself a little bit in terms of that. Support said that he had gotten the support of the only black woman to be elected to the Senate. He meant Carol Moseley Braun who, of course, is not the only one.
COOPER: The first but --
HENDERSON: She's the first one. COOPER: He meant to say first.
HENDERSON: He meant to say first, he said only and Kamala was like, you know, what about me? So, it was awkward.
COOPER: It was, it was a very awkward.
HENDERSON: Yes.
DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.
BORGER: One of those --
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: I have to say I think I'm having some sort of impeachment effect. It's just -- I'm like, where's Devin Nunes? Where's Jim Jordan? Where is the exact --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Those guys, they exist?
AXELROD: It really was in many ways, the most low key of all. It got a little bit more animated at the end. And I don't think it's going to change a whole lot.
I do think that Kamala Harris had a very good night. I thought she was very energetic. She was very engaged and her message was much clearer than it's been in some past debates and she leaned into some issues that are, you know, on child care, on, you know, the situation facing women of color in this country and so on. Very good.
Elizabeth Warren had a very good debate, I thought. She chose some spots to introduce biography which I think always helps her take some of that sheen of the Harvard professor off of herself. And she was right on her message.
As to -- as to Buttigieg, I thought he was going to be under assault all night.
HENDERSON: Right.
AXELROD: He's coming off -- you know, in this business you have two good polls as he's had in Iowa and New Hampshire and, you know, you become -- you know, I thought he was going to be Gordon Sondland up there tonight just to go back to the impeachment, just that he was going to be under fire all night.
He did come under fire a bit at the end of the debate. And he got off this one line that I thought was interesting, there's more than one hundred years of Washington experience on this stage and look where we are.
That was a pretty tough shot on the field and he did distinguish himself as someone who comes from the middle of the country who doesn't have the same experience. And it's one of the things that I think it is animating him in these early states.
COOPER: David Gergen?
DAVID GERGEN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I was heavily influenced too by watching the impeachment hearings all day. It made tonight seem a little flatter, I think. It took some of the emotional drama out of the evening.
But there was something else that came out in the contrast. I think watching the last few days of these impeachment hearings has made you very, very aware that among Democrats, there are two lanes. It's not just the centrists versus the liberals. It is the people that put the emphasis on healing and unifying the country versus those who want to fight and have a revolution.
And I think you put Biden and Buttigieg and Klobuchar in that first group and Warren and Sanders in the other group. Personally, after the impeachment hearings, I'm looking for a healer first. You know, I'm more drawn to that. I think people like Van represent that kind of politics as well.
And I think it makes Warren -- it increases the danger that she's going to seem -- so, you know, she has a plan for everything. She's going to throw everything out, start all over again. And it seem -- it seems both impractical, but there's a hectoring quality there that I think reminds you of some of the worst aspects of the impeachment.
AXELROD: You just got Van booted out of the left.
VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, two things. One, the last time you saw somebody ascend in it was Elizabeth Warren, and she got dog piled. They were just, just trying to stop her.
Pete's ascendant, they were mainly throwing marshmallows at him and nobody came at him until the very end. Tulsi Gabbard went after him. Got him a little bit flustered, a little bit off of its game.
[23:05:00]
But you would have expected -- I agree with David -- you would have expected when you got somebody who came out of literally nowhere and is just tearing past everybody that they would have turned in front of the guy. I think he's hard to hit. I think he is such a good debater. I think people are a little bit afraid to engage him that way.
Klobuchar tried a little bit; she came up short. Tulsi got under his -- there's a little bit. But I thought that Pete did very, very well.
I thought Warren looked a little more mortal again, she's just a little bit more mortal. There were -- maybe we're just used to her being so awesome. This was the first time though that women outnumbered men in a debate.
You had four women on stage debate, and four women moderators, six men. So, in that regard, you know, it was a -- it was a moment of history. But I thought Pete did very well. I thought he was going to get beat up, and he didn't.
COOPER: Jess?
MCINTOSH: I love being able to hear them talk about pay and parental leave and then there was a follow up about paid parental leave.
JONES: Yes.
MCINTOSH: I thought the women centered women's issues in a lot of the questions even when they didn't naturally go there. That was very exciting to see. And frankly, I thought the women had a great debate tonight.
Kamala Harris had an absolutely stand out performance (Inaudible) had been writing her off, I think she's written right back in tonight. Amy Klobuchar really shown tonight. And I think Elizabeth Warren did wonderfully as Elizabeth Warren always does wonderfully articulating her point.
I didn't hear hectoring. I heard someone who understands that a lot of people are really suffering under the systems that we've had in place for a long time. And I don't think she takes quite as revolutionary a tone as Bernie Sanders does. And I think that that's a nice distinction for the two of them who are so similar on so many policies.
Biden, I thought was pretty dull the first half and the second half was kind of incomprehensible. He did -- he completely whiffed on a question about sexual harassment by talking about campus violence and saying that we had to punch away and punch away and punch away at it so much so that the audience laughed at him. This is -- I was really disturbed by that answer. And then he sort of, fumbled more and more about on race and then the debate ended.
COOPER: Terry McAuliffe.
TERRY MCAULIFFE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I thought a good debate. I liked the issues that we talked about. I was like what we actually get into good policy discussions, parental leave, talk about affordable housing. I don't think it moved the ball much tonight, to be honest with you. We can all say what we want.
I don't -- I think there is exhaustion with impeachment going on today. I'm not sure how many people stayed in and tuned in to this debate. I thought it was fascinating on the policy piece that Bernie Sanders now is the only one left there on that debate stage that's for Medicare for all.
How we -- all we did in these debates is talk about Medicare for all. Tonight's debate she -- Elizabeth Warren has moved off it. He is the only one left in that space today. And I think what people realize and as we're getting closer to election time, where people are really zeroing in, they're talking about the issues that matter to the American public.
They didn't go after each other because the voters don't like that and they haven't liked that. And those that have done it have done it at their peril. So, you can tell we're getting close to the first contest. We're now up to Thanksgiving.
We have three weeks to go in December and then it's Christmas and then it's showtime. So, I think, you know, I don't think the ball moved much tonight. I thought they all did a very good job. I thought Amy Klobuchar, I thought she did a great job.
JONES: Yes.
MCINTOSH: Yes.
MCAULIFFE: She looked human. She was funny. In an exhausting day for everybody in this country I thought she was a good relief --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: I just want to play some, some of the sound from tonight, the exchange with Senator -- between Senator Harris and Mayor Pete Buttigieg on race. Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: For too long I think candidates have taken for granted the constituencies that have been the backbone of the Democratic Party and have over looked those constituencies.
(APPLAUSE)
HARRIS: And have, you know, they show up when it's, you know, close to election time and show up in a black church and want to get the vote. But just having been there --
MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG (D-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: While I do not have the experience of ever having been discriminated against because of the color of my kin, I do have the experience of sometimes feeling like a stranger in my own country, turning on the news and seeing my own rights come up for debate, and seeing my rights expanded by a coalition of people like me and people not at all like me working side by side, shoulder to shoulder, making it possible for me to be standing here wearing this wedding ring in a way that couldn't have happened two elections ago lets me know just how deep my obligation is to help those whose rights are on the line every day even if they are nothing like me in their experience.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Van Jones, how do you think that -- that goes?
JONES: Look, I think that's as good as he can do. It's important that he make the point. The reality is he has 25 percent black folks in his city and he doesn't have a lot of black support in his city. And he just has not been able to make that connection.
That said, you can see that it pains him, that he's not making that connection and he's trying. I think that's probably the best thing. There was beauty in what he said. But honestly, he wouldn't have to talk that way if he had the support that somebody his age should have with black peers.
AXELROD: He gave an answer that he clearly had considered and he knew that this question was coming.
JONES: Yes.
[23:10:01]
AXELROD: Because this is the big question about his candidacy. He's now ahead in a poll in Iowa, ahead in a poll in New Hampshire. And the question is, what happens when he turns the corner --
(CROSSTALK)
JONES: He got nothing.
AXELROD: -- to a state like South Carolina where 60 percent of the vote is African-American. And --
(CROSSTALK)
JONES: It's incomprehensible to me why he can't. I mean, listen, he's in his mid-30s. He's not, you know, somebody from a different generation. He's in the most diverse generation in the history of America and in the most diverse country in the world. And he can't --
(CROSSTALK)
HENDERSON: And in a very diverse city. Right? I mean, that's the thing. It's like 40 percent, if you add African-Americans and Latinos and there seems to be a distance that he has between, you know, himself in that community. It's very puzzling.
And you heard Kamala there try to make this point of OK, you got your Douglas plan now, but what have you done in the past for this community? Where have you been all this time?
So, yes, it's very puzzling that he's led this life. You know, he was at Harvard. I mean, Harvard has some diversity there. He was in the military. Military's fairly diverse. And the idea that he comes at this point, he's 37 years old and doesn't really seem to be very familiar with a diverse set of people, I think it's puzzling and it's off putting to a lot of people.
AXELROD: It was interesting. He did quote scripture I think somewhere in that answer. I think that's part of what he may be hoping will be helpful in terms of opening --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Like a bridge.
HENDERSON: Yes, but I think it was transparent, though. JONES: But there was beauty --
HENDERSON: I think people know that that is sort of strategy that he's using.
JONES: I think -- but there's beauty in his answer and there's beauty in him. And it's just weird.
GERGEN: But he also shows more growth, more potential for growth than most of the other candidates. I agree he's not there yet, but given the fact he's trying hard. He's clearly trying and given that he does, he's naturally eloquent.
MCINTOSH: I think from a purely political analyst standpoint, the idea that we might have a nominee who doesn't really excite the Democratic base, which we all know is African-American voters and voters of color. That is a major concern.
So, I liked his answer. I thought it was a good, honest, thoughtful answer. But the strategist in me just needs to see those numbers move.
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: That's the kind of problem --
MCINTOSH: If we were looking at the other side, if we had a John Kasich or a Jeb Bush, all we would talk about was how they couldn't excite the base and therefore couldn't be a viable nominee.
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: But to be honest, none of the -- you know, Joe Biden is doing very well with African-American voters, I think because of his connection to Barack Obama.
None of the other candidates, I mean, are doing particularly well, even the -- even the -- even the candidates of color are not doing very well in that community. So, you know, I think this is an open question.
MCINTOSH: This is someone --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: Well, I got to go to Governor McAuliffe. Do you think if, you know, you have Iowa/New Hampshire, if Buttigieg continues to lead in the polls there, does very well there, does that start to, you know, tip the scales in South Carolina at all or is that -
(CROSSTALK)
MCAULIFFE: No. He's going to have to have a much better answer than he gave tonight. Iowa and New Hampshire are very white states. You then move on from there to Nevada, you then go to South Carolina, and then let's be clear. Then you've got March 3rd, you got 16 contests. Some of those states in the south are 50 percent plus African- American.
COOPER: Yes.
MCAULIFFE: So, that, you know, you can win Iowa and New Hampshire. But the nominee the Democratic Party has got to be able to mobilize and energize communities of color. And if you can't do it, you're not going to be the nominee of the Democratic Party.
(CROSSTALK)
BORGER: Well, I think Joe Biden he's got the problem with. I mean, both of them are running as sort of moderate candidates. And he's got to -- he's got to figure out a way to peel voters from Joe Biden in those states. And I didn't -- I don't see him being able to really do that because of one of the bad things about Joe Biden is he's been around forever and one of the good things about Joe Biden, particularly with the African-American community, is that he's been around forever.
MCAULIFFE: And he is beloved in the African-American community.
BORGER: Yes.
MCAULIFFE: I mean, you talk to the leaders of the CBC, or with Cedric Richmond and the other folks, I mean, they will walk through fire for Joe Biden.
BORGER: Right.
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: Just to use --
JONES: The older African-American -- the older African-American voters really love Biden. Believe it or not, the younger ones really like Bernie.
HENDERSON: Yes.
JONES: And it is weird. And frankly, we always forget to talk about Bernie, but Bernie is not going anywhere. Bernie has turned in I think a decent performance.
AXELROD: He did.
HENDERSON: He did.
MCNTOSH: And he's doing very well with --
(CROSSTALK)
JONES: And I think he's doing very well with younger voters who actually are the reverse of being inspired by Biden.
COOPER: Yes. We're going to take a quick note. A quick note about the next debate Thursday night, December 19th. CNN will simulcast the PBS news hour Democratic presidential debate, live from Los Angeles. CNN's coverage from inside the debate hall will start at 8 p.m. Eastern. You can watch the debate here on CNN and your local PBS station.
Next tonight, there is plenty more on this debate. We are expecting to be talking to Mayor Pete Buttigieg shortly and more candidates throughout the night.
Later, we'll hear from Democratic voters in Iowa, plus the impeachment testimony and more as our late 360 coverage continues.
[23:15:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: We're talking tonight about the Democratic debate and shortly the backdrop to it, the testimony in the impeachment hearings from one of president's -- the president's point man on the allege Ukraine shakedown.
His testimony, everyone was in the loop. That for Ambassador Gordon Sondland. The president's take, it's over. The testimony clears me, according to President Trump. But right off the top, the subject came up in Atlanta. Here's Senator Elizabeth Warren from the debate tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: How did Ambassador Sondland get there? You know, this is not a man who had any qualifications except one. He wrote a check for a million dollars. And that tells us about what's happening in Washington. The corruption, how money buys its way into Washington.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
I raised this months ago about the whole notion that donors think they're going to get ambassadorships on the other side. And I'm taking a pledge. Anyone who wants to give me a big donation, don't ask to be an ambassador because I'm not going to have that happen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: I'm back now with our folks. Your -- she seemed fine tonight.
HENDERSON: Yes.
COOPER: I mean, in terms of where she went.
AXELROD: Yes. See, I disagreed. I thought she actually -- I thought last debate was a bad debate for her. She seemed rattled on the Medicare for all thing, not just during the debate, when she sat there with us after the debate.
MCINTOSH: Yes.
AXELROD: And she -- that sent -- there were a series of kind of setbacks after that. I thought she seemed very comfortable up there tonight. And the thing about the answer she just gave is she did what you always want a candidate to do if you're working for a candidate, which is she defaulted to, she answered the question but then defaulted to her main message which is the corrupting influence of money.
COOPER: Correct.
AXELROD: And, in fact, Gordon Sondland is kind of the personification of that.
BORGER: Sure.
AXELROD: He got the job because he gave a million dollars to the inauguration of Donald Trump, and he ended up in the middle of all of this. So, I thought it was a pretty clever way to segue back to message.
BORGER: What was interesting to me was Bernie Sanders had a warning, it seemed to me, for every candidate out there. He said we cannot simply be consumed by Donald Trump or we will lose this election. We have to be about other things too.
I think he's right even though we're all consumed by Donald Trump. We're not running. And you know, I think he was telling his fellow Democrats OK, we can talk about this, and Kamala said there's a criminal in the White House and all that, but let's get on with it because we have to show voters something else.
JONES: One thing I thought was interesting, you had Cory Booker taking on Elizabeth Warren in a way I hadn't seen him do before where he said, listen, it's great to talk about taxing people and that's really, really good but we've got to talk about opportunity, we've got to talk about entrepreneurship, and we've got to talk about growth.
[23:20:04]
If you are trying to get African-American support which Elizabeth Warren needs, she might want to take a note from Cory Booker on that. Because the African-American community is very interested in economics. We don't mind -- rich black folks vote the same way as poor black folks. We don't mind social programs. We don't mind taxes.
But we are very entrepreneurial as a community. And I haven't heard a lot of people talking about that entrepreneurial, that hustle, that drive, that desire to be, you know, a mogul, that desire to that. And Cory Booker spoke to that for the very first time and he did it deliberately challenging Elizabeth Warren on it. She would be smart to speak more in those tones, I think.
MCINTOSH: I love how cheerful that disagreement was.
JONES: Yes.
MCINTOSH: I thought it was a really nice way to open the debate. And I also, we should mention Cory Booker had an excellent night. JONES: Yes.
MCINTOSH: As someone who might not make it to the next one. Hopefully this one --
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: We say that every debate. The history of Cory Booker is he does well in every debate and it never shows up in the polls. And he's running out of time. He hasn't qualified for the --
MCINTOSH: Right.
AXELROD: -- December debate.
MCINTOSH: We're missing Julian Castro tonight who is also were used to turning in very good solid debate performance.
AXELROD: And he didn't make it.
COOPER: So just in terms of moving forward, Governor, how -- how many will be on the stage next? I mean, how quickly does this start to sloth off.
(CROSSTALK)
MCAULIFFE: I think we have seven who have qualified so far for the next debate. That could be it because they've obviously ramp up in their numbers. And I think, you know, I give the DNC credit. I think they're doing the right thing.
These 10-person debates, there's not a lot of impact coming out of them, we've got to begin to get them smaller. I mean, I think the big winner tonight I think from -- it was Mayor Pete because everybody talked all day how everybody was going to go after him. You think it touched tonight. So, if you're not the leader in Iowa, you're coming out of this debate, we're not going to have another one for a month that's a pretty good running room for the next month.
AXELROD: I'll tell you one thing, I thought about impeachment. There are a bunch of people standing on that stage who are going to be tied to their desks in Washington for the month of January. Every senator is going to be required to be at their desks when they're going to want to be in Iowa, they're going to want to be in New Hampshire.
I think Elizabeth Warren can survive that, Bernie Sanders can survive that, but for an Amy Klobuchar, Kamala Harris, you know, Cory Booker --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: I think for the viewers because of the impeachment trial in the Senate.
AXELROD: And they can't speak.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: They have to be there every day six days a week.
AXELROD: They have to sit there silent, so they can't speak.
JONES: Kamala can't speak?
AXELROD: No.
MCINTOSH: No.
HENDERSON: So, there's no upshot.
AXELROD: They submit questions --
HENDERSON: If they make, they'll have sort of viral moment.
AXELROD: They can submit questions to the chief justice to be asked.
JONES: That's terrible.
GERGEN: They can't speak --
(CROSSTALK)
BORGER: And McConnell is in charge. Mitch McConnell is in charge.
AXELROD: And they can speak on program afterwards.
GERGEN: Yes. You can have a CNN debate.
BORGER: No, Mitch McConnell is going to drag this out.
COOPER: And that's -- I mean, that's going to be six days a week.
BORGER: Yes.
AXELROD: Yes.
JONES: Well, look, I did not know that. I'm glad to be educated because I was thinking that Kamala Harris, I mean, you put her in that Senate context, let her be that prosecutor, she does awesome --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: That's not how it works.
JONES: -- but that's not how it works. That's terrible.
AXELROD: She's a juror. She's not a prosecutor.
BORGER: She doesn't say anything.
JONES: Yes --
(CROSSTALK) MCAULIFFE: Just remember, the senator, the Democratic senators call witnesses. They can have debates about the witnesses. I mean, there is a lot that the Democrats in the Senate can do in the impeachment hearings.
GERGEN: Yes. And the cameras are in there.
MCAULIFFE: Not in the debate they can play with.
GERGEN: The cameras are in there.
MCAULIFFE: Yes.
GERGEN: Yes.
MCAULIFFE: Right. So, they can have the debate.
(CROSSTALK)
JONES: Look --
AXELROD: I think it's most limited than you think.
COOPER: Biden talked about the impeachment hearings tonight. Let's play that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I learned something about these impeachment trials. I learned number one, that Donald Trump doesn't want me to be the nominee. That's pretty clear. He held up aid to make sure that -- while at the same time innocent people in the dumbass are getting killed by Russian soldiers.
Secondly, I found out that Vladimir Putin doesn't want me to be president. So, I -- I've learned a lot about these things early on from these hearings that we -- that are being held.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENDERSON: Yes, I mean he started off fine. I mean, I think I gave him a B and he probably descended to a D, you know, near the end when he was talking about African-American voters.
(CROSSTALK)
JONES: He makes those stumbles.
HENDERSON: What's that?
JONES: He makes those stumbles.
HENDERSON: He makes those stumbles. You know, the longer it goes on. He just, you know, it gets a little --
(CROSSTALK) JOMES: I thought he did really, really --
(CROSSTALK)
HENDERSON: On foreign policy, I thought he did really well.
JONES: If you take away that last, those last stumbles, if I'm Bloomberg and I'm watching, I say to myself you've got Biden doing pretty well, you got Pete doing pretty well. Where is the room for the moderate to come in. And then Biden blows four tires in the last 10 minutes. You know? And then if you're Bloomberg you start looking.
(CROSSTALK)
BORGER: Deval Patrick.
AXELROD: That's what he's betting.
JONES: Or Deval Patrick. Yes, if you're Deval Patrick you'll look at that and you say can -- how many times can Biden do that and survive?
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: So, the -- so again, this is akin to the Booker point, Biden, I wouldn't say that he was a house of fire in any of the debates that we've been to. And yet he comes -- kind of bumps along, kind of Mr. Magooing his way through this.
GERGEN: Yes.
AXELROD: And you keep worrying that he's going to hit a wall but he's moving forward.
HENDERSON: He is.
AXELROD: And so, I mean, I think it's -- it may be, you know, obviously he's losing some altitude in Iowa and New Hampshire, that should be concerning to him.
[23:25:00]
But if he can survive those states because of his strong support in the African-American community and because he has a cultural kinship with working class whites, non-college whites, you know, he has a play here.
HENDERSON: Yes.
COOPER: By the way, I've never heard Mr. Magoo turned into a verb.
MCINTOSH: Well played.
COOPER: Let's take a quick break. If you don't know what porky pigging is, look at Porky Pig. The debate is now over. We'll hear from the candidates when 360 continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: The Democratic debate in Atlanta has wrapped up. The candidates and surrogates are working the spin room. They're making their way to the cameras. We'll be hearing from a number of them shortly.
Back now with our own political luminaries. There you see the spin room. I love that they actually call it the spin room. The most honest thing in politics.
BORGER: Well, spin is so old. It's sort of -- now it's --
(CROSSTALK)
MCAULIFFE: The yes room.
BORGER: -- in the Trump era spin is ridiculous to even think about.
COOPER: So just in terms of, we were talking about during the break a little bit. Jut, you know, and in terms of Deval Patrick or Bloomberg, what is the lane, what is the play that they see?
[23:30:02]
JONES: I would love to hear David on this. But from my point of view, I think we have two extraordinary progressives in Warren and in Bernie. We still don't have an extraordinary moderate. You see Pete trying to get there. Klobuchar has signs of it sometimes. You know, Biden still -- he's beloved but he's not doing it.
So there's still room for somebody to do what you were talking about earlier, David Gergen. You want somebody who can fix the system but also heal the nation. And we got the progressives right now. They're going to fix it. They're going to fix it. They don't seem very healing. The healers don't seem like they can fix it.
I think that -- for me, I think that Deval Patrick, if all the cards stall his way, could be somebody who could fix the system and heal the nation.
AXELROD: Look, full disclosure, I worked with him in his governor's race in 2006. He started off at three percent in Massachusetts, a state that is overwhelmingly white. He was not the choice obviously of the political establishment there. He went town to town. He built a movement. He stormed that thing. He won the primary going away.
He's a very charismatic person. He is a healing figure. There are very similar elements to his message. And what you've heard from Buttigieg, the message that has lifted Buttigieg, it is -- but it is very late.
COOPER: Yeah.
AXELROD: It is very late. He would have to do very well in New Hampshire. He's from the neighboring state. It's possible. But I think that, you know, the candidates who are in it have a toe hold there. And then if he did well in New Hampshire, then he would be in a position to go to South Carolina where 60 percent of the electorate is African-American. He may be able to get something going. But it is a long shot.
JONES: What's the scenario in New Hampshire? What's the scenario? How would that --
AXELROD: How would he win there?
JONES: Yeah. In other words --
AXELROD: I think he would have appeal in the southern tier of the state. That is in the Boston media market to start. I think that -- he is a moderate. And I think that message has currency in New Hampshire. Now, he'll be competing with Biden. He'll be competing with Buttigieg. And if Buttigieg wins in Iowa, he'll have some momentum. And in terms of familiarity, Warren is from Massachusetts, Sanders is from Vermont, so is David Gergen, so I should yield --
(LAUGHTER)
GERGEN: I've known Deval for a long time and admired him as governor. I think he was very good. I think one of the challenges he has, he is rather quiet. He is not somebody who has great spark. But he is very likable for that. They have a lot of faith in him. They have a lot of trust in him. But whether he can galvanize and move -- he's got to move things quickly.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's the thing.
AXELROD: That's an issue. And part of his problem is, look, he comes out of the corporate community. He's been a general counsel of a number of corporations. He now works the Bain Capital, a company that, you know, when I was working for President Obama in 2012, we helped make famous. And I'm sure that would -- that might happen again in these democratic primaries. He runs a social impact fund there. So it's different. But --
HENDERSON: And he's very warm and compelling, and he seems humble. You know, sort of translates, I think, on TV in a way that could do him some good. I think the issue is it's so late. I mean, I think you talk to people in his circle. They say --
AXELROD: And the money thing is -- the money thing is the
HENDERSON: And the money thing. How does he get on the debate stage, how does he elevate his name ID at this point is, you know --
COOPER: Nationwide, how well known --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's not very well known at all.
MCINTOSH: Outside the northeast and people who live and breathe politics, nobody knows who Deval Patrick is.
GERGEN: That's why he has to do -- he has to --
MCINTOSH: I think Bloomberg is far better known than Deval Patrick.
GERGEN: There's no question.
MCAULIFFE: Bloomberg has got a couple billion dollars.
(LAUGHTER)
AXELROD: And a network and he was mayor of New York.
MCAULIFFE: Let me make one point, too, and I think this is important for these folks who are now getting in late. Everybody looked at this race, including myself, in January, February, March, and make decisions whether to get in or not get in.
I give credit to these candidates who did make the decision to get in and they've spent the last 11 months traveling all over the country, raising money, going door to door, doing what they're doing, and there is a feeling like, you know, you didn't want to get in back then. There might be, you know, Democrats whining and complaining like we love to do, we need a new candidate. And I can tell you, I give credit to these candidates --
AXELROD: But you know what? It's not the voters who are saying that.
HENDERSON: This is exactly right.
AXELROD: The polls are very clear. People are more satisfied with their choices now than they were in 2007 and 2008.
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: It's the donor class.
MCINTOSH: They all got better because they did the work for 11 months. We watched these candidates pretty much to a person improve as they talked to voters all over the country.
HENDERSON: I think Deval Patrick was probably listening to his, you know, sort of rich donor friends, maybe folks who were in the Obama circle and listening to sort of a chattering class, Democratic strategists who look at Biden and say, oh, maybe he's a little weak.
[23:35:03]
HENDERSON: I actually think Biden is a little underrated. I think he's stronger than people give him credit for. And then look at Pete and say Pete --
COOPER: Didn't you just give him a D?
HENDERSON: I did give him a D. I did give him a D in the last half --
AXELROD: She thought of --
HENDERSON: Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
GERGEN: I think it's also true the Democrats are going to be very much in search of somebody on that ticket to be a person of color. It's either going to be number one or number two. They cannot nominate two white guys. And I think Deval would be very, very well in that ticket.
JONES: And I'm not --
AXELROD: The woman who is almost certainly the best -- has the best chance to be the nominee is Elizabeth Warren. She's from Massachusetts.
JONES: I do see it differently. I do see it differently. I know that it may be in the numbers. Everybody feels great, everybody feels calm. I see a lot of people saying, I don't know who can beat Trump. I like the -- I like my person. My person's great. But I don't know if my person can beat Trump.
And I think that's why there is -- I don't think it's just a donor class. I think there's a hole in the middle of doughnut here. And if I were Deval Patrick, my question would be, can I sit on my couch November 2020 and possibly see Trump re-elected and feel like I have done everything I could? I don't begrudge anybody jumping in late.
AXELROD: He made a firm decision not to do this.
BORGER: If you look at the democratic polling, the number one qualification is somebody who can beat Trump. And if you listen to Barack Obama, was that last week? Barack Obama made that point basically saying, you have to think about whether people want massive upheaval right now or whether they don't want massive upheaval right now.
Because after four years of Donald Trump, are they going to want huge change again or are they going to want somebody who offers them stability and calm? And that's a question I think all these candidates are thinking of themselves, saying, well, OK, I can beat Donald Trump.
You see Elizabeth Warren saying that more and more, that she's the candidate who can beat Donald Trump. But when it comes to the kind of stability, she's talking about big change. A lot of voters want it. But a lot of Democrats just want to win.
COOPER: Our Chief Political Correspondent, Dana Bash is with Senator Klobuchar. Dana?
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Anderson.
Thank you, Senator, for coming by here in the spin room. We were just talking about how you felt overall about the debate. You mentioned that there are some differences, some stark differences between you and the other candidates that didn't necessarily come out. How so? SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, first of all, I have bold ideas, too. They don't have a monopoly on those ideas. I would have liked to debate my colleagues, Senator Warren and Senator Sanders, more extensively on some of these ideas that they have.
I think we need to match our education system with our economy. And right now, when they're saying free college for rich kids, which they are, I don't think that's going to make sense for Americans. So, when I talked about winning big, I meant winning in the middle of the country.
Those states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Michigan and Iowa and Ohio, and the states that I have actually been to and focused on and made it very clear that we're going to build a blue wall around those states and make Donald Trump pay for it.
So, I would like to more of the back and forth. But overall, I thought it was a good debate. It sure covered a lot of issues.
BASH: OK. So, I want to play for our viewers one of the moments where you were asked about comments that you made on CNN to Jake Tapper about Mayor Pete Buttigieg.
KLOBUCHAR: Mm-hmm.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDREA MITCHELL, NBC NEWS CHIEF FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Senator Klobuchar, you said this of Mayor Buttigieg, quote, of the women on the stage, do I think that we would be standing on that stage if we had the experience he had? No, I don't. Maybe we're held to a different standard. Senator, what did you mean by that?
KLOBUCHAR: First of all, I made very clear I think that Pete is qualified to be up on this stage, and I am honored to be standing next to him. But what I said was true. Women are held to a higher standard. Otherwise, we could play a game called name your favorite woman president, which we can't do because it has all been men.
(APPLAUSE)
KLOBUCHAR: And all vice presidents have been men.
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think a woman is qualified to be a president. There is no reason why. If you think the woman is the most qualified person, you should vote for them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: You were ready for that one.
(LAUGHTER)
KLOBUCHAR: Yeah. Well, part of this was I've made very clear I think he's qualified. I told Jake that when we had this discussion. But I actually think I'm more qualified. And that was the argument we had a bit. I hope we're going to have more discussion about it because he is talking about a lot of great things. That is clear. But I think the fact that I have actually won statewide, he did not. He lost his statewide election.
[23:39:59]
KLOBUCHAR: He did not win in those suburbs and those rural areas that we need if we're going to win big and not just take back the White House but send Mitch McConnell packing.
BASH: So that was kind of a playing nice moment. Towards the end of the debate, you and Mayor Buttigieg really kind of went at it on the question of experience.
KLOBUCHAR: Yes.
BASH: And you said to him experience matters, and his retort to you was Washington experience isn't the only experience.
KLOBUCHAR: OK. So, first of all, I have had the local experience like he has. I've managed a major agency and a major county. And I think that is actually really good hands on experience to have that management experience. But I go beyond that because I have shown an ability to actually get through the gridlock of Washington.
I passed over 100 bills where I'm the lead Democrat. I think that's going to matter to voters when you have a president that has made all these promises to them about, oh, I'm going to bring pharmaceutical prices down and I'm going to do something about infrastructure and I'm going to help our farmers, and he hasn't done it. So that is going to be the case --
BASH: But he does -- the point he is making is that the anti- Washington fervor that ushered in Donald Trump is still alive and well. And it's not that usual for a senator to be elected. Barack Obama, John F. Kennedy, I mean, they are the modern day exceptions.
KLOBUCHAR: Well, if you think I look like a normal president, I don't because there's never been a woman president.
BASH: Fair.
KLOBUCHAR: That was the case I was going to make. I think that is a pretty radical idea to begin with. The second thing is I'm from the middle of the country. He and I are the only ones up on the stage from the middle of the country. And the third thing is I've had his local government experience. I think it's really important. But I have more to offer than that.
BASH: What do you think voters looking at this and the question of experience really take away from this given where we see the polls right now?
KLOBUCHAR: Well, I think that they are just getting to know some of the candidates up there including myself. And what I'm excited about is since that last debate, we have doubled our support in offices. We are adding staff. While some candidates are closing down offices, we're adding them and we're doing the same in New Hampshire.
So, this is a big moment for me. And my point out there when I was going back a little bit with Tom Steyer, who I respect but he's got a billion dollars to put in this race, is I need peoples' help at amyklobuchar.com. Mine is a grassroots-fuelled campaign.
BASH: And that grassroots-fuelled campaign got a big boost after the last debate when you were really aggressive when it came to the differences between your ideas and your Senate colleagues --
KLOBUCHAR: Mm-hmm.
BASH: Elizabeth Warren. You had a different tactic this time.
KLOBUCHAR: Actually, I tried. I had a lot of points I wanted to make, again, on "Medicare for All." And as I said just a few minutes ago -- I couldn't stay out there -- her fight is not just with me. Her fight is with the new governor of Kentucky. Her fight is with a lot of those new members that got elected and brought Nancy Pelosi because they want to expand on the Affordable Care Act.
They want to make sure that we are not kicking people off their insurance for pre-existing conditions. They want to do something about pharma prices. Their positions are in line with me.
BASH: OK. Senator, thank you so much.
KLOBUCHAR: Thank you.
BASH: We appreciate it.
KLOBUCHAR: Very good. Thank you.
BASH: Anderson?
COOPER: Dana, thanks very much. Coming up, more candidates. Mayor Pete Buttigieg is making his way to our cameras. Also coming up is the other major story of the day, explosive testimony from Ambassador Gordon Sondland at the impeachment hearing.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:45:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Spinners are spinning tonight in Atlanta. The Democratic candidates are talking. We are waiting for Mayor Pete Buttigieg to make his way to Dana Bash. Right now, here is Bernie Sanders talking about President Obama's remarks on the state of the democratic electorate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) KRISTEN WELKER, NBC NEWS WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Senator Sanders, you describe your campaign including your plans for "Medicare for All" as a political revolution.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yes.
WELKER: President Obama explicitly said the country is, quote, less revolutionary than it is interested in improvement. The average American doesn't think we have to completely tear down the system and remake it, end quote. Is President Obama wrong?
SANDERS: No, he's right. We don't have to tear down the system. But we do have to do what the American people want. And the American people understand today that the current health care system is not only cruel, it is dysfunctional.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: It's --
AXELROD: That's the problem. The American people don't -- the American people do not support the idea of being forced into a public -- there's a lot of enthusiasm for Medicare, opt-in for Medicare option. There's not a lot of enthusiasm for forcing people and not giving them a choice.
And, you know, Bernie believes what he believes. And one of the reasons he's popular is that he doesn't change. I mean, he has been consistent in his principles over half a century or whatever in politics. And he says -- and he's basically unmoveable on that. The fact is -- and this is what President Obama was talking about -- that's not where the country is. And if you try and force those things --
JONES: But you've got to give Bernie his credit. This party has been transformed by the presence of Bernie Sanders. The stuff that we were talking about, the public option, that was considered radical in the Obama era when we were trying to -- this stuff we're talking about now seems so modern and normal.
Why does the public option now seem so moderate and normal? Because Bernie Sanders got out there and made the case for "Medicare for All." So I think he's done a great service to the country and to the party. I agree with you. It's a bridge too far for the overall process. But I think we sometimes forget he has given courage to Democrats across the board on a bunch of issues because he's been willing to take the flag.
MCAULIFFE: Clearly something is working for him, we should say. He went over his four millionth (ph) donor yesterday --
JONES: Spoken like a guy who used to raise money.
(LAUGHTER)
MCAULIFFE: Listen, I think people have realized through this primary process the "Medicare for All." [23:49:58]
MCAULIFFE: When you explain to them that you can lose your own private insurance, it drops dramatically. So, the nominee of the party has to convince the majority of your own party? People now realize that. Why did we just win in Kentucky, in Louisiana? We won on health care. We own that issue as Democrats. People want to know, how are you going to reduce my prescription drug costs, bring my overall cost down.
We as Democrats got to stay focused on that issue. When you get off here on the "Medicare for All," it hurts us. I think that's why I see today Bernie is the only one left standing on that stage that's "Medicare for All."
AXELROD: I think Elizabeth Warren would dispute you on that.
MCAULIFFE: She has changed it.
AXELROD: She has a transitional plan that she says will lead to "Medicare for All." But in --
MCAULIFFE: If you're president, you do it your first two years in office.
AXELROD: Well, in essence, what she's saying is what the others are saying, which is if we implement this transitional plan, people will so appreciate the value of the public option, that it will grow. That is really what she is saying.
BORGER: That's why Biden is going after her on this, calling her an elitist of all things, saying, you know, you're going to choose for people what kind of health care they can have? I mean, that was the charge against Barack Obama's health care plan, which was, you know, if you like your health care, you can keep it.
HENDERSON: I think the thing about Obama is a lot of people feel like Obama is old news, and he didn't go far enough. He didn't have enough fight in him. And, you know, he can obviously criticize Warren at this point, criticize Bernie for going too far, but a lot of people think that
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: It's interesting to me that he had the option when he was given this question. He very carefully sidestepped Barack Obama. The reason for it? Barack Obama is by far the most popular Democrat in the country.
HENDERSON: I mean among the progressives, and there are people in the Democratic Party who want to fight. They're not interested in healing.
AXELROD: When he was president, they were there when he ran for president. Look, when I was working for the president, we were trying to implement the Affordable Care Act. There was tremendous pressure from the left, including Bernie. Some people saying, you shouldn't move forward with the Affordable Care Act unless it has a public option. This is not a new debate. This is not a new debate.
MCINTOSH: I think the debate needs to start from farther along than it did last time, and that's why I think progressives are not as concerned about whether Bernie is still entirely for "Medicare for All" and whether Warren is entirely for "Medicare for All," because if we start with the public option, we're going to wind up with the ACA, which we already have. If we start farther to the left, we might wind up covering more people and getting more than we did last time we had this fight.
AXELROD: Let me just say as someone who was there, the fact that we have the ACA is nothing short of a miracle.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Agree.
MCINTOSH: I know how hard it was. I absolutely understand how difficult that was to get that passed. I think it's going to be just as difficult to expand on universal health care. If this were easy, we would have done it already. I think it's important to have the principals to go further.
AXELROD: I think you're making the other argument.
GERGEN: I agree. Listen, I do think some people think Obama is sort of yesterday's news. But the fact is that the Health Care Act, ACA, has been a dramatic success, a historic success. And what I see is that the winds are changing. We had very progressive winds blowing for a long time. The last three or four weeks, the winds are starting to move toward a more moderate position for the party.
COOPER: Dana Bash is with Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Dana?
BASH: Thanks, Anderson.
Mayor Buttigieg, thank you so much for coming. First of all, how did it feel out there?
MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It felt good. It was another opportunity to share our message, to talk about how we're trying to build a sense of belonging for the country, for the future, but also in the course of this campaign, and reach as many people as possible with that message.
BASH: So, I know all of us were preparing for you. Now that you are, you know, rising, have risen in the polls certainly in Iowa and more broadly, to have a giant target on your back. And it didn't come so much until really the end, which we'll talk about in a minute. But you seem like you were prepared for incoming and maybe didn't get as much as you thought.
BUTTIGIEG: Well, we knew that we might take some shots, but the most important thing, I think, is to stick to your core. And on an occasion like this, one of very limited set of opportunities is to speak to millions of Americans about what kind of president each of us will be.
I knew that my most important job was to make it clear where I am on the issues and how I seek to prepare this country for that moment when the sun comes up, Donald Trump is no longer president, and we got to find our way to a new era.
BASH: So there was one moment which was a little bit risky, a risk that you took, which is linking your experience as a gay man to the civil rights experience of African Americans. And you said I do have the experience of sometimes feeling like a stranger in my own country. Talk about how you got to that point where you wanted to make that connection.
[23:55:01]
BUTTIGIEG: Well, when I'm speaking with black voters across the country, the two biggest things I hear are, first of all, what are you going to do? What is your agenda for black America? But even more than that is what moves you? What makes you tick? Why do you care about any of this? And I realized before I got to the what, I need to explain the why.
Now, the experience of being black in America is by no means the same or equivalent or in some ways even comparable to the experience of being gay.
BASH: That's what some African Americans are likely to say when they hear --
BUTTIGIEG: Well, I tried to make clear that I haven't had the experience of being discriminated against because of race. But I do know what it is to question your belonging in your country.
And I think now is a moment where the patterns of exclusion that have existed in this country around race, country of origin, abilities, so many different ways, call us to find in our own identity, in our own very different life experiences the motivation to help others and to make sure that we are standing up for different people who have had different experiences with exclusion.
So I recognize how different my experience is from anyone else, but I wanted to make sure everybody understood my motivations because the other thing is that rights in my life have been brought to me by people very different from me. And it's a reminder of my obligation to make myself useful to people whose struggles are different from my own.
BASH: Will you stick around for a couple minutes? We have to take a very quick break, pay the bills. We're going to come back to you after this. Stay here. Anderson?
COOPER: All right. Dana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, thanks very much. We'll pick this up. We'll go back to Mayor Buttigieg. We'll also talk to Iowa voters, talk impeachment, and more. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
