candidates. sara, thanks very much for the update. joining me now, cnn senior political commentator, david axelrod. he hosts the ax-files podcast on cnn.com. and gloria borger also joins us. david, when donald trump says hillary clinton isn t doing debate prep, she s just off the trail because she needs rest and then says he wants to keep the debate on policy, not get personal, how do you reconcile that? i think in the last debate, it was clear she was indeed, doing debate prep, because she was well prepared. she s going through the regimen you usually do. you prepare for weeks in advance and go into an intensive period before the debate where you do pock debates and so on. i wonder if his staff didn t put this on his schedule because they can t get him to prep and this was the closest thing they could do to get him to prep.
a lot of optimism, i think. but not much in the way of numbers or equipment. they have with them some as your guest referring to sunni, arab fighters who want to take the fight to isis who indeed alongside those kurds if they re going to go into a sunni city like raqqah, but those numbers are slight. we heard them talk about americans being potentially around, maybe special forces are on the ground at this stage, but they don t have they have the desire but not quite momentum or capability at this stage to launch that ground offensive against raqqah, john. nick paton walsh for us in irbil, returning from a remarkable journey right up into raqqah right now. take a look at that report on cnn.com. thank you so much, nick. that is all for the lead today. i m john berman in for jake tapper. stick around for the situation room with wolf blitzer next. what makes this simple salad the best simple salad ever?
in before. but i think the pressure is definitely higher because anything you say as a presidential candidate is slightly different. he was on hue huet this afternoon and said the cold open will be wild. i can tell you the cold open of the skit soon afterwards is going to make you laugh. so, you know, teasing this. donald trump loves this. he s so good at television here. it s important but look. people want to know that he s a serious candidate, not necessarily a funny candidate so it is a fine line. he s very good at self-promotion, right. [ laughter ] and the good thing from his prospective from snl, most of it is scripted. let s talk about ben carson. you ve written an extensve piece on cnn.com. going back to his assertions when he was a young kid, teenager, he was a violent kid and it was only when he became religious that he changed his life. talk a little bit about what you discovered. we set out to find the people that dr. carson talked about on
abend. when you hear that, that this conversation happened between one of the pilots and their family member about the condition of the plane, i assume that s a conversation you ve never had to have? no, it really hasn t. maybe in my early days. but, you know, let s just exercise a little caution here. it may have been lost in translation and we don t totally know what the nuance of what this wife received. i d be cautious with that but it s a little disturbing, i do have to say. you wrote an op-ed on cnn.com today. you said, the million dollar question is how did the airplane end up in an aerodynamic stall? was it a mechanical failure? was it a distraction event where an abnormality addressed by the
cnn.com and you wrote i ve seen too much hopelessness in my state and been to too many funerals and i know i m not alone. i ve been waiting for the candidates for president to speak up on these issues and i have i have lived but so far i haven t heard much. the democrats haven t said enough and the republicans have missed the point entirely, but i will keep waiting, pushing, and praying. so, to you, policywise what are you waiting to hear? well, one of the things that we have to hear other than just the words black lives matter is a robust criminal justice platform which martin o malley has and bernie sanders actually came around and actually has and hillary clinton will be putting forth and she s been talking about since day one on her campaign. but it s about more than that. we also have to this see a plan for educational opportunity. we have to see a plan for economic justice. these are all issues that are coupled together which help and tune in minority voters to this