Conversation with Radio Host Bill press. They took part at an event at the hill center in washington, d. C. Looking at key house and senate races in the upcoming elections. Good evening, good evening. Thank you, john. It is great to see you all and it is great to welcome our friends from cspan around the world tonight to the hill center. We know we have some stiff competition tonight because it is a playoff game for the nats. Yes, go, nats. Not start me does until 8 00 p. M. So we promise, at least for the locals, to have you out in time to get home and watch the game. Andens isi want you to know that charlie cook made the ultimate sacrifice tonight. He has tickets to the game. He gave them to his son so he could join us. [applause] small price to pay. [laughter] we thank you doubly for that. Also wantsed to mention that we have a couple of exciting programs coming up. Two more exciting programs coming up. Senator Sherrod Brown joins us november 19 and susan rice, former National Security adviser on january 14. As john mentioned, there is no better place for political junkies to go to know whats going on in american politics than the Cook Political Report. Charlie cook, the editor, the founder, publisher, and theyve been very good to the hill center, by the way. Charlie was here a few years ago. Jennifer duffy and david wasserman, who cover the senate and the house for charlie have been here with us. And coming into 2020, we are already in the middle of it, we thought it was a good time to have charlie took back and he generously agreed to come back with us again. So charlie, good to see you and thank you for coming back. My pleasure, bill. And i talked about this evening, it was as if some weeks ago. Something big has happened since then. Looming over the Political Landscape so i just want to ask you and get it out of the way, the impeachment inquiry, what impact do you think this will have on the 2020 campaign . Primary and general . Sure, first let me say 1980 was an interesting experience for me. I learned actually i did know something about politics and i should never be a manager. It was a real educational experience. It steered me the right way. Its a pleasure to be here. We talked earlier about lets not let this thing focus entirely on impeachment because there is an election out there. Im glad we are approaching it this way. Everybody has an opinion. I personally dont if i were a democrat, i would not do this. Ive lived through two of them. I was in college during the nixon impeachment and the clinton impeachment. Impiece. And to me, forget what the president is alleged to have said or done. Forget what hes said or done. Forget whether he deserves it or not. Throw all that aside, to me it sucks all the oxygen out of the room. Im an independent, a moderate but if i were a democrat, i would want every bit of energy to be focused on winning a november 3rd election and not on this, regardless of what the merits may be. Because i think having a focus on the election and impeachment are somewhat contradictory. And im not sure how great an idea if youre a democrat, for the president to have a victory, to be acquittaled by the senate. I was tried by the senate and i was acquitted. I was found innocent. The charges were found to be false. Anybody doubt thats what hed say . And the fact is the chances of there being 20 republican senators joining the 47 democrats, theyre nonexistent and whatever the evidence is, thats just not going to happen because theres no tolerance in the Republican Party for any issent of the president. Jeff ask bob corker, flake, mark sanford, there isnt any of it. If i were them, i would not do it. Whatever. In terms of what impact would this have on the president himself . Lit me jump if, in i can. Or should i do biden first . First of all, those of you who have been here, charlie and i have 30 minutes. We need more time than that but we will hold to it 30 minutes. So does that mean for democrats they ought to get this done fast , before the end of the year and then leave time for other issues, sh we say . The thing is, the speaker was correct the first time where she said this is not what democrats ought to be doing. And im not entirely convinced she has changed her mind, to be perfectly honest. But after all this ukraine stuff started, there was no point in digging in her heels. It was going to go to another level whether she was on board or not, but i do find it interesting somehow the judiciary committee, this has moved away from them, which suggests maybe it is not, it is more of an inquiry than impeachment and we already had that going on so im not sure whether things have changed that much. Or maybe theyre trusting adam schiff more than but now that theyve started down that road, would you agree, that a lot of people have suggested, the sooner they get to a vote, not to rush it, but the sooner the vote, the better. Well, the vote will be when Mitch Mcconnell decides it is. Well, in the house. Well, i wouldnt do it. Lets go to joe biden because hes the focus of this. Do you believe in the primary this helps joe biden or hurts him because of all these rumors, allegations . I dont think its helpful at all but i dont think we know whether its going to hurt him or not. We saw forget merits or justification or anything. We saw Hillary Clinton turned into crooked hillary and were now seeing an effort to turnvice President Biden into crooked joe. I know there are people here who have known joe biden for a billion years, as i have. If somebody wanted me to make a case against joe biden being the nominee or joe biden being president president , i could throw out a few reasons. But crooked joe i dont think theres a crooked bone in the guys body. Thats not who he is. And ive never heard any suggestion he did anything inappropriate. His son may have taken on a business deal or two that he shouldnt have. But the thing is, i think the Biden Campaign made a mistake when they allowed all of their ggs to be put in the electability basket. Because that works well as long as you are perceived to be the most electable. But if that basket develops a whole, you dont have left. Whole lot and if i were them, i would say this is about experience. I look around this field and i see some amazingly talented people and probably one or two that are going to be president of the United States some day. Really amazing people but right now with where the country is, you need experience to undo x, y, and z and ive got more than the rest of the field combined. And by the way, i am the most electable. With electable and electability being the cherry on top. The thing is electability is gets stripped t away. And if theres not a lot there in terms of your case, anything that makes you look like youre less equitable because its not just ideology. There are many aspects of it. So one of the many advantages to being a subscriber to be Cook Political Report, you get things like this that i got 10 minutes ago. Things we trust. Tuesday treats. I want to ask about some of the things you trust, right . Uhoh. And these are based, by the way, on polls for the most part. Why should we trust my poll today . Do you trust any poll today . First of all, i think theres an urban legend theres out there. Well, polls were all wrong in 2016 and the first question i ask first of all, which polls are you talking about . The National Polls that khalilly showed the rear politics average had Hillary Clinton ahead by three points . What do National Polls measure . The National Popular vote. What did she win that by . 2. 1 percentage points. Most polls were between two and four and this was two. The fact is, this is about as close as this gets. It is closer than it had been in 2012 when the National Polls were suggesting a closer race between obama and romney. Basically 40 states went the way we thought. And there were six or seven states we knew were going to be close and guess what, they were close. And there were three where everything was wrong. Michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania and we could spend a whole three hours talking about those three. Thats where, and it was statelevel polling. Unfortunately polls are commodities. That people think one poll is as good as another. Well, shoot. Thats like one car is as good as another and thats absolutely not true. You look at the network polls, you know the the you know, the telephone ones. I think online is a little more problematic. They could be done well or badly and most are done badly. Ut the tell polls that washington post, cnn. Fox news, nbc wall street journal. Is one of my favorites. These polls are very highquality. They are very expensive. I think they are trustworthy. Some of the universities do a nice job. Some dont. The thing is, there are some lousy polls out there that, you will never see me quote certain polls because i think they are flawed and i wont do it and sometimes i give a hard time to journalist friends of mine who cite polls they know good and well theyre lousy polls. Systems so the first thing you trust, is trumps Approval Rating, 44 disapprove. 53 . You trust it . What do you tell us . The 44 was approved. The thing about President Trumps Approval Rating, i hear people say either this time is different, theyre really going to drop now and this is the straw that broke the camels camels back. We have a whole barn full of straw of things that were supposed to be, you know, this time is different. Im from missouri, show me on that one. But the other thing people say is well, why dont the president s numbers fall. And the thing is, for something to fall, they have to rise figures. Youre looking at a president thats had the narrowest trading range of any president. We are at 354 major National Polls have tested his job approval eight and in all but one, his numbers have been upside down with higher disapproval numbers than approval. Thats never happened. The first fox news in february 2017, the president had 48 approve. 47 disapprove and every other one of foxes and every other one has been upside down but normally in the first three years, a president has a there may be a 20 to 25point gap between the peak, which is usually they honeymoon and their trough, where they have some bad stuff happened. There is variation that is there. For President Trump, that has not been the case in gallup, best job Approval Rating was 46 . The worst was 35 . Fox news is a 10point range. So when good things happen, his numbers hardly go up and bad things appen, they dont tend to go down. I think its a product of the hyperpartisanship and the tribalism we have now. Theres one group of people, there is nothing he could do that is wrong. And another group, there is nothing he could do that is right. That is three quarters of the electorate. Ull text show less text the so is a president whos never been above 50 from trouble for reelection . Yes, yes. If this election is just a referendum up or down on President Trump, thats it. Just. That its extremely hard to see how he wins the popular vote and frankly i think it would be hard for him to win the elek Troll College as well. Elect roll college as well. Its like the story about the woman who was asked, how is your husband and she says compared to what . [laughter] if you are a democrat, you want it to be a referendum. Choice s a choice, a between trump and white, or who. Is a democratic kict the social snitch sit the squad . What is it a choice between . The second thing, you go to the democratic primary quoting the latest poll, looking at standing, Elizabeth Warren, 27 . Oe biden 25 . Bernie sanders 6 , kamela harris, 3 and pete buttigieg, the momentum with Elizabeth Warren . Thats the figures poll thats number one. Its the only Major National poll thats shown warren in first place nationally. Almost all the others have it closing up a lot and it is closing and the thing is, she has momentum. I watched her several times in owa and once in new hampshire. And without saying anything about like, dislike, anything like that, i saw two of the best president ial stump speeches ive seen in my they were good. Whether nominating her is a good idea or bad idea for democrats is another question. It was like, as if somebody had had the best speaking coach on the planet working with her for years. It was smooth as silk. Shes operating as a candidate on a level higher than any other candidate. And her campaign is on a plane higher than any other democrat. Is she going to win the nomination . We dont know. Lots of polls show it closing. That is the only one that has it ahead. Bill were you equally blown away by joe bidens Campaign Speeches . Charlie i was talking to one of the networks, these young reporters that are following fulltime. Its funny, by the time these campaigns get going good, they know word for word the candidates stump speech. And if one word is different, one sentence is different, their ears perk up. There are two joe bidens. There is teleprompter joe and there is nonteleprompter joe. Teleprompter joe does fine. No problem. Nonteleprompter joe, you never know where that is going. [laughter] ive always thought it was like bird hunting. Theyve got the dogs and the collar and where the guide or hunter can give an electric jolt to the dog to get their attention. Bidens staff should put one around his ankle. [laughter] youre from california. Reagan, i was driving the Pacific Coast highway one time, you nudge him back over. A jolt. [laughter] no, but, the thing is, everybody has assets and liabilities. For biden, hes got more experience than the entire rest of the field put together. Is age a liability . Heck yeah. But all of these candidates have assets and liabilities. You just total them up at the end. Bill do you see the end game here . Has it boiled down to joe biden and Elizabeth Warren with bernie fading . Charlie i think bernie is fading. After a good fundraising quarter. I think so. You see Bernie Sanders now, and it is almost word for word for word the same speech as four years ago. This is version 1. 1. You take out the Hillary Clinton references, you throw in some trump references, but it is basically the same speech. But with both sanders and warren, what you have is, this is not Michael Dukakis liberalism. It is more he we long populism. Populism and liberalism and there are two different versions of populism but this is about the whole system is totally screwed up and weve got to blow the whole thing up. Its about big change. And to me the choice the democrats have is to go big or go home. Where big is big, bold, exciting, risky, like Elizabeth Warren. Or go home, go home to something that is familiar, something that is comfortable. Something that is fairly safe. That is joe biden. But for anybody else, they will have to elbow their way in. And im not seeing anybody who is able to do that. But just one other thing on biden, to me, there have been three trajectories for biden. Possible trajectory. Biden holds on and goes on to win the nomination. The second one, biden fades. The third one, biden collapses. ,e says, does something something happens, and he goes down. For numbers two and three, it matters when does that happen . Because if it happens early on while there are centerleft establishmentfiendly alternatives, or late in the process where it is just biden and warren, or biden, warren, sanders . If that does happen, when does it happen . But the centerleft establishment friendly alternatives, they are borderline life support right now. Watch this why carefully. Right now, technically it is a threeway race. We kind of know which direction bernie is going. It is a twoway unless kamala, or amy klobuchar, or buttigieg. Or something. But right now, there is no momentum for any of the other candidates. Bill when you look overall at the Political Landscape, has it changed since 2016 . Particularly in the heartland. You mentioned the key states. Michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania. Do you detect any change their . Ct any do you dete change there . Can we read a change . Charlie we have seen some change. We have to think about, what did happen in 2016 . Why did it happen . What were the proportions . How much of this was about donald trump . How much of this was about Hillary Clinton . And what was that about . And i think secretary clinton, she and her husband have always been polarizing. She had 25 years of accumulated baggage. Whether it was justified or not is for somebody else to decide. But it was interesting watching secretary clinton. Until the me too movement arrived, it was like he had a teflon coating. This stuff did not seem to stick to him that much. But if president clinton had teflon, secretary clinton had velcro. Stuff just stuck to her, whether it should have or not. It did. My theory, and i go with a lot of data, but this is my own instinct, i think there were a lot of voters that were never going to vote for donald trump. It just flat wasnt going to happen. But they were not terribly excited about voting for Hillary Clinton. But they were going to do it. Maybe they would hold their nose. Then one month out, the billy bush access Hollywood Tape comes out. And suddenly, the election is over. Theres no way trump can win. Theres no way clinton could lose. The republican speaker of the house comes out and suggests maybe the republican nominee should step aside. This thing is over. Suddenly there was intensity among the trump people where a lot of them did not think he was going to win. But they were going to vote for him no matter what. But there was so much am