russia every way i can think of. phil mattingly joins our conversation. i ve known the leader a long time. he s ticked off. yeah. that was the opening speech on the senate floor is traditionally laying out what s happening in the week ahead or day ahead. mitch mcconnell often always allows attacks to just kind of roll off his back. he sees himself as the heat shield. for him to come out in a very lengthy, very detailed and very spicy, i would say, response underscored how much this kind of pierced him a little bit. i think the reality here is this. blunt political attacks are effective because they lack nuance and force the people they re attacking to come and try to explain that nuance. that s what mitch mcconnell tried to do on the floor. what he s being attacked for is not that he s a russian asset. i think his foreign policy record would say it s the exact opposite. ideologically he s opposed to where democrats are and some republicans are on these election security issues part
the other candidates? i can only tell you about why i m in this fight. i see an america that works better and better and better for a thinner and thinner slice at the top. always good to see the young kids getting involved there. we begin the hour with tonight s high-stakes debate right here in the fox theater behind us in detroit. ten candidates in focus this evening. pete buttigieg, beto o rourke, amy klobuchar, steve bullock, tim ryan, john hickenlooper, john delaney, marianne williamson. warren and sanders each need the others votes to grow but don t expect a sanders/warren brawl tonight. what they share is that democrats need to toss moderation out the window and go big with liberal policy ideas. that common ground could make them allies for tonight s sparring. on both sides of sanders and warren are more moderate candidates who argue the country
show in response to some of these attacks from moderates that he can speak to a set of voters who aren t necessarily already sold on all of his ideas. warren has actually shown a certain amount of range in this race in terms of being able to go into relatively moderate contacts, conservative parts of the country, and frame her ideas as directly relevant to those people. bernie sanders sort of plays the same song in every venue. doesn t mean he doesn t have appeal in the red states. he does to the economic populist base there. but for a lot of democrats who have a hangover from 2016 or are suspicious of the idea somebody that calls themself a democratic socialist can win an election. how they field criticism from john hickenlooper or john delaney who sound like the moderate white guy voters out there who may find some of these ideas interesting but have reservations about the cost or feasibility or just viability in a general election, that contrast should be revealing.
endorse in 2016. it gets under her skin when he says i can lead a movement. she s bright, she s intelligent, she s a great ally. only i can beat trump, only i can lead a movement. the question is can they set that aside because they re going to be defending what is the defining challenge in the race. they are the two leading candidates who say forget how hillary clinton did it. forget how barack obama did it. go bigger, go bolder, we can sell it to the country. a lot of moderates say you can t but they say yes. let s remember at the onset when warren first got in, you had some bernie sanders people starting to take shots at elizabeth warren and he didn t like it. he pulled them back. that s been a good play, bernie sanders not taking shots at warren. so i think you ll have this between the two of them because they want to talk about their policies, they want to have that contrast. alex mentioned this, but i think the fact that bernie sanders is not a democrat really doesn t sit well
coming on? we shall see. up next we return to the pressure of the 2020 democrats on the stage tonight. noah gray got beto o rourke in the middle of what you might call morning debate prep. how are yo feeling about the debate? i m feeling good. what are you doing to prepare? running. is this it? running and they thinking through what i want to say tonight. has been excelle they really appreciate the military family and it really shows. with all that usaa offers why go with anybody else? we know their rates are good, we know that they re always going to take care of us. it was an instant savings and i should have changed a long time ago. it was funny because when we would call another insurance company, hey would say oh we can t beat usaa we re the webber family. we re the tenney s we re the hayles, and we re usaa members for life. get your usaa auto insurance quote today.