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  • JOHN YANG: We are just more than an hour away from the "PBS NewsHour"/Politico debate, which

  • starts at 8:00 p.m. Eastern on PBS stations.

  • For a preview, "NewsHour" political correspondent Lisa Desjardins is in Los Angeles with a roundtable

  • of guests.

  • And, Lisa, it seems like I was just talking to you from the Capitol about the impeachment

  • vote, and now you're out there.

  • Could you just not -- you just couldn't wait to get out of town after last night?

  • (LAUGHTER)

  • LISA DESJARDINS: Well, you can't accuse "PBS NewsHour" of being on just one coast.

  • We hit both coasts within just 12 hours.

  • And I think, John, as our viewers know, that's just how the news is these days.

  • You're the same way.

  • How many topics are you covering in a single show?

  • We have to travel.

  • And the stories are moving faster than we can, almost.

  • JOHN YANG: Absolutely.

  • But you keep up with them, Lisa.

  • That's the difference between you and me.

  • You keep up with them.

  • LISA DESJARDINS: We try.

  • JOHN YANG: And, sometimes, you keep ahead of them.

  • (LAUGHTER)

  • LISA DESJARDINS: We try.

  • But I'm also very fortunate.

  • To help us through this debate tonight, we have an esteemed panel.

  • They will be with me now, also through the entire debate.

  • Let me introduce our wonderful anchor of "NewsHour West," Stephanie Sy, next to her, friend of

  • "NewsHour" Amy Walter, of course, of Politics Monday and The Cook Political Report.

  • Next to her, we have Ryan Lizza of Politico, and, of course, Laura Barron-Lopez also, national

  • political correspondent for Politico.

  • Ladies and gentlemen, I have a question for you.

  • With all of this news, how do any of these candidates stand out, get any attention tonight?

  • Stephanie, what could happen here that could get some voters' attention?

  • STEPHANIE SY: You know, I think a lot of voters are actually paying attention to these debates,

  • because a lot of them are undecided.

  • So, I think, really, for these candidates to stand out, it has to be about policy, and

  • it has to be about personality.

  • I mean, let's not kid ourselves.

  • The first of the voting is less than two months away.

  • There are still so many people that don't know who they're voting for.

  • So, I think the candidates that really resonate are the ones that can connect on a deeper

  • level.

  • You know, I think they want to get to know people.

  • We did a poll, PBS/NPR/Marist, last week that showed most Democratic voters care about most

  • about the candidate that can beat President Trump, vs. the candidate that they identify

  • with policy-wise.

  • So I know a lot of the Democratic voters I spoke to recently, they are picturing which

  • are these candidates looks presidential and they can picture on a debate stage, if there

  • is a debate, with President Trump.

  • AMY WALTER, The Cook Political Report: With President Trump, yes.

  • That's a good point.

  • LISA DESJARDINS: Amy, I saw you nodding about that.

  • You know these elections in and out.

  • We're 46 days, as Stephanie alluded to, from the Iowa caucuses.

  • AMY WALTER: Right.

  • LISA DESJARDINS: Believe it or not, people, we're there.

  • AMY WALTER: And it's the...

  • LISA DESJARDINS: Where it where is the voter mind-set, the undecided voter mind-set now?

  • AMY WALTER: Well, the undecided voter mind-set, of course, is thinking about holiday shopping.

  • (LAUGHTER)

  • AMY WALTER: Which I have not done yet.

  • Sorry, everyone on my list.

  • LISA DESJARDINS: Come on.

  • (LAUGHTER)

  • AMY WALTER: I know.

  • It's still -- so, this is both -- it's a good time and a difficult time for these candidates,

  • not just the deluge of news, but people are literally traveling everywhere and getting

  • their focus on family and holidays.

  • But, look, this is the last time that these presidential candidates are going to have

  • a national audience before we hit the Iowa debate in the middle of -- in the middle of

  • January, which is only a couple weeks before the Iowa caucuses.

  • And the other thing, Lisa, as you very well know, a lot of the folks who are sitting on

  • the stage may be spending some of their January, a lot of their January, stuck in Washington

  • at an impeachment trial.

  • And so the fact that this may be the last time for a while that we will see all of them

  • together -- and I think Stephanie makes a good point.

  • As they're all -- these are the top -- these are the top candidates all in one place.

  • The fact that it's a smaller field means that we could probably get more of a robust discussion

  • than you could get with 10 or 12 candidates on stage.

  • LISA DESJARDINS: And let's look at this small field tonight, the smallest field we have

  • seen on stage, seven candidates tonight.

  • That's down from 10 in the last one.

  • Let's look at the lineup that we have got.

  • These candidates will be on stage in order, roughly, by their polling, with the highest-polling

  • candidates in the center.

  • That is former Vice President Joe Biden, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Senator

  • Elizabeth Warren.

  • They will be flanked by the other candidates who met the tougher qualifications for this

  • debate, going left to right, Andrew Yang.

  • Then we have got former Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, then, on the other side, another

  • senator, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, and another businessman, Tom Steyer.

  • Ryan Lizza...

  • RYAN LIZZA, Politico: Yes.

  • LISA DESJARDINS: ... what lineups are you interested in looking at?

  • Who will engage with each other, do you think, tonight?

  • RYAN LIZZA: Yes.

  • LISA DESJARDINS: What are the important points of differentiating that we could see?

  • RYAN LIZZA: Yes, you have a real dogfight in the two early states, with those four candidates

  • in the center basically being bunched up very close to each other.

  • You could make a case for any of those four winning Iowa, winning New Hampshire.

  • I remember covering the 2004 primary, and John Kerry, who went on -- went on to win

  • Iowa, was at about 3 percent in one poll at this point in 2003.

  • So, I will be looking for how -- the two candidates on the left ideologically, not on the stage

  • left, Warren and Sanders, do they start to differentiate themselves a little bit?

  • They have had this kind of funny nonaggression pact between the two of them.

  • So I will be looking for that.

  • Does Biden, the national front-runner, take some incoming?

  • Do people feel like they need to start dragging him down?

  • Bernie Sanders, who's back in second place nationally, he has not really been the subject

  • of much criticism on these debate stages.

  • Does he start to take some fire?

  • And then, finally, Pete Buttigieg, who has been the aggressor in the last couple of debates,

  • is a very gifted debater, a very gifted communicator.

  • Where does he -- he's going to -- if the past is any -- is predictable, he will go after

  • someone tonight.

  • Will it be Biden?

  • Will it be Sanders?

  • Will he continue on his sort of jihad against Warren?

  • So, those are the main things looking at.

  • AMY WALTER: Yes.

  • LISA DESJARDINS: Laura, do you agree?

  • Or does Pete Buttigieg have too much to lose now, now that he's obviously -- he's right

  • near the top in Iowa, he's trying to regain momentum?

  • LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, Politico: I think he still needs to differentiate himself or still draw

  • those contrasts, potentially maybe with Biden, right, because they pull from each other.

  • Well, they have -- they're trying to carry the same message forward.

  • They're trying to both carry this moderate mantle all the way through.

  • What I'm waiting for is to see if Buttigieg and Warren get into it, because, in the last

  • month, they have started to attack each other more directly, warren specifically, who Lizza

  • mentioned the nonaggression pact.

  • Warren also had this rule that she wouldn't specifically attack Democrats by name.

  • She would draw subtle contrasts.

  • She changed that this last month by directly naming Buttigieg and Biden.

  • And so whether or not, if she's attacked on the debate stage, she decides to very directly

  • draw those contrasts -- I don't necessarily think she and Sanders are going to go after

  • each other.

  • She has sworn consistently that she will not go after Sanders directly at all.

  • LISA DESJARDINS: Yes, Amy.

  • AMY WALTER: Well, I just want to bring up something that Stephanie talked about earlier,

  • this idea about who can beat President Trump, right?

  • Who's the strongest candidate there?

  • If you look at the polling we have seen come in, in this last week, really, as impeachment

  • is coming to a vote, what you find is that the president's job approval rating has actually

  • ticked up a bit.

  • Now, it's still not great.

  • He's still averaging...

  • LISA DESJARDINS: Clinton's rose a lot during impeachment.

  • AMY WALTER: This one -- this -- he went from averaging about 41 percent to averaging 43

  • percent.

  • So this is very minor.

  • But, again, if you're...

  • LISA DESJARDINS: It's not going down.

  • AMY WALTER: If you're making the case that the most important thing for those folks on

  • the stage to prove is that they can beat a candidate who is a president in a good economy,

  • another poll that came out this week showed that the president's handling of the economy,

  • job approval on the economy, highest it's been it since going back to the beginning

  • of the year.

  • So I think this case to be made about -- for these candidates tonight, the case to be made

  • about, look, he's going to be tough to beat, this is a sitting president, sitting presidents

  • are difficult to beat -- it's difficult to beat sitting presidents when people feel like

  • that president is doing a good job on the economy.

  • Optimism about the economy is as strong as it's been in about 10 or 15 years, maybe a

  • little bit longer.

  • Who's going to be the one to be able to have the discipline and the strength to go one-on-one

  • with him?

  • LISA DESJARDINS: Another difference about tonight's debate, not only will it have the

  • fewest number of candidates on stage, but this is the "PBS NewsHour"/Politico debate.

  • And we know Judy Woodruff has said that she wants this to be about substance.

  • Now, I think you hear that a lot, but, to me, that means issues.

  • And we -- and I'm wondering, Stephanie.

  • You have been talking to a lot of voters.

  • How do you think voters feel the economy, especially Democratic voters, climate change

  • -- where are these issues?

  • What issues do voters care about right now?

  • STEPHANIE SY: Well, I think the economy is always tops with all voters.

  • If we're going to look at what is unique to Democratic voters, climate change, especially

  • in California, factors very high on that list.

  • But my question is, how do these candidates differentiate themselves on that issue?

  • Several of the candidates on stage have adopted the basic Green New Deal policies.

  • And so is that a place where they're going to be able to differentiate themselves?

  • One of my questions is, as we all know, even if the Democrats are able to win the White

  • House and both houses of Congress, we're looking at probably whoever is president getting through

  • one major piece of legislation.

  • Obama chose to do health care.

  • He wasn't able to deliver cap and trade.

  • So, I think, for a lot of California voters, climate change is their number one issue.

  • But when I was going around talking to voters in the last few days, they all still talk

  • about how expensive their health care is.

  • And we -- and that is going to be a major issue, I think, that we will see delineated

  • between these candidates, is that question of the private option vs. Medicare for all.

  • I still think that is a major fissure among these candidates.

  • RYAN LIZZA: Yes.

  • Yes.

  • LISA DESJARDINS: Ryan Lizza, we were talking about this earlier.

  • Talk a little bit more about Elizabeth Warren and sort of the needle she is trying to thread

  • right now.

  • RYAN LIZZA: Yes, I completely agree with that.

  • I mean, health care is always at the top of issue polls of Democrats.

  • It has been for the last couple of years, and so health care, health care, health care.

  • I know a lot of people who watch these debates have -- some reporters have been frustrated

  • by huge chunks of time spent on health care, but that is the issue that Democrats say they

  • care about.

  • And I think, if you look at the arc of these debates from the summer until November, you

  • started with this sort of consensus on Medicare for all.

  • That looked like the -- where it was the sweet spot in the Democratic primary.

  • And, slowly, the arguments from the more moderate candidates has started to resonate.

  • The polls of single-payer among Democrats, not just the broader public, has started to

  • look a lot more favorable for the -- Pete Buttigieg-Biden version of Medicare for all,

  • Medicare for...

  • LISA DESJARDINS: Which -- describe.

  • Explain that to viewers.

  • RYAN LIZZA: Right.

  • So, the Bernie option would be, everyone would go into Medicare, which is right now just

  • for adults over 65, right?

  • Warren adopted that strategy -- or that policy early in the campaign, famously said, I'm

  • with Bernie.

  • She struggled a little bit to put out a plan detailing how she would pay for it.

  • She did that.

  • But then she added a little bit of a wrinkle recently, where she said, in the first year,

  • if she was president, she would just have a public option.

  • In other words, anyone who wanted to buy into Medicare could do that.

  • But in the third year as president, she would do a full single-payer plan, transition to

  • everyone in America would be in the Medicare program.

  • She's now, on the campaign trail, started to talk about that, started to talk about

  • the public option, started to talk about choice.

  • Sounds a little bit more where Pete Buttigieg has been.

  • I would be surprised if that difference didn't come up tonight, where -- if Warren -- Warren

  • is likely to be challenged tonight on whether that's a shift or not.

  • LISA DESJARDINS: This is the kind of substance I'm talking about, everyone.

  • This is awesome.

  • (LAUGHTER)

  • LISA DESJARDINS: There is also an issue that is about what America looks like that I want

  • to talk to you about, Laura Barron-Lopez.

  • The candidates on this stage will not reflect really what America looks like.

  • There will be only one person of color on this stage, Andrew Yang.

  • Now, the moderators, however, that's where you will actually see more people of color,

  • on the moderators, the four moderators.

  • What does that mean for Democrats?

  • Is that a potential problem for the party, for the candidate they select?

  • And what do we know about why that may be?

  • LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Right.

  • So, compared to July's presidential debate, it is a striking visual difference, which

  • was that that was the most diverse presidential debate in history.

  • Five months later, today's debate, the majority of the candidates on stage are white.

  • And so, in my reporting this past week, one thing I heard a lot from Democrats, especially

  • Democrats of color, whether it's House members back in Washington or ones that are local

  • electeds across the country, is that there's the -- they started to reflect a bit more

  • on how Democrats got to this point.

  • And there's a bit of a fear that some Democrats have, which is, what if Barack Obama wasn't

  • just the first black candidate -- or black man to be elected to the presidency, but what

  • if he was the only person who is not white to make it through that door for years to

  • come, and whether or not the nominating process leads to that.

  • There's been a debate that's flared up about whether or not Iowa and New Hampshire should

  • continue to go first anymore in the nominating process, and how that potentially favors white

  • candidates because of the fact that those states are 90 percent white, both of them.

  • And the first diverse state is Nevada, third -- that goes third.

  • So it also raises question about California's placement, right?

  • LISA DESJARDINS: Right.

  • LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Which is that California moved their primary up to be Super Tuesday,

  • and how much impact does that have?

  • Latinos are the biggest ethnic group in California.

  • And that is a place where I think a candidate like Bernie Sanders is very strong.

  • And he could potentially win a state here because he's doing so well with voters like

  • this.

  • LISA DESJARDINS: Stephanie.

  • STEPHANIE SY: You know, talking to voters in California, one thing we have to remember

  • is the absence of Senator Kamala Harris on that stage.

  • LISA DESJARDINS: Right.

  • RYAN LIZZA: Yes.

  • STEPHANIE SY: Now, Senator Kamala Harris is somebody who ostensibly would have appealed

  • to the diverse electorates we would see in a state like Nevada or California.

  • She never had a boatload of support here in California.

  • Sanders does have the edge among Latino voters in California and elsewhere.

  • And we have to talk about the importance of these candidates that are on the stage tonight

  • talking to African-American issues.

  • African-Americans, as we know, are so important within the Democratic electorate.

  • None of these candidates are going to be able to make it to the nomination without that

  • support.

  • Obviously, we're seeing that Vice President Biden has a lot of African-American support

  • in the crucial state of South Carolina.

  • But I would like to listen to whether they are going to speak to issues that are important

  • to those voters.

  • LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: And that's -- that's something that...

  • LISA DESJARDINS: In California.

  • LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Yes, quickly, something that Deval Patrick, who is, along with Cory

  • Booker, they're the only two black candidates still left in this race.

  • And I spoke to him this past week.

  • And he said the big question that he has for this debate stage is whether or not issues

  • that are important to black and brown voters will be raised by the white candidates.

  • LISA DESJARDINS: OK.

  • Thank you all.

  • The smallest debate field in the nation's most populous state -- the debate starts in

  • about an hour.

  • Our preshow starts in a half-hour.

  • We're looking forward to it.

  • It will be a good night -- back to you, John.

  • JOHN YANG: Lisa, terrific analysis and the sort of stuff we're going to be looking forward

  • to from you and your guests all night long.

  • As you just said, remember, the pre-debate show at 7:30 Eastern, the debate itself at

  • 8:00 p.m. Eastern on PBS stations.

JOHN YANG: We are just more than an hour away from the "PBS NewsHour"/Politico debate, which

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