welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. thank you for sharing your day with us. batt battleground earns its name today as joe biden and president trump will be there. and justin amash quits the house freedom caucus. the michigan republican helped establish that conservative group that his view that there's a case for impeaching the president is not welcome there. nancy pelosi ducks a question about whether she said the president belongs in prison but answers one about his harsh criticism of her while attending d-day events at normandy. >> how do you work with him after he levels such an insult against you overseas?

>> i just consider the source. >> what do you mean by that? >> my stock goes up every time he attacks me so what can i say. let's not spend too much time on that because that's his victory. the diverter of attention in chief. >> back to the speaker and that contentious conversation in a few moments, but we begin with a big afternoon in american politics, a competition of heavyweights in one of america's most competitive battleground states. president trump and joe biden will be on opposite ends of iowa today, and it's guaranteed to be interesting. a big test of biden's strategy of focusing on the president and all but ignoring the other 22 candidates in the primary race and a big test of whether the president can stay focused on the economic message he wants to sell in iowa and elsewhere and not get too distracted by biden and above all else it's a reminder that iowa may be a small prize when it comes to

electoral votes but it's one of the best laboratories of studying shifting politics and whether president trump can follow the map he followed to victory in 2016. this is 2016. look at the size of the victory over hillary clinton in the state of iowa. you don't have to go back that far in time. president obama won the state and also won it in 2008. look at all this blue. look at all this blue. president barack obama in 2008 won 38 counties. come forward to 2016. hillary clinton won six. it was a tram dick fundamentalist where's the vice president today. one of the places he'll be ironically, campaigning today and tomorrow in clinton county. this is one of the -- there are 31 so-called pivot counties in iowa. twice they voted for barack obama and then they flipped. 31 counties just in iowa. twice voted for obama and biden and then flipped and voted for donald trump. this is one of them. look at the margin. this is 2016. vice president biden will campaign here on this trip. let's go back in time and look.

wasn't even close. wasn't even close. how does that happen? that's one of the lessons that joe biden is trying to learnings bun of the messages he's trying to sell. one other quick look where he'll be. he'll be down here as well in henry county. look at the side of the president's victory here in 2016. i'm going to go back and show you 2012. obama lost, one of the places obama lost but margins here, in a close race the margins matter and obama runs relatively close, six points there to mitt romney. hillary clinton 30 points there, so biden going to the places that flipped, going to the places that went way more republican. that's one of the big challenges. the president himself will be on the western part of the state. renewable fuels, trying to make his case that the economy in iowa has gotten much better in his presidency. jeff zeleny live from one of the places the president will campaign. give us the lay of the land. >> reporter: good afternoon. i'm standing in wapolo counties, one of the flip counties. in 2016 president trump carried it by 21 points.

four years earlier president obama won it by 12 points. you're absolutely right. that's why joe biden is here. as in real estate like politics location always important. the vice president is continuing his -- his introduction tour of his third presidential campaign, not introducing his biography, of course, but introducing his candidacy. he's making the case or trying to that he's the strongest democrat to take on the president. he's trying to overlook some of the issues confronting his own campaign, how strong of a front-runner he is, if he's been shifting positions, by focusing squarely on the president. going after him on economics, going after him on tariffs and trade. i'm told he will continue that message here, and then as he goes on through his trip here, but, john, joe biden has to prove that he is the front-runner in the race. his lead has shifted ever so slightly since he jumped in. he is doing very much of a play it safe strategy. i was just inside the room where this event is looking inside. it's a very small event. not very large. not a big real, so joe biden is going through these county by

county, but he's not working as hard as some of the other candidates so, of course, he's trying to prove it a he's the man or candidate who can beat president trump. president trump, of course, here for a reason as el, raising money for state republicans here tonight. they want to keep this state red, and iowa has been trending republican in state and local elections as well, so a tough state for democrats, but the former vice president reminds people he was on that ticket, too, in '08 and '12, the obama/biden counties. >> i'm not sure if we'll ever get mr. zeleny back. enjoy your days in iowa, jeff. with me in studio to share their reporting, julie pace with the associated pass, tomorrow rah keith with npr, karoun demargian and "the washington post"'s nia-malika henderson. >> there's 22 other democrats in the race. his lead in iowa is there but it's not there and if you look at the numbers and he's at risk. he wants to say these are all

nice people but let's focus on president trump. he wants to make a case in a state the president won big, in a state where the economic situation, big numbers, unemployment rate, things like that have improved. here what's america is going to say. america's farmers have been crushed by the tariff war with china. he thinks he's being tough. it's easy to be tough when someone sells feeling the pain. how many sleepless nights do you think trump has had? here's the answer, joe biden will say, just as many as he had when he stiffed the construction workers and electricians and plumbers that built his hotels and casinos, zero. yes, the numbers might be better. he's trying to make the case that this promise promised he'd care but, and he doesn't. >> two really interesting things about biden's prepared remarks. one, clearly pointing to the role that he's going to play in this democratic primary which is as the front-runner looking ahead to a general election. he knows that the way he wins this democratic primary is to try to get voters to imagine him on the debate stage with trump to. see him as a general election

candidate and not really worry about some of the fights the democratic party is having, but also he -- he's crystallizing what his message is going to be against trump which is he's in it for himself and not in it for you, and maybe the economy looks good at a macro level but you know how your personal situation feels. you know you aren't feeling quite as good as you think you should be given how the unemployment rate looks or growth looks in this country. >> yeah. his other message there is that president trump is norms busting and that america is better than this. this was in his initial rollout. this is what continues to be his message in the speech -- excerpts of what we've gotten today. what isn't clear whether iowa voters and other voters will decide if that's the message that we want rather thanks, you know, a message of, you know, we need to tear things up. you know, his message, biden's message is really a restorative message whereas some of the other candidates who are -- who have got some traction on the democratic side are talking

about more structural changes. >> and to the point about being, a, about trump, but, b, almost a more centrist and prague make the democrat is the case he wants to make. iowa democrats, if you go out to talk to him. they get this because they lived, and if you watch the state, it's a small electoral prize but the democrats in 2018 flipped the congressional districts. it was 3-1 republicans and now it's 3-1 democrats. go back to the 2016 elections, trump wins 39 of the 99 counties in the state and you say how does that happen? >> biden thinks he can undo it, right, with more of an incrementalist message. not a big structural change message like someone with bernie sanders sanders or even elizabeth warren. like you said, sort of a nostalgia for those eight year, a nostalgia for the way obama and biden comported themselves in office and talking directly to those voters who flipped from obama/bide ento trump. it's not clear if this is going to work though, sort of a -- shaming shows voters saying into

you were fooled by donald trump, and i'm here to deliver in a way that donald trump couldn't deliver. it's not clear that that actually works and a lot of data actually shows that it won't work, essentially more the desperate the voters get, the more they might cling to donald trump. >> this is the biden challenge in the primary. doesn't want to the mention his opponents. his case is hillary clinton didn't come here and say she understands you. hillary clinton didn't understand your pain to borrow a bill clinton term. she doesn't understand what it's like. she didn't make her case. won't say that directly but that's his point. the other democrats say, no, that's not it. they don't want someone who can relate to them. they want big, bold, new, different. >> that's the question. when you look at obama and trump, they are both very charismatic individuals who delivered a personal appeal to people and clinton didn't have that and they are saying i'm really different than what you're used to, and clinton couldn't be that. if biden is banking on his idea that his charisma is going to

carry him all the way through he better hope that the other members of the democratic primary are not able to poke holes in that in the next seven months before we get to the iowa caucuses, and that's certainly something they are trying to do and trying to do openly right now and are gaining ground in that they are closing that lead gap that he has, and there's plenty more votes out there to be taken by any of the above in terms of, you know, the -- the undecideds that are out there as well. it's not like biden has a look on it and he can choose the strategy for anyone that comes between him and the president. >> to the former vice president's speech, he's happy to share the stage with president trump. smart scheduling in that. the optics reinforce the message. about the threat from china, let's not worry about china. he says the united states is strong, strongest economy in the world. we can withstand any challenge, but it came across as i don't really care. i'm not worried about it. in the speech today he says we are in a competition with china.

we need to get tough with china. they are a serious challenge to us and in some areas a real threat. every single step that donald trump is taking is only exacerbating the problem. you bet i'm worried about china if we keep following trump's path. that's definitely cleanup on china. >> what he needs to do is convince people that tall trump is doing is talking about trade, that the actual actions aren't just going to backfire and hurt you, but he can't appear to be weak on trade. we had reporters across iowa and in other states talking to what trump calls the patriot farmers, and you do hear from some of these nokes who will be directly negatively impacted by some of these tariff policies, they are happy that trump is taking the fight to china. they know that they are going to be hurt and they still want him to be acting in this way and that's tough. >> and the challenge is to keep them as they go through another planting season, another borrowing season, and if this

continues is to keep them. i didn't mean to interrupt. just jumping on that point. the republican party, the national committee trying to write his speech, sending out a tweet this morning. northern to notice as donald trump travels to iowa today, manufacturing jobs have gone up 15,000 since he took office. unemployment rate has gone down from 3.4% to 2.4%, 292,000 jobs thanks to the tax cuts. the president, to put the tweets up. likes to attack biden personally, sleepy joe and low iq. the party is really hoping he goes out there and says, look, i know -- i know you have long-term worries. i know this trade war is hard, but the numbers prove i'm here for you. >> but numbers are boring, right? trump is all about emotion, right? he's going to go there, and he did this before this, idea that china and mexico and all of these other countries have been ripping you off for all these years. the democrats did nothing and the republicans did nothing and he's going to fix it by punch

people in the nose over and over again, and if there is some collateral damage to some of these farmers in the long run they say, listen, he's fighting for us. he's sticking up for us. that's a powerful and emotional message that really resonates with people who feel like they have been screwed over. >> and h priot farmers because they are sticking with him. >> yeah. >> also though he had this big bailout package of farm aid to help offset the china retaliatory tariffs, so he's out there -- he has his eye on these farmers. he -- he wants to keep them. >> and the question is can he, and that's why iowa is just one of the fascinating laboratories of the tug-of-war in american politics, and we've seen it for many years. fun to watch. jealous of mrs. zeleny. up next, the house speaker wants to stop talking about the president, and as we go to break, the house judiciary committee chairman jerry nadler had a recent health scare. he got a concerned phone call from a frequent nemesis, the president. >> the president made that call quietly and he wanted to check on his health. they have known each other a long time.

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not off the table, but she made clear again her immediate preference is investigating the white house and then going to court when the administration tells congress no about documents or about witnesses, not wanting to talk about the president's attacks on her in any detail is one thing, but this was her first interview here in washington after it was reported that in a private meeting with democrats speaker pelosi said she didn't want the president impeached. she wanted him in prison. >> did you actually say that the president, you would rather see him in prison? >> when we have conversations in our caucus, they stay in our caucus. do people think that there's some impeachable offenses that the president committeded? yes. how serious are they? are they criminal? many people think they are. >> do you think they are? >> that's not -- i'm here to talk about -- >> and we will get into that. >> i'm not going to that place of what happens within our caucus. >> why not? cnn's manu rangu on capitol hill. a nice try and why not?

she didn't want to go there. what was your biggest takeaway? it got a little testy at times. >> reporter: she did not want to get into the debate about impeachment that is dominating her caucus. elements of her caucus right now because she views that as essentially a distract from what they are trying to do. she is dead set in her mindset that going the route of impeachment is not the way to go. she certainly does not want to feed into more discussion about her comments from last week that reportedly she made that she does want the president to see him in prison rather than being impeached. i've been trying to press her for days about whether or not she believes the president committed crimes while in office, and i had that opportunity there to try to press her about whether or not she believes the president committed crimes. i asked her about that twice and she side stepped that question. the second time she said look at the mueller reports that had ten instances of obstruction of justice but still wants to maintain her current strategy to investigate and litigate and

behind the scene democrats have been trying to make the case to open up an impeachment inquiry because they believe it will help their case in court, and she talked about that at length. she talked about how that is an argument that is being made, but she sailed she's not sure if that is correct, whether or not they would actually be bolstered by this fight, but she talked about distractions and one thing she also mentioned, john, is a distraction of the mexico tariff threat by this president. she accused the president of using that as a way to divert attention from the mueller probe, so an interesting exchange through the course of that interview, but she makes it very clear she wants to pursue her course even as some in her caucus want to go a different way. john? >> it's interesting to watch her choice of what she wanted to talk about and what she didn't want to talk about. manu raju, appreciate the effort. it was well worth of it. i just wanted to defend my colleague. she seemed offended. i'm here at the peterson forum and we're supposed to talk about the legislative issues. her press release said she would talk about the for the people agenda, lower healthcare costs

and other news of the day. it is news of the day when the speaker has reported, i get it, maybe she thought this was in a private meeting, maybe although insert eye roll here how long have we all worked in washington and she for a long time, maybe she didn't think it would leak out and why doesn't she want to talk about it? >> in a way she's undercutting her own argument and the fact that she said that in a private meeting and caucus meetings are not like vegas. what happened in them does not usually stay in them especially when it's incendiary and newsworthy. pelosi is the person standing against the tide which is there's an increasing number of house democrats that want to move forward with the impeachment proceedings either because they think it will help them in these investigations which is the white house is stonewalling by not providing witnesses or simply because they just think that that's the thing that they should do, and, you know, no worries about what may be the blowback in the election. that's just what they ought to be doing. please set one who does not want to talk about, even as the chairs of committees are saying maybe we should start to look at

him people thing. the fact that she would then be behind closed doors and wants to see them in jail, that suggests that there's criminal activity there which would be a reason to pursue impeachment and then just makes her decisions look like they are political and not as substantive. it's difficult to play both characters, one behind closed doors and the public and that's why she didn't want to talk about that which completely undercuts what she's been saying publicly. >> it underscores what a tight rope she is walking right here because she needs to on the one hand show how seriously she's taking this, how she actually is in pursuit of real tangible information about what the president has done. on the other hand, if you come out to corrine's point and say i want him in jail or many people think there are crimes, if you really think there is something there, why aren't you following much of your caucus and trying to move forward on this already? what more information do you need, and that seemed to have been a moment behind closed doors, yes, where she may have pushed a little bit too far

and -- and given a little more ammunition to the people who say, hey, we know -- we agree with you. we do want to move forward on impeachment. >> plus, she's used a public escalation of the rhetoric to cover up an obstructing to try to poke the president at times and manage her own herd to show she's in the fight with the president. if you say publicly she wants him in prison. where do you go from here? she said she's not under any pressure. some democrats say if we have a formal constitutional impeachment process, judges have to side with us asking for document. speaker pelosi says, yeah, that comes up sometimes. >> do you get more information by having an inquiry than if you just have investigations? well, i don't have a straight answer on that. >> if the democratic caucus wants to go forward with an impeachment inquiry would you go for it? >> it's not even close. >> but event successfully. >> why are we speculating on

hypotheticals? what we're doing is winning in court. we won a victory getting a dock -- getting the documents from the justice department today. >> yeah. i mean, she's on a tight rope herding cats and wearing high heels while she's doing it, and you see her there sort of her frustration. talks with the hand, you know, stands when it comes to manu's questions, but, yeah, it's incredibly difficult. she's sort of repeating the nadler arguments, too, the idea that maybe you get more documents. she says we're doing fine now in the court. nad lersch of course, wants everything under his committee, so my goodness, in some ways i think we got a glimpse of what this whole deliberation is like hand how difficult it is behind closes doors. >> she's given right there a list, a bullet point of the high points, the court cases, the fact that the doj at the very last month with a contempt enforcement today decided to bone up some of the documents, but the fundamental issue is the

democrats are trying to control this investigation, and they do not have control over it. the white house is stonewalling them until the last minute when they decide, no, okay, maybe we won't. we'll set a schedule of doing this, and that puts democrats a bit on the back foot of saying we need to look reasonable so we need to wait so they do not control the time strings here and doing that is incredibly important if they are going to make an ultimate decision to impeach or not to impeach in a way that's actually the right decision for how it sells on the campaign trail. >> the campaign trail part being important. >> and the white house is going to be lucy moving the football just a little bit as they -- as the congressional democrats try to get these documents. but if you look at public poll, democrats are divided on this. >> yes. >> democrats are not 85% let's go get him. in fact, it's -- it's really evenly divided, and i think pelosi is reflecting that as well as some of the louder forces in her caucus. >> right, and because the part that says no or at least i don't think so or not yet are from the 30 or 40 seats that were very hard to get in democratic hands

and she doesn't want to the lose them, and in an election, it's fascinating, but she had a little trumpian tactic at the one point saying she's trying to accuse manu of being obviously akin to the diversionary tactics of the white house. no, no, he was asking perfectly legitimate questions. thank you very much. the libertarian congressman making waves in washington, again. bring in your discount, and we'll match it. that's right. t-mobile will match your discount. (door bell rings) it's ohey. this is amazing. with moderate to severe ulcerative colitis, are you okay? even when i was there, i never knew when my symptoms would keep us apart. so i talked to my doctor about humira. i learned humira can help get, and keep uc under control when other medications haven't worked well enough. and it helps people achieve control that lasts. so you can experience few or no symptoms. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis.

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another curious move by congressman justin amash. the michigan conservative is the lone republican in congress to say the president may have committed impeachable offense. late last night he decided to leave a group he helped pet together, the house freedom caucus telling cnn, quote, i have the highest regard for them and they are my close friends. i didn't want to be a further distraction for the group. the distraction, of course, is the case for impeachment amash lays out in a series of tweets that began last month, so is amash just doing his freedom caucus friends a favor here, or is there more to this? haley bird joins our conversation. welcome to the show. is there more to it or it's not he's not really welcome there anymore and they don't want a fight with his friends or i'm going to step aside or does this greet some space for republicans because i'm really a libertarian and some think i should go challenge the president. >> amash hasn't ruled out any of those things in the presidential bid or leaving the republican party, but in our conversation last night he indicated, you know, this is because he wants

to do something to make his life easier for the house in the freedom caucus. hard to understand how big of a service this is in direction of the freedom caucus right now. justin amash was one of the founding groups. he wrote the mission for the freedom kksz. he's had a big hand in shaping the group's direction in the past few years since it started in 2015. so it's unclear at this point. there was some debate after his first impeachment comments about whether the -- the caucus should get rid of him, but he had allies who knew him from the beginning and people who know him know that his behavior right now isn't very surprising for him. >> he's an interesting bird. he always has been, to the point about the founding member of the freedom caucus, he would say and i'm sure he's said it to you that today's freedom caucus isn't following what they wrote when they founded the freedom caucus. where is the smaller government and where is that in donald trump's republican party so there's the mission statement, but there's also his personal

agreement over impeachment. the question is that just it, and he goes back and runs for re-election again back home where he tries to explain himself and, again, he's an interesting person whether you agree or disagree with him or is it about something bigger? >> if it is about something bigger he'd probably know better but it's interesting to see where he finds his place, right? because for a pure, true, libertarian, it's a lonely road in congress as we've seen for -- >> rand pauls of the world. >> and it can be a very lonely road on the campaign trail. none of the candidates have ever broken through to be a front-runner. if he joins the fray, would he join the fray as a represent koon and challenge trump or as an indpencependent and grab the independents in the middle? it's unclear what his best solution would be but clearly this is a moment for him to make more of a national name for himself and this is paying attention. >> that's what he wants. the interesting thing is he spoke to you.

we've asked him do you want to come on the show? he doesn't do a lot of television. i don't mean this critically. he marches to his own beat so maybe he has a longer game. don't do television now because i'm going to do something down the road. he was home last month for a town hall after he said this, and to his credit he goes and takes the heat. some of his voters like this. some of his voters don't like this at all. what the republicans in washington is listen to justin amash i decided to many could out and say i believe at least there's a case for impeachment, and guess what he says a lot of his fellow republicans actually agree and actually don't have the courage to say it. >> you saw what happened to me from our so-called leader kevin mccarthy. i -- i read the mueller report. i'm sure he did not read it. i stated what it actually says, and he just resorted to ad hominem attacks and other various attacks that have nothing to do with the mueller report. this is the kind of leadership in quotes that we now have in congress.

a lot of people think i'm right about the mueller report but they won't say, it a lot of republicans. >> i mean, so-called leader kevin mccarthy, leadership in quotes. >> he is -- he is right that -- and this has been the story of the trump presidency and the republican party for the last two years where there's a lot that gets said behind closed doors from republicans about this president that is totally different than what they say in public, and a lot of that is because they believe that the republican party voters are largely with trump, that there's just not a lot of room for somebody to come in and challenge trump as a republican, and you've seen that as you've looked at some of the people who were floating the idea of launching a primary challenge to trump, someone like a john kasich. i think the only one right now is bill weld who is up in new hampshire. >> who was the libertarian vice presidential candidate last time. >> there just isn't a lot of room right now in the republican party which does raise the question if amash would do this, whether he might look to do it

as a libertarian. >> maybe he -- there is no political calculus. maybe this is what he believes, and he's not necessarily looking two campaigns down or looking to make had a national name for himself, you know. he probably could be on fox news a lot. he could be on cnn or msnbc. it's not something he's done, even hope it that's been a criticism leveled at him, that he's just doing this because he wants more attention, but in a way he -- he isn't really making use of that moment in any way. i think this sort of the test cases that we've seen of people trying to challenge trump. bob corker, he's not in the senate anymore. jeff flake, you know, i think, you know, there is the trump train. you either get on it our get run over by it. >> to that point, they are going to support him if he just runs for house re-election. they will spapt primary challenge against him. the president won michigan by 10,0347 and amash's margin of victory doesn't transfer fanned

he were a libertarian candidate in michigan he could deny the president a state that's critical and the question is what does he want? >> unclear. unclear. >> we shall wait and see. he has our interest piqued which might be part of the plan. up next, humanitarian aid might be finally on the way to the u.s.-mexican border after constant alarm bells from those who handled the crisis. >> that's been over 18 months since the administration asked for the legislative fixes that would have prevented the current crisis and 40 days since we asked for the emergency funding necessary to manage it. ♪ acqua di giò. absolu. the new sensuality. giorgio armani. so chantix can help you quit slow turkey.rkey. along with support, chantix is proven to help you quit. with chantix you can keep smoking at first and ease into quitting. chantix reduces the urge so when the day arrives,

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topping our political radar today, a big reminder today from

the pentagon chief to all service members. he says, quote, the military doesn't do politics. in a widely circulated memo tuesday morning, the acting defense secretary patrick shanahan asking his deputies to, quote, reinforce the apolitical nature of the united states military. the timing, of course, quite obvious, following a recent reporting that the white house military office tried to get the navy seventh fleet to hide the "uss john mccain" from view while the president was in japan. some relief to bothered agents and migrants in processing facilities. leader have agreed to put a $1.5 billion aid package in front. appropriations committee. senator lindsey graham saying $3.3 billion will be for humanitarian assistance while just over a billion would go towards operations support, including more funding for detention beds. the senate majority leader mitch mcconnell tipping his hat to the president for using tariff threats to leverage mexico on immigration. this, after you might remember that senate republicans opposed the president's tactics and the

president faced an open rebellion then in the senate if those tariffs had gone into effect. today, however, senator mcconnell says all is well that ends well. >> even though almost none of my members were enthusiastic about the prospect of tariffs, you have to give the president credit. it worked. >> mayor pete buttigieg today giving us a window on how he sees america's role in the world and what he would do in terms of foreign policy if elected president. speaking in indiana last hour, the democratic presidential candidate and veteran of the war in afghanistan drew a comparison between that war, the war in iraq and other chapters in america's military history. >> we bhust remember that the lesson of the iraq disaster is not that there's nothing wrong withstanding for american values but rather that any action in the name of such values must be strategic, legitimate and constrained by the premise that we only use force when left with no alternative. it is the difference between the necessary response to 9/11 in

afghanistan and the self-defeating invasion of iraq. it is in short the difference between normandy and saigon. >> cnn's phil mattingly live on the scene of that speech in bloomington, indiana. phil, what other big takeaways did you get from this. >> reporter: there's really dual purposes, first and foremost to feel what the buttigieg campaign is a vacuum on foreign policy. all the senators and congressmen laying out expansive domestic programs, expansive domestic ideas with foreign policy has been a second fiddle here. pete buttigieg today in an hour-long speech laid out an expansive view of things and the other reason for that is concerns that have been raised about the fact that a 37-year-old somewhat small town mayor is actually ready for this position. those were the dual reasons for giving the speech. it was a lengthy critique of the trump administration, no question about it calling for the repeal of the authorization

of the use of force. no question of indictment in his view of president trump's policy but it was an indictment of past democratic policies saying he hasn't in his lifetime seen a consistent world view out of democrats. it was something i asked him about after his speech. take a listen. >> well, i think really the focus is on the future, but it's very clear that a future administration needs to find a way to put an end to the forever wars and really needs to recognize that the frameworks and the domestic and international mechanics for foreign policy are going to have to change, but what we're real trying to focus on the road ahead and how to meet challenges at the moment. >> now obviously, john, pete buttigieg served in the military and was a naval intelligence officer and did a deployment in afghanistan as well. it's a key part of his bio and trying to add a little bit of meat on the bones to that when it comes to foreign policy, something you've heard him talk about pretty regularly on the campaign trail and now going on at 11. it will be interesting how this sticks, especially given the big day in iowa today and also how

many of his competitors follow suit, john. >> phil mattingly live for us in indiana. appreciate it. have a great afternoon. next, appealing to christian conservatives heading into the 2020 election cycle. (vo) there's so much we want to show her. we needed a car that would last long enough to see it all. (avo) subaru outback. ninety eight percent are still on the road after 10 years. come on mom, let's go!

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the president of the united states is about to leave for iowa. at the moment he's been holding court with reporters and has been at it for several minutes. we'll bring you the tape of that as soon as we can, but the president is criticizing the former vice president calling him a dummy and loser. obama took him off the trash heap. the 1%. there's more of this, and one of the interesting things, of course, is the president has frequently criticized the former vice president who is the democratic front-runner, but it's all the more important today because joe biden is also campaigning in iowa. if the president has been watching today which he has been known to do he knows the president is criticizing a speech. i'd rather against biden than anybody. i think he's weakest mentally. >> it's not a coincidence that biden's people put out. biden einflammatory remarks early so that i think that they want this. they absolutely wanted this and

president trump saw -- saw and took the bait and said thank you very much. i'll come out and do my insult comedy tour from the south lawn. >> and it appears that low energy, the favorite applied by candidate trump to jeb bush, the former governor of florida. he said of biden others have more energy. i call him 1% joe. >> they are nervous about joe biden because scranton joe, average joe, middle class joe, whatever nickname you want to have for him he does appeal to the white working class voters in those states, the kind of folks he'll be trying to talk to and connect with in iowa, so they want to damage him early and often out of the gate. they don't want to see him in the general election because i think it would be more football dabble, and voters think this, too, that he's actually much more electable. who knows if that's true. >> if that lasts. >> some of the early polling, i mean, it's more than a year away but some of the early polling shows all of these democrats are equally electable in some of these states like michigan and

pennsylvania. >> but this is one of the advantages of incumbency which you have the playing field to yourself and you can look at your potential opponents and say, all right had. i think joe biden is going to be the guy so i'm going to spend the next six months trying to damage him. if the race shifts on the democratic side he can go after who he thinks his next most likely opponent is. >> where's the sweet spot if you're the biden trump coming after you helps you because it makes the case that i'm most electable? look, he's worried about me and if you're trump and think biden is the strongest candidate and you want to weaken him. do you weaken him? the man challenge is democratic vote remembers. if donald trump is attacking joe biden, does it eventually sink in when he says he doesn't have the energy, he doesn't get the crowds, you know, he's not on your side? >> this is like trump casting about for what the right attack line against biden will be. it's very possible that he'll stumble upon something in a couple of months nothing that he's saying right now. trump tries toss do this kind of message testing.

he's actually quite good at. it tries to figure out what gets attention on television. >> example 2016 primaries, 13, 14, 15 established politicians, poof. >> low energy and sort of the idea that hillary clinton was sick in 2016. trump is going to be trying to see what sticks but it's not just trump and biden. see what they make of biden and that's going to find of feed back on trump having sowed these seeds out there, so it's not really his choice and it's not a direct ricochet because all the competitors are looking for points of weakness. >> that's a great point. he also says that he believes the president would win iowa very easily. one of the most fascinating states to watch. thanks for joining us on "inside politics." see you back here this time tomorrow. brianna keilar will be here with that tape from the president after a quick break.

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