strategy. we re going to bring you brand new reporting from inside the campaign. i m dana bash. let s go behind the headlines and inside politics. we start today with breaking news on who qualified for cnn s iowa debate next week. last before the caucuses. the deadline to meet the polling threshold just passed, and our political director david chalian joins me now. david, who made the cut? as you noted, the deadline just passed and actually the window of qualification started way back on october 15th. we now know that for the cnn january 10th debate, the three candidates who have qualified are former president trump, nikki haley and ron desantis. we also know that donald trump has not participated in any debate yet this cycle, and he doesn t intend on participating at the cnn debate on january 10th. that leaves haley and desantis on the stage, and that would be the smallest debate stage that we have seen to date. that means that they were the only candidates to hit 10%
It s definite ly the strategy. it s what bush did and obama did. it s what reagan did. i think it overlooks the challenges of biden really consolidating his own base and husband own party. one thing that when i have conversations with adviser, they say they are looking forward to the primary process being over so people see that biden is the nominee as well. there s still this conversation he s not goimpk to be running. so once it gets to the realization that he s running and people also may get behind him. i want to talk about one other part and you touched on this. your great reporting and that is the question of how much to lean into not only what the president has done in his first term, but the question of how much he has to talk about what he would do in a second term, which generally speaking is what incouple bepts like to do.
The reelection campaign have been joking,s it s about when to go full hitler. what they mean by that is the idea that donald trump has been using terminology that hitler used, and that that is something that the biden campaign is going to play up. we have some quotes here about some things like we will root out my political opponents that live lie vermin, that was trump. and lit hitler said pests and vermin, immigrants are poison ing the blood of the country. hitler, come tan nation of the blood and inferior race will lead to the fall in germany. trump s defense here is that he is not consciously quoting hitler. he s containously recreated the rhetoric on his own, which may not be the most reawe suring defense. the biden campaign is realizing that this has to be a choice
Election, not a referendum. if it s a referendum on booid, biden is going to lose. that barack obama had to in 2012. every successful reelection has been face basted on framing. this is a chies p it s not me against the almighty, it s me against the alternative. what s interesting is it s a new political year. it s a big year now. but the biden campaign and the president haven t been doing this already. they have often said biden campaign people that once trump becomes more of a focus, voters will remember what it was like back then when he was in power. but biden has not is said that much that often about trump. he hits them every now and again, but he s not been pounding that message. it s interesting that it s taken them so long to come to it. that s part of the fear they