bashing for bashing. i m focusing on the people. that s what i ve done all my life. and i ve come through tough, tough political environments. reporter: for democratic voters in 2020, electability is key a new cnn poll this week found the priority for democrats in deciding which candidate to support is whether they have a good chance of beating donald trump. on that score, dory james gives booker high marks. it has been a rough two years. we are open to any message. and his enthusiasm was very infectious he would compel a lot of people, and be able to compete against trump. while steven jewel says he is isn t concerned about booker s core theme. i think corey book ser a thiter, booker is a fighter. look where he s at, he came from the projects in new jersey. similar messages have won over democrats before, from barack obama, in 2008 we can infuse our government with that same spirit of
people who are die hard democrats, sort of disillusioned republicans who don t love president trump, and most importantly, people who never voted before in the state who k will come out for her. so it s a tale of two cities, a tale of two countries we re seeing across the country. this sort of dark immigrant, safety focused message on the right, and the message from the democrats is anything but that. it s looking into the future. it s looking forward. it s trying to build a coalition that s diverse racially and economically to push forward ideas that are very opposite from what the president is talking about. thanks for that, beth. as we monitor these duelling rallies, let s bring in our panel. victoria, an msnbc contributor and professor. paul cain, senior congressional correspondent. steve isreal, former democratic congressman. and susan, republican strategist. it s great to have all of you
citizens. and by the way, we re reaching out not just to true blue, die hard democrats. i want to talk to independents. who may have had felt cynical about politics generally, but now you ve got candidates here who regardless of party affiliation, you can say you know what, that person is going to fight for me. that person s honest. that person is in it for the right reasons. i trust that person. i want to reach out to some republicans. who kind of harken back to the values of a guy named abraham lincoln, first republican president, and who s saying to themselves, i don t recognize what s going on in washington right now. that s not what i believe. that s not who we are. as a people. and as a country.
casting off his previously self-imposed political exile, david. barely see them there, cal. in all of these arms extended with cell phone cameras trying to take photos of the 44th president. let s talk about the stakes. as he outlined them there. we have a chance to flip the house. he said to democrats who were gather there had in anaheim, to restore checks and balances that have been absent. this has been a criticism of politics in washington over the last two years. that you ve had republicans controlling both houses of congress really in lock step with the president of the united states, not providing that traditional check and balance they re supposed to here to the executive branch. you see the frustration in these hearings of kavanagh, where you saw democrats come on on the first day. and revolt against the hearing itself. you know, this is is the message that you re hearing across the country, which is that republicans basically rubbing it in democrats faces. look, if you wa
the party affiliations of the people that sat next to me when i was working with them. we simply didn t talk politics. it wasn t part of the job. we checked our politics at the door. we left the politics to the politicians, and we did our job. now, i found out later that some of them were die hard republicans, die hard democrats, die hard socialists, die hard libertarians. okay. they were all just doing their job as intelligence officers. it is a different world than the political world that most of the people talking about this on capitol hill and in the administration are talking about. there s some level of misunderstanding about that. that s part of what we were doing by writing this letter and signing it today, is to say, let s keep national security objective and apolitical and stop playing political games with things like security clearances that have never been politicized before. it is a deep dive, a deep emersion into this administration, if you watch, into crisis managemen