Corey lewandowski and Rick Dearborn and former white house effort rob porter staffer rob porter. Morning, robert costa is a political reporter and moderator of pbss washington weekly. Lets start with the news that happened over the weekend. Been a loomings question over the 2020 campaign. How will the Supreme Court as an issue factor in to the campaign . Trump,in 2016, president then candidate trump was able to use the issue of the judiciary as a motivating force for republican voters. He said you may not like me as a candidate, but if you want to make sure conservatives are on the bench, you want me in the white house. Democrats have yet to make a forceful case on top of all the other arguments they are having on health care and policy about the future of the court in these new issues about Justice CavanaughJustice Kavanaugh could bring issues about the Supreme Court into the fore. Host what do you think the state of play is right now . Many who are running, where do they stand right now . Guest it is hard to see how President Trump does not win the republican nomination. He has some rivals like mark and joeand bill weld walsh. A group of lowprofile candidates to say the least who are trying to get traction in states like new hampshire. Almost every poll shows President Trump with 80 approval among republicans. He is almost certainly going to be the nominee. On the democratic side, it is a real race. Can Vice President biden hold on to the polling lead hes has pulling lead he has held . Senator warren is rising. She has strength across the on buildingampaign infrastructure in many key states. The field is so big. I dont like to predict anything. At this stage in the race, things happened in politics and you have candidates like senator harris, senator booker, mayor buttigieg who could get traction this fall but for now, you really see the centerleft of the party in some respects coalesce around Vice President biden but not totally with him on all levels. The left energy in this Democratic Party is with senator warren and senator sanders. Senator sanders was the runnerup for the democrat nomination last time around and while senator warren has gained a lot of support on the left, sanders still has much support. Host we want our viewers to join us for this conversation. Your church your take on campaign 2020. Who is your candidate and why . What do you want these candidates to be talking about . Democrats, 202 7488000. Republicans, 202 7488001. Independents, 202 7488002. You can also text us at 202 7488003. Robert costa here to take your questions and comments. About 538 . 500 one trumps cabinet write is slipping. 53. 7 disapprove. Approvals rating is slipping. 53. 7 disapprove. Guest we saw House Democrats do Trump Campaign advisers are concerned about the suburbs. Trendingvoters are toward the democrats in many areas of this country. When you look at that status, the approval rating, what it tols them is that they need turnout among the rehelp Republican Base and they cant count on having general approval among rank and file suburban voters, need to make sure that new voters and core trump voters come out in 2020 and that is why the president is going to be in new mexico on monday night, having a rally, trying to get people on that sunbelt. How do they get those trump voters excited again . Part of it is rallies, part of. T is the focus on immigration dosaw the Trump Campaign well in places like new mexico, unusual states for republicans. He did expand the map for republicans in states like wisconsin. He did it by turning out voters who are more independent or populist and may not always participate. New mexico would be a reach, especially after 2018. This is part of the Trump Campaign strategy. How did they build this coalition . Most campaigns when they see the race in wisconsin or ohio, it would focus entirely on the upper midwest but the Trump Campaign is really a National Movement on the right to try and get all of these people who voted for President Trump in the past to do so again. Host and the president will be holding a rally in rio rancho, new mexico this evening, 9 00 p. M. Eastern time. You can watch that by tuning into cspan or logging onto cspan. Org or downloading the free cspan radio app. Presidency the president sees his rating go down. Based on my reporting he is trying to rally his own voters. Host make sure they show up. Guest the question about expanding comes on the decision he estimates on decision he has to make on gun control. He is going to make a choice about expanding his coalition, does he put Political Capital on gun control . He has a limited time before the Campaign Season heats up. Is the new version of nafta going to pass . Is the president going to put his whole political weight into doing gun control or not . Host what do his base voters wanting to want him to be talking about . Andtalked about expanding doing something on Gun Legislation and trade. Has the president focused enough on those issues . Guest trade is his signature issue. The challenge for President Trump is, is there going to be a trade deal with china . It continues to be stalled. , they are negotiating at some level, trying to have further talks but the talks have stalled and when you talk to the president s advisors, they want a china deal to be part of the signature accomplishments they offer voters in 2020, but he what that he alone was the person who could get a china deal but it has been complicated with the hong kong protests distracting the Chinese Government and President Trump continues to try and put tariffs on and pulls them back because he sees the talks could still happen. There is a political and Economic Cost because some farmers in the midwest dont want to have all of this uncertainty about whether there will be tariffs on soybeans or other agricultural products. This what does he have at point, what can he. 2 and how does that message resonate with voters . Guest it depends on who he is trying to appeal to. Getting out rank and File Republican voters, he points to things they were doing the first two years, and that is the tax you had a pullback of Health Care Provisions pushed by president obama and then you saw with Mitch Mcconnell, pushing through Supreme Court justice confirmations across the federal bench. Since the divided government started after nancy pelosi took over the house and speaker, you are seeing more limited accomplishments on the Trump Campaign part and the white house. It is much more about executive orders and he has not been able to get a comprehensive immigration legislation through that would fund his border wall. He has used executive power to try and get federal projects and money to show his base that he is taking some kind of action. That is a real point of frustration at this white house. Nd they wanted to show more host . Host lets get to our calls. Matt in pennsylvania, democrat. Caller good morning. Costa, like to ask mr. My candidate is Kamala Harris even though she is not getting any traction. I would like to ask him to comment on North Carolina and how democrats again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, thank you. Host that caught guest that caller is not far from my home town in pennsylvania. I thought he would be asking about pennsylvania suburbs. Host we can talk about that too. Guest in North Carolina, democrats have had a tough time. You sought republicans get in trouble with the districts were drawn and this time around they saw President Trump come into the district with Vice President pence. As i was saying earlier, really rallying Republican Trump voters. The suburban voters, Speaker Pelosi saw the turnout, the data. Democrats feel pretty good about what happened in North Carolina in the sense that suburban voters are trending away from President Trump ahead of 2020 and that is a sign to them of a trend moving in their direction, but it wasnt enough. Whole dont the take North Carolina as an isolated case. They say it is part of some success they had in 2018 and sometimes they have had some narrow misses and this was a narrow miss. Especially in a race this close, especial election that had a lot of nationalization to it, you dont want to read too much into it. Host in new york, democrat caller. Caller we now have a Supreme Court that has 2. 2 percent of its members with credible Sexual Misconduct as well as lying about it. When Mitch Mcconnell stole the seat from Merrick Garland and they pushed through kavanaugh, for me the democrats have no choice but to pack the court when they are back in power. Despite roberts best intentions, the court has no could ability. It is part of a corrupt political party. I would just like to say that i have seen on this show twice in a very short time and i hate to be one of those callers that calls in and says cspan is favoring one side over the other, but i have not seen the strong left side presented as well as you do the right. Host do you want to take her comments . Guest if you look at the news today with the New York Times story, you already have a wave of democratic president ial candidates coming out with calls for impeaching Justice Kavanaugh. That seems to at this early stage on a monday morning be becoming a rallying cry for democratic president ial candidates. Other candidates like president like Vice President biden says there needs to be more investigation but this is an issue that is not going away and your reference to court packing, this was a suggestion, candidates in candidates like buttigieg have talked about expanding this expanding the Supreme Court and maybe having a rotation. This comes out of a frustration that your comment underscores about not only on the left but also in the center about the dish about the judiciary in this country becoming too political. They would like to see it become less political, less politicized. That is an issue for voters to decide when they think about these proposals being floated. Host two kentucky, paul is watching, independent to kentucky, paul is watching, independent. Caller you just have the story about brett kavanaugh. Mentioned the woman who was accusing him would not even talk about it. But he kept on courting the New York Times and Washington Post which are nothing but democratic toadies. On. Continually have them should change your name from cspan to dspan. Host we will go to jeff in nebraska, republican. I dont know where this country is going to go. They allow people to go through the democrats want people to come to the border. We are not stupid. We know they want voters. They want them in california. California is ruined. I used to be stationed out there. That state is dead. It is so dead. There are parts of our country where it is just crazy what we are doing to it. Press is told is totally against trump. Host lets take your point about immigration. Are democrats talking about it and is there a concern within the party that they could lose moderate democrats, independents over this issue . Guest two straight callers, i need more coffee. Some policy questions out there. About the media, people are frustrated. The Washington Post is not part of the Democratic Party. It is not part of any party it is an independent News Organization that pursues the truth. I would not want to work anywhere that did not do that. Put that aside for a second. Immigration,on of democrats collectively confronting a president who is so hardline, nationalistic on the immigration issue and that has been his electric issue politically on the right side of american politics. They also see themselves, seeing a lot of energy on the left because President Trump has made immigration such a key issue that there is alarm is him on the left alarmism on the left and an eagerness to confront President Trump on this issue. Should you decriminalize border crossings . Should you even work with President Trump on immigration or not . These are flashpoints in the Democrat Party because could there be a deal done on dr. , the deferred action for childhood arrivals, the Dreamer Program that would also give President Trump border money . There could be at some point but what when i am on capitol hill talking to lawmakers, they say President Trump because of the way he approaches immigration, any kind of congressional deal is very hard to see in the coming year. Without any deal appearing on the horizon, both sides are in their political trenches. On the left side of the Democratic Party, there is a real motive to protect immigrants. They see immigrants under fire from President Trump and the language President Trump uses about immigrants is incendiary to say the least, often hostile. That has made democrats quite frustrated, very unhappy and that is what you see on the campaign trail. This desire to protect immigrants, those who are undocumented and those who are here illegally. Host we look into andrew in ohio, independent caller. Caller how are you doing mr. Costa . Guest i am doing well, thank you. Caller i want to talk about this 15 minimum wage thing. It is truly absurd to me that the government can mandate a wage on a private business like that. What are your thoughts . Guest the federal minimum wage has been one of the main issues for senator sanders, senator warren and other Democratic Candidates. They believe in this time of economic unrest that the federal government needs to provide people with some kind of minimal wage that is higher and would give them some kind of substance sustenance and protection against the economic turbulence. There are some new ideas that have appeared in the democratic debate. Andrew yang is talking about universal basic income. Giving people some kind of money to keep them going, what of the market is up or down. That is going to be whether the market is up or down. That is going to be beyond the cultural grievances. When i am on the ground, it is going to come down to issues like minimum wage, the economy, who is fighting for who, whether it is been a mom wage, deferment of debt, a tax cut, who is going to give what americans want as their economic interest . Who is going to give the best argument to voters . In so many elections you talk about a thousand issues and it comes down to the economy. That is why the minimum wage is at the forefront of the Democratic Campaign right now. Host stuart in florida, republican caller. Caller good morning to both of you. I have been listening to some of your callers. One question is that talk about the Supreme Court. And asthat the democrats toxic as the talk is, you are guilty, now prove your innocence. The sad part is, we cant go that way. Here is a man who went through all of this senate stuff. He was found not guilty from them. The other thing with a minimum wage of 15 per hour, what is going to stop them saying well 15 isnt enough, you have to go 25 because when people make 15 an hour, cost of living goes up. Rents becauseaise the cost of everything else. Hard,brought up, you work you achieve. If you are not getting it, some people go to college, go to trade school because trade school, people can go to trade school to make more than they could coming out of college and it costs less. As far as immigration goes, we are talking illegal immigrants, not immigrants who come to this country legally and go through the process because every republican wants legal immigration, not illegal immigration. I wish you guys would stop using and put theigrants cast over everyone. There is a definition between illegal and legal. Guest those are some points you made. I did not hear a question but host the question comes to mind the sending to him and other callers, what issues are resonating with the democratic voters that you are talking to out there . The big debate in the Democratic Party talking to these candidates is do they want someone they think is invest position to beat President Trump or do they want to canada whos going to be a radical change or overhaul the political system . That is the thing whether you a