Welcome to inside politics. Im john king. To our viewers in the United States and around the world, thank you for sharing your sunday. We have a busy hour ahead including a lastminute immigration deal between the Trump Administration and mexico and a major flipflop on abortion policy by the democratic frontrunner, joe biden. We begin this sunday with a new look at the landscape in the state that gets the first say in american president ial politics. That state is iowa. Most of the democratic contenders are there for events this weekend. By the caucuses are still 34 weeks away, our new poll has fascinating data on the state of play and the difficult challenge breaking through in this crowded field of 23 candidates. Importantly, our cnn Des Moines Register media survey is the first public poll to factor in the new rules Iowa Democrats plan for next years caucuses. 90 of the delegates at stake will be awarded based on the traditional inperson caucus process. 10 will be divvied up based on results of a new virtual caucus system that allows Iowa Democrats to participate online. Your overall leader combining both in virtual and in person is frontrunner joe biden. Thats a smaller lead than he has in national polls. He tends to be above 30 . In iowa at 24. Bernie sanders in second place, Elizabeth Warren at 15. This is your overall iowa state of play today. Those who will be there at a caucus site or those who want to participate through the virtual process. In person, biden with a lead, sanders, warren, buttigieg, harris. For those who want to participate online, a bigger lead for biden here, 33 to 10, 14, 9, 10. The same top five. A little difference when you look at those who say theyll do it the oldfashioned way and those who say lets try this new way. A fascinating test for candidates, try to get these people to show up and the like. Lets break it down ideologically. Elizabeth warren has been gaining slowly in the polls. Among iowa liberals shes your leader, 22 to mayor pete buttigieg, the Vice President , Bernie Sanders down here. Bernie sanders last cycle lib bral candidate in a pack. Thats a problem for sanders as warren pulls ahead. Same top five. Moderate to conservative voters, a healthier lead for joe biden. Senator sanders, another poll in which you see compared to 2016, he seems to be struggling a bit. He says hang on, ill be fine. I believe i am best suited to defeat donald trump. I know all the polls out there say trump is going to be beaten. They have me ahead of him in michigan and pennsylvania and in wisconsin, battleground states. But let me tell you, i think donald trump is going to be a very tough opponent because i think hes a pathological liar, he will say anything, he will do anything. Its not going to be an easy campaign and i hope everybody understands this. With us julie pace of the associated press, Jonathan Martin of the New York Times, cnns manna raju and Annie Linskey of the Washington Post. Its a hard new world where you have a split process. You can show up in person like its been done for years or participate online somehow. The online stake is a smaller percentage of how they count the delegates. This is the first look at this terrain. All the candidates except for biden are there this week. Hell be there next week. Whats the biggest takeaway when you look at the numbers. The biggest takeaway is joe biden is the frontrunner, but a lot of room to close the gap. My other takeaway, if you dont close the gap relatively soon, theres not going to be a lot of opportunities, that group of candidates bunched at that 1 , the really bottom end of the field, someone is going to have to start moving soon. Theres not going to be that much room if you have a biden, warren, harris, buttigieg, in there. To that point, lets start there in the sense that you have 23 candidates. I was talking to ann the other day. She used old school of psychology, seven plus or minus two. Thats the human brain, processes. How do you process 23 candidates . If you look at the poll here, who are you actively considering. 61 say joe biden. 52 say Kamala Harris. Down to just 32 for amy klobuchar, 39 . These are the candidates on the list. You might have a first choice, a second choice. Then you have this list. Then you move to the lesserknown candidates, trying to get the technology to work here and move it over. Here is the problem. How do you break through, Marion Williamson is considered a long shot. This is senator michael bennett. Governor bullock, mayor bill de blasio, senator Kirsten Gillibrand only two in ten iowans say theyre considering. These debates will be huge for a breakthrough. It reflects the reality in june of 2019. This is an eightperson race in iowa with the pos that somebody from that next tier could break out because most will be in the first two debates this month and next month. Basically youve got two different fields right now. Youve got the top here and that undercard with the possibility n that one of them can make a move. I dont know if more than one or two will move. Fluidity of this race. May of 2015, Hillary Clinton had a 41 point lead over Bernie Sanders. She won by less than a percentage point on caucus night f. You look at these numbers, biden with a very fragile advantage, it shows how fluid this race is. The fact that, look, its going to be hugely wide open, and the ideological gap is an important thing to keep in mind. You see two wings of the party in contention there. Seeing not as much enthusiasm for biden compared to other people in the field. This poll shows 29 were extremely thus as tienthusiasti biden, compared to other people in the field. This shows an eightpoint advantage at this time in this race is not insure mount nl. It leads you to believe, a lot of it was based on, he was Vice President for eight years. Democrats like him, no question. To get to extremely enthusiastic, youve got to love him. Thats the challenge. Other tough things for the poll, beto orourke, devastating for him. Here is a person polling pretty well in iowa before he had ever gone to the state, back before he announced. Now hes his campaign has made a real effort in the last few weeks to spend a lot of time there. Theyll tell you hes the candidate that has had the most events there in the last few weeks and hes not moving. Go through the breckdown. We showed you the liberal, moderate, conservative, lets look at it from an age perspective. Bernie sanders leads among voters who are under age 35. Vice president bidens strength is voters who are older. You see a bit of a split. This competition for sanders in here, again, back in 2016, a oneonone race against Hillary Clinton, that was his slice. If you want something new, something different, something anti establishment, theres a fierce competition this time. That warren number is really fascinatin fascinating. Its very clear over the past two months that shes solidified support, improving, growing. Trying to figure out where her pock pockets will be as the race starts to solidify. I dont think a lot of people have said young voters would be one of warrens strength. That poll shows she has a lot of gaining opportunity. At the iowa caucuses, the first step in the process, 90 get awarded based on those who show up in person. Thats what theyll focus on, more delegates in place. 10 by those who participated online. Even if more showed up online than showed up. Youd think theyre older voters who dont want to show up. Theyre not. The polls show its an interesting mix. Some are firsttime caucusgoers, some are younger people. How if youre biden, you get those people to show up, and will a candidate decide im struggling but ill funnel my resources to people showing up online. You wont get a lot of delegates out of it, but can you generate buzz out of a virtual victory . Zbl i think thats kind of hard. I think thats tough. A win is a win and coming out of iowa we know what were looking for, which is the victor. Shows how hard it will be to measure where this race actually is because people could decide ultimately to do this virtually rather than showing up in person even if theyre telling the pollster they may show up in person because maybe the weather will be nice that day and they may not want to leave, change their mind and that can ultimately impact the outcome of this race. This is going to continue to shift based on voters own decisions. Its very complicated. But it gives opportunities for other people to move up in this poll. A test of resources, the caucuses always are. Now you have to track your supporters and make the calculation. Most people will want to get them out, but well see. Use that as a base line as we go forward. Up next, the president tells his republican critics, i told you so. Mexico is promising a crackdown on illegal immigration. The president says his threat of tariffs is what made it happen. First, politicians say the darndest things, royal edition. 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President trump is claiming a big victory today and bragging he has again proven wrong those who criticize his unorthodox and disruptive ways. Off the table, for now anyway, the president s threat to impose, beginning tomorrow, new tariffs on all mexican goods sent to the yatsUnited States. Instead mexico has agreed to the biggest promises deploying Mexican National guard troops to deter illegal migration and agreeing more that apply for asylum at the u. S. Border can be returned to mexico while their claims are being processed. The president s Reelection Campaign sees this as a chance to raise money, rushing out a text praszing the deal and asking for donations. Thats the politics. The scope of the policy win, however, is in dispute. The New York Times claiming these new initiatives were agreed to months ago and mexican Officials Say they did not, as President Trump claimed in a tweet, also agree to make giant new purchases of u. S. Farm goods. So brace, braces for debate about whether the president won or whether he blinked. For now a reprieve from trifrs that would have september shockwaves from the u. S. And mexican companies. Pitting the president against senators in his own party who dont like tariffs to begin with and especially dont like them being used as a weapon in an immigration dispute. Let me just say theres a lack of enthusiasm among Senate Republicans for what would amount to a tax increase frankly on working class people. Tariffs are simply attacks on the american people. Tariffs on the other hand would be a massive tax. Tariffs are bad policy, attacks on the American Consumer and affect disproportionately middle income earners. A lot of people, senators included, have no idea what theyre talking about when it comes to tariffs. They have absolutely no idea. Tomorrow will be a more peaceful day, both in the u. S. And the mexican economy because there will be no 5 tariffs. The question now is did the president get a big policy win here . Has mexico agreed to do something significant to stop the flow of migrants. A classic trump play. You create a crisis and then you look like you solved it. Most of the things that were laid out were things that mexico decided to dorks moving National Guard to their southern border or things that were already in the works, which was ramping up the remain in mexico asylum policy. Overall, no. Its not as though the president got huge new concessions. At the same time he can paint this as a political win. For him, that matters quite a bit. The mexicans, also, can claim that they were able to avoid giving big concessions. Both parties here walk away feeling okay about the situation which is a bit odd because it was largely a selfcreated crisis. The first trumpkim summit. Afterwards they came out with the statement saying they agreed to all this, all these great things were going to happen . It hasnt happened yet . Peace in our time from north korea. That didnt quite happen. Similar to what well see here. Well see. Perhaps this will change everything when it comes down to whats happening at the southern border. Maybe not. Let me take a contrarian view for a second and raise the possibility that maybe mexico did agree this to do it before but werent doing it with earnesty. Maybe the threat of tariffs will get them to do it. This is what drives the president crazy, monthly updates on apprehensions at the u. S. Border. Look at the red line. Theres 2019. Theres other recent years and there is 2019. If this starts to go down a little bit, maybe the president can claim, look, theyre doing a better job. Its working. If that stays up there, were going to be back in this in a month or three as we head deeper into the election season. The president did not take these tariffs completely off the table and he moved them to the edge. He made it very clear that this threat is still a live in his mind. That means we absolutely could find ourselves after a few more days of those numbers, we could find ourselves in the exact same spot were in right now. The question about that chart is what is driving that. Is it the fact that apprehensions are up and youre seeing this surge across the border because mexico is lax in its policy. Thats the president s theory of the case. Theres another theory of the case that some of this is because of what the president is doing on his own, where hes sending a message that were going to have this major crackdown, so people are trying to come across it now to avoid tougher laws. And you have the problems that are getting worse in venezuela, guatemala and elsewhere. Hes had Staff Members and lawmakers for twoplus years stopping him from the precipice of tariffs, holding him back. He wants to levy tariffs. This is the one consistent principle hes had in public life going back 30, 35 years. He believes tariffs work. You saw him there on the tarmac. Im not sure how much longer hell be able to withstand that. You raise a good point, john. At the very least its possible this threat flushed out the agreement that the mexicans apparently cut with us in pry swrat and sort of exposed the public light what they committed to in private in recent month. Two points. This is a president that cares most of all about the perception of victory and perception of success. Thats tantamount to victory itself. Thats what he has. He has perception of a victory which he can sell. Secondly, hes very sensitive to the markets and the market fluctuations. Hes always tweeting about the dow jones. If these tariffs had gone into effect monday, could you imagine the market this week . I think that was probably in the back of his mind, too. A bigger, longer range issue. Number one, well see the performance and the numbers and see if the tariffs come back in the context of mexico. Political advisers will say please, mr. President , dont disrupt the economy. The wall street journal saying the may jobs report is a flashing yellow light, President Trump needs to get back to promoting growth. If you had a tariff fight with mexico, escalation of on going tariff fight with china, look at that time job growth during the trump presidency. 2019, obviously the effect of the tax cuts has waend off a little bit. Job growth is starting to slow. Some economists see the perception of recession. The jonathans point, this is one of his most consistent issues. He thinks the tariffs are a good bludgeon. He also thinks when people make those warnings theyre oftentimes warn. They warn the economy is going to implode when the government had the longest shutdown in american history. Well, the economy sustained that. So he thinks he knows best, so he can very well be back in this in a few months. Not only could it hurt the economy, hurt his reelection prospects and his resolve, but create the fight again with his own Party Heading into the 2020 elections, something, of course, his political advisers want to avoid. Does the president want to avoid that . Not so sure. Would they have stood up to him on capitol hill or just talked about it . Up next, inside the front run ears big flipflop and what it tells us about joe biden and todays democratic party. ding hey, who are you . Oh, hey jeff, im a car thief. What . im here to steal your car because, well, thats my job. What . What . . What . laughing what . . What . what . [crash] what . haha, it happens. And if youve got cutrate car insurance, paying for this could feel like getting robbed twice. So get allstate. And be better protected from mayhem. Like me. Hi, do you have a travel card . We do the discover it® miles card. Earn unlimited 1. 5 miles on every purchase, plus well match your miles at the end of your first year. 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