absolutely great point. jim, as we kind of wrap up here, do you expect that these candidates who don t stand out, who don t make the next debate stage who have a rough night is it better for the democratic party if they start to drop out? it is. and they re going to just because of money, right? money is oxygen in this race for 24 candidates. and if you can t get in the september debates, your money is going to dry out very quickly. and the party is going to start to say, hey, iowa is coming up in february. we ve got to start looking at some of these candidates. and if you aren t on that debate stage in september, you are going to be putting a for sale sign on your campaign headquarters. all right, jim messina, susan del persio, ali vitaly and shaquille brewster. a day after president trump posted another trio of tweets attacking congressman elijah cummings, he s declared himself the least racist person anywhere in the world.
their campaigns. of course, the elephant not in the room will be joe biden. the former vice president who debates tomorrow night has regained nearly all of the ground he lost after his rocky performance in the first debate. it s going to be incumbent upon the other candidates to justify why they should be the first choice for primary voters eager to defeat president trump. and this is particularly true for candidates like sanders and warren who are decidedly to biden s left. so our big question today is, which version of the democratic party will prevail in tonight s debate? joining me now, nbc news rogue warriors, ali vitaly and shaquille brewster, jim messina and republican strategist and political analyst susan del persio. aly, let me start with you on the trail in detroit. you ve been following these candidates closely. what s your sense of how this might unfold?
saying, who is tough enough to stand up to him? and i think that s one of the things we re going to get answers to tonight and tomorrow. susan, to that very point, what s your having watched all of the republican debates with so many people on stage, there s a little bit of that same challenge at work here in the democratic debates. and there have been some reporting that some of these candidates are watching the old gop tape to figure out exactly how to approach this evening. who here absolutely needs to stand out in order to keep going in this race? i think it s two people, kasie. i think you have to look at beto o rourke and pete buttigieg. and the reason i say that is because even though they re going to be able to qualify for the next debates, they need a moment. both of them do. they came on as front-runners and they re just kind of sitting there. so people who especially establishment party folks who kind of got behind them at
determined by who we pick. thanks for your time. eric swalwell thanks for sharing your views with her. susan, you were watching with me as we heard from the president a short time ago. he has frustrations with a lot of folks, paul ryan, joe biden he criticized as well. the only guy he wouldn t really criticize is joe epstein. i m happy you asked that question to the congressman. how is it possible that he has not called on epstein? he says i m not a fan. he should be calling out for the crimes he s accused of. he has no problem going after other people. this goes to a bigger problem and why he s hurting so much with suburban woman. he s a misogynist who only stands behind men and says oh, i don t know, they say they didn t do it. this is just another example. i think this press conference which was a only had pohodgepods and some other things he brought up was to get the subject matter, to get the conversation changed. to try to turn the page.
correspondent pete williams is in our washington bureau. elliot williams, attorney general, ann bremner, susan del persio and wanda summers, national political reporter for the a.p. and kimberly atkins, senior washington news correspondent for npr. a ton of news breaking within the last few minutes. pete, help us set the stein and understand how we got to this point. a lot of questions being raised about acosta s role after the new charges were filed, the new indictment here in new york city. well, i think the problem here is the news conference that he had two days ago, the one you attended just didn t put this to rest and wasn t as persuasive as perhaps he had hoped. i think there were two problems that were often cited by his