Of the country potentially behind it. Welcome to thursday. It is meet the press daily. Democrats today are kicking off the partys threeday summer meeting and we begin tonight with a big question thats got to be on everyones minds out there at the dnc. How do democrats win against President Trump in 2020 . Some democrats look at what is happening in the white house, particularly this week. The president being unpredictable, unpresident al and arguably unamerican behavior. They think why are we talking about anything other than getting trump out of office . This campaign has to be about running against trump, these democrats argue. But other democrats look at what is happening in the white house. The president s economic policies, his health care policies, immigration policies, his Environmental Policies and things standing against something isnt enough, that they have to be for something in order to win. Is part of why hes in office they would argue. Didnt work for republicans in the 2016 primary. It didnt work for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 general. And it isnt why Congressional Democrats say they were successful in the 2018 midterms. We won because from the beginning we focused on health care. Our focus which we decided on early on, on health care proved very, very beneficial to us because thats the number one issue facing the american people. Yeah, that was only nine months ago. I know its hard to believe. Anyway, all those reasons we just mentioned may seem weary about a campaign that is simply focused on getting rid of President Trump. I think the biggest risk we could take is to try to play it safe. I think the current president in my view never should have gotten close. But keep the system, we were rejected including in the industrial midwest where i live. So i think this idea of electability is an illusion and a dangerous one. We need a candidate that is not the safe bet. We need a candidate that can speak not just to the head but to the heart and to the gut. This is a moral moment in america, and we need a leader who can speak to our common virtues and common ideals. No one knows who is electable right now. It is very rare that in the summer before a president ial Election Year that the frontrunner is going to be the nominee or that anyone has a clear idea of what the turnout in the iowa caucus will be. But as we said here before, biden is going all in against President Trump and for electability. Heres what his wife had to say about that issue this week. So, yes, you know, your candidate might be better on, i dont know, health care than joe is. But youve got to look at whos going to win this election. And maybe you have to swallow a little bit and say, okay, i personally like so and so better, but your bottom line has to be that we have to beat trump. You may like another candidate better, but you have to look at who is going to win, and if education is your main issue, joe is that person. As of right now that argument is paying off in the polls for biden this week has been especially chaotic at the white house with the president delivering mixed messages and everything from guns to greenland, backtracking on tax cuts, suggesting he was divinely chosen to take on china and of course his incendiary comment about jewish people. It turns democrats focus into the ultimate question of who can beat donald trump. Joining me now from that said dnc summer meeting out in San Francisco is my nbc news colleague alex, and with me on set betsy woodruff, jay johnson, and bill kristol and editoratlarge at the bulwark. Alex, let me start with you. I know youve been dealing with this question. These are the activists, but theyre party stalwarts. This is a meeting of the establishment some might say thats taking place at the democratic party. Talk to me about this debate, which is too much trump or not enough trump . Right. I mean, i think if you ask, and i have asked democrats here their number one, two, and three Top Priorities are beating donald trump. That hasnt always been the case in primary elections and choosing a nominee that can win over choosing somebody that you like. But this year democrats are so rattled after 16 they just want somebody who can win. Here though these more insider people, you do hear a lot of people saying that democrats still need to make a positive case. I talked to ben wickler who is the new chairman of the wisconsin party. He said, look, democrats are not going to be able to get away with ignoring trump, but what you have to do is respond to him, but then quickly pivot to what democrats are going to do in a positive direction. Take a look at what he said. Democrats have to show what they stand for. They have to do that by actually working to advance those things of weve been fighting to expand medicaid in wisconsin. That has support from 70 of wisconsinites. They need to show how trump has betrayed the promises he made in 2016. We have to show what our values are and also how trump has betrayed the promises he made. Without both sides of that coin, its a lot more difficult to win. Alex, that truck me as i think a lot of democrats look at this week, they look at no, those comments, im curious. Go for it. A referendum on trump more than a choice. So thats the mentality they are having here. I was just going to say it also struck me as if he were critiquing the previous campaign, he would say you didnt make a policy case against trump. It sounds like that that is sort of the middle line hes tried to draw there. Its like, yes, contrast with trump, but dont just do it on character. Right. That was the entirety essentially or the core of Hillary Clintons post convention 2016 campaign. It didnt work then, but, you know, i have talked to democrats this year who say this is different. Weve had three years of trump in the white house. Its no longer a hypothetical issue. Theyve seen him on the job they want to get him out. So that biden ad is very reminiscent of Hillary Clintons 2016 message. Its all about his erraticness, his bullying. She used those exact same words in 2016. Maybe it works now, but in a way it didnt work then. Bill kristol, you thought character was going to count in the republican primary in 2016. You thought character might count in the general election, and i think people had a problem with the character of both candidates and so everything was relative there. A character election or not . I think its a trump election. I think democrats think, lets talk about trump for a minute, but then were going to pivot to our wonderful new ideas about very complicated this much expansion of medicaid but not too much expansion. I mean, thats fine, but at the end of the day, all president ial incumbent reelections are referenda on the incumbent. With trump its ten times more that way. So i think they have to be responsible. They have to show that theyre in touch with new issues and that theyre not simply creatures of the backward looking, and so forth. I think a younger candidate honestly would be a stronger candidate than biden. If you could have a 20 year younger biden who was also moderate. But it is going to be about trump. They need to make the fundamental criticism as an incumbent and not just character but the consequences of his character. Having someone this impulsive, narcissistic, what is it doing to our standing in the world, what is it doing to our foreign policy, what has it done to our policy and what have the trade wars done. Iowa farmers care about one thing, and suburban moms in, you know, michigan care about something else. Jay, i am curious though what you think of this debate because i think people that have been in government a long time experience government are more frightened and concerned and believe you need to keep your focus on one thing than those that are Party Activists that havent spent their life in government. Sure. And what do you make of that disconnect . Because i think youre playing into it a little bit, i assume. Well, i come at it from the perspective of who will most effectively lead to get stuff done here in washington . Who has the ability to work with congress, work on a bipartisan basis with congress, to get the peoples business done, which is why ive been fairly vocal about some of the positions taken by the Democratic Candidates in the debates. And so the way i assess a candidacy is whos got the experience whos got the level headedness but who knows how to make the machinery of government work versus a particular stance on a particular issue that might be most appealing to a segment of the partys base . Absolutely. Betsy. I think i would push back a toony bit of what bill said earlier. Part of the reason that democrats flipped the house in 2016 is because they were able to run up the numbers amongst suburban republican women who had never voted democratic before. If you talked to some of the democratic operatives who were involved in some of these key races historically red districts that flipped, it flipped. It wasnt so much a policy issue, it was because they cant watch the news with their kids. They are worried they have to change the channel when the president is talking. And to that extent, some of those suburban voters, pima county, suburbs of phoenix, suburbs of raleigh, those voters are going to be thinking not necessarily in terms of policy stuff, but they actually will be looking at character. Alex, i am curious, we are watching and in a minute here im going to play an ad that the democratic is running in the North Carolina 9 district, which as we noted in first read today is more in the last race of 2018 rather than the first race of 2020. What do the democrats at that dnc meeting think today, the message of 2018 was . Right after the election democrats said, oh, it was health care. I do get the sense that as people have gotten farther away, they realize, oh, this may have been about trump. I think trump was the message, whether they said it out loud or not. The executive director of the told me that even if our candidates arent talking about trump, its present, its like you use the analogy you walk into a restaurant and if you see a rat in the kitchen it doesnt matter how good the food, you are not going to eat at that restaurant, and that trump would be in that analogy. So i do think they think it was health care. We did for nbc news. Com we scraped 134 candidates websites to see what they were talking about, and trump was not there at all. It was like in two or three websites in 2018. So i do think they think it was about health care. But they acknowledged that trump was there whether they talked about it or not. He is the water that we are all swimming in. The democrat, this is that area isthat basically that actually voter fraud on the right ended up forcing a redo of this election. But look at his current message that hes got on the air. Too many North Carolina families like brians struggle to afford health care. Thats why i work with democrats and republicans to lower the cost of health care and prescription drugs. I will take on the big insurance and drug companies. I will put families like brians first. Ill admit, and i just was asking it. This is an ad that can feel both in touch and out of touch at the same time meaning that it didnt capture at all the current state af fairs thats happening, but this is an issue that congress should be dealing with. Theres only so much you can do from sort of elaborate from Congressional Elections to president ial elections. They are different things. Than an incumbent election is about the incumbent and its about his character. But since hes the incumbent, the reason hillary couldnt quite Square Hillary enough is, oh, he just says these things, hes not going to govern this way. They need some disruption. You got to be a little overly loud to disrupt it. But of course its not going to be that crazy. Now it has been that crazy. And i think there is a chunk of those trump voter whos say this isnt really what i bargained for. So, jeh, what should democrats spend the next six months doing . How many plans do you need going after trump . You know, i have to say its got to be the case every time a politician or candidate spouse does an interview you kind of sit at the edge of the seat. But in this case i think joe biden spelled it out. Jill biden you mean. Spelled it out better than anybody. My husband is running not with some great agenda for the future. Hes running to beat donald trump. That is clearly what is energizing and animating the base most. And i suspect itll be the thing that animates and drives voter turnout in the 2020 election. I think in one short interview, spelled out the rationale. Spouses always give you the more honest assessment of things, dont they . She did. And this question of energizing a base like some of the more progressive candidates like sanders and warren say we have to really get these activists on the left excited. But the counterpoint to that is folks like joe biden would make is why do democrats need to worry about energizing the base when donald trump is the president . The single most effective tool for getting those base voters to turn out is just the fact that hes in the white house. Thats the argument that they will make. When it comes to a strategy question, its totally present. Part of the reason some of these house candidates dont talk about trump on their web pages is they dont need to. People remember. Alex, how does the im pivoting a little bit. Any blowback at the dnc of sort of how this large field has been managed, if you will, by the committee . A lot of that. I mean, being dnc chair is a thankless job. Being any party chair because youre going to get it from all sides. But there are two words that are very scary for democrats that i keep hearing here today not from the stage and not from anybody with a microphone. But when you talk to them in private and thats contested convention. There are a lot of people here, senior people in the party who are afraid that because of the way this primary process has been managed because of the size of the field that were going to get to next year without a nominee heading into the convention and they are very, very nervous about that proce prospect. Its a huge field, but actually if you look at the card its a small field. Biden and warren and sanders. Jeh, you know this pretty well. The rules change, they made it impossible to actually there is no way anybody can sit on the first ballot unless anybody decides to hand it to somebody. Can we ever have a president ial cycle where we dont talk about a contested election that gets everyone all excited . Every time you hear the phrase, just drink because youre going to hear it a lot. Let me close this debate this way. The last three months, has joe biden had a run . Forget the coverage. Has joe biden run a Good Campaign in the last three months or a good one . Give me a letter grade. He had challenges. He has sort of lurched from problem to problem. Kamala harris walloped him in the first debate. He had trouble identifying the states where those two Mass Shootings happened. I mean, you are trying to differentiate yourself from trump, and you are getting states wrong . This wasnt great. If you had asked joe biden and jill biden on march 1st on august 20 whatever it is, 5th or Something Like that, you can be at 30 and the closest person behind you is 15 . Youre both making my point here, which is this. I dont think bidens run a very Good Campaign and his numbers havent budged. Jeh . Well, i have two things to add. One, people who win debates dont tend to win the elections. Thats one. Number two, i was involved in obamas campaign 12 years ago, and i remember at this point in the cycle, he was, what, 30 point Hillary Clinton . And everybody was like whats all that good fundraising . It doesnt seem to be translating in the polls. We didnt even get too your apples to apples. Tell me what kind of apple picking you were able to do here. It was our favorite phrase of the day yesterday. Thank you, buddy. Right. So if you played the yeah, appreciate it. Betsy, jeh, and bill, you are sticking around. Its a pretty good day to have a former homeland security, one thats been confirmed here to talk about it. But first the white house wants to detain Migrant Children indefinitely. So what are democrats going to do heading into 2020 . Senator jeff merkley will join me live. Me live. So, every day, we put our latest technology and unrivaled network to work. The United StatesPostal Service makes more ecommerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country. 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Nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts for allday, allnight protection. Can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn . Welcome back. As 2020 democrats try to convince primary voters to support some sweeping ideas, they will ultimately have to do the same thing for congress if they are elected president. Joining me now is oregon democratic senator jeff merkley. He is the author of america is better than this. I feel like theres two big issues that youve been at the center of since your time in the senate. One obviously is what you wrote about. The other is your friend Mitch Mcconnell wrote about the filibuster today. And i would love to one day watch the two of you debate the filibuster, whether or not well allow the filibuster to be used during your debate is a whole other story. But let me talk to you first about your