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Candidates Pile On Buttigieg At First Debate After Iowa; Buttigieg: If You're Looking For The Establishment, Most Years In D.C., You've Got The Other Candidates, Not Me; 2020 Dems Debate Ahead Of New Hampshire Primary; Pete Buttigieg Calls Out Attacks On The Bidens; Biden Calls For Applause For Ousted Vindman, Says Trump Should Have Given Medal To Vindman, Not Rush Limbaugh; Biden: I Took A Hit In Iowa & Will Probably Take Hit In NH; Sanders To Buttigieg: "I Don't Have 40 Billionaires" Helping Campaign. Aired 12p-1a ET

Aired February 08, 2020 - 00:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: ... broad scope of support across the spectrum including African-Americans and Latinos.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We have a newcomer in the White House and look where it got us. I think having some experience is a good thing.

TOM STEYER (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We need people with experience. That's why I'm worried about Mayor Pete.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: So they're all coming after him tonight. Now, he defended his experience thing. Let's play that as well, so we can have a balanced discussion about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG (D-IN), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I freely admit that if you're looking for the person with the most years of Washington establishment experience under their belt, you've got your candidate and, of course, it's not me. The perspective I'm bringing is that of somebody whose life has been shaped by the decisions that are made in those big white buildings in Washington, D.C.

We need a perspective right now that will finally allow us to leave the politics of the past in the past, turn the page and bring change to Washington before it's too late.

CUOMO: Axe, what's the plus-minus on that parlay?

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, that's his message and I think it has power. But anytime you're in the center ring and everybody is wailing on you and I think someone said earlier, it's all about memorable lines.

Klobuchar landed a memorable line on him. I'm a little confused as to Tom Steyer arguing that the problem there with Pete is he doesn't have enough experience, because Steyer's never held a public office in his life.

But, look, I think that there is a lot of jaundice about Washington and there is a hunger for change. And I do think there's a hunger for unity, as we've discussed here, he's trying to tap into that. We'll see how far it goes.

One thing about unity is it's not unity unless you have African American, people supporting you, Latino people supporting you. Those tests are yet to come. He may do well in New Hampshire and then the big test will come and can he parlay that momentum into a second look in places like South Carolina and Nevada.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: And I think the question when you look at every poll of Democrats, it's who can beat Donald Trump, who can beat Donald Trump. And you look at Pete Buttigieg and he does have a big brain and he's terrific on the stump and he clearly does a great job in the debate.

But the question is you're 38 years old and you were the Mayor of South Bend and you ran for other office and you didn't win and how are you going to convince me that you can beat Donald Trump. And I think that argument still has to be closed.

AXELROD: It is. But you know what, losing begets losing and winning begets winning.

BORGER: Right.

AXELROD: Barack Obama was four years out of the Illinois State Senate when he started running for president.

BORGER: He was a senator.

AXELROD: He was a senator. But over the course of the campaign, I mean, many of the same arguments that are being made here were being made about him. Obviously, he was a senator, that was an advantage. He was a tall, elegant guy with a baritone voice, all of that stuff.

But what really helped him was winning. Winning and dealing with all of the pressures that come in a campaign. Campaigns are crucibles and if you can navigate the campaign, the longer you navigate it, the more people begin to say, well, wait a second. And they judge you based on what they see.

That is the bet that Buttigieg is making. Will it work? I don't know.

JESS MCINTOSH, FORMER DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS OUTREACH, HILLARY CLINTON CAMPAIGN: I think undoubtedly, this campaign is going to make Pete Buttigieg a better candidate. I don't know if he's going to be our nominee. I would be perfectly happy to see him in the White House.

But I think that maybe this is his first run and the next time we see him around, he's going to have that experience under his belt that we know we want him to have.

CUOMO: So a bellwether of kind of this state of play within the party is Tom Steyer, because you can say, hey, does Mr. Steyer really have a chance of being the nominee, but he's staying in the race, he's self funded, and tonight he took a lot of opportunity. I think he got more time tonight speaking than I've seen in any of the other debates.

We have them right now with Erin Burnett and Danna bash in New Hampshire.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. I'm checking the talk time. Yes, you did. And you brought an - you were aggressive, you were intense, you got in there. Other debates, there's been times you sort of waited to be asked, you didn't this time. How'd you feel?

STEYER: Look, I think we're in a new stage of this campaign, Erin, honestly. I think what I was saying was, this isn't a policy debate anymore about who has the best health care policy. Everybody is a million times better than Mr. Trump.

But you can't watch what happened this week in the United States of America and think that the Democrat is going to just waltz into the White House. We are going to have to beat Mr. Trump. He's running on the economy.

I was trying to say, we're all better on all of these issues. The question is who can beat Mr. Trump.

BURNETT: OK. So here's my question, you did, you kept bringing up the economy.

STEYER: Yes.

BURNETT: And how you have to win in the economy.

STEYER: Yes.

BURNETT: And I was just talking about this, we were talking about this with Andrew Yang, you can find all kinds of issues with the economy. The overall headlines we heard from the President this week, unemployment is at 3.5 percent.

[00:05:03]

Wages are growing at 3 percent. There's a lot of strength in this economy. The market is up, so where do you get him on the economy?

STEYER: OK. Unemployment is low, but you can't live on the wages. The economy is growing, but the money is going to rich people and big corporations. He talks about the fact that wages are up, but if you actually look about why they're up, the answer is they've raised the minimum wage in big blue states around the country. He's taking credit for something that he's opposed.

If you want to talk about the stock market, 85 percent of stocks are owned by the ... BURNETT: Right, but up is up. I mean, you're right, maybe he's saying

(INAUDIBLE) but if it's up and people feel better, how does that help you get votes?

STEYER: Because the fact of the matter is Mr. Trump is fighting against the American people. What he's done is pass the biggest tax gift over a trillion dollars to rich people in big corporations. He did that and he said it would balanced the budget, instead it blew out the budget deficit to a trillion dollars.

And he said, after the election, I'm going to balance the budget by taking away Medicaid, Medicare and maybe Social Security. So in fact, is this guy good for the American people? He is working diametrically opposed to the American people. His trade war is a disaster. He is incompetent, he is cruel and he's a liar.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: So we were as we were getting ready to go on listening to David Axelrod, and he mentioned a moment that I actually have here that I was going to ask you about which is you dissing Pete Buttigieg for not having experience, you don't have any experience in government. You have a lot of experience in business, but not in government.

You said, "We need people with experience. That's why I'm worried about Mayor Pete. You need to be able to go toe to toe with this guy and take him down on the debate stage or we're going to lose." Why do you think you have more experience in that forum, in this forum than he does?

STEYER: Because I think I actually know something about economics that I spent three decades learning, that in fact I couldn't have built the business that I did from scratch if I didn't understand job creation, growth and prosperity. Mr. Trump is running on the economy, period.

There was a huge ad today. I don't know if you guys saw it in the Manchester union leader, full page Trump ad, top half Democrats are terrible on the economy, bottom half I'm grate on the economy. He's running on the economy.

If we can't make the argument that he's a liar and a fraud, which he is, then we can't wait. And what I'm saying is right now anyone who's a Democrat who doesn't realize that Mr. Trump can be reelected after this week, is not paying attention, he can be.

What I was saying is whoever the Democrat is has got to be able to go after him on the economy and win. And secondly, whoever the Democrat is, this is a turnout election. There are a lot of people here talking about persuading Republicans to change their minds. I'm not talking about that.

BASH: Can I just follow up on that?

STEYER: Yes.

BASH: You said that on the debate stage too. What about this week do you think puts Donald Trump in the catbird seat?

STEYER: I think he has the highest.

BASH: Just totality of it, what do you think it is?

STEYER: If you look and I know you saw it, Dana, it is the totality but I think the simplest thing is just say he has his highest approval rating of his presidency.

BASH: So just the poll numbers, you're not talking about impeachment or ...

BURNETT: You're talking about Gallup.

STEYER: Yes.

BASH: Or anything else.

STEYER: Gallup, all of the polls are up a little bit. Gallup is up a lot. Look, there was a whole bunch of stuff this week. He did his State of the Union address. There's a whole bunch of things that happened this week that were in his favor and it's just true.

And so all I'm saying is we have to recognize that it isn't a question of the Democrats waltzing into the White House. We have to win the White House. I mean, it's going to be a question of are Democrats going to turn out? If you look at 2018, a lot of people like to say in Washington, D.C. that we won in 2018 because we nominated moderate Democrats. I don't believe that.

I look and say in 2014, 35 million people voted Democratic. We had a terrible year. In 2018, next midyear, 59 million people voted Democratic, up by 24 million people over 35 to turn out. If we show up, we win. If we don't show up, we lose, because the Republicans always show up and it's not a question about convincing a million people or 2 million people to change their mind.

It's a question of convincing 10s of millions of Americans who agree with us that it's worth it to show up at the polls, because it's going to make a big difference to their lives, and that we're telling the truth, and we're going to change things and we're going to just sweep away the whole Republican plan.

BURNETT: All right. Thank you very much, Tom Steyer.

BASH: Thank you so much.

STEYER: Nice to see you both.

BASH: You too.

STEYER: It's a pleasure.

BURNETT: All right.

BASH: Thank you. BURNETT: And back to you, Mr. Cuomo.

CUOMO: Interesting. Tom Steyer kind of a bellwether about where we are in the party right now. He has no intention of leaving. He has no confidence in this field, but does he have any chance of being the nominee? How did he do with that juxtaposition? We'll take it on with the big brains right after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:14:05]

CUOMO: So former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg has the shocking finish in Iowa. It dazzles people. Everybody is talking about him, so now what happens at the debate? Now they come at you.

So he gets beaten up. He has to take it, but he had a moment tonight that may be his best foot forward. So they threw him a soft ball about, what do you of Hunter Biden, what do you think about Trump going after Hunter Biden, that's a vulnerability. What does that mean for Biden. Listen to how Mayor Pete Buttigieg handled that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUTTIGIEG: This is not about Hunter Biden or Vice President Biden or anybody. This is about an abuse of power by the President. The Vice President and I and all of us are competing, but we've got to draw a line here and to be the kind of president, to be the kind of human being who would seek to turn someone against his own son, who would seek to weaponize a son against his own father is an unbelievably dishonorable thing.

[00:15:10]

That is just one more example of why we as a party have to be completely united in doing whatever it takes, at the end of the day, to make sure that this President does not get a second term.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Joe Lockhart.

JOE LOCKHART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think it was lucky that they came to Mayor Pete first, I think, because I have a feeling that you have gotten some version of that, but that was a powerful answer. That was Bernie Sanders in 2016 saying, I don't care about Hillary's emails. Let's talk about the debates.

And it was a little bit of a version I think of John McCain telling that woman, stop, I don't agree with you. And I think a powerful moment for him.

Mcintosh: I mean, I think everybody onstage would agree with him. Everybody onstage knows what Trump is doing and nobody is going to feed into that for the purposes of gaining a foothold in the Democratic primary, even if that would help them, which I'm not sure it would.

But what he did was make it so personal and so much about family and he's had some really good moments lately as he's been sort of taking his Iowa victory lap talking a little more personally and talking about kids who don't feel - he's been talking about family.

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.

MCINTOSH: And the fact that he was able to take it there and make it so human, which is Joe Biden's calling card, I thought it was just ...

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: And it was edged to Buttigieg.

AXELROD: ... to refer to South Bend as a city of 110,000 people.

MCINTOSH: Instead of a small city, right.

JONES: But it's a beautiful, beautiful moment and the thing about him is he does have that magical quality sometimes. That was poetry and it didn't seem rehearsed. I'm sure it was, but didn't feel rehearsed. It felt authentic.

You saw the kind of tightness in his jaws and he kind of ...

CUOMO: Yes, some edge (INAUDIBLE) ...

JONES: He kind of let it sink in as he was talking about it. This is really despicable behavior to try to split up a family in that way. And I thought it was a beautiful moment. And he had those moments throughout the night, where you could see something - like sometimes you feel like what is this kid doing onstage? Like why is he there? Like he shouldn't be there. He's too young. He's like he's in high school and then we'll do something like that.

I'm so glad this guy is in this race. I'm so glad he's in the country and I could see him in the White House.

BORGER: And you could see Biden's face as he was talking, as Buttigieg was talking. I think he was almost taken aback by what Buttigieg said. And then I believe he thanked him afterwards or he said something about it. But it was something that I think spoke to every family, how can you weaponize a son against the father.

AXELROD: The nature of our politics as course as they are, it stands out even more when an opponent stands on a stage and defends another person on the stage with whom they're competing. I think it is something that people respond positively to because we are in such a caustic environment right now.

So, yes, I think that was a good moment for him.

JONES: There's a lot of love going on. Bernie got a hug from Biden in the middle of the debate (INAUDIBLE) they're like hugging each other ... (CROSSTALK)

MCINTOSH: Because Bernie is kind of likable. Like Bernie is a likable guy, (INAUDIBLE) ...

BORGER: Well, and Hillary had said that everybody hate him.

CUOMO: That's where it came from and ...

(CROSSTALK)

MCINTOSH: That's why he gave him a hug.

BORGER: (INAUDIBLE) ...

MCINTOSH: I like you.

JONES: That was awesome.

CUOMO: Where have you been?

JONES: (INAUDIBLE) ...

CUOMO: Where have you been?

JONES: I was in (INAUDIBLE) and then I looked up and they were hugging and I thought this is wonderful (INAUDIBLE) ...

LOCKHART: I think one of the things that are keys to these debates though are what gets replayed the next day.

MCINTOSH: Yes.

LOCKHART: And what gets people see two, and three and four times. For example on Buttigieg, watching it the second time was much more powerful for me than the first time. The first time we're sitting there kind of taking notes and trying to pay attention to who's winning, who's losing, we're going to see that tomorrow.

We're going to see, I think, the Vindman-Rush Limbaugh line tomorrow.

BORGER: That was - yes.

LOCKHART: We may see the Commander in Chief, we're going to see Amy Klobuchar with some of her good gotchas and then we'll help people digest what happened and we'll start seeing this on Sunday.

AXELROD: It's an interesting think how this gets covered, because people go in with a predisposition and the predisposition is the frontrunners are going to get attacked and the frontrunners did get attacked. So the question is whether those clips are the ones that take precedence, are they the ones that come forward to illustrate the fact that these were the frontrunners and they were under attack?

And that could actually - if people see the debate that way, it was a less good debate for Sanders and Buttigieg and perhaps it was for people who are watching the debate.

MCINTOSH: Maybe that's one of the challenges Elizabeth Warren is facing. Her best moments were where she added nuance to issues. Her gun violence prevention answer where she talked about not only suicide by gun but domestic violence, which doesn't usually get brought up in that context.

Her answer about reproductive freedom and the cross sectioning with race and how row basically needs to be the ceiling or need to be the floor not the ceiling and she takes it there.

[00:20:03]

It was those answers that really stood out to me and those probably aren't going to get (INAUDIBLE) ...

CUOMO: They don't resonate the same way. For example, what are they trying to do? They talk about unifying the party and that's certainly a problem, because I don't think you have a polarized party. I think you have a balkanized party. Like I think you have lots of different little groups.

We talked earlier about the former VP Biden and this really poignant moment that he had with a woman where his empathy came out. She was talking about her son who was a stutter and he was talking about decency when people have cancer and what we have to do, what we have to get back to. That was big for him.

But he also arguably unified people in the crowd the most by definition in the following moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: Colonel Vindman got thrown out of the White House, they walked out. I think at the same time he should have been pinning a metal on Vindman and not on Rush Limbaugh. And I think we should be doing it now. I think we should all stand and get Colonel Vindman a show of how much we supported him, stand up and clap for Vindman. Get up there.

Who we are? That's who we are. We are not what Trump is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Now, powerful moment. Axe, imagine if they didn't get up, that would have been such a terrible ...

AXELROD: He had some confidence. Really, that had all the earmarks of something that was planned, that he wanted to do and it was effective but it also getting the whole thing, laying it out is not - he's not smooth and doing it. And so it could have been a more effective moment than it was and that's the issue with Biden.

MCINTOSH: (INAUDIBLE) denying that it was planned. A staff on Twitter said that it was all Joe.

BORGER: Oh, really? Stand up. CUOMO: (INAUDIBLE) is that too high bar? Too high bar?

AXELROD: That he ...

CUOMO: Too high bar like saying it wasn't smooth enough, wasn't deliverable enough?

BORGER: Oh, the medal line? Oh, come on.

AXELROD: Oh, no, I don't think so. I don't think it is - if you've practiced a line and the line is we should be pinning a metal on Vindman not on Rush Limbaugh, that's a pretty ...

CUOMO: But if you take Jess' reporting that they say it wasn't planned.

BORGER: Maybe the stand-up part.

LOCKHART: No, listen, I think if you look back over the history of debates, the most effective lines were practice and practice in advance. Lloyd Bentsen on John F. Kennedy. Mondale, those were all practice.

And I think David has hit on a point which is when you try to script Joe Biden, it doesn't work. He tends to flip. It's Joe Biden talking at the town hall.

AXELROD: Yes.

LOCKHART: It's coming from his heart, that is much more effective. And he kind of stepped on his own line, but it still was effective.

AXELROD: It was effective.

BORGER: But why are we surprised by any of this? I mean, we have seen Joe Biden ...

LOCKHART: We've known, yes.

BORGER: ... in public life for decades and he has never been smooth, and he is prone to making mistakes.

LOCKHART: I will tell you though ...

CUOMO: Wait, hold the point, we got to take a break. When we come back, we'll figure out, because this is it now. You can't underestimate - I know politics is filled with hypes, so as political coverage. I get it. I get it. We deal with it all of the time.

But I'm telling you the story changes every week with every result and that's going to happen this time too and it's going to matter even more than it did in Iowa. So stay with the coverage and we'll try to figure out together what's coming our way.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:27:48]

CUOMO: All right. So obviously you win New Hampshire, it's good. After that, it all depends on who it is. If you're Elizabeth Warren second place means more than, say, if you're Amy Klobuchar. For her maybe it's looking about how she does to Biden. Now, what about Biden?

So Biden said something you rarely hear a candidate say. In fact, you rarely hear anybody on the campaign say. He said I'll tell you what's going to happen in New Hampshire and it isn't good. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: I took a hit in Iowa and I'll probably take it here. Traditionally, Bernie won by 20 points last time and usually it's the neighboring senators that do well. It doesn't matter whether it's this one or the next. I've always viewed the first four encounters, two primaries and two caucuses as the starting point.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JONES: That's terrible.

MCINTOSH: The staff love that, I'm sure.

BORGER: Well, they came out afterwards and said, well, we are going to compete here. We are competing here because ...

MCINTOSH: We think about all of those volunteers. He's got organizers who are door-knocking this weekend.

AXELROD: I mean, I think that they may have wanted him to say that Bernie is from the neighboring state, he won by a large margin last time. So I understand that we're fighting uphill here. That would have been one thing, but basically to say we're going to take a hit is probably overshooting ...

BORGER: Oops.

MCINTOSH: It goes back to the (INAUDIBLE) of line delivery that you were talking about before.

AXELROD: Exactly. Exactly.

CUOMO: Too honest, yes.

JONES: But then also like they had this bizarre theory. It's like, OK, it's actually the first four states all together. That's like this is not how elections work. It's like my theory is the first 17 states are all one (INAUDIBLE) so I could lose the first 15 states.

AXELROD: When I say four, I meant 16.

LOCKHART: Yes.

CUOMO: Well, that's the Bloomberg theory that he's using, Joe, which is these little states, this is doing press the media and get a little bit going for money if people need it. I don't need it. I'm going to compete in the big states and that's what's going to make the difference.

LOCKHART: Yes. Listen, when you lose Iowa and you think you're going to do poorly in New Hampshire, you say, but it's not about the best one out of two, it's the best one out of four.

BORGER: It's the long haul, yes.

LOCKHART: It's the long haul. I don't think that they meant for the candidate to make that and it's just one of those things, which is he's - I'm sure they talked about this.

[00:30:00]

And in his brain, it got somewhere lodged in there and it came out. But there is a little bit of truth to it and before you start laughing ...

AXELROD: I'm not laughing.

LOCKHART: We have seen a very small slice of the Democratic Party and the delegates will get elected. He just has to kill it though in South Carolina. It falls apart completely.

AXELROD: The question is can he kill it in South Carolina if he finishes up a weak fourth in New Hampshire and predicting that you're going to bomb out here probably doesn't add to your momentum.

LOCKHART: No.

AXELROD: But can I just say one thing, I'm sorry.

BORGER: No.

AXELROD: But ...

BORGER: I love it when you hold my arm.

AXELROD: All right. This is what happens here after midnight. Bloomberg, his theory isn't merely that I'm going to compete in the big states. His theory was Joe Biden is not going to be a factor by the time these states happen. He's betting on Biden's failure.

He stayed out of the race and partly because of Biden, he got in the race when Biden was at a nadir and he is betting, it's already paid on the first contest that Biden is going to underperform and that he can step in and that Bernie Sanders will be ascending and that he can step in and be the moderate alternative to Bernie Sanders.

I have no idea whether - no one's ever done what he's doing, no one. And no one's ever spent the money he's spending. And there'll be a reckoning at some point here when Mike Bloomberg who's very formidable person, but he has to step out from behind the commercials and actually interact with the media, with voters and they're going to measure him against those ads and say, is he the Wizard of Oz or is he real.

MCINTOSH: I found myself surprisingly wishing that he had to be onstage tonight. As angry as I am that the DNC changed the rules after so many candidates couldn't meet them. They changed them to make sure that Bloomberg could maybe be in the next one.

I was watching tonight thinking he gets to skate by completely unscathed. He gets to tell Joe Biden's base that there might be an alternative, maybe, but he doesn't have to answer any questions about his record. He's not taking any of the hits that the other candidates are. He gets to maintain whatever veneer he wants to put on through his very formidable paid advertising until he has to debate.

So I might have changed my mind on this one tonight.

BORGER: And he's completely untested. Nobody knows how Mike Bloomberg would be on that stage tonight. Nobody knows. Nobody has seen him in a town hall talking to voters directly on national television.

LOCKHART: Right, but he benefits from this.

BORGER: He does.

LOCKHART: Because particularly the donor class but Democrats who are real activists are always more in love with the person who hasn't gotten in and who isn't on the stage.

BORGER: And they're nervous now.

LOCKHART: Who doesn't make mistake.

MCINTOSH: And nobody else is able to take that long in that spot as he is.

BORGER: And they're all freaking out right now.

LOCKHART: Yes.

BORGER: Because who's going to be our candidate, oh, my god, is it going to be Bernie Sanders, we'll never be able to win. And so they're freaking out and they're looking to the bright, shiny object as Joe points out. And Joe Biden himself then comes in tonight to go back to what we were originally discussing and sets himself up as a loser.

CUOMO: Van seems discomforted by this discussion.

JONES: Yes. Because I see the train crash that we're headed for. You can't imagine a convention where it's basically Bernie versus the billionaire, but that's where we're headed in a number of likely scenarios and it was very hard to even begin the healing process when it was just Hillary versus Bernie.

Now you have literally a billionaire against Bernie and if the billionaire wins, I don't know how this (INAUDIBLE) ...

(CROSSTALK) CUOMO: First you're discomforted, now Axe is discomfort. All right.

We're going to take a break. We're going to give Van a little tutorial. He just can't sound anything but nice and if you're going to do Brooklyn, you will going to have to teach him some edge in the break.

When we come back, we'll talk about Bernie Sanders' message and how it will play with and against what may come with a Bloomberg, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:38:27]

CUOMO: So you can't talk about the state of play in the Democratic Party without talking about Bernie Sanders. He won an Iowa. It looks like he's going to do well in New Hampshire. He has a huge base of people who are giving small dollar donations and that really is the crux of his message.

He is the populist answer. He is the hero for the disaffected. He is the equal opposite to Donald Trump. Here's his message on display tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Unlike so some of the folks up here, I don't have 40 billionaires, Pete, contributing to my campaign coming from the pharmaceutical industry, coming from Wall Street and all of the big money interest. What we do have is we have now over 6 million contributions from one and a half million people averaging $18.50 in contribution.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: OK. So, first thing, Axe, the idea of conventional wisdom, how do you guys put it, high floor, low ceiling, why? He's got the biggest base.

AXELROD: Yes.

CUOMO: He's seeing nothing but blue sky in these first two. He's for the working men and women. He feeds that idea that I'm angry and I don't want anybody. He looks like the guy from network that I issued that message to go and yell out the windows. Why do we believe that there's a ceiling?

AXELROD: Well, because, I mean, the question is how pervasive is the message, how much appeal, how broad is the appeal of message.

[00:40:01]

Look, I think he is consistently underrated, I mean, and you saw it again tonight even though he was under fire at times. I don't think he was particularly scathed in this play.

CUOMO: He's never affected by criticism. AXELROD: No.

CUOMO: He may not like it. He may not like a question, I've never seen him knocked off his feet.

AXELROD: Right. And his rhetoric is consistent. There is a sort of moral clarity to his message and he seems authentic and he speaks in many ways to the same kind of anger about the system that Donald Trump does.

CUOMO: That Trump does, absolutely.

AXELROD: An economic system that's rigged.

CUOMO: So if Bloomberg has this insurgency strategy, we then at some point see a moment where there's Bernie Sanders and there's Mike Bloomberg. If anybody has any sense, they'll put them next to each other, right?

BORGER: Yes.

CUOMO: And you have Bernie Sanders look at Bloomberg and he says, we're both from Brooklyn, we don't money like yours and a party like this. I'm sure you're a very nice guy.

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: We would have been friends when we grow up, which you're a billionaire and you're the problem. What is the counter to that from Mike Bloomberg?

BORGER: No, you have to do it ...

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: No, you do not have to do it. You are much ...

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: I've never seen you not have a strength. This is as close as it'll come. What is his answer where the party is like, OK, OK fine, we will accept this answer. What does that answer have to be?

AXELROD: It wasn't the Klobuchar - I mean, some of the things - she's been the most effective in dealing with Bernie in these debates.

CUOMO: But she's no billionaire.

AXELROD: No, but taking healthcare away from 180 million - he gave the choice ...

JONES: Klobuchar had a great line on it.

BORGER: Medicare for All.

JONES: Klobuchar had a great line to this. I don't think anybody is looking at Trump and saying we need someone in the White House who's richer. So Klobuchar, she's coming at that whole thing as well looking at Steyer, looking at Bloomberg, looking at billionaires trying to come ...

MCINTOSH: Well, there is a movement behind Bernie Sanders and that is largely based on everything that Mike Bloomberg stands for. There's a saying that every billionaire is a policy failure that has been going around the progressive community for years. They believe that.

Every billionaire happened because we don't have regulations in place to make sure that there isn't as much income inequality as you got. Now, I understand that people who aspire to be billionaires really don't like that. But most of us would settle for millionaires.

I think that there would be a very, very strong populist base who would absolutely object ...

BORGER: Well, it's the whole self-financing. I mean, this is a party ...

MCINTOSH: It's money and politics.

BORGER: ... Citizens United, OK, will talk about ...

MCINTOSH: Yes.

BORGER: ... this is a party that says Citizens United was decided in the wrong way and you have to get big money out of politics. Does the party then say unless it's your own big money, is that OK? So anybody can buy their way into the presidency.

And this is an issue that has not yet been taken up with Tom Steyer, maybe that's because he hasn't done well enough yet. But I do think there's an inconsistency in the Democratic Party on this issue and maybe Bloomberg can succeed. I have absolutely no idea, but I honestly believe that Bernie Sanders is not going to be the only person raising that.

LOCKHART: Yes. I think we make a mistake sort of already gaming out Bloomberg versus Bernie. But I'll tell you why I think he has a low ceiling. Because what he's selling ...

CUOMO: Bernie.

LOCKHART: ... Bernie, the Democratic socialism, doesn't represent where most of the Democratic Party is. He represent - his ceiling is at about 30 percent, unless he tries to moderate it in some way and that's just not Bernie and I respect him for going out and saying every single day the same thing. No matter where he is in the country, the same thing. No matter what his audience is, the same thing.

But it doesn't represent the Democratic Party as a whole. If you look at the numbers, it's much more of a center-left than a far-left party.

CUOMO: All right. So let's do this, let's get in another break. When we come back, let's question the supposition that were advancing the analysis too far to bring in Bloomberg, because the counter analysis will be, OK, you're right, Twitter is not reality and the farther left aspect of the Democratic Party is actually a minority. And there's a big majority to be had. Who gets it? Could it be Bloomberg? If not, who's best positioned? We'll discuss it next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[00:48:39]

BIDEN: With regard to Senator Sanders, the President was very much to stick a label on every candidate. We're going to not only have to win this time, we have to bring along the United States Senate and Bernie's label himself, not me, a Democratic socialist. I think that's the label that the President is going to lay on everyone running with Bernie if he's the nominee.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Now, that is the best argument or criticism against Bernie Sanders at this point or not. Let's talk to the panel about it.

They had the weird moment with their hands up. Who's OK, who has a problem with socialist at the top of the ticket? Joe Lockhart and I did the steady three count, three Mississippis before Klobuchar put her hand up. He's been redefining the word, can it be redefined in a way that works in America?

JONES: I don't know if it can, but I will say this for his young supporters, they call themselves socialist, but they really just seem to have like grandparent envy. In other words, their grandparents get to see a doctor pretty much for free and they want the same thing.

When their grandparents went to college, it cost like $4 a semester and they wanted the same thing. So it's like, why do you call yourself socialist? You basically just say, grandpa and grandma, I want the wish you had.

So the idea that this is some like socialist revolution or whatever, this is not a socialist revolution of the kind that we heard about in '60s and '70s and I think the label does a lot of harm.

[00:50:06]

CUOMO: Right.

JONES: When the policies are actually pretty reasonable.

CUOMO: Now, look, just to be fair in the '70s, Bernie Sanders did argue for state ownership of corporations and the industries of commerce. He said to me in a town hall, I said that to him, and he said, "When did I say that?" And I said, "You said it in the '70s." And he said, "What were you saying in the '70s?" And I said, "Goo goo gaa gaa."

And he, of course, took no sense of humor. But he wasn't knocked off his feet by it either, Axe. And he's like, "Look, my ideas have progressed." And his big hit is then what did we do for the corporations when they tanked the housing market, what do we do for them to bag that socialism.

AXELROD: Like I said, I think he is underestimated. I think if he were the nominee of the Democratic Party, there would be tradeoffs, there would be constituencies that Democratic Party is counting on, including this burgeoning suburban vote where he would not do as well as many of the other Democratic candidates. And whether he pick up some of those white working class voters and excite enough young people who weren't going to vote to come out to make up for what was lost, that's the equation and we'll see if we get there.

But the thing about, you're right, Van, that basically he has a progressive agenda that he's labeled as Democratic socialist. But the point is he has labeled it. Biden was right and he is unrelenting on that and he calls it a revolution ...

JONES: Right.

AXELROD: ... and he says, I'm a Democratic socialist. So you can't blame people for taking a man his word.

JONES: I think for the older generation who - that means Fidel Castro and that kind of stuff is very alarming for some Latino communities and like Latinas. That's very alarming because of the experiences in Central and South America. But for a lot of people under the age of 40, they don't remember that stuff.

(CROSSTALK)

MCINTOSH: ... Scandinavia, I think.

BORGER: Right.

JONES: Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

AXELROD: Understood.

JONES: Or Sweden.

AXELROD: But you kind of meet people over 40 as well, he got 6 percent if the entrance polls mean anything and that you have to take them with a grain of salt. But he did as poorly with people over 65 as Biden did with people under 29.

CUOMO: Socialism means, I think, that he wouldn't have to overcome as an optic as it means 70 percent tax rate. And it means tons and tons of government spending and government control of things that America is anathema to America.

MCINTOSH: It's funny how Bernie's ideas have fundamentally reshaped the Democratic Party and the Democratic base. That label does not work the same way that the ideas do.

CUOMO: That's right.

MCINTOSH: So I'm sure - I mean, I don't know, I can't claim to know Bernie's mind, but I would imagine that he would rather be running on the ideas than running on the label. And once he became the nominee, it's going to be about the label.

CUOMO: Yes.

BORGER: Well, Trump is already using it.

MCINTOSH: Absolutely.

BORGER: Trump already used it in the State of the Union speech.

CUOMO: He's going to call any of them by the way. That's how powerful the label is.

(CROSSTALK)

MCINTOSH: And he called Obama that for years.

BORGER: Right. But the question is, is Bernie Sanders a Democrat? Is Bernie Sanders a Democratic socialist? What does that mean and what would he do? And you can paint that picture, if you're Donald Trump, any way you want. You can talk about the 70 percent tax rate and you can scare people about it.

JONES: I agree. Well, the thing is Trump is going to call this party a socialist party no matter what it does. The crazy thing is though the label is unpopular, every one of the positions that he's taken is very popular.

LOCKHART: Well, I think that's not exactly true because Medicare for All is not a popular position.

BORGER: No.

MCINTOSH: It is when you (INAUDIBLE) ...

LOCKHART: Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

CUOMO: Yes. So break down the numbers.

LOCKHART: Actually ...

CUOMO: Break down the numbers.

LOCKHART: ... I will. When you explain it is when it falls away.

CUOMO: OK.

LOCKHART: When you take away your choice on private insurance, it goes from 64 percent to among Democrats, the one polled the 29 percent, not among the whole population but among Democrats. And the thing that I think we should be a little sanguine about Bernie is revolutions generally don't stall and this revolution has kind of stalled.

You look at the turnout in Iowa and the revolution didn't bring out people. It brought up kind of less people. If you look at his fundraising numbers, he raised significantly less in January this time than he did last time.

CUOMO: But is that just because of a particular field (INAUDIBLE) ...

BORGER: But there are so many candidates.

LOCKHART: No, no, no, I don't think so. It's his people. I think if he honestly believes that he's leading a revolution, that is going to turn off as many voters as it turns on, probably more. I will say this on the issues and David and I were talking about it earlier.

The impact is who would have ever thought that the public option would have become the moderate view for the Democrats. And that is significant and that is a contribution. But like Moses, I don't think he's going to get across the sea.

CUOMO: Why not?

[00:55:00]

LOCKHART: I think he's leading us, issue-wise, to things but I think ...

CUOMO: Moses did OK, by the way.

LOCKHART: He did OK, but he ended up dividing it.

CUOMO: He wound up dividing it.

BORGER: Or over the cliff, that's the question.

(CROSSTALK)

CUOMO: Yes. He got across the water, it was the cliff, Joe.

AXELROD: One of the things that we should mention though is when we say Bernie did significantly better last time, he was in a binary race with Hillary Clinton.

LOCKHART: Yes.

BORGER: (INAUDIBLE) ...

AXELROD: And so, he was the sort of alternative to her and a lot of things flowed his way as a result of it. I think we're getting a pure sense of what he's basis now in a divided field.

CUOMO: And Warren matters with the Bernie base and there's certainly excitement behind Bernie, Warren as well, Buttigieg now we see it's spreading, where does it lead? We'll all go on the ride together and we'll definitely get to the other side. All right. Thank you, everybody, for making the coverage what it was.

Appreciate it. Thanks to all of you for watching. Please stay tuned, we have a lot more news coverage for you here on CNN.