Good morning and welcome to inside politics sunday. Im brianna keeler. Prieb wrapping up a News Conference on the heels of his trip to the g20 sum knit india. He told reporters that hes sincere about improving the United States relationship with china even as he tries to counter beijings influence in the region. Cnns Jeremy Diamond is traveling with the president in hanoi. Jeremy, tell us the latest. Reporter well there is what the president is doing in this region and then the message that hes trying to send china about those actions. What we have witnessed from President Biden over the last 48 hours has been a concerted effort to try and provide a counter weight, an alternative to chinas influence in this region and in the developing world. No more clearly than right here in hanoi, vietnam, where President Biden has now upgraded the u. S. Vietnam relationship to the highest level of diplomacy. The comprehensive strategic relationship directly aimed at countering the influence in the region. But the message from President Biden today in a series of questions that were largely focused on china and foreign policy, whats to tell china im not trying to contain you or see you fail. Here is the president earlier today. We have an opportunity to strengthen alliances around the world to maintain stability. That is what this trip was all about. Having india cooperate much more in the United States and vietnam being close to the United States, it is not about containing china, it is about having a stable base. Reporter and the president also making it clear that what hes trying to do here is to continue engage with china. Those efforts so far have been unsuccessful. Weve seen a series of Cabinet Secretaries Travel To Beijing over the summer to try to restab ligs military to military communication and with very few tangible results. Those results could come should the president get a meeting with the chinese president at some point later this year which is something something that has been discussed. I also was able to get a question into the president very briefly at the end. I asked him whether as hes making the moves is he putting the u. S. Strategic interests above those of rights. Vietnam is the Third Largest jailer of journalists in the world and the president said i dont put anything above human rights and he said that he has raised issues of human rights with every leader he has met with, including today with the vietnamese general secretary. Brianna. Thank you forgetting that question in. I want to bring in kim dozier to talk about this. Kim, biden said this trip is not about isolated china or hurting china, it is about making sure that they abide by rules. That is not how china operates so how does that land domestically here in the u. S. And how does china here this . Well weve already had gop officials, candidate nikki haley Bashing Biden for not being Strong Enough for china. But of course biden has to thread this passageway between not defending members of the g20 who have to do business with china and also signaling that to u. S. Businessmen, he understands that they need to find a more secure alternative. But that is going to take five years, ten years, and so were seeing him navigate this you got to keep beijing on side now as you find alternatives. After all, this is the place where in hong kong, beijing has reasserted control and you have people like publisher, jimmy lye, in 75, for Publishing News in apple daily and awaiting further Prison Sentences for demonstrating in tiananmen square. Their trying to find a safer place for american businessmen to do business. He defended the g20 unified statement, which we have to point out, unlikely last year, it stopped short of condemning russias invasion of ukraine. Biden said there was sufficient agreement in the room for the need of just and lasting peace that respects sovereignty and territorial integrity. Is it sufficient if it is watered down . It feels like the Biden Administration officials decided this is as good as they were going to get this time around and trying to take the win from embracing india, bringing in the African Union to the g20 and talking about climate change. Understanding that a year plus into this war, war fatigue is setting in. The sanctions that the Biden Administration has asked a number of these countries to maintain against russia are starting to hurt while theyre not hurting moscow. Sanctions have a diminishing rate of returns. After a bit, moscow and other countries that have been under sungs find other ways to do business. You see the channels that they are creating with china. The scary part is that china and russia were able to influence biden, influence the g20 without having their top leaders there and then the other thing you got to say is biden is going into his last year, what people consider the lame duck presidency unless he gets a second term and the recent polls including cnns dont show him being very strong at this point. And World Leaders are looking at that and saying we have to hedge our bets because the next u. S. President might be at least more prorussia than this one. They are watching those polls and they are sending a loud message. Kim dozier, thank you so much. I want to bring in our panel now. We have isaac dovere, and eva mckend and Marianna Sotomayor and heidi pryzbyla. Thank you for joining us on this sunday morning. It is interesting when you hear what biden said defending that g20 agreement. Because gop president ial candidate nikki haley saw some political opportunity in what happened at the g20. I want to listen to what she said to jake tapper this morning on State Of The Union. It was a win for russia and china. Theyre celebrating today. I mean, what we should have had was biden should have really pushed hard to acknowledge what he acknowledged a year ago. That russia invaded a proamerican freedom loving country and that is a fact. And to deny a fact a year later is a win to russia and china is looking at taiwan as this is happening and it is ashame. Does she have a point . How tough is this for joe biden . I think joe biden is playing for an International Audience when hes overseas and talking about this relationship with the countries. Nikki haley as a problem that shes talking about how this Works In Domestic Politics but within her own party there is not support for the top position on ukraine that she wants joe biden to have. So, it is really muddled and hazy and the republican primary process on that seems like it is going to have to sort out for first nikki haley. The messages couldnt be any or different but President Bidens goal right now is to admit competency and stability and that is what he went over there to do and to show the american people. Ambassador haleys goal is very different. It is tough, marianna, because when you look at what voters say in this poll, 50 say hes making the position in the world weaker. He has a tough sell here domestically as well. Absolutely. And he ran in 2020 talking about his foreign policy. This is something that he has been able to do throughout his Senate Career and improve on that stage. So the fak that americans are not buying that selling point, which im sure the campaign will continue to stress, is not a good thing. That is on top of a number of other issues domestically that he has to prove to the american people. I dont think that voters are actually going to remember this statement 400 days from now. But what i do think is interesting is nikki haley, this is another example of her taking a risk to set herself apart from her contenders in the primary. She did that during the debate on abortion and on fiscal spending, she attacked trump and pence on think record on spending. And this is just another example of her saying, you know what, look at those poll numbers right now, theyre in a totally different stratosphere from President Trump so why not try something different. Lets look at what biden is facing. If youre in his camp and looking at the latest poll numbers, you have to be concerned. Job approval, 39 . And the trajectory here not great, right. This is been dipping. How are things going in the country right now, badly 70 say. Does he have the stamina to serve effectively, 74 say no. What is going on here as you see it . Yeah, if you talk to people an owe the campaign and even in the white house, there is a very evident gap that as much as they might be going out there and saying, hey look, Unemployment Rate is very low, the economy is Getting Better and inflation is lower, people are not believing it. And to try and get people to understand that things might be Getting Better over time or have been Getting Better, that is a problem. And at this moment, we are not necessarily seeing the president or his Campaign Going out there trying to fix that gap. And i mean, if youre seeing that things are still costing more, i think the economy is one of the bigger pieces that biden and his campaign have to overcome, because when you look at it on the republican side, that is all that they could talk about in terms of issues. And those that have supported democrats. Black voters and progressive voters, they feel as though they keep voting for democrats and their lives are not changing in consequential ways. So rather than dance around that, President Biden, the administration has to address that head on. I will say, though, from traveling across country during the midterms, speaking to democratic voters, there is nothing more animating that just ra rank hatred for trump. So if trump does win the republican primary as it seems that he may, given the polling, that is going to be a huge motivation for democratic voters that i dont think we see reflected right now in the polling. Lets listen to senator warren because she said voters are going to vote for biden to vote against trump. Here it is. Voting for President Biden is going to be about preserving or democracy and i think a lot of americans are going to show up to do that. I think that every time donald trump opens his mouth, he draws that contrast pretty starkly. And every time the Supreme Court gets out, and decides that they know what decisions women should make about their own health care and their own families, i think they draw that distinction pretty starkly. The poll numbers are abysmal. But does biden have a point when he said, dont compare me to the almighty and compare me to the alternative and that is donald trump. That is what we should expect to go on over the course of the next year. I went back and a read an article that i wrote in late 2011 about Barack Obamas poll numbers which were going down, the economy was down, it was the article looked at how even in blue states obama was in trouble. And i dont know if you remember this, but obama ended up winning. That is right. A lot could happen over the course of the year. And when you talk to people in the white house, they say why arent people seeing it. But white house aide that i was speaking with said to me, that the feeling is sort of at this point the politics will resolve itself eventually. That it will start to click in. I dont think it is going to be over whatever happened at the g20 as heidi was saying. But i do think it will be whether people feel in a credible way that their lives are better than they were and that they are scared off enough by trump if theyre going to be scared off. But the fascinating part about what ava said, is that when you drill down on the poll numbers,s it minority voters but it is young minority voters and unlike past elections, were not talking about the Ultra Progressive Wing of the Democratic Party that is the problem here. Were talking about minority voters who may be a little bit more cultural conservative and theyre not worried about the culture wars and they care about what is happening with inflation. You cant sit down and tell them, look, youre paying more for bananas because there is a war in ukraine. That is not a breakthrough message. That is why not the biden came but the super pac is coming out historically really early now with a huge multimillion dollars ad campaign that is launching to try to tout some of those accomplishments and to warrens point, there is no bed wetting here unless the candidate is not trump. Because once the candidate is it is clearly trump, it is not a message for democrats of democrats versus republicans but it is democrats versus as bill crystal said, the end of democracy and that is their message. I went back to my reporting from 2011 and 2012 right before the election, it is a good reminder also what a difference 14 months could make. He has some time and a lot of things will happen that we dont know at this point in time. Stick around because we have frat boys and football and a former president from back in the first in the nation state next. 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Ask about vraylar and learn how abbvie could help you save. This weekend, iowas biggest rivalry was not about politics. It was about college football. Iowa state Beating Arch Nem sis iowa 2013. But naturally politics werent too far from the field. Donald trump showed up to tailgate at a frat house. He flipped a burger, just one. No flip cup but he did toss a few footballs and took pictures and watched the game from inside of a private luxury suite while Governor Desantis watched with the field with Iowa Governor kim reynolds and in between he took a jab at more hands off Campaign Strategy in the hawkeye state. And im actually started to hear a lot of people say because youre showing up, im supporting you because that is the way you got to do it. Wians dont want the campaign about the past or about the candidates issues, they want it to be about their future an the future of this country and that is what i represent. He represents showing up. Hes trying to hit all of the counties, eva, in iowa, he is making the point you have to show up if you want to win iowa, but if you do, donald trump, pretty good at the retail politics we see. But he is sort of testing that. And Governor Desantis is not the only one. I mean, the reason why vivek Rama Ramaswamy is meeting voter by voter is how the contests work, how you do well in the early nominating contests. I thought it was curious that the former president want to south dakota. That seemed sort of it is not an early state so that surprised me. Why he was there to sort of stroke his ego. And you do have to wonder if he does have to spend more time in these early states but hes so far ahead out in the polls that he seems confident in not having this aggressive ground game. Could he regret not doing this . Could he get rengret not gettin out there in iowa . He has name recognition. He doesnt have to be out there all of the time. However, sure, im sure there are voters in iowa and New Hampshire that love to be courted this early who would love to see their preferred candidate. Should he go back . Yes . Could he spend time in south dakota running a general Election Campaign . Probably, too as well. Hes so far ahead, he does not have to go there. But im sure he wants to keep his foot on the lid on the 30point plus lid he has over his challengers. And the visit to north dakota just shows how confiden