bannon, defeating the president's multiple endorsements. now the president is attempting to distance himself and also somehow congratulate himself. jeff zelleny joins us now from the white house with the latest. so explain how the president reacted to moore's loss and what we know about it. >> reporter: anderson, no question the president did not think today would roll out like this. but, again, it's a part of a pattern, the president not taking responsibility, but sort of parsing out the blame and quickly moving on. he showed his mood in a series of tweets this morning. fairly early this morning. it started like this. let's take a look at. he said this about the race last night. he said, the reason i originally endorsed luther strange and his numbers went up mightily is that i said roy moore would not be able to win the general election. i was right. roy worked hard, but the deck was stacked against him. so luther strange, of course, was the original republican running against roy moore, who the president backed, originally he was burned in that race, and again he was burned in this race. a couple hours later the president said this about the

quality of the candidate in the race, talking about roy moore, of course. he said this, if last night's election proved anything, it proved that we need to put up great republican candidates to increase the razor thin margins in both the house and senate. implied in that was that roy moore was not a good candidate. never mind the fact that the president defied all political advice from republican advisers here at the white house, on capitol hill, at the republican national committee, and went all in for roy moore. he followed steve bannon's advice, and that burned him today. anderson. >> do we know what was said between the president and doug jones in the call? >> reporter: anderson, we're told that call, which came midafternoon or so, right before the president gave his tax speech from the oval office, he spoke with doug jones. he offered his congratulations we were told, and he talked about moving forward, working on this agenda, moving forward for the alabama people. it's interesting because, of course, doug jones will become one of those democrats -- a few democrats that really have become somewhat of an extinct creature here in washington, a democrat from a red state, he

wants to work with him. but beyond that it was not much more than pleasantries i'm told. but he did invite him here to the white house, which, anderson, that's something that seems to happen all the time. republican presidents, democratic presidents used to have new senators to the white house. we'll see if anything comes of this meeting during this deeply partisan environment. >> jeff, i'm wondering what you're hearing about steve bannon. how much blame is he getting after this loss? >> reporter: anderson, at the end of a long day here of recriminations and finger pointing, there's no question that steve bannon is blamed by so many people, including here at the white house. the open question here is, what does the president think about steve bannon's political acumen? will he keep following him in the 2018 midterm elections? that's what matters now. steve bannon, of course, came out so strong after roy moore beat luther strange just a few months ago in alabama. now he's weakened. the question is, will the president still listen to him in those private conversations? many republicans here hope he does not. the president seems to turn again and again back to steve bannon.

steve bannon, of course, blamed all of this on mitch mcconnell, the senate majority leader. that's a pretty difficult square to circle. anderson. >> jeff zeleny, thanks very much. tonight, the president's approval ratings dropped to its lowest level since he took office. according to a new monmouth university poll, it shows that 32% approve of the job president trump is doing. 66% disapprove. with me now is cnn senior political analyst and former adviser to four presidents, david gergen. and cnn political analyst and "new york times" white house correspondent maggie haberman. maggie, do you have any sense of is there a feeling among folks at the white house that they need to course correct in some way? >> depends what you mean by course correct. meaning, in the constant base play that we have seen throughout, that comes from the president. and that is going -- he has had a paralytic fear of losing his base. he believes that he got where he is by having this 35% to 38%, that that will be what carries the day throughout. he does recognize that there is at least some limit on that. while he is selling this as i was in a lose-lose situation, there was not much i can do, he has enough doubt about what he

did in endorsing roy moore that he has solicited opinions from a number of people throughout the day today, which is always what he does when he's not feeling entirely sure. it's not really clear what that course correction would look like. what we have seen this president do in his year in office has been very consistent. he follows mitch mcconnell until that doesn't work anymore, then he goes, essentially, with steve bannon or his base. i don't know if he knows another way. we're going to see what the impact is of this on the tax plan vote. if this has a deleterious effect, which it might, then i think you will see a course correction. if not, i think he will see it as a sign, as he's indicated once again, and he keeps going to the next crisis. >> david, as someone who's worked in a number of white houses, should there be a course correction? >> well, it's not clear he's on a course. i mean he jumps from one thing to the next, so you never quite know where he is. sort of one lily pad to the next. but he does need a change of strategy. he needs a strategy. and he cannot -- i think the signs are now clear, not only from doug moore -- or doug jones and alabama, but for virginia and new jersey that a wave is

building up and unless he changes or adopts a strategy which goes beyond his base, which starts appealing to moderate republicans and also starts appealing to independents, it's not only the republican control of the house and the senate which is threatened, but it's going to be his own re-election. i think it's absolutely clear that he has to change the way he -- chance to a new strategy. we waited for a long time to see if donald trump himself would change, and we learned he would not, so it's hard to be optimistic it's going to happen, but it's what he needs. >> there's that new iowa poll we talked about the monmouth pole with 32% of approval. a new des moines register poll showing him with only 35% approval rating in iowa. 60% of iowans say the country is on the wrong track. i mean, iowa is a state he won by nine points. >> yes, in the general election. yeah, i mean, look, iowa was a key midwestern state for him. i think the wrong track numbers can be a little deceptive,

because the wrong track numbers were pretty high under obama, too. but clearly, as david said, you can see a wave building in a number of states. the white house also, this has been a big complaint for a while, they don't have a really in-depth political operation. so you have a president who basically guides his own experience through instinct. and he did -- he's a very, very reactive politician. everything is sort of by sight and by sound at these rallies that he was going to daily during the campaign. he's up to maybe once a month at this point. so he has to rely on sort of a seeing-eye dog in the form of steve bannon, or other people. that's problematic. john kelly is very upfront with people in the white house that he himself is not a political guy. so he is not going to be the person doing that. and bill stepian who's the political director has a lot of fans in the white house, he also has some trackers and an outside, you know, people will say he comes under fire because he's not a carl rove or a david axelrod, and that is true. he's basically a field guy. he's a certain kind of operative. there isn't a depth inside of the rnc to bolster them now, other than, again, in data and

in money. but in terms of what they're doing instinctively and for strategic terms, there's just not much of an operation there. >> it's interesting, david, because in most white houses, and you can speak to this better than anybody, there would be a bigger, a more complex or experienced operation. it seems like for the president, a lot of the political operation is the idea of him going out and doing rallies, just like he did on the campaign trail. >> absolutely. if you think about the most successful chief of staff, usually that person has a lot of political moxie. think of james baker who ran two campaigns against reagan and the day after reagan was elected he asked jim baker to come in and be his chief of staff. and, yes, he had a political office. it was really important that he had baker there. where everything is integrated, in your politics, policy, what you got to do on the hill, and all those sorts of things are integrated, that's in the chief of staff's office. same thing is true with john podesta, who was a very good chief of staff for bill clinton. went on and ran hillary's campaign as the chairman. that again is somebody that you

ideally want to have around the president. i think maggie makes a very good point. he does not have anybody of real stature that he trusts -- that he trusts around him to help him with his politics. >> ultimately, when you start to look at the calendar, you know, midterm elections are coming up and then it's the presidential election. it starts to get into a certain worn path. >> one thing that jonathan martin, my colleague, and i had reported on this a couple of weeks ago, that there was a real lack of planning about the midterms. as it happened, there had been an oval office meeting that day involving, kelly, mike pence, stepian, the president and rick dearborn, a deputy chief of staff. but they were just beginning this at that point. and when i was speaking to white house aides, they would say, look, we've actually devoted a lot of our political resources to the policy programmic aspects to try to work the hill. you have to be able to work both tracks in any white house, but especially in this climate.

and they are going into a year where all the forces appear to be against them, with the exception of the economy. but still, the midterms tend to be when the party that is in power gets beaten up. >> and you also have not just the democratic side, you have steve bannon, and the question is is he going to be running warfare against mainstream republicans. mit romney is the perfect example. >> absolutely. at some the white house is going to have to decide, are we going to ban this guy from the white house or what are we doing here, because we can't -- he can't have it both ways, be talking to the president, running against the establishment, ruining the possibilities of the republicans holding the house and senate. that's a big deal. but let me just go to the point of the substance, too. i think the president will get his tax -- i sense he has the momentum and he can get the tax bill through. there may be something that derails it, but we haven't seen it yet. but i think next year is going to be much harder for him substantively. typically a president has one year to get things done before you got to start worrying about the midterm elections.

and now, how does he get infrastructure done, entitlement reform, and some of these other big issues. i don't see how he gets it done. >> no, i agree. i think that he's coming into this with tremendously strong headwinds and it's hard to see -- >> what about bannon? >> well, i mean, to the -- what i started to say, actually, when you were talking about how somebody has to say, this guys can't come -- it has to be the president who says i'm not going to talk to this guy. donald trump, in the same way he's never severed ties with roger stone, despite what everybody always says, there's this constant -- you know, he will say roger stone doesn't speak for me. he is always watching roger stone out of the corner of his eye. he is always still talking to roger stone, however sporadically that might be, however frequently that might be, they still talk. they still communicate. the same is true with bannon. he knows with both of them that they can speak to his base and they can understand his base the same way that he can, and in some ways better than he can. because so much of what he does is reactive, it is dependent on what he sees in front of him. what he's seeing right now is largely on television, he's not seeing it in person, and that matters. >> maggie haberman, thanks, you're going to be around for our panel. david gergen, thanks so much. got to take a break.

our panel is next. later, the "usa today" editorial board not mincing words, saying a president who would all but call senator kirsten gillibrand a whore is not fit to shine george w. bush's shoes or clean the toilets in the barack obama presidential library. that is the editorial board of the "usa today". we're going to hear from a member of that board ahead. tati. geezer. geyser. geezer. geyser. enough. geezer. whoaa, wooooo. dude, be careful. i think you should come camping. why would i camp in the atacama desert? oh... 3x points on travel and restaurants on every continent. sapphire reserve, from chase. make more of what's yours. it feels good to be back.

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us. it's what this country is made of. but right now, our bond is fraying. how do we get back to "us"? the y fills the gaps. and bridges our divides. donate to your local y today. because where there's a y, there's an us. welcome back. for the first time in 25 years, alabama has elected a democrat to the u.s. senate. you probably know that by now. today doug jones says he's aware some might have voted not so

much for him but against his opponent. >> there is also that segment of this population who voted against roy moore. i understand that. i get that. but you know what? that's not a bad thing. when that kind of politics for a segment of the population in alabama to help reject that kind of history and that divisive rhetoric, i think that's a good thing. >> maggie haberman from the "times" is back. joining us as well is paul begala, jack kingston, tara setmayer, scott jennings, and josh green. maggie, you weren't there last night with us. what do you see in the victory of doug jones? how do you interpret it? >> i think somebody made this point to me on twitter and i think it was a fair one. i was talking about turnout among black voters being pretty pivotal, but it was 1.5 point race. there were a lot of pivotal factors. i think at the end of the day -- >> the write-in candidate vote. >> write-in was a factor, a lot of people staying home was a factor. votes in key counties for jones being above where they needed to

in terms of turnout, votes for moore in key counties being below where they needed to. look, it is a pretty remarkable occurrence. this is a unicorn vote. this is a democrat in alabama for a senate seat. i don't know how much more we can interpret based on the specific results, but there's a couple key points we can look toward as indicators, which is the president's approval was pretty low in exits. we know that roy moore was a uniquely complicated and compromised candidate. doug jones is a pro-choice democrat who got elected in this state. so many voters didn't know that because this entire race was about roy moore, and that was it. not a lot of this race could be duplicated somewhere else, but we do see consistently, in state by state, in special elections over the last year and in non-special elections, there is some kind of movement building against the president that is a bad harbinger for next year. and i think that if you are the white house, that has to be what you are looking at.

and if you are mitch mcconnell and if you are paul ryan, you are getting very nervous about holding your majorities. >> scott, do you see this as a movement against the president? or as some sort of a wave building? >> certainly there's a movement among democrats who are very angry about having lost the presidential election to get it together and turn out and vote. that's clearly what happened. and i think president obama's last-minute intervention with african-american voters clearly had an effect on the turnout, which helped in alabama. i think maggie's right, there's a lot of circumstances here that aren't going to be replicated elsewhere, but there's one thing we can know for sure, candidate quality matters. roy moore before -- he'll be remembered as the guy who lost because he was an alleged pedophile. this candidacy was in serious trouble before that, and he was already on the decline, he was being seriously outspent. and right now, in the republican party, there are people who are trying to recruit similar types of candidates in senate races around the country. this a recipe for disaster. so if there's a silver lining -- >> non-child abusing. >> sure.

but candidates who don't appeal to a broad electorate. so if there's a silver lining, it's this, this shines a bright light on, you cannot follow these kinds of candidacies down a path that destroys your party. >> josh, you wrote the book on bannon. what happens to bannon now? what does bannon argue? i know he's blaming mitch mcconnell. >> well, it's a huge embarrassment for bannon. i mean, he went out and jumped in four square behind roy moore. and, in a sense, steve bannon is the guy who nationalized this election because he came in and he said, look, this is going to be a proxy battle in this war between the hard right nationalists that i represent and the gop establishment that mitch mcconnell represents. and you know, the floor got wiped with his candidate last night. mcconnell was the clear victor in that showdown. and i think it does a lot to kind of puncture this aura that bannon has worked very hard to build up that he has some kind of psychic connection with trump voters, with the republican base that he can transfer to other candidates in other republican primaries and potentially knock

off gop incumbents and eventually mcconnell himself. >> someone last night on one of the panels, i can't remember who it was, maybe it was someone here, who said that when you get early into politics and you have to work on a campaign where the person wins, you start to think that you're the candidate that you know, kind of that you have tapped into something and you feel that way until you get slapped down the next time and lose. >> i think that's part of it. i do think that -- carl and i got pretty famous off of bill clinton, we never spoke at rallies. we stayed back behind the scenes and behind the stage. and bannon, not only did he come out, he came out against the president. that is unprecedented. i never saw my friend carl rove do that do george w. bush, axe never did that to president obama, carl and i never did that to clinton. this is without precedent that he's taking on the president. even insulted the president's daughter at a rally. it's extraordinary and it's noteworthy. and maggie understands why -- >> and the president didn't respond to that. that was one of the few times. >> this is the thing.

this idea that this is -- it's not like people keep saying why is bannon being allowed to do this? because the president's not saying don't. because the president's still taking his phone calls. they spoke yesterday. >> bannon also has a little bit of a street cred. almost a folk hero lore in his own right. i think he's a different kind of consultant in that respect. but where i wonder, where was he when the story broke in "the washington post"? why didn't he say to judge moore, you're going to be on national tv, the spotlights are going to be incredible. here's what you're going to say, and you're not going to say anything else. because i think moore as much as anything confirmed these women just by the way he reacted. >> moore, i think that night it broke -- if it wasn't the night, it was the next night, he was at the citadel, i think it was, and we carried him live and he was saying you're going to see things come out about these women, that there's collusion and they were -- you know, he went after the women. >> he was traveling with him on that trip. he was on the phone with roy moore with sean hannity trying to arrange a friendly audience for moore to explain himself.

that interview wound up going disastrously for moore because he essentially bragged about dating teenagers as a 30-year-old man. he didn't do a lot to help himself. >> that was the hannity interview. >> yeah. there's something else going on here with steve bannon that doesn't get enough attention. i was a lot of the rallies down in alabama. when bannon would come out to speak, he wasn't really speaking about roy moore. he was trying to push his ideas about nationalism, about populism, his feud with bannon and cultivate this image of himself as a folk hero. so this wasn't -- he does it ostensibly in trump's name, but what he's really doing is trying to build up his own aura. >> can i ask you a question? do you think that's because he's looking at the long game into the midterms? assuming that roy moore was going to win, that he would be able to point to that and use whatever he thought -- whatever lore he thought he was creating so that he could go in with these other candidates in primary republican -- >> i think that's it exactly. that's exactly what he was thinking he was going to do. and it failed disastrously. >> disaster.

it was a disaster. something else that i think is interesting about this, and to scott's point, candidate recruitment does matter. and republicans learned this the hard way in 2010, where we had the opportunity to pick up senate seats in places like nevada, in places like delaware, where we had horrible tea party candidates they were considered back then. but in sharon engle and in christine o'donnell in delaware where she actually had to address an accusation about being a witch. some of us will remember that. >> which, we should point out, she denied. >> right. she said i am not a witch, yes. which, that's as bad as, no, i don't beat my wife. it was a disaster, and it was an opportunity where we could have -- those two senate seats are still democrat. and it's a shame. are we going to repeat that cycle again? and it looks as though we should have learned that lesson, but with bannon, if he's allowed to have that kind of influence with candidates again, that's going to be a disaster for republicans. >> have you ever asked bannon, or has he ever talked himself about running for something? >> he denies he has any interest in doing that.

but as a couple people pointed out, he has spent the time since he left the white house barnstorming the country, giving public speeches and essentially trying to build a following for what he says is trumpism, but it's really bannonism. i mean, trump showed the set of ideas he got elected in are not the ones he's going to push as president of the united states. he's gone more in mitch mcconnell's direction. bannon has not let go of those ideas and, i think, believes he can push them and by defeating candidates like the ones mitch mcconnell endorses, ultimately win this battle within the party. >> remember this. in a 1.5% race, on an incredibly flawed candidate, he still did fairly well. when you think about -- roy moore would be any candidate's opposition dream. the whacky things he said, not only was he quoted as saying it, but there was tape -- videotape of him saying it. and everybody knows you really want to kill a candidate in his own words, just rolling his own words back to him. and so you had that. and then you had the sexual

misconduct. remember, the last statewide election that roy moore ran in, he only won by 52%. he had already been impeached. >> one thing to address your point about bootstrapping a lot of other issues that bannon brought into this race, what this race ultimately came down to was a litmus test involving the believability of a lot of women who had accused him of sexual misconduct, including child molestation. that is a problem for a president who has been facing his own accusations of sexual misconduct. and that is where i'm not sure this was a wise bet -- forget about the president's own bet on this, which he did for all kinds of reasons. but he was encouraged by bannon and by a few other people, who believed that this election, if roy moore won, it would make it a lot harder for that momentum to kind of sweep up the president. and that's not how it worked out. we've got to take a quick break. when we come back, the scathing message from the "usa today" editorial board. they say the president is not fit for office after his tweet about senator kirsten gillibrand and believes his words are full of sexual innuendo.

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gillibrand, who started calling for president trump's resignation over the weekend. here's the tweet from the leader of the free world, lightweight senator kirsten gillibrand, a total flunky for schumer, and someone who would come begging in my office for contributions not so long ago and would do anything for them is in the ring fighting against trump. this morning senator gillibrand was asked on the "today" show whether she interpreted the tweet as a sexual reference that she would trade sexual favors for campaign cash. here's what she said. >> certainly that's how i and many people read it. and it was certainly just a sexist smear intended to silence me. i'm not going to be silenced on this issue. i've heard the testimony of many women, numerous accusers. i believe them. and he should resign for that. >> in response, the "usa today" editorial board wrote an

editorial that included this line. a president all by called her a w.h.o.re who are sign the shoes of george w. bush. joining me is the editor of "usa today." >> the language in this editorial is searing. i'm wondering why the board felt it important or necessary to write this. >> i think the main issue was responding to the provocation from donald trump. i think we listened to the coverage of what he had said in that tweet all day long, and what we heard was euphemism after euphemism, not calling out the president on exactly he really said. and we thought that using plain english, making it clear, and calling out the president would do a service. >> senator sanders was asked about president trump's tweet in yesterday's press briefing.

i want to play some of that. >> is senator gillibrand owed an apology for the misunderstanding of the president's tweet this morning because many think it's about sexual innuendos. >> only if your mind is in the gutter would you have read it that way. so no. >> it's also an argument that they used during the megyn kelly comments made by the president. you clearly don't buy that, that it has nothing to do with sex? >> i think it's completely preposterous. when you use -- you can use the same language to a man and the same language to a woman, and i tell you, means completely different things. everyone knows what trump meant when he said that megyn kelly was bleeding from her wherever. and everyone knew what the president meant when he said that kirsten gillibrand was willing to do "anything". >> the editorial went on to say sure, quote, with his latest

tweet clearly implying a united states senator would trade sexual favors, president trump has shown he's not fit for office, rock bottom is no impediment for a president who can always find room for a new low. do you think this is a bottom for him? >> i wish. i keep trying to give the president the benefit of the doubt. i would really like to have a successful presidency. i'm an american just like anybody else. over and over again i thought he's going to start learning. we've thought that he was going to change and turn things around, but it never happens. so i wouldn't put any faith in that. >> this is not the first editorial that's been very tough on donald trump from the "usa today." about a month before the election, there was one titled trump is unfit for the presidency, which is noteworthy for the time, because it was the first time in the paper's history to take a side.

supporters of the president say it's a hat chet job against the president. what do you say? >> i say that's absolutely not true. we're an editorial board that goes from very conservative members like me to very liberal members. we have a lot of moderates. we're trying to come from a practical centrist perspective. i grew up in ohio and michigan and nebraska. we're not an east coast elitist editorial board. we're like every other american. we're trying to help make the country a better place. when we were writing this editorial, we thought just being straight with what exactly the truth was and what was going on would help us get there. >> david, appreciate your time. thank you. >> thank you. coming up next, an emotional moment for former vice president joe biden. comforting megan mccain, her father, of course, fighting the same brain cancer biden's son died of two years ago. we'll show you ahead.

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a touching moment this morning on abc's "the view."

cohost megan mccain, the daughter of john mccain got choked up when she talked about her father's brain cancer. with joe biden, who's son beau died two years ago of the same brain cancer. biden offered words of encouragement to mccain's daughter. it's long but worth watching. take a look. >> couldn't get through your book. your son had the same cancer my father was diagnosed with six months ago. and i'm sorry. >> there's a lot of hope. >> i think about beau almost every day. and i was told -- sorry -- that this doesn't get easier. but you cultivate the tools to work with this and live with this. i know you and your family have been through tragedy that i couldn't conceive of -- it's not about me. >> no, it is about everyone. but look, one of the things that

gave beau courage, my word, was john. your dad, you may remember when you were a little kid, your dad took care of my beau. your dad, when he worked with me, became friends with beau. and beau talked about your dad's courage, not about illness, but about his courage. and look, there's a lot of things happening. if anyone was diagnosed with it, which is about as bad as it gets, there's breakthroughs that are occurring now. and things can happen tomorrow. at the university of pennsylvania where i teach now, at the abramson center, what they found out is a thing called car t cell. what they do is they take the cells -- the t cells, your immune system cells out of your body and they reinforce it with an antigen.

and that goes in and finds the cancer cells, because the cancer cells hide from your immune system. they had a break through with a new drug dealing with child leukemia. there's other things. they have what they did with beau is starting to happen now. they're using this car t cell. they inject a virus into the cancer. >> so there's hope. >> so there is hope. and if anybody can make it, your dad -- her dad is one of my best friends. [ applause ] her dad -- her dad goes back to hammer and tong. we're like two brothers who were somehow raised by different fathers or something because of our points of view. but i know, and i mean it since sincerely, and i've said it, even when your dad got mad at me, said i should get off the ticket.

[ laughter ] do you remember what i said about your dad? i said i know -- and i mean this sincerely, i said, i know if i picked up the phone tonight and called john mccain and said, john, i'm at 2nd and vine in oshkosh, and i need your help, come, he would get on a plane and come. and i would for him too. and this is the guy -- >> senator mccain's office says he's currently hospitalized in washington getting treatment for normal side effects of his cancer treatment. he's looks forward to rueturnin to work as soon as possible. back with the panel now. we're joined again by david gergen. it's one of those reminders of decency and humanity in the midst of the often horror show of politics today. people on different sides of the aisle but who genuinely like each other. >> it absolutely is, anderson. and there are echos in this conversation of what doug jones was saying last

night in alabama, the campaign transcended issues. it was more about decency and a return for civility. there's a hunger for that across the country now. it was in indianapolis today and i can tell you that's what they're talking about. that's what they care about. no matter what side of the aisle they're on. i think joe biden is a particularly good messenger for the democratic party part in that regard, because he's so human. he overtalks, makes mistakes, but he's funny and he's a warm human being. and i think he's one of the few -- paul can speak to this, but he's a bridge within the democrat party. very people are a bridge between the moderate and more traditional democrats and elizabeth warren and democrats. i think he does that well. >> people should read his book, called "promise me dad." it's not a political book. it's mostly about how a father says goodbye to his son. i knew his son a bit. remarkable guy in his own right. and he walks you through that.

i'm on the board of the hospital where beau was treated, and they are finding miracles. the way that he bolstered meghan mccain in that clip, that's what he does, he does that to strangers all the time because he's been so touched by tragedy and now by cancer. the cancer community and many others, certain ly military families are drawn to him. and i've seen that in him over and over. i think the book is a terrific book. if i can plug that for a holiday gift, "promise me dad." anybody who's had to deal with loss, and we all have, anybody who's had to deal with cancer, i've spent too much time in cancer wards, it's really a powerful testimony. it is pure joe biden. >> what this showed about joe biden was something i think democrats missed with hillary, which was his relatability. he's very relatable. that's why they called him uncle joe, even in his gaffes. we all know as republicans we would make fun of joe biden as a gaffe machine, get a chuckle out of it, but it made him human.

and people love that about him. i have my own experience with the biden family and they are amazingly wonderful, good and decent people. i may disagree with them on policy and politics, but you cannot -- i cannot emphasize what good people they actually are. and it would have been very interesting if he had gotten into that race. i went back and i looked at what his favorables were in 2015, and he was the only democrat that was not under water. hillary clinton's favorable versus unfavorable, she was under water, so was bernie sanders. but joe biden had the only favorables. to be honest, if it had been joe biden versus donald trump, i would have had no problem casting a vote for jb, just out of the fact he's a decent person. >> i have to take a break we're

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find your awesome, and change the way you wifi. more on vice president joe biden's visit to "the view." he was asked if he would run against president trump in 2020. here's his answer. >> i have no intention -- i've done nothing at all to put together any kind of operation to run, and as i said, as most of you guys know, no one ever doubts me when i say what i mean. we're not ready. the family's not ready to do this. if, in a year from now, if they're ready and no one has moved in that i think can do it, then i may very well do it. but i'm being as honest as i can. >> back now with the panel. paul, what do you think of joe biden run would look like

against president trump? >> he's beloved in the democratic party. so far they've united wonderfully in these elections, but they'll present their fissures in 2020. i think he would make a hell of a candidate. m particularly he is middle class joe. read his book. i haven't read the memo, but the heart of the memo was, you're from the middle class, you'll fight for the middle class. you do that, and all of a sudden perhaps you don't lose pennsylvania where joe biden grew up or michigan or wisconsin or the white house. i think a lot of democrats are going to be drawn to joe biden. >> are you now showing photos? >> he ran in to my son at the university.

>> good staunch republican. he quit talking to me. but i want to say another thing about his character. he was one of the few democrat senators to go to strom thurm d thurmond's funeral. there was a political cost to it but he went. just like he's doing with mccain, it shows decency. i had a really tough time on something, and i got a phone call from max cleland, good democrat, very liberal. we were always on the opposite side of things. he gave me one of the best pep talks i've ever had. you do need more of that in washington and in politics today. a guy like joe biden doing what he's doing on national tv with -- i think it's very important. >> he's hopeful, which he was using the word. but you saw that, when he was talking about mccain and he and mccain shared the fact that they have gone through experiences in

life far more than anyone should have to endure. so when you think of the current criticism of the president, it's never in public service. i think all of the things joe biden has run for president before and struggled before. the main issue for biden, and he talked about it, he was always seen as a gaffe maker. i think politics moves so far now, and trump has set the bar so far in a certain direction, i think he would be able to kind of survive, because the news cycle burns so fast and hot. >> age is obviously something that he would have to consider and voters would consider. >> trump is 71. >> it is. if you look at the coalition of democrats that are turning out in elections this year, young people, minorities, it's not necessarily clear he could appeal to them better than maybe some of the other democrats could. but where he could is to trump voters. i was in youngstown, ohio at a biden rally during the campaign,

speaking to people in the crowd and one of the union guys said, they send him here because they can't send hillary here. it's okay, because we like him. but it spoke to the fact that he can reach into that blue collar, white rust belt vote the democrats have had such a hard time maintaining. >> he's -- i think he would have been a wonderful president. i wish he had run and won in the past. i do think -- and i think he's in excellent shape. he's a very youthful man of his age. but it's also true within the democratic party. there is a desire for new faces moving ahead. and in country after country around the world right now, people are turning to a younger generation. i think you have to take trudeau in canada, you look at argentina -- >> i've heard some people say if he had a young vice president, he would promise to serve one

term. i don't know if that's realistic. >> that's a possibility. but i think it's going to be hard. and i think he's going to be a great counselor, and he ought to be at the side of whoever gets the nomination. but he's realistic to know that age is an issue, and there is this -- you can see it in the house with the house democrats. >> plus, once you declare your candidacy, all your flaws come out. everybody points out what's wrong with you. that's one of the things that -- >> the notion of decency, and if somebody carried that as a ma mantle, i don't know if it can sustain the rough and tumble of a campaign. >> he's been in politics since he was 27 years old, i think that he knows how to handle that. he's been through how many, three presidential elections, two as vice president. he's been raked over the coals for other things, the controversies with the plagiarisms and other things.

and to maggie's point, that is small potatoes compared to things that we've seen and compared to the flaws of our current president. so i think biden, he would have a shot. >> thanks, everybody. we'll take a quick break. more news ahead. ♪

from our family to yours... may all your wishes come true this holiday season.

we were talking about decency before. this sunday is one of the most inspiring nights of the year, time for "cnn heroes," i'll be co-hosting with kelly ripa, honoring people who are making a difference. here's a sneak peek of the night's festivities. ♪ take a stand >> these are everyday heroes. they inspire and change lives every day. >> we want to make sure that they make better choices when it comes to violence. >> when you lose your child, the love doesn't go away, it has to find a place. so lucky i found a place to put that love. >> they are truly what it means to be a hero. >> it is people helping people, the best way we know how. >> it makes me feel happy. >> just give them a chance. they can do anything you can ask them to do.

>> this sunday night, cnn presents a very special live event. cnn heroes, an all-star tribute, live sunday at 8:00 p.m. on cnn. >> it's a great night out. i hope you join kelly and me. that does it for us tonight. thanks for watching. time to hand it over to don lemon. "cnn tonight" starts right now. this is "cnn tonight." i'm don lemon. 48 hours, i told you there was going to be a day of reckoning in alabama. well, there sure was. and this is not the way the president thought his day would go. it was supposed to be a big republican v when the president threw his support to roy moore, who it bears repeating, is an accused child molester. you know how that woshrked. a big victory for doug jones, and humiliating