For joe biden, after comments of working with segregationist his support remains high and a group of powerful billionaires with a very surprising message to 2020 contenders, tax us more. Question is will it fuel Elizabeth Warrens support as she continues to rise in the polls . Our road warriors are in miami to break it down. Nbc vaughn has been making his way across the country speaking to voters about the issues they want to hear about most tonight and Garrett Haake is on the ground for front runners as they prep for the first big test of the 2020 election. Garrett, as they are in test prep lets go to you. How are these candidates spending their last 36 hours . For folks on the debate stage, this is two different sets of pa rontives. You have Elizabeth Warren and beto orourkorourke, elizabeth polling out a new policy and beto orourke and Warren Holding town halls. I asked orourke about debate prep and he says the questions from town halls keeps him sharp and focused on the issues hell face. Thats a key part of approaching debate prep. As you get to the edges of the stage and candidates polling at 1 or 2 looking for an opportunity to breakthrough, the focus of their debate prep from the folks ive spoken to has been mainly to introduce themselves. You have to keep in mind, this will be an audience many, many times greater than any of these folks have ever drawn to a Campaign Event or spoken to other than a crisis situation in the various jobs they had before this moment. As for the meat and potatoes of the prep itself, its going over the issues and working ochoen a skill set we no television know well, how to keep it short and stop talking, steph. Vaughn, take us out of the news room to the kitchen table. Youve been speaking to voters across the country. What do they want to hear tomorrow night . Matters most . Stephanie, just over two weeks ago we started on water up in the Pacific Northwest in the puget sound and finishing here on miami beach. There is four big issues we heard in every region we visited. Number one cliemtd chanmate cha. Wildfires and you come down through River Country and there is excessive flooding that flooded farm lands and cities and come down here and you see ever rising sea levels and another issue, womens access to Reproductive Health care. We were constantly hearing from folks, families from across the country, one woman mandy hall said shes concerned about her young girls access to abortion if she were to need it. The third issue, health care. There is a woman we talked to in mississippi. She said shes going to be listening to the candidates. Talk about Mental Health care access and whats included as part of ones right to affo Affordable Health care. The fourth issue is an ever increasing desire for stability from the white house particularly around the iran situation. There is a gentleman that we talked to over in georgia just a few days ago, chip is a grandfather and his son is in the seventh year in the marine corps and there is a possibility he says of deployment. He voted for President Trump in 2016 but will be listening to these debates because hes looking to see if there is a democratic candidate he could potentially see himself voting for, somebody who has more of a calming voice, somebody who presents middle east policy different than the president is treat threatening now. Stephanie . Thank you. They have a busy week ahead. Joining me is former maryland congresswoman and columnist to the Washington Post donna edwards, Vice President of government studies to the Brookings Institution and author of a book i highly recommend, divided america, darrell west and senior Vice President of the senior moderate think tank matt bennett who work on several president ial campaigns over the last 30 years. We brought the experts in. Congresswoman, who are you looking out for in niethese debates . Who has the most to gain and the most to lose . The candidates in the top tier in the polling, folks like biden, warren, sanders, maybe you throw in Kamala Harris in there and Pete Buttigieg, but i think those candidates are going to have to build on the support that they have and they stand more to lose. Some of these others are just going to have to break loose. I dont know how they do that when they get basically, you know, 12 minutes over the course of a couple of hours its really tough to do. And i think that for on the second night, i think for joe biden it is staying the course, not making any mistakes, taking the jabs without getting undone by them and this is going i think were going to see what ive described as the roses who come out of this thousand flowers that have been blooming among Democratic Candidates and some will fall by the wayside and its going to be a way for democrats to call the field and finally get to the set of candidates who are going to go the distance so the democrats can make a decision about who will take on donald trump. If some of those candidates did not break out their fundraising will be drastically hurt. I got to ask you congresswoman about mayor pete. For many he was an absolute unknown six months, three months ago. Now he is center stage but hes facing his biggest controversy back home in south bend where residents are saying they dont trust him. Is this issue going to make its way to the debate stage and is it going to impact his ability to win over black voters . Well, i think it was mayor pete who put his role as a mayor on the agenda describing that as the reason that he had the skill set to bring to the presidency and i think what were seeing here is a candidate who hasnt been tested, hasnt been tested on the National Stage and with black voters, frankly, he had a trouble systrelationship with vs in south bend and thats coming to the floor now. Whether he can dig out of that, i think that remains to be seen but if that town hall meeting over these couple of days ago is any indication, hes going to have to rethink some of his strategy when it comes to understanding the concerns that black voters have bloacks hae in south bend but that is mirrored nationally and he was having a tough time before hand and i think its gotten tougher since the trouble in south bend. Darrell, who are you looking out for in these debates . Im watching biden. In a debate like this you have to try to address your weaknesses. He has the race problem based on his comments about segregation of senators last week. So he needs to reassure African American voters he understands their feelings but hes also a career politician. Running for president at a time when twothirds of americans say they dissatisfied. He has to provide a compelling case how someone has been in washington d. C. For 40 years can bring meaningful change. The president continues to go after joe biden because hes the front runner but going after him about obama not yet endorsing joe. Take a look. How he doesnt get president obama to endorse him, there has to be some reason why hes not endorsing him. He was the Vice President. They seem to have got pten alon and then he lies and says i asked the president not to endorse me. Give me a break. He said he doasked the presiden because hes embarrassed he didnt endivororse him. There is something going on in that brain of his. We do not know joe biden lied about that we should note. Should joe biden begoi g about that we should note. Should joe biden begoioing afte President Trump on the debate stage . If you scour the earth, donald trump would be at the bottom. Except of course he is the president and to be. Yes, but the people that they are talking to on the debate stage are democratic primary voters and they university loathe this president. The answer is sure, they should talk about trump but i think one danger is all ten people on each stage are going to try to take a backseat to no one in their hatred of trump and it isnt going to provide daylight between the candidates. What i think is the biggest and most interesting thing that will happen on the stage is as garrett said, some of the lesser known candidates and people at 1 dont just need to introduce themselves but they need breakout moment because the stakes go up. You need to have higher poll numbers and donors so these people need to do Something Big and fast. They are performing for primary voters, democratic primary voters but do they need to look ahead because they are thinking who isnt just going to one the nomination but who needs to win on the big, big stage against President Trump . Look, i think voters want somebody who is primary voters, democrats want somebody who will defeat donald trump. I dont think it means that the candidates have to spend all night talking about donald trump if they do that they are not going to be talking about themselves. They arent going to be making the case to democratic voters they have something to sell that democrats want to buy. And so i wouldnt spend all my time talking about donald trump but you can present yourself in a way that suggestiignifican sue the best of the democratic field to go after President Trump in november. Thats the challenge for some of these democrats and i think its really going to be hard to get that breakthrough moment when youre on a stage of ten with candidates who have far more name recognition, have more details out there for voters to look at. Its going to be tough to rise to the top out of that bottom, bottom tier. Matt, lets talk about the wealth tax. Were hearing from some wealthy billionaires, george soros, abigail disney, chris hues who is the cofounder of facebook saying tax us more. Until now, we didnt hear that from wealthy people. Are we seeing a shift and you could see some of the billionaire class get on board with an Elizabeth Warren because back in the envelope you poll super rich people in new york city, they are not playing for team warren. That is probably the case. There has always been a condrgrf millionaires and billionaires saying this for a long time. There is a group called democracy alliance. Small group. Very small. Bill clinton gave speeches at the Obama Convention fairly wealthy, tax me more. This is a theme. There is reason democrats think they need to be taxed more and before the trump tax cuts, the tax rates were too low on the wealthy. The question is what level and how and there is debate over the mechanisms but the theme will be univers universal. The issue will be how do you execute that . Congress map man edwards, thank. Stick around, we have a lot more to discuss this morning. Why . Because were less than 36 hours away from the first democratic president ial debate. Two nights, one stage, 20 candidates. The prime typeime events will b broadcast live and streamed on nbc news digital properties. Well be all eyes on the debates. Coming up, what does the trump economy look like in counties that swung from obama to trump in 2016 . First, the money spent to keep a single child in custody without blankets or beds or soap or tooth paste. The money will stun you. 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Ive got their app right here, i can troubleshoot. I can schedule a time for them to call me back, its great you have our number programmed in . Ya i dont even know your phone anymore. Excuse me . what . I dont know your phone number. Aw well. He doesnt know our phone number you have our fax number, obviously. Todays xfinity service. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Ill pass. This morning more than 300 Migrant Children are out of a border facility of pressure over filthy conditions and crowding. Lawyers that visited two texas facilities described seeing a dirty and dangerous scene where Young Children and teenagers, even babies go for days or even weeks without showering, inadequate food and a flu outbreak and none of the children had access to soap or tooth paste. So now hundreds of them have been moved to a tent Detention Camp in el paso. Joining me now, nbc news correspondent Gabe Gutierrez from outside that Border Patrol facility in client, texas. Gabe, its an enormous deal these lawyers came forward and told these stories. They dont do that. You spoke to one of these lawyers that said they needed to given the conditions. What did you learn . Reporter hi, stephanie, good morning. These lawyers are starting to come out. These immigration advocates say these conditions are apaling. This facility is the Border Protection and processing facility in clint, texas. The unaccompanied children are supposed to be here for less than 72 hours and sent to hhs facilities across the country more than 160 facilities across 23 states but the issue is as weve been reporting, these facilities are packed to capacity because those other hhs facilities are also packed with massive backlog but as you mentioned, we spoke with this immigration attorney taylor that she herself had not been inside one of these facilities but worked with two children ages 6 and 10 years old that had been inside this very facility for 14 days. Take a listen. I think that regardless of the arguments there is not enough funding, there is simple basic decency. There should be lines the government has these agents as individuals have how far were willing to go and this manner is completely unacceptable. Is this a funding problem or management problem . I think its definitely a management problem. Reporter now other attorneys part of this tour had been speaking out and saying that these conditions are just devastating, appalling as weve been hearing. Weve been hearing about kids getting sick. Those two children siblings that taylor told us about. They got soak sick inside this facility. Other lawyers talked about lice infestations inside these facilities. The question now is how does this end. Congress is considering 4. 5 billion in emergency money for food and supplies here but many of the people we spoke with agree there is no short term there is no longterm fix in place for this. The question is what will happen to these children as this crisis unfolds, stephanie . A funding issue, a management issue is what we just heard. Nbcs Gabe Gutierrez, thank you. Back with me for a doubleheader, don edwards, darrell west and matt bennett. I want to play a piece of what law professor gidford who had been down and witnessed these conditions firsthand, what she told our colleague chris hayes last night about the cost of caring for these kids. These facilities cost about 750 per day, per child. That is what we would pay to put a child in the ritz carlton. These are not Ritz Carltons and to make it worse, these kids are kept there not for 20 days they are allowed to be kept for law but five, six, seven, we interviewed children that have been in these facilities at longer than nine months at this cost. If you do the analysis, you can save the taxpayers a billion dollars a year simply by taking the children who have families here in the United States and parents in the United States and placing them with those parents. Okay. Darrell. Take your emotion, take your heart out of this and stick with save a billion dollars a year and 750 a day. At the department of justice is arguing against giving them soap, tooth paste and a blanket. Where on earth is the money . I mean, this is a ridiculous situation. You cannot take your emotion out of this situation. Were spending billions on Boarder Security and dont have money for a bar of soap. Every campaign produces a few visual images that stick with voters. I think the image of Young Children locked in cages living in filthy conditions is going to be one of the really compelling graphics of this campaign. Congresswoman, where is the political win for the president . Even for those that are hard lined, anti immigration americans, those people dont want to spend a dime and were spending billions of dollars and still treating these children like dogs. Well, were spending enough money already as has been pointed out to take care of these children. I mean, stephanie, you said take the emotion out of it. Im urging every member of congress not to take the emotion out of it because i mean, i can hardly speak now because whats happening to these children is the face that the world sees of america with children hanging on to cages crying, lying in filth, unable to care for themselves, infants, toddlers, Young Children taking care of younger children. This is an outrage and Congress Needs to get a little bit emotional to challenge this president to one, spend the money thats already been appropriated where its appropriate and if there needs to be more money, congress can do that but dog gone it, take these children out of these facilities and put them with their parents, with their families, put them in homes where they can be taken care of. America should be ashamed right now of whats happening with these children on the boarder. Matt, what is congress to do . The president is pointing to congress saying they are not giving me the funding and congress is simply saying we cant trust where the money is going. We dont want to spend more money on i. C. E. Raids or worry it could go towards the president s wall. Thats the problem. This president lies about everything. He lied about this. Hes lying how obama did this, which he did not. This is bis barerous. How can they stop it . Hold up the budget, which it must pass until they get a Firm Commitment that this is going to change. Now, there have been there are some results coming. We saw the Media Coverage from the a. P. Story and other store are is had moved these kids, sole out of the worst of these conditions. Because of Media Coverage. Right, these can change and what the democrats and congress can do is manipulate Media Coverage. They can be holding the line on the budget and hold hearings and they have the power to do things but they need kind of concerted effort to do it. The problem is there are so many plates spin for the democrats in the house. They are the only ones doing any oversight that have the Mueller Investigation and all of the kind of chaos coming out of that and they got to try to keep the lights on for government. There is a lot of things to do but seems nothing is more urgent than this and they should put priority. Those who have no power, these children matt, darrell, congresswoman, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Important continversation. In a brandnew interview with President Trump, the president goes off on everything from his he does not need congressional approval to bomb iran. Before we promove on, its beeno months since the redacted version of the Mueller Report was released. Recent polls show 20 of americans have read part of it so last night some of the biggest the piece inspired by the report. Putting it together with excerpts from conferences are tweets from the president in a performance called the investigation. A performance called the investigation. President elect trump called priebus after the story was published and expressed anger about it. What the hell is this all about . The president had lunch at the white house with new jersey governor chris christie. Now that we fired flynn, the russia thing is over. No way. No way theyre americas biopharmaceutical researchers. 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Ensure, for strength and energy. Today, lifechanging technology from abbott is helping hunt them down at their source. Because the faster we can identify new viruses, the faster we can get to stopping them. The most personal technology, is technology with the power to change your life. Life. To the fullest. New this morning President Trump saying he has full authority to initiate military action without first going to congress. I like the idea of keeping congress abreast but i couldnt have to do that. Nancy pelosi said you must have congressional approval. You disagree . I disagree. Most people disagree but i do like keeping them with ideas, intelligent people will come up with thoughts i actually learned a couple things the other day when we had our meeting with congress, which were i think helpful to me but i do like keep ever ke ing them abreast. The comments come as new reaction pours in from iran. One Senior Iranian official saying they need the permanent closure of diplomacy between the two nations. Let go to kristen welker. What more is the president saying about this interview with the hill . Is. Steph, you see the president s defiance with his strategy towards iran depending his maximum pressure strategy of imposing sanctions instead of taking military action he reiterated to the hill what he told chuck todd is that he was very close to taking military action but ultimately determined that it was not the right approach that it would be too forceful given it was an unmanned u. S. Drone shot down by iran. So thats why he wanted to go the route of sanctions and the ultimately he wants to bring iran to the negotiating table. Now he also touched on some other hot button topics including the current Democratic Front runner joe biden accused biden of lying about the fact that obama hasnt endorsed him because he asked him to. He said i dont know whats in his head. Maybe hes hiding something. He sort of said that without providing any proof, steph and the other headline is the latest accusation by a woman accusing him of sexual assault. E. Jean carroll denying he ever assaulted her decades ago saying shes totally lying and that shes not my type. So those are among the headlines, steph and its our understanding more of that interview is being ruled out this morning. Lets talk john bolton. Safe to say hes a hawk when it comes to iran. Hes in jerusalem and weighed in on iran today. Bolton is defending this maximum pressure strategy. This latest round of sanctions against iran. Take a listen to what he had to say, steph. The president has held the door open to real negotiations to completely and verifiably eliminate Irans Nuclear weapons program. Its pursuit of ballistic Delivery Systems and support for International Terrorism and its other aligned behavior worldwide. All that iran needs to do is to walk through that open door. So of course, these new sanctions according to the white house punishing and target the Supreme Leader and other top officials, but steph, there is a lot of skepticism from democrat the evers and from some within this administration who say will this be enough . The reasons are President Trump walked away from the nuclear deal and one official said we sanctioned them so heavily. President trump departs for the summit late they are week steph where hell meet with key allies about all of this. Thank you so much. Kristen welker live at the white house. Joining the conversation, uusa today columnist, a wobbling donald trump does not strike iran and we should be glad. Bloomberg news and these new sanctions are a way for the president to cover himself. How . He realizes Foreign Policy is on a tv show. Its kind of a fig leaf now that he says i pulled back and scared them and made clear im serious and will put back more sanctions and frankly, our allies dont seem corporative about this because he blundered in without taking to them and prepping the ground and do homework the way one would do before thinking about a military strike. I think sanctions are kind of just a magic word that says well, i backed off of this bad decision and now i have to Say Something so ill say sanctions. Can you elaborate on that in terms of sanctions . I love how you put it, they are a magic word but a lot of nothing if they are not impa impactf impactful. What are they and who will they hurt because john bolton right there said maximum pressure was sanctions. Maximum what . You know, the problem with this administration is it uses words without ever defining them or i think in some cases ever understanding them. I think bolton fully understands all of this. I think bolton has been doing this for a long time and maximum pressure is a phrase the president likes. So he says it. You know, there are things we can do. We can make it harder about iranian money passing through any kind of American Financial institutions. But in the end, part of the reason the iran deal and i was not a proponent of the iran deal but i was also not a proponent of getting out of it. Part of the problem is you have other Major Players in this deal have decided to stick with it. If the United States says let rally and tighten sanctions and plug all the holes and make sure there are no gaps, you have the europeans and russians and the chinese kind of shrugging saying this was never our idea so good luck. Youre on your own. Shannon, today like every other day, requires a fact check. The president says he does not need congressional approval if he wants to attack iran. Is he right . Im not a war powers expert but there is certainly a law and part of our constitution that requires congressional involvement and approval. If he wants to carry out an isolated, small, targeted attack you get into the mix and the w response of the chemical weapons in syria, the president took out a very targeted strategy attack. There were drone attacks carried out by the obama administration. Any sort of broader military engagement, there is certainly going to get a lot of push back from congress about their involvement and need to get approval, which of course we saw play out when the george w. Bush went into the second iraq war. Elih, i do not expect you to have a crystal ball but given john boltons statement reiterating that all options remain on the table, what are your sources inside this administration telling you about where this thing is headed . Well, they dont really know because the president sort of backing himself into this corner with his rhetoric about iran. Hes saying he wants to negotiate and im told that he actually does want to negotiate. Its very clear from the president s behavior. Hes not interested in starting armed conflict. He doesnt want to be a president held responsible for an unpopular war. He wants to avoid there and go with Economic Warfare but doesnt appreciate the Economic Warfare hes doing against iran is what is provoking this and pushing them into this position where something is going to happen. Iran shot down that drone because its frustrated with the u. S. Sanctions and negotiating table and the president wants to negotiate, hes saying the door is open, you will have a phenomenal future iran but acting and showing to the public here in the u. S. That hes really tough on iran. He needs to demonstrate that to his base. This has been a talking point throughout the campaign and so those things are out of alignment and there is not really certainty within administration or perhaps even with donald trump himself about what the ultimate move is going to be here. Tom, next up for the president , the g 20 meeting in summit. What does the president need to accomplish . This isnt a one on one meeting with a world leader, which is more his style. The g 20 is not traditionally his jam. You know, at this point i would say the one thing the president needs to accomplish is first do no harm. You know, get through it without a gaffe or mistake or promise or a shocking statement that then the entire bureaucracy and Foreign Policy and National Security establishment is going to somehow have to walk back. The problem is the president is going into the g 20 without a lot of credibility. I think the people that are dealing with him understand that he can change his mind overnight that anything he says can be reversed by tweet when hes on air force one before it leaves the ground. So i think, you know, at this point, my hope always for every time the president leaves the country is you know no major errors or fouls and the best we can hope for. Bloomberg, your colleague Jennifer Jacobs says the president is considering a withdraw from a longstanding defense treaty with japan. Why would that be . Well, what hes been complaining to his sort of confidence about is that he doesnt feel like this defense treaty is reciprocal. This was sign after world war ii and says the United States would co come to the defense of japan but japan wouldnt come to the defense of u. S. It fits with this pattern of the president feeling like there is this constant unfairness. He uses the word reciprocal repeatedly in these trade negotiations and arguments but he fails to forget that, you know, things arent always go b to be reciprocal because the United States isnt on a level Playing Field with someone. The United States is like the new york yankees and new England Patriots all sort of combined into one and he fails to realize that our allies arent in the same position as us. Well, there will be a lot to cover in the g 20 coming up later this week. Thank you so much. El elih, tom, check out his piece in usa today. For us right here. Guess what we have on our mind . The debate. Were one day away from the first debate of the 2020 election live from miami. Well take a close look at how candidates in the last hours are preparing for this high stakes faceoff and whether or not they should be bringing up President Trump. Plus, trump sending a tweet this morning thanking guess who . 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The best or nothing. Talk about pressure. 2020 Democratic Candidates are doing final debate prep today. Its a high intensity mix of studying their opponents position and doing mock debates. Those 20 minutes on stage can make or break their campaigns and change their future. My friend and colleague Chris Jansing is live in my iami ahea of tomorrows debate. You talked to democrats and republicans that faced this exact Pressure Cooker before. What did they tell you . Reporter its fascinating that agree its hard to over state the importancimportance. The one on one debate you can lose and still become president but here for most of the candidates its their first chance to be introduced to america, a bad moment so yes, the pressure is definitely on. Its high stakes. And its high stress. The big fight is going to be among the 13 people who nobody ever heard of. What you want them to do is have confidence being who they really are connects with what the voters are looking for. I think there say lot of pressure at this point. Few of the millions of people watching the debates will have the insights of these four. They prepped dozens of candidates and carly went from unknown to contender and howard dean took the stage as the front runner. Take me inside your debate prep room. What you do is get five fake candidates up with you and have really nasty staffers asking you things. Here is what bad debate prep looks like. Eight or nine or ten or 15 or 20 get in a room with their pinned up rage at the candidate and throw questions at them pretending to be the media under the idea they got to get ready for some tough questions. Its therapy for the staff and gives them an excuse to yell at the candidate. A candidate you prepped lloyd benson has a classic line of all debates of all time. I knew jack kennedy. Jack kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, youre no jack kennedy. Is that prepped . Yes. The basic coal nlonial of the i youre no jack kennedy was there but he came up with, you know, i was serving with jack kennedy. I knew jack kennedy. I was a friend of Jack Kennedys and senator, youre no jack kennedy. What you want to do is teach a candidate how to think in a way to have a quick line of natural reaction. I think benson thought that way. You really want it to be authentic because people have a huge detector for this forced political stuff. So whats the biggest debate trap . Biggest, biggest problem is to lose your temper. If you do that, and its uncontrolled and you become unlikable in a big field, you have hurt yourself. You dont want to invade the space of your opponent. Trump did it. Didnt hurt him. I dont think trump won because of those debates. What hillary should have done is turned around and said donald, go back to your corner. We never had this many women on a debate stage before. Are they judged differently . The criticism will be different. The questions will be different. The expectations will be different. You cant get rattled by that. That is going to be a really critical issue is how the men handle the women. Are they respeckful and treating then as equal and thats a very dangerous thing for men, especially the older ones. Whats the one piece of advice you would give to people . Dont sell your soul because no one can pay you back. Before you go on the stage. Take a deep breath and never let them see you sweat. Never let them see you sweat but they all agree donald trump will cast a shadow over this debate but disagree how to handle that. Do you go after trump directly or call by name or show in your answers that you are president ial, that you are the person who can beat donald trump . Well see tomorrow, stephanie. Never let them see you sweat, easier said than done. I need a beyonce up there. Ill see you in miami tomorrow. A new report from the economic Invasion Group obtained by axios reveals a number of counties that voted for president obama in 2008 and 2012 then flipped to elect President Trump in 2016, those counties are struggling. According to the report, nearly 207 flipped counties experienced Slower Growth in employment, slower rise in the number of businesses, and more pervasive decline in prime age workers than consistently democratic or republican counties. Here to weigh in, my friend and chief financial correspondent for axios, felix. Tell us about this report. What have we learned . We have learned while the whole economy is growing, the flipped counties, the ones which elected obama and also elected trump, are growing much more slowly than the rest of the country. Theyre still growing but they are growing slowly. A decline in population is a bad tale for whats to come. If they are leaving town, leaving the workforce, thats bad news. The president said over and over we have a Strong Economy. But based on this reporting in these counties, thats the same economy obama gave us. A Strong Economy for some but not for others. Mostly demographic counties. If you look at the counties gaining population, it is overwhelmingly democratic which voted for obama and hillary clinton. The counties which losing voters are these flip marginal counties. And the republican counties are kind of in the middle. So the strong Republican Base is doing okay. The Democratic Base is actually doing extremely well. And its the middle base, the flip counties which are doing the worst. What are they saying . How are they feeling . The president would say i need more time. Its great. Its congress that is blocking me. Do they believe him . There is no evidence that they believe him. There is demographic evidence of moving to the richer cities which are overwhelmingly democratic. When the president said the Strong Economy is going to carry him, are there enough people in the country who are benefiting from this economy, benefiting from the markets to support the president . Are there enough . Yes. I think one of the messages of this report is even in the one cohort of counties which flipped back and forth, theyre still growing. Theyre not growing as fast but they are still growing. They werent stagnant four years ago. They were growing four years ago. But they were frustrated and slow. Whats the big difference now . These are the counties mostly hit hard heest in the Great Recession in 2008 and 2009. They reacted badly to that and kicked out the republicans they voted for in obama and never really recovered. So they kicked out obama and voted in trump and still havent really recovered. So the question will be who will they vote for now . Who is going to speak to them . They voted with President Trump who said enough is enough but nothing changed for them. Felix, thank you so much. Really important report. Another place they are speaking about the economy, aspen, colorado. Business leaders, politicians and other national and global figures now at the 2019 aspen ideas festival. The event which you probably think of as a left event is featuring a number of prominent conservatives this year. I will bring in Technology Reporter jacob ward on the ground in aspen. Chris christie, i spoke to him just about a month ago in vegas. Now he made his way to aspen . You see this place, its this sort of gallery of fascinating people from all over the world. Yet the crowds could not get enough of chris christie. Something about the clear, crisp mountain air had him speaking off the cuff. In what way . Democratic candidates, all sorts of notions how he felt Pete Buttigieg would melt away in the Blast Furnace of the National Stage. He thought his performance at the townhall really revealed a lack of leadership. He really has his money on biden saying its his to lose, that as long as pieden c ebiden can foc michigan, ohio, wisconsin, then that really is his best shot. He also had a lot of good words to say about cory booker, who had the chance to break out on the National Stage. It is the reaction of a crowd. He is used to a left leaning kind of agenda here. Here is Mark Zuckerberg from facebook. Sources say he is coming to town tomorrow, booked his own transmission feed. He will make some sort of announcement. Well, thats the point. Big ideas. Thank you so much. Nbcs jacob ward. Right now political eyes are in the state of florida. We will explain the new primary calendar and how it makes one state the democratic maker. That is not iowa. Its not new hampshire. Im going to tell you where. Pshe im going to tell you where. Pnc bank has technology to help make banking easier, like. Pnc easy lock, so you can easily lock your credit card when its maximum limit differs from its vertical limit. 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Stop chantix and get help right away if you have changes in behavior or thinking, aggression, hostility, depressed mood, suicidal thoughts or actions, seizures, new or worse heart or blood vessel problems, sleepwalking, or lifethreatening allergic and skin reactions. Decrease alcohol use. Use caution driving or operating machinery. Tell your doctor if youve had Mental Health problems. The most common side effect is nausea. Quit smoking slow turkey. Talk to your doctor about chantix. We like drip coffee, layovers and waiting on hold. What we dont like is relying on fancy technology for help. Snail mail we were invited to a y2k party. Uh, didnt that happen, like, 20 years ago . Oh, look, karolyn, weve got a mathematician on our hands check it out now you can schedule a callback or reschedule an appointment, even on nights and weekends. Todays xfinity service. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Id rather not. That wraps up this hour. Im stephanie ruhle. I will see you again at 1 00 p. M. With my partner ali srel city. You can check out twitter and instagram. Coming up right now, more news in washington, d. C. With my friend and colleague hallie jackson. Hallie, one day away from the big debate. Reunited in miami, babe. I cannot wait. It will be a big couple of days. Yes, the center of the universe is not d. C. But miami. Since we are just 35 hours away from the first faceoff for the democrats. Tomorrow night 9 00 eastern. Joe biden is using his frontrunner status to go after not his primary rivals but south voters waiting up to this. Biden calling the president s politics morally bankrupt in the miami herald. The president is hitting back. In a new interview out. Plus, a brandnew poll shows Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders leading among the left leading democrats. What do they want to hear from the candidates this week . Well hear from some of them coming up. The full debate free view. What is shaping up to be a very busy hour. Peter alexander and Vaughan Hillyard is in miami. Walk us through what the stakes are for tomorrow night and thursday night here. I guess you can say the heat will be on. With politicians, they are often long winded. Gravity will be the key for a variety of reasons. They will have