ng in an eligible phone. click, call, or visit a store today. welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. thank you for sharing your day with us. joe biden shows some fight but also some rust in a fiesty democratic debate. the former vice president this hour at a morning-after event in detroit. elizabeth warren gets the nod most often when you ask democrats who was the strongest debater over the past two nights. those high marks coming from a lot of party moderates who worry that the massachusetts senator is too liberal to win it all. half the democratic field has a much more immediate concern. those struggling to qualify for the next debates hope voters and donors like what they saw. >> as president i'll bring this

unifying spirit of love and country and the soldiers' value of service above eself to the white house. >> we don't need a liberal or progressive with big ideas or we don't need a moderate who can win back trump/obama voters. you need someone who can do both, and that's who i am. >> we're up here with makeup on our faces and our rehearsed attack lines playing roles in this reality tv show. it's one reason why we elected a reality tv star as our president. >> and we begin with the fallout of last night's democratic street brawl. ten contenders on stage in detroit. the most heat directed at center stage and the former vice president, joe biden. >> your plan by contrast leaves out almost 10 million americans. so i think that you should really think about what you're saying. >> a lot of what vice president helped author in '94 was a mistake and he has flip-flopped

on these things and that's enclosure. >> i heard the vice president say that. if you've got a ph.d. you can come right into this country. that's playing into what the republicans want, to pit some immigrants against other immigrants. some are from [ bleep ]-hole countries and some are from worthy countries. >> mr. vice president, you didn't answer my question. what did you mean when you said when a woman works outside the home it's resulting in, quote, the deterioration of family? >> you might remember kamala harris got a bump out of the first debate. her reward was that she too was a frequent target in round two. her health care plan, one point of contention. >> senator bennet had suggested that you support banning employer-based health insurance. is that true? >> first of all, with all due respect to my friend, michael bennet, my plan does not offer anything that is illegal. what it does is it separates the employer from health care meaning that where you work will not be -- the kind of health care you get will not be a function of where you work.

>> the contenders now wait to see how democratic voters process this second round of debates. half of the field, maybe a little bit more, at risk of being shut out of round three next month if their standing doesn't improve. vice president biden among the candidates holding day-after event in the detroit area. you saw him moments ago trying to build support in the area before head back out on the campaign trail. that's a local restaurant. with me in studio to share their reporting, molly ball, jeff zeleny and seung min kim. let's start, we just saw the former vice president. she's mingling, she doesn't have to worry about making the next rounding of debates, but what is the biggest takeaway from last night? he showed fight but he also was uneven. he needed to have a decent performance and he did that, but he was by no means wow.

is that fair? >> i think that's fair. i've been getting some of the same texts and emails. there was a lot of nervousness by some of the supporters of joe biden after the first debate. the donors and current office holders, those types of people were really worried with how unsteady he looked and the fact that he himself came armed with so much oppo research on all the other candidates. you can say this clearly marked the end of the rose garden strategy, right? he's no longer above the fray, he's right down in there. but i think there was real peril for joe biden if he had another performance as weak as the first one. that downward trajectory really could have accelerated and he did seem to stop the bleeding i think last night. >> he closed the month of july much stronger than he opened it. molly is right. the advisers i was talking to and friends of joe biden were literally on the edge of their

seats and wondering how he was going to perform. that was a question hanging over the entire debate in detroit. really all democrats you talk to, is he going to bring it or not and, yes, he did. he was experiencing incoming from every possible direction, almost nine different ways, if you will, and he with stood that. did he look like the strongest front-runner in the world? no, he didn't. and i'll use your language. he's the leader in the field, he's not the strong front-runner. but kamala harris has already seen her miami boomlet if you will come back to earth and last night she did not improve that. so the democrats i'm talking to, we'll have to see how voters look at things. how to voters look at what cory booker did? he had a very strong performance no doubt but went directly after the former vice president. a lot of biden supporters like him and don't like it when you're attacking him. >> you may not have a love, there's a lot of like in the party. a lot of voters say they're

comfortable with him. that can be a blessing and a curse. we'll have your conversation. we have smart reporters talking to democrats. what do we see in three days, five days, eight days from democratic polling when the candidates are back in their crowds. let's take some of the examples were yes, the vice president showed up and fought. yes, the vice president turned to kamala harris and challenged her health care plan. yes, he picked an interesting immigration fight with julian castro and a fight with cory booker some think he could have skipped that one, but a little more from joe biden. >> they can buy the gold plan and they're not going to have to pay -- anyway, i'm happy to discuss it more in detail if the senator would want to. so i looked at -- anyway, i was asked to manage an $87 billion plan that we spent a total of 18 months that revived this state. if you agree with me, go to joe

30303 and help me in this fight. >> it was supposed to be a text at the fight. as someone who's on live television every day, we have to criticize people who step on their tongue or whose tongue gets out ahead of his brain but he didn't get the line rate at the ending which is supposed to help him build his list so the campaign staff is frustrated. earlier he was talking about the stimulus plan, he called it $87 million. it was $800 billion. it was his first big assignment in the obama administration. you make mistakes on live television. but knowing that he had a bad live first debate did he meet the bar of being engaged in the second debate? >> i think he did meet the bar. i think there was a question to jeff and molly's question about what joe biden was going to do in terms of challenging. he telegraphed ahead of the debate that he was going to call other people's records into question. his record was not going to be

the only record challenged on the stage last night. in terms of the gaffes, we talk about joe biden being gaffe prone, to some voters that is endearing and part of his charm and part of what makes him human. we had his exclamation of mularkey last night, which certainly got a lot of headlines. his hot mic moment where he asked kamala harris to take it easy on me, kid. and cory booker is already advertising off of his mistakenly referring to him as the future president. so i think that not only did he engage but he also kind of reminded folks, you know, of the kind of joe biden charm that endears him to a lot of voters. >> but that charm sometimes has the inadvertent effect of reminding a lot of voters out there the of one of the big issues about biden and this is age. obviously a lot of the other candidates have talked about time for a new face, a new generation, and all these little

slip-ups. and these are little. granted these are people talking for two hours on live tv, but the go easy on me, kid, which clearly on the one hand it was biden being biden, but it was a very dismissive tone towards one of the front-runners in the race and botching the stimulus numbers, botching the text message notice in the race, it has all these little reminders of his -- just how long he's been out there. >> and sharing the center with former vice president biden was senator harris who did a very good job prosecuting joe biden in the first debate. the challenge for her was can you build on it. she got a bounce and it dipped down a little bit. these campaigns are event driven. so she bumps up. then a couple of weeks she comes down. she has a big chance last night. she knew she was going to mix it up with joe biden. not sure she expected this. >> she blocked evidence -- she blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the courts forced her to do so.

she kept people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state of california. >> i did the work of significantly reforming the criminal justice system of a state of 40 million people which became a national model for the work that needs to be done, and i am proud of that work. >> she didn't specifically address the question. she turned her back on tulsi gabbard and she was almost dismissive of her. but senator harris knowing this was an opportunity for her after a strong round one didn't seem to bring the same level of detail, same level of passion, same level of courtroom lawyer. fair? >> i think the stakes were even higher for her than they were for joe biden. what she got with that first debate was a second look from a lot of voters but it was a sort of probation, right? they wanted to see her keep up that pace. they wanted to see her do it again with just as much strength and she wasn't as consistent and she with stood a lot more

attacks, not always successfully. i think that attack from tulsi gabbard is going to leave a mark because although we've been talking for a while about how her record as a prosecutor might hurt her, it was the way that she distilled it in a way that i think was easy for people to understand that has the potential to create some doubt in people's mind. >> to your point, john, we saw harris' attack of biden on busing, that did not put a dent in joe biden's numbers with black voters, who all of these candidates are trying to erode his support among black voters who are the most loyal and consistent base of the democratic party. so it will be interesting to see what the poll numbers say about harris and how successful they think she was or wasn't in fending off the attacks that she got last night. but i think that really what we saw is that she is kind of -- she was trying to make herself look more presidential last night and it will be up to voters to decide whether or not they think that she did that. but also she was trying to

position herself as one of the front-runners. obviously she's sharing that 1 and 2 slot last night with the front-runner and is trying to really become i guess front-runner adjacent, if you will, last night. so we'll see if that bears out in the polls. >> you learn from the candidates and they learn from the debates. you go up and down in the cycle. let's sum up the two nights together. anybody getting anything other than elizabeth warren as to when you add up the two nights? >> i think elizabeth warren and president trump. we've seen a lot of competitive primary debates. we often forget about them. woe watched a lot over the years, particularly clinton and obama. but the venom last night for a party that wants to defeat president trump and using that audience to prosecute its case, a lot of things are going to be remaining with whoever the nominee is. think how many tv ads have been made over the last 48 hours or so about their medicare plans, et cetera.

so elizabeth warren, the strongest on the field, i think, no question. we'll have to see when they're standing side by side. and medicare for all, kamala harris was able to get by just, i think, on the margins on that. but that is the defining issue here. once we have sanders, warren, harris, biden together, it's a whole new show. >> we'll continue our conversation about last night, about the last two nights. up next we bring in the michigan congressman, debbie dingell. she says she knows what democrats need to win back michigan in 2020. she'll be with us after a break. first we check in with our undecided michigan democratic voters. we spoke to them before the debate. here's a little input from them on what they thought. >> wayne county has three separate jails. i would love to be wrong on this point but i don't think a single candidate went to any of the three jails to engage people who are actually currents of our current cash bail system. i was glad the debate was in detroit. i was glad that we as a city were able to host so many people, bringing the candidates back to let them know that detroit is alive and well. i really would have liked them

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your line coming in was you wanted to see these candidates prove, because of trump's victory in your state in 2016, that they had it on jobs, that they had it on trade, that they could not only win wayne county and detroit and the african-american vote but win mccomb county. anybody do it? >> nope. i'm going to tell you one of the things that i'm most disappointed in was they were in detroit, they had the opportunity to talk about urban issues and they were in the heartland, which is where the road to the white house goes through 2020 and they didn't talk about any of those issues that i just talked to you about. they were very busy taking shots at each other, even when they had the health care discussion. they didn't talk about it in ways that working men and women understand or that they care about or even show an understanding of those that have health care insurance right now, their fear they're going to lose it any day. we've got to -- we've got to learn how as democrats to show people we care about them, that we're going to fight for them and talk about issues that just matter every single night when

somebody goes home after a long day of work. >> you understand how it works, there are 20 of them, a few others who didn't make the debate stage and they want to be the one. let me come back to the health care issue. you're chair of the medicare for all caucus in the house. >> i am. >> we had a lot of back and forth about medicare for all and all the variations and the public option. i want to listen you to congressman tim ryan. he made a point about the union workers in his district back home in ohio. this would apply in your area as well, saying why are we telling you if you're for the pure medicare for all, wipe out employer-based health insurance. his point was why are we taking away something voters want. let's listen. >> these union members are losing their jobs, their wages have been stagnant, the world is crumbling around them. the only thing they have is possibly really good health care. and the democratic message is going to be we're going to go in and the only thing you have left, we're going to take it and we're going to do better. i do not think that's a recipe for success for us.

it's bad policy and it's certainly bad politics. >> is he right or wrong? >> so tim is my friend and i think he's someone that gets these issues, but i'm going to say several things. and it's easier for me. i've been in the auto industry for three decades and i'm in a union hall every weekend. the uaw has supported the bill that i've introduced on medicare for all in the house. people don't realize that if you already are working for one of the oems, if you're a salaried employee and you worked hard, you'd play by the rules, you'd have health care for your life. at 65 you're on medicare and anything supplemental you've got to pay more for. we're going into very important union negotiations. so many of these uaw workers are paying more and their co-pays on their medicines have gone sky high. they also know that they're competing in a global marketplace where every other industrialized nation in the

world takes care of all of its citizens. american companies are paying for that health care and no other company -- no other country that they're competing with is. it's complicated. but you can make it simpler and that's what our autoworkers know. they're scared. they have lost a lot. the supplier companies have lost their health care already after 2008. >> you say -- let me jump in. let me jump in because you say they're scared. this has been part of the debate. former vice president biden says let's fix obamacare, let's not have this huge disruption to medicare for all, he thinks some of the other things are too far. he thinks some of them are too far policywise. he thinks others are too far if you're trying to sell them and bring michigan back to blue, bring wisconsin back to blue, bring pennsylvania back to blue. elizabeth warren, i know that you're talking to your colleagues and a lot say warren was the best debater. if that path continues and those

centrists think she can't win. listen to her on the debate stage making her case, go big. >> you know, i don't understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for the president of the united states just to talk about what we really can't do and shouldn't fight for. >> when you watch her debate, the passion she brings and the conviction she brings, does she convince you she can win pennsylvania, michigan and wisconsin and flip the map? >> i haven't seen anything that's convinced me yet and i'm not endorsing anyone. we're not going win this election by being negative. i support medicare for all because it's aspirational. my father-in-law introduced the first universal health care bill in the early '40s. it took 20 years to get medicare. if you don't have a vision, but i don't disagree that we need to improve on the affordable care act because there are a whole lot of people who are paying more in premiums and deductibles, can't afford their medicine and they're scared because of pre-existing

conditions. we can meld that stage. we've got to have the long-term vision and what do we do right now to help people. we can't even get to the table to take care of those who are paying more in premiums and having higher deductibles, there is a problem. >> debbie dingell, appreciate it live from detroit the day after the debate. we'll check in with you to see if anybody comes closer to meeting your test. before we go break, we checked in with jay anderson. here's what he thought of the debates. >> day one, elizabeth warren. o'rourke and bernie sanders. day two, cory booker was strong. castro, biden, harris, and yang did his thing. he kept to the keep it simple message. i used to book my hotel room on those travel sites but there was always a catch. like somehow you wind up getting less. but now that i book at hilton.com, and i get all these great perks. i got to select my room from the floor plan... very nice...

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the senate just moments ago passing a new budget and debt ceiling deal despite some republican senators raising concerns over increasing that debt ceiling. lauren fox joins is now from capitol hill. the senate just wrapped up the voting. take us inside. >> reporter: well, you know, republican leadership was trying to whip this bill pretty hard. they wanted to get a majority of their conference and they are moving ahead here into the summer recess with a pretty impressive vote. the president's tweet just a few minutes before the vote didn't hurt anything.

in fact it gives republicans a little cover when they're going back home to these conservative states where driving up federal spending can be a big campaign issue. a lot of republicans said ultimately they wanted to get behind this, increase the debt ceiling for two years in order to take that off the table and not slow any economic growth that they have been seeing. i just talked to senator dick shelby and he said now their work begins to try to stave off a government shutdown in september. so they have just a couple of months to work on that. you can expect staff over the next couple of weeks during the august recess will be very busy on the appropriations committee. just because they get these top-line numbers doesn't mean the work is completely done. >> lauren fox for us live on the hill. progress, we'll take that. appreciate the live reporting. when we come back, two rounates over. third round of debates about a month away. what happens in between? you're e street when you barely clip a passing car. minor accident -no big deal, right? wrong. your insurance company is gonna raise

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today is an anxious day for many of the democratic contenders, even those who believe they turned in strong performances these past two debate nights. ten or more of the 20 candidates who debated in detroit might not meet the higher bar for an invitation to round three next month. candidates like andrew yang, the outside entrepreneur. he's close to qualifying. he hopes last night gives him enough of a boost even as he predicts it probably didn't do so much to help or hurt the democratic top of the pack. >> you know, it's interesting to look at this because if you see what happened after the last debate, joe had a bit of a dip and he just came back. we all know who joe biden is. i'm not sure last night changed

anyone's opinion as to who joe biden is. >> a, he's funny. but especially the candidates who aren't sure they're going to make it are everywhere. they look for their moment in the debate, they're access ill in the spin room, they're on tv tonight and today. now you have an anxious week, ten days, number one, you know if the fund-raising is coming in. you know pretty quickly because it's all done on the internet. you need to get 130,000 unique donors. then you have to get to 2% in enough polls. tough stretch for those guys. >> although i think based on that clip if andrew yang doesn't make the next debate, he might have a future as a pundit. he didn't necessarily have one clear message that voters could take away, so congratulations, andrew yang, on your upcoming tv contract. but, no, i think obviously from the point of view of the candidates, this is very fraught. they were all trying to make a splash and have that moment that

gets -- that lights enough of a fire that they can make it to the next stage. from the point of view of the party, this is also very fraught because for the sort of democratic establishment or just from the point of view of democratic voters as a mass, this many candidates is not good the further along you go. and for the party's sake, they really need the field to be w winnowed so the race feels more focus and voters can focus. there are so many candidates that i think you really saw last night it's just kind of a mess. and so i think a lot of sort of party officials are concerned that if these candidates don't start dropping out of their own accord, things could get very messy. >> i think that's absolutely right. i think what i'm hearing talking to voters on the campaign trail is there's too many people for me to pay attention right now. i'm going to tune in when there are fewer people for me to choose from, right? looking ahead to the next debate, i mean these two nights

you're competing with the bachelorette finale in the debate, so voters have choices about what they're going to tune into. they're not ready to necessarily tune into this election yet, which is still just short of 200 days away. the primary elections. and you've got football season to contending with starting in september and moving beyond that. so definitely the fewer folks that are in, that certainly will help voters start to kind of turn to the election. but yeah, i think we are definitely going to see i don't know how much more narrow of a field but given that the bar is higher for them to qualify for these next debates, it will definitely be smaller than what we've seen so far. >> one of the candidates who was in a very good mood after last night is cory booker. they came in, the campaign staff, promising he was going white hot against the vice president. but there was an exchange when

the vice president raised questions about when senator booker was mayor of newark and the police department. >> why did you announce in the first day a zero tolerance policy of stop and frisk and hire rudy giuliani's guy in 2007? >> mr. vice president, there's a saying in my community you're dipping into the kool-aid and you don't even know the flavor. new jersey had the aclu that said i embraced reforms not just in actions, but in deeds. >> that was during the debate. he sat down after this and all politicians do this, but that presentation was an overgloesy, overoptimistic, overfriendly explanation of his relationship with the aclu. >> in 2010 the aclu files a 96-page complaint against the newark police department. you've been mayor four years. three years later, you're right, they do commend you after an investigation, after the justice department gets involved, but at the beginning it was more

contentious was it not? >> this was a partnership from the beginning. we had a disagreement on tactics and speed, but actually i'm really proud of the achievements we made. >> he did at the ending make this peace. but he said it was a partnership from the beginning. this is what the aclu said in 2009 when he gave the mayor a d. mayor booker and his police director promised the aclu they would reform the city's police practices, however we have not seen significant improvement. the aclu new jersey har involved in a unprecedented number of lawsuits over police practices in the city. again, he's not unique but trying to say this was always great from the beginning. >> that's something joe biden could have brought up right there in that moment. let's not talk about the k. o -- kool-aid, let's talk about the aclu. cory booker was ready for the vice president's attacks because his aides have been talking

about it for the last week or so. in that moment i thought senator booker seemed much -- he was pretty sunny side up and that was sort of setting him apart from most of the gloom and doom kind of angry tone we heard. >> another interesting thing at the debate last night, presidents came up, presidents plural. presidents trump and there was a big debate among democrats about president obama. ♪ i want it that way... i can't believe it. that karl brought his karaoke machine? ♪ ain't nothing but a heartache... ♪ no, i can't believe how easy it was to save hundreds of dollars on my car insurance with geico. ♪ i never wanna hear you say... ♪ no, kevin... no, kevin! believe it! geico could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. while managing your type 2 diabetes- why think about your heart? lower a1c helps, but type 2 diabetes still increases my risk of a fatal cardiovascular event.

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some breaking news just in to cnn. sources telling cnn the justice department watchdog, michael horowitz, referred the former fbi director james comey for prosecution, but the trump justice department senior officials at the department declining to prosecute mr. comey. let's get straight to evan perez. tell us about this investigation. wow. >> reporter: yeah, wow, right? so the inspector general of the justice department has been looking into among other things james comey's handling of some memos that he wrote over his interactions with then -- the beginning of president trump's term. he wrote multiple of these memos, two of them in particular were later determined by the justice department, by the fbi, to contain classified information at the lowest level, confidential level. this is the lowest level of classification. so what we're told is in recent weeks, the inspector general

investigators decided that they would refer this for possible prosecution and justice department prosecutors have declined to bring charges against the former fbi director, james comey, in part because they determined that because the memos in question were not classified at the time, that they later were deemed to be classified and marked classified by the fbi, that they couldn't prove that james comey intended to violate the laws that govern the handling of classified information. in other words, they can't necessarily bring this to trial because it is a relatively weak case. i'm told by one person familiar, john, that it wasn't even a close call, that prosecutors up and down the ranks determined that this was not the kind of case that they could bring. but obviously this has been a big, big issue for conservatives, for the president and the handling of these memos in particular is something they were hoping would bring some legal consequences for james comey. that is not the case at this point from the justice

department. >> fascinating reporting, evan perez, appreciate it. let us know when there's more from the justice department. for those of you at home, i'd just watch twitter and see if the president weighs in on this. i suspect he will. also has a rally tonight. back to the democratic debates. one wrinkle was attack on the president's immigration policies. that would be president obama's immigration policies. cnn's don lemon asked joe biden about the aggressive deportations during the obama years. a member of the obama cabinet now running for president saw an opening. >> first of all, mr. vice president, it looks like one of us has learned the lessons of the past and one of us hasn't. let me begin by telling you -- >> the new york mayor, bill de blasio, senator cory booker, also joining in. >> did you say those deportations were a good idea or did you go to the president and say this is a mistake and we shouldn't do it, which one?

>> i was vice president, i am not the president. i keep my recommendations to him in private. >> mr. vice president, you can't have it both ways. you invoke president obama more than anybody in this campaign. you can't do it when it's vee t convenient and dodge it when it's not. >> it's a democratic presidential debate and the last democratic president an issue on immigration there. it's also an issue constantly when people say obamacare and health care as well. half of the democratic field says ditch it, essentially repeal and replace, let's have medicare for all. how is this going over in the obama camp? >> not well at all. barack obama is the most popular politician, certainly democratic politician, you know, who exists. so the reality is that barack obama of course was moving on in '07 past the clinton administration as well so there is a recognition it is not his party any longer. i talked to someone this morning who talks to him frequently and said he's fine with new ideas but he does not believe that voters should be misled here through promises and other

matters. >> i want to read -- sorry to interrupt you. you spoke to rahm emanuel, his former chief of staff. everybody has got to be kidding me here. you have a perfect setup. president trump is suing to undo it, meaning obamacare. we won an election on it. i don't get this. i don't believe there wasn't an f-bomb in there somewhere. >> there may have been. but the reality here is that the democrats are so -- the ones on the fringes are so eager to get attention and things they are saying a lot of things. but i think on health care specifically, we are seeing all these democrats running away from that. but the consequence of this is more time spent on obama than president trump. that is the ultimate goal here so that is what frustrates most of the obama alumni. >> we had this moment last night, julian castro was the housing secretary, the former san antonio mayor. he joined us after the debate. david axelrod, now a cnn

contributor, essentially they had a little bit of a family discussion. >> there were large numbers of deportations under the obama administration. were his policies wrong? >> it was the honor of my lifetime to serve president obama. i consider -- >> let's stipulate that. >> one of the greatest presidents. but i will say even a lot of folks in the administration recognized that the administration could have done better when it came to all of these deportations. >> should have introduced michael sherer of "the new york times." i love obama but -- it's risky in a democratic primary. >> it is risky. part of the problem is you've had two and a half years of donald trump trying to unwinding the obama legacy. and i think what the obama people have been concerned about and axelrod is one of them, obviously rahm is another, is that you're going to have seven or eight months of democrats fighting about the wrong thing essentially. fighting about the obama legacy

when what they need to be focused on is the trump legacy. frankly this wouldn't be happening if joe biden wasn't sort of sitting there as the proxy for, as the stand-in for the obama legacy because then you'd have people talking much more about other people's records and looking at donald trump. and so biden's presence there for people who care about obama and what he built is a problem. >> it is fascinating when you talk to younger, even african-american voters who don't real a memory of obama. they were maybe in high school. 2016 was their first vote. they are not as enamored, whether it's criminal justice reform. in their mind obama didn't do enough but it would be fascinating. we'll see if that comes in at debate round three. we're waiting for former vice president joe biden at an event in detroit. we're expecting him to come out and talk to reporters. we'll take you there live.

take you live to detroit, joe biden is talking to reporters. >> receiving all of that incoming fire on the debate stage? >> i expected it. look, i hope we're going to get a chance to talk about the future in these other debates that are coming up. i'm looking forward to them. i must tell you, i was a little surprised how much the incoming was about barack, about the

president. i mean i'm proud of having served with him, i'm proud of the job he did. i don't think there's anything he has to apologize for. and i think, you know, it kind of surprised me the degree of the criticism. but look, it's -- as i've told you before, and god love you, you've had to cover me a long time now, but this is a marathon. and i feel good. i think we're -- you know, we passed the quarter mark and i'm feeling good. >> mr. vice president, you told us in the earliest days of your campaign that you were not going to speak ill of a fellow democrat. you were pretty tough on some of your opponents. why the change in strategy? >> because i responded. i hope the next debate we can talk about our answers to fix the things that trump has broken, not how barack obama made all these mistakes. he didn't. he didn't. and so -- but what i want to make clear is that this going back 10, 20, 30 years is just -- is a game that's a game to make

sure that we hand the republicans an election coming up. look, folks, there's a lot of things everybody has done in their past and votes that no longer have a context today. they're taken out of context. and i just wanted to make the point that some of these assertions being made were absolutely, how can i say it nice nicely, not true and taken out of context and if they really meant what they said, they wouldn't have done a lot of things they did. >> do you think your party has gone too far to the left? do you think your party has gone to the left? >> on immigration, for instance, what are you going to do differently from obama? >> the world has changed since obama of the a obama. and here's the deal. this is about the future. it's about taking the same kind of integrity and moving beyond it. by the time the president's term ended, he was able to begin to focus on ways to not just keeping the car from going over

the cliff and us going into depression, he was able to begin to focus, and he focused on immigration. and what he did was serious. he changed the dialogue, he changed the whole question, he changed what was going on. and the idea that somehow it's comparable to what this guy is doing is absolutely bizarre. look, this is three years later. the world has changed. president trump has turned it upside down internationally. he has turned it upside down economically. people are hurting badly. there's no response. we faced a different problem ten years ago when the economy collapsed because of republican policies. now we face a problem that the economy as well as the soul of this country is collapsing because of this presidency. so it's a different problem. but with the same basic principle. we have to be honest, straightforward and authentic about what we're going to do. i'm looking forward to being able to go into some detail and explain and deal with the differences we have. they're all good people.

but here's my plan for health care, what's yours? let's talk about it. >> but your party has changed as well. do you think it's moving too far to the left even with immigration where some of your fellow democratic candidates say they want to decriminalize those who cross the border illegally? >> it's not about moving from left to right. i think i represent the party. there's a lot of really, really good people who got elected who are really pushing and it's good, it's healthy to do that. but the idea that they represent what the party is today does not comport with who gets elected, does not comport with how we won in '18, it does not comport. but it's a totally legitimate debate to have. the one thing we have to focus on and the one thing i agree with cory on last night, let's focus on what it is we can do together. we are so different. every one of those people on that stage has a fundamentally

different view than -- they talk about barack but they have a fu fundamentally different view than the president of the united states. let's focus on who has the best path forward to lead this country to greatness. >> are you supportive of the debate stage shrinking going forward? >> well, i'm supportive of having a debate. not one-minute assertions. look, it's not anybody's fault the way it's worked. there's 20 candidates and that's a good thing. but the idea that we don't actually have a chance to explain our policies in less than one minute, and if you're not asked a direct question about your policy, you get 30 seconds. and if you're not asked, you get 15 seconds to intervene, that's not a debate. i understand why it has to be that way, but i'm looking forward to getting to the place where we can actually exchange ideas. >> can you clarify your position on nafta?

you said that house democrats are talking about four concrete changes to trump's deal. >> no, you asked me whether or not trump plan has offered. that's what i was asked. >> if they have four changes, will you accept it? >> as long as i got to make sure that this time they are written in stone, they are written in stone. they must be imposed. last time, remember, there was a proposal that said you're going to have to. this was 20 some years ago. you're going to have to make sure you provide for alternatives for people who may get caught in the crossfire here. that did not happen. it's a different deal. >> going back to last night. >> yes. >> is there anything you would do differently about last night's debate? >> instead of saying joe i would have said text. i was so focused on making the case for joe i said joe and i gave the number.