john: secretary clinton, if she makes one ever, -- error, that will be a huge story. >> she is in a position to have a pretty good lead. >> she can't go into the debate with that mindset. has not done she as well as people hoped, it is the result of excessive caution. mark: mistake or no mistake, there was one big winner tonight, that is you. extra half hour for the debate and we begin in right now as democrats in las vegas get ready to carry each other apart or maybe play nice, who knows? we are here with former los angeles mayor and hillary supporterkmega

antonio villaraigosa and super pac chief guy sessile. you both are watching this with interest. mr. mayor, as bernie sanders made any mistakes, and if so, what are they? mr. villaraigosa: i have not spent a whole lot of time watching bernie sanders. i'm supporting hillary clinton. he has done a lot of things right, clearly. he speaks with an authentic voice that is generated a lot of support for him. i think what distinguishes her, frankly, is her track record. her track record is second to none. although the democratic candidates are people i have a great deal of respect for good i forked with some of them, particularly governor o'malley when he was mayor and governor. at the end of the day, that is what distinguishes her. i think she will do well in the debate tonight, but ultimately, it is about voter contact,

slogging through these next few months. i expect she will do that really well. y, what do you think the biggest pitfall is that hillary clinton needs to avoid tonight? guy: the thing she needs to do is make sure she addresses the things she wants to address. she spent the last four months rolling out policy proposal after policy proposal, and yet almost none of them get the attention. she needs to make sure she is sharing her vision, showing her policy, sharing her proposals, and not getting bogged down with overly long answers about e-mails or things that anderson cooper and others want to talk about. john: is that the pitfall? guy: getting too involved in process questions and not being given the opportunities and she will be given the opportunity to lay out her vision for the country and why she is the only candidate who has the strength to get these things done in washington. mark: she is doing pretty well by most measures could what would you like to see her do better? mr. villaraigosa: you know,

she's very, very generous person. to get that one-on-one. you don't always get it on tv. i hope she will be able to project that because book -- those of us who know her know her to be a warm person who really cares about people who are struggling right now. i think her candidacy is about that, about the notion we are to reward work, that when you work hard and play by the rules, stagnant wages for decades, at least since her husband was in america,sn't good for and making those investments is what she has been about her whole life, and i think talking people,at, about real is what i would like to see tonight. y, you vertro secretary clinton back in 2008. barack obama has huge crowds in that came into the point where people in your world looked up and said that is a movement, not a campaign, and the movement was

enough to make him president of the united states. why is what bernie sanders is doing right now, why is that not the same thing? why is that not a movement to be afraid of? guy: crowds are easy to generate good howard dean had big crowds. his inauguration did not go as planned. who has the ground game, who has the infrastructure to build a long-term campaign to build in the states that matter? at the end of the day, i agree with mark's column today. hillary clinton is still the person with the highest likelihood of being the next president of the united states and she needs to stay focused on communicate her vision and answer questions directly with voters in town halls like she is doing. mark: how do you meet this challenge? to be a democrat president after eight years and i want to make this better, i want to make this better. guy: she has said that this

president has taken us from one of the worst economic crises in the history of the country and we have made enormous progress on a whole range of issues. we saved the auto industry, we turn to the economy around in many ways. but there are still too many markets were not feeling the benefits of that and she has a plan to move us not just from recovery but helping real out acans not just eke living for themselves but to make a life for their families and her kids and take care of their parents. as long as she stays focused on that, everything is not always in reference to this president. it is about looking forward and how we continue to make this country better for the people that haven't felt the economic success we have seen. john: mr. mayor, pretend we live for months in the future, the , and byf february whatever circumstance, hillary clinton has lost the iowa caucus to bernie sanders and loses the new have your primary could what that? - - what then? mr. villaraigosa: she will win

south carolina and nevada and every state after that. i don't expect that will happen. .obody wins every state but i spent she will be the democratic nominee, for the reasons i said. -- i expect she will be the democratic county, for the reasons i said. i think guy is right. the fact that senator sanders gets big crowds is a good thing and nobody is pooh-poohing that. president obama had great crowds but he also had a great organization in iowa. we have a great organization in iowa, we have a great organization in nevada. votersacted 320,000 here. i expect this isn't just about debates. it is about the hard trench work case witha compelling everyday voters, and she is going to do that. mark: ask you both of the same question and then we have got to go so yes-no, are you a capitalist? guy: yes. mr. villaraigosa: yes. mark: thank you for joining us we appreciate it. we have got to get the hillary

supporters out of your because it is burning time.--bernie time.

john: what is your one piece of advice to bernie sanders? >> keep staying positive. >> don't attack. not that i love hillary -- nobody is above attack. but part of why he is catching fire is he is not an insult comic. he is running really powerful ideas. bernie mania. the the benr, berning man, howard bern show. with us are two of his top advisers, jeff weaver and tad devine. i will ask you to fill in the blank. bernie sanders accomplishes

blank tonight, it will be a win. >> if he introduces himself to the 35-40% in polls who don't have enough information to make an opinion, that is a big win for us. the more people know bernie sanders, the more they like him. this is an introduction to millions of people who don't know where he is -- who he is. john: is that a recitation of his believes, or him as a human being? jeff: both. people want to know the biography, where he stands on issues, his stance on income inequality and the corrupt system. about hisoesn't talk directly much in public, at least in my experience. is that different tonight? jeff: he is more of an issues kind of guy. tad: he grew up in a log cabin. [laughter] mark: you guys are spending time with him, prepping a little bit. is he nervous at all? jeff: i don't think he is nervous. he has been speaking to lots of

people in auditoriums. this is his first presidential debate, obviously. it is a new experience but once he gets out there -- mark: tell us something funny that happened in the debate prep. tad: something funny in the bankrupt? -- debate prep? mark: come on. i will ask you a question i'm asking everybody -- are you a capitalist? >> yes. mark: are you a capitalist? >> no. mark: a lot of people in the christian world think his answers are -- clinton world and his answers are problematic. >> what you mean by that? people in capital to run the government? no. >> we have a democracy -- voters, the people. clinton says that

democratic voters will eventually say this guy is too liberal to be our nominee and he will lose in the general election. >> look, bernie sanders has great cross-appeal. this is a guy who is going to expand the base of the democratic party and bring back the blue-collar reagan democrats to the democratic party. i have worked with him for over 30 years. you go to rural, conservative, republican parts of vermont, those people love presenters, because even though they don't agree with him on -- love bernie sanders because even though they don't agree with him on guns or abortion or gay rights, they think he is an honest guy and he fights for my economic interests. i've seen it. it is credible. john: every candidate who goes through the first presidential debate -- what are the things you have told him not to do? definitely avoid this, make sure you don't do that? >> the podium is very close -- this is probably not the best --

that's not the best gesture. mechanical things like that. in terms of what he is going to say -- john: pitfalls he has to avoid? bernie.e has to just be he has a powerful message. the pitfall would be not delivering that message. mark: i'm going to count -- how many times is he going to smile on camera? >> 4. mark: i'm going to count. unlike some reporters, we are not super impatient to say why are you ahead in all 50 states? you are ahead by the right kind of pull in iowa. is it possible to stay behind in the other 48 as you are now and windows first two and revolutionize the field, or do you have to get ahead in other places before february? >> i worked for walter mondale in 1984 and i saw what happened when gary hart won new hampshire. we will be up

behind in 48 states. john: you think you will go ahead in some other states? >> i think it is possible. i saw a field poll with 35 in california. there is a poll in connecticut today -- >> oregon was four points a while ago. >> there are places where bernie is catching on and we could succeed. in iowa we have people on the ground and have a real campaign never -- campaign there. >> today on tv there was a national poll done and they showed the obama-clinton pulled from the same day in 2007, and bernie is closer to secretary clinton and obama was on this same day. john: a lot of discussion on this debate, yesterday and today, about joe biden. in the last 24 hours -- is he going to show up at the last minute? kind of crazy talk. but the question of biden does however over this race. over this race could

would you rather see joe biden in the race or stay out of it? >> my view -- i don't want to make that decision for him. i respect him so much. i think if he gets in, it will pull votes away from secretary clinton. if he gets income he can win could that is -- if he gets in, he can win, and that is something else we have got to beat. that is my honest calculation. it will not change our campaign at all if he gets in. >> the campaign we have been running -- there has not been a lot of give-and-take between the candidates. bernie has been talking about his vision for the country. if the vice president gets in, we will talk about our vision for the country. it is the same game. john: you don't think you will lose a lot of votes -- the votes for bernie are not i want an alternative to hillary votes? they are i like bernie votes? >> absolutely. john: you are not worried they will go off to biden? >> no, no, no. mark: tell me one thing the

campaign has done wrong. >> one thing he has done wrong? work too much. mark: stop it. >> he works too much. john: he is too honest? mark: have you made mistakes or heavy you run a flawless campaign? started campaign like this, you don't know how much money has come through the door. it is not like the fundraisingd -- he fundraised for two years through a super pac. if i add a timesheet and could go back in time, i might ramp up staffing earlier. >> we have overscheduled the candidate, honestly, and i think that is a mistake we have made. mark: does he think he will be the next president of the united states? >> he thinks he can be, for sure. mark: does he talk about what he will do as president? >> we haven't gotten there yet. john: i know you guys are focused on bernie sanders and i

know you are political professionals and spend some time each taking about hillary clinton, what she is doing and how to compete with her. how many -- how much time a day do you spend thinking about martin o'malley? >> as much as we spending about hillary clinton, zero. if we run a campaign against her or anybody, we are going to lose it if we run a campaign focused on him and what he says and how he says it, we have the chance of winning. that is the campaign we're going to run. we don't think a lot about her. honestly, when we are attacked, we corrected the record and we spent time dealing with that. that kind of political infighting. researcher?tion >> we have a researcher -- mark: research on hillary clinton? >> we are very familiar with her record. john: the researcher would be doing opposition research -- >> no, we have the debate tonight. people are going to say things. we have people's old quotes.

john: don't think there is anything wrong -- >> no, we don't come either. mark: have either of you talked to ken starr lately? [laughter] jeff weaver, tad devine -- we will do this every week, maybe every day, who knows? more from las vegas straight ahead. morit will be like "the hangover" minus mike tyson.

>> welcome to las vegas! >> come on to vegas. adventure never ends. >>, see the show! somebody that everybody loves, mr. joe biden. >> please, joe, come to vegas!

>> cnn says you can still get an even if you declare on the day of the debate. >> need to get this debate also cup. -- all shook up. >> mr. joe, i know your favorite meal is pasta. seven different types of pasta. >> it's the greatest city in the world. hope to see you soon, joe. mark: it would be cool if that were real, but it wasn't. it was made by our resident film maker and resident troublemaker. they made what should be the next las vegas tourism video, but it is not. of ourjoined by 2 colleagues, jennifer epstein and sahil kapur. they are on the freshly redesigned bloomberg politics website. thanks for joining us. we talked earlier in the program that we have a shared sense -- folks seem remarkably not on edge on the eve of a high-pressure thing.

you spend more time with them than we do. do they seem pretty calm? what you think that is? jennifer: they are called because they will three however they are behaving so they want is said they as through -- she walked and it's based to how she is an unusual candidate -- mark: walk-through, shmalk- through. she doesn't need to see it. jennifer: she has been on stage is more than once or twice. there is a sense of confidence and calm and they want her to go in and be solid, if nothing else. john: i'm still try to get over that little mark halperin-lady gaga sing. the sender's campaign -- sanders campaign, we asked of those guys what they would consider a win. sahil: i think 2 things --

taking his message to a broader audience, improving name recognition, not nearly as much as hillary clinton. the big thing is appealing to nonwhite voters. he is behind about 50 points with blacks, he does not do well with hispanics come either, and the clinton name is known with minority voters. he has to offer a message that will kill to them as well. -- appeal to them as well. john: talk about immigration? what is the issue that breaks through to them? sahil: the fight to an institutional racism, criminal justice reform, and he is not a known quantity like the clintons are and he has to persuade them that he is serious about issues and he will fight harder than hillary clinton. mark: obviously, the debate is a "but i like to look to the next thing, her testimony before the ghazizzie -- ben committee. jennifer: that i don't know a whole lot about. some of it is just on this

before. -- she has done this before. what is different is that the e-mail questions will be a big part of it. they will use kevin mccarthy's comments -- mark: my theory, she will bring an ipad with her with a video clip of kevin mccarthy's soundbites and hold it up every time -- jennifer: right, reminder. it is different because they will go into questions about benghazi and the committee members realize they have to make a short talking about benghazi -- mark: it is not called the e-mail committee. jennifer: at the same time, the e-mail questions are endlessly fascinating and she has not been an open book on them. john: instead of having a month to prepare for a debate and another month -- she is in 2 successive things in the course of a week. what do you know about both of those? who was talking about -- talk about debate prep and -- who is

playing gowdy? who's playing sanders? jennifer: i don't know who is playing gowdy. i will find out in the next few days. she had to offer top people playing sanders, she had a jake sullivan playing on malley. mock joe biden, as much as the people at cnn seem to be hopeful he will get into the debate. john: you know how many hours, roughly how many hours of debate prep? jennifer: not yet. they have been very guarded about the prep. sahil: 2 people they are not jim webbmock sessions, and lincoln chafee. jennifer: ouch. mark: what are you thinking about in terms of sanders, the metric of after tonight, what is he needed to do to move up?

sahil: one thing he needs to do is improve his standing with democratic voters, who do not identify as very liberal. he is strong with them but down considerably among moderate democrats and somewhat liberal democrats and conservative democrats. , as theother thing is advisors were talking to you about them he does very well with white working-class voters could if he can bring more of them into the tent, they can change the equation. mark: you think him not saying he's a capitalist will hurt him? sahil: to an extent. but he is not the socialist with the buzz word, the alarm that kind of triggers, he is not that kind of socialist. website,ck out our bloombergpolitics.com for their stories and a lot of other great stuff on the debate. five things to watch for tonight. jen will have a piece on how hillary did on the big stage. we will be right back.

i, we will have

some pieces up tonight when the debate ends, bloombergpolitics.com. who lost, who won. thanks for watching. from all of us in vegas, sayonara.

announcer: from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. dr. abdul abdul is here. he is the chief medical officer at afghanistan. some units have remained to train as the country is facing resurgence by the telegram. -- the military group seized the city of