welcome to "inside politics." john king is off. moments from now the house judiciary committee chairman jerry nadler will brief reporters. nadler today is going to court to enforce subpoena against the trump white house. that action, part of the big, big debate over how, when or if democrats should move on impeachment. just last hour the house speaker, nancy pelosi, denied that she's trying to stall. >> no, i'm not trying to run out the clock.

let's get sophisticated about this, okay. >> how long do you think these court fights will take? >> we will proceed when we have what we need to proceed, not one day sooner. their advocacy for impeachment only gives me leverage. i have no complaint with what they are doing. i'm willing to take whatever heat there is there to say the decision will be made in a timely fashion. this isn't endless. >> but the clock is ticking. the number of democrats who support opening an impeachment inquiry is now at 96. judiciary committee democrats, including the chairman, have debated opening an inquiry without speaker pelosi onboard. pelosi met this morning with congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez, another show of outreach, and an attempt to paper over big and very public rifts with the new york freshman. in this post-meeting picture, you see it there, all smiles and

a promise from pelosi to work together. but a clear message from pelosi afterwards to congressman ocasio-cortez and others who want to beat the impeachment drum. don't do it. >> democrats intend to own august, to make so many of the bills that we passed too hot to handle for the republicans in the senate, not to raise the minimum wage or end gun violence by common sense gun violence prevention measures, equal pay for equal work. the list goes on and on. the drum beat across america. lower health care costs, bigger paychecks, cleaner government. >> let's get straight to capitol hill and cnn's manu raju. m manu, the sophisticated reporter who's been on this beat all along. manu, what do you make of what pelosi has been trying to do with this press conference closing out after the big mueller hearing and going off to now a six-week recess?

>> reporter: she's trying to frame their message in august. one thing she does not want to be talking about is the issue of impeachment which a number of her members are agitating about. when you talk to a number of democrats, they made clear that their concerns that the window could be closing to moving forward on an impeachment probe because of the calendar. they are moving to the six-week recess. then there's not many legislative days left in 2019. then we head into 2020 where the election season will get into full swing and it gets much harder to do complicated things in an election season, such as impeachment. so the question that i tried to pose to her is whether or not her current strategy of moving to the courts, which she has now been advocating, is an attempt to essentially run out the clock as some democrats believe given her resistance to moving forward. she tried to make clear that she is not simply trying to run out the clock and interestingly there saying she has political leverage in the people calling for impeachment, as she resists it, suggesting that if she were to change her position, it would

be a much stronger call given that she has said so far she would not be open to moving forward. trying to pin her down on exactly what that means in terms of her time frame is unclear as well. i tried to ask her whether or not these court fights -- how long it could take. she said it would not be endless. when another reporter asked is it a drop dead date, she would not say there. but in a matter of moments we'll hear from the house judiciary committee chairman, jerry nadler. we will hear what he has to say about his next steps as well. >> and nancy pelosi is setting the table for what we'll hear from chairman nadler moments from now. thank you, manu, we'll toss back to you when nadler appears. here with me, sun min-kim, laura baron lopez and katherine lucie with "the wall street journal." so with you nancy pelosi ending this week and probably won't hear from her or many of these other members who are splitting town for six weeks.

nancy pelosi there, julie, really trying to bury the hatchet. i'm surprised they hadn't met much before. what do you make of this? is this going to work? >> i think you're totally right that she's trying to sort of have this sense of unity going into the recess. actually there is, i think, when you talk to members, there's a lot more unity today than there was last week and even two weeks ago when she was very openly feuding with alexandria ocasio-cortez and these other freshmen women who often vote with her. so some of that has dissipated. there still are substantive differences on impeachment, on policy, but they do go out of washington, i think, this week on somewhat of a high, having passed this budget agreement with a lot of unity. they lost 16 democrats on that deal that passed yesterday. that was a lot -- i think a lot fewer than at some points they thought they might have had. and they can point to an agenda where she has managed to keep them pretty unified but that

scent mean there isn't going to be behind-the-scenes fighting and we'll continue to see that going forward. i think they were able to end on a friendlier note today. >> here's what she had to say in terms of whether or not there was an attempt to bury the hatchet between her and aoc. >> i don't think there ever was any hatchet. i would never even say that it was a hatchet. but i do think that we sat down today. we had a good meeting. the congresswoman is a very gracious member of congress. i've always felt -- again, it's like you're in a family. in a family, you have your differences, but you're still a family. >> laura, no hatchet to see here, nancy pelosi saying here about her relationship with alexandria ocasio-cortez. this has been a bitter feud, right? you had alexandria ocasio-cortez and other members of the so-called squad feeling that they had been disrespected by nancy pelosi. >> right. and they were very vocal about that and they were tweeting repeatedly about this and there

were feuds going on between staffers. we saw pelosi do the interview with maureen dowd, which also set off another round of this by her saying that she didn't think they had that much support, that this squad wasn't actually that powerful in the caucus. and so it definitely was, i would say, a hatchet. it was a bigger feud than pelosi wants to let on. and we are seeing, though, as julie mentioned, it seems that everything has quieted down a lot heading into this august recess and it was not like that a few weeks ago. >> and all about impeachment, you heard pelosi saying he doesn't feel that much pressure and whatever pressure she does feel actually gives her leverage. but here was jackie speier essentially saying, listen, the clock is ticking. >> if we don't take action come september 1st then we should shut it down because we're not going to be able to do anything at all. i feel strongly we should, but i think we're running out of time. >> 96 at this point house democrats for opening an

impeachment inquiry. jackie speier in that same interview said she feels like there are 30 or so other members of the house democratic caucus who are also for impeachment but are not being as vocal about it. is that your sense as well? >> i think a lot of times, especially for those 30 or so members that you mentioned, you do need a little bit of cover from the leadership to say, okay, this is okay to go out there and say you support opening an inquiry. you're starting to get a little bit of that. i thought representative katherine clark, who is a member of leadership, came out yesterday and said she does support opening impeachment proceedings was a significant move. 96 is less than the democratic caucus but more than half of the judiciary committee supports it. that's why you see the private friction between nancy pelosi and jerry nadler who i think if he had his own druthers would have gone forward with it by now. we'll look at his tone in his press conference coming up. but that's a tension, and the

open question of whether the committee is even contemplating moving forward on its own is important to watch. >> here's what nadler had to say this morning about impeachment. >> what if the administration defies these court orders that you believe are imminent? >> well, if -- without question if an -- no administration has ever defied a court order. if they did that, that is so far beyond the pale that it's totally eliminating the rule of law, there would have to be an impeachment. >> and we'll of course hear from nadler later today, katherine. >> yes. i think one of the things to look to as this fight continues is members in some of the more moderate districts. those are the people that pelosi is really trying to give a certain amounti of cover to. people who flipped districts from republican to democrat who aren't interested in walking so far out on this.

i was just in michigan talking to voters in the suburbs in detroit and you're not hearing talk about impeachment, about mueller, about some of these things. >> often on the campaign trail too, right, when you're covering these presidential candidates. you want to come in here? >> two more house just came out for impeachment. mike levin of california. he's in a swing district, one democrats just flipped last cycle and ann custer who's in nach. -- new hampshire. so we're getting pretty dloesclo 100. >> it wasn't the floods people thought would be after the mueller hearing but definitely some flipped. >> some members said they did think it was a turning point one way or another. but i do think it's important to look at what nancy pelosi said in that news conference which i think is really true. this is not necessarily a problem for her. every member who comes out and says they're in favor for this, it builds the case for if you don't cooperate in court, i've got people who are ready to

impeach you tomorrow. so as much as this drumbeat increases, i think there's a possibility it could be helpful to her and helpful to the litigation prerogatives of the house. >> nadler is coming to the mics here. here he is, the chairman of the house judiciary committee, jerry nadler. >> we all here? good afternoon. i am joined today by many of my colleagues from the house judiciary committee. we want to say a few words about director mueller, what we learned from his testimony and next steps in our work to hold president trump accountable for his conduct. robert mueller is a man of honor and integrity. he has led a life defined by service to his country.

some have argued that because director mueller was reluctant to testify and seemed older than some remembered him, his work is somehow diminished. it is not. before he ever stepped into our hearing room, the director had rendered our country a great and necessary public service. he showed through his report and his indictments that the united states was attacked and remains under siege by a foreign adversary. he showed that the trump campaign both welcomed and benefitted from this attack on our country. and he showed that the president repeatedly lied to cover it up. and if that were not enough, director mueller's testimony removed all doubt. he told us that donald trump obstructed justice and abused his office by tampering with

witnesses, attempting to block the investigation, and attempting to fire the special counsel. he told us that donald trump lied to the public about the trump tower meeting in new york, lied to the public about his plans for trump tower in moscow, and lied in his written responses to the special counsel. he told us in a remarkable exchange with mr. lieu that but for the department of justice policy from prohibiting from doing so, he would have indicted president trump. indeed, it is clear that any other citizen of this country who behaved as the president has would have been charged with multiple crimes. notably, my republican colleagues were unable to refute a single one of these facts. so where do we go from here? we will continue to seek

testimony from key fact witnesses. as many of you know, the committee has authorized several additional subpoenas. our work will continue into the august recess and we will use those subpoenas if we must. we will also continue to seek important documents from the department of justice and the white house. we have made some progress on this front. there appears to be compelling evidence of the president's misconduct outside of the four corners of the redacted version of the mueller report, and we will work to uncover that evidence as well. finally today, we are filing an application for the grand jury material underlying the mueller report. that information is critically important for our ability to examine witnesses, including former white house counsel don mcgahn, and to investigate the president's misconduct. i will not comment on reports of our ongoing negotiations with mr. mcgahn, but unless he

complies with our accommodation efforts in very short order, we expect to file an additional suit to enforce our subpoena for his testimony. and that will be next week or earlier next week. i should note that the committee could not have brought these lawsuits without the help and support of speaker pelosi, who is as dedicated to holding this president accountable for his crimes as any of us gathered here today. before i take your questions, let me share just a few sentences from the petition we are filing with the court today. quote, because department of justice policies will not allow prosecution of a sitting president, the united states house of representatives is the only institution of the federal government that can now hold president trump accountable for these actions. to do so, the house must have access to all the relevant facts and consider whether to exercise

its full article 1 powers, including a constitutional power of the utmost gravity, recommendation of articles of impeachment. that duty falls in the first instance to the house committee on the judiciary, close quote. as i said, that was from the court filing today. we take that responsibility seriously. no one can be above the law, not even president trump. we'll now take some questions. >> so half of the members up here -- >> let me just say as we take questions, you can ask members of the committee to field questions as well. >> half of the members up here have come out in support of impeachment. how are you dealing with disagreements with the speaker on that issue, and especially heading into the six-week-long recess. do you expect that those divisions to go away soon? >> i don't know that there are

real divisions with the speaker. i would refer you to her earlier comments in which she said that we must make the strongest case. if our committee is going to recommend articles of impeachment to the house, we must make the strongest possible case both to our colleagues and to the american public and that we're in total agreement. >> there has to be a point, though, mr. chairman, where you break from the speaker and you announce publicly your support for impeachment? >> we are, as i said and is clear in the court filings, we are exercising our full article 1 authority. we are continuing an investigation of the president's malfeasances and we will do what we feel -- and we will consider what we have to consider, including whether we should recommend articles of impeachment to the house. that's the job of our committee. we may decide to recommend articles of impeachment at some point, we may not.

it remains to be seen. and there's no point speculating on whether the speaker or anybody else will agree with our decision at that point. >> what's holding you back from publicly voicing your support for impeachment? >> if i can jump in, impeachment -- >> can you speak in the microphone, please. >> impeachment isn't a binary thing that you are either are you aren't. what we've been saying and doing is starting a process where we're engaging in an investigation to see if we should recommend articles of impeachment. it's a process. we started it some months ago in some ways while waiting for the report and holding the hearings that we've already had. so, you know, it's an ongoing process. the court filings today are the next step and we'll continue down that road to see whether we have the strong case that is needed to put to the american people. >> chairman nadler, what about the idea here, though, that if

the hearing on wednesday here, speaker pelosi said that they crossed a threshold, called this historic. what did robert mueller fail to do? obviously you said that he should not be diminished by his presentation. but what would you have liekds to have gotten out of him in that presentation on wednesday? >> he didn't fail to do anything. >> we heard repeatedly from members on your side of the aisle that he failed to breathe life into that report. >> if you showed up for a broadway show, sure, you may have been disappointed. but if you listened to what he said, he said the russians attacked us, the trump campaign welcomed and planned around it. when the police investigated it, they took great lengths to cover it up, including the president. the president is the only person in america who is shielded from being held accountable because of what they did. that is pretty cut and dry. what you have seen is not members who have called for impeachment saying take me off of that call in light of what mr. mueller has said.

six members since have come forward and said add me to that call for impeachment. >> the one thing robert mueller failed to do in that hearing is he failed to exonerate the hearing. in fact he said he could not exonerate the president. so that, i thinking is the answer to your question. >> please identify yourselves. that's mary gay scanlon. >> may i just add to the point -- >> sheila jackson. >> thank you, mr. chairman. throughout the entire time of mr. mueller's presence before the house judiciary committee, he evidenced elements of a crime. he was not in any way shortchanging his answers that crimes had been committed. he said yes to the three elements of obstruction. he said yes that one element of obstruction could result in jail time. he also said that when i say

said, answered questions that said you did not have to have an underlying crime to be able to be convicted of obstruction. i don't think the american people have ever heard that in that manner before. i know there are some who may have read both volumes. but they never heard it as it was played out with the members of this committee that when you finish a judiciary committee's questioning and when you started with chairman nadler, who did an enormous job on framing our questioning by getting right to the meat of the issue of obstruction and then exoneration, which director mueller openly and i think quite vividly said that he was not -- the president -- exonerated. and then we continued methodically to reinforce that to the extent that the elements

of obstruction, which i wanted to just engineer for a moment, on obstructive act, the nexus of an act and official proceeding and corrupt intent was associated with the actions of this president. the american people have never heard that. and i will close by simply saying on this question that you asked, for those of us who have seen director mueller before this committee on a number of years as fbi director, he has always been stoic and a former marine, just right to the point. he certainly has an enormous talent of investigation. so when he came today or yesterday or wednesday, he made true what he said to the committee. he was going to stick with the report. he did that. but in doing so, every single question that would warrant someone being convicted of a crime was answered. >> steve. >> i'd just like to add one

thing that i think has been overlooked. mr. mueller made a point of saying in response to a question from mr. buck, which i think he probably would like to take it back, to the president could be indicted after he left office. now, mr. mueller earlier said, and it may be in the report, that one of the reasons to get all that information was to get witnesses while it was fresh in their mind and to preserve it for later use. if you didn't believe you had a criminal act, why would you want to preserve the evidence? so by the very fact that he preserved the evidence and said it was necessary to get these people while it was fresh in their mind and best recollection meant that he's basically saying he obstructed justice and the time may have to come after his first term or his last term, which would be his first term. >> let me just summarize one

thing here. i believe that the hearing with director mueller was an inflection point. it was an inflection point because it accomplished two things. one, you heard director mueller say that we were attacked by the russians, that the trump campaign welcomed the attack -- welcomed the assistance of the russians, that the substantial evidence of crimes of obstruction of government -- i'm sorry, obstruction of justice by the president and that he was not exonerated and that the mantra that the president and attorney general had been telling the country for months now, that they found no collusion, no obstruction and the president was totally exonerated is totally untrue. it changed that. even you heard the president now saying that the investigation was treasonous. he wouldn't be saying that if he

still thought he could get away with saying the investigation established no obstruction, no collusion and totally exonerated him. so he broke the lie that has been propagated by the attorney general and by the president and presented to the american people the stark conclusions which we can now fill out by getting other evidence and getting the witnesses and so forth. >> mr. chairman -- >> mr. chairman -- >> madeline dean from pennsylvania. i think i just wanted to say two things. one about the performance of mr. mueller. i have nothing but the highest regard for mr. mueller and his life of service to this country. and what i believe we really should be focused on is not the performance of mr. mueller, but the performance or behaviors of this president obstructing justice. that's the performance you need to be examining, the performance of the trump administration welcoming, wallowing in interference by russia. the performance of russia

interfering with our elections in massive and sweeping ways that will continue and a senate yesterday that did nothing, in fact blocked attempts to take care of or protect our elections. those are the performances we need to be looking at. those are the behaviors. trump, his campaign, russia and obstruction. that's what we need to be looking at. >> mr. chairman, you've been fighting for these grand jury materials for some time but you've also been engaging in an accommodation process with the department of justice. they have allowed you to view some documents. even in a may letter you said you made clear you're not seeking from the department any information or documents that are properly subject to rule 60, to grand jury material. so why is this material so important to you? what do you think you will find, and will that hurt the accommodation process you already have with the department for the other documents you want? >> well, we have been engaged in

accommodation processes with the justice department with various other witnesses to get testimony and to get documents and so forth. it has been largely fruitless, but it is necessary to do that if you're going to go into court to enforce your subpoenas, which we're doing. with respect to 6 c, that is grand jury testimony, we have not requested it previously. you have to go to court and request it. in previous cases, the special prosecutor -- i'm sorry, the committee went into court and requested this 20 years ago, 40 years ago, and the attorney general went into court and supported the application. this time we're going into court today. i don't expect the attorney general to support the application and indeed he mayo pose it. but we want -- we have to see the underlying grand jury material of a lot of things about the mueller report, which will be very informative to us. >> but doesn't it set a dangerous precedent if this were

to get leaked out? why is this information so important? >> the information is important, and i can't characterize the specific importance because i don't know the specific contents obviously, because it's at the foundation. much of the investigation of the special prosecutor or the special counsel was in the form of grand jury presentations. that's what we -- and you have to see that. and in the case of leon jaworski and ken starr, they were given access to that information and we need that information too to make a lot of different judgments. >> mr. chairman, there's a vigorous debate in your caucus about whether or not to formally open an impeachment inquiry. given what you've said about this filing, comments that you've made in hearings, are you all beginning to shade into an impeachment inquiry even if you haven't held a formal vote in the house? is that what's going on here? >> what's going on -- what's

going on is i think too much has been made of the phrase, an impeachment inquiry. we are doing what our court filing says we are doing, what i said we are doing, and that is to say we are using our full article 1 powers to investigate the conduct of the president and to consider whether to -- what remedies there are. among other things we will consider, obviously, are whether to recommend articles of impeachment. we may not do that, we may do that, but that's a conclusion at the end of the process. you may want to call that an inquiry or not. i think people when they tink of an inquiry think of a formal house vote to direct the committee to hold an inquiry. that's happened in the past. there have also been instances when it didn't happen. the committee is exercising its

authority to investigate all of these scandals and to decide what to do about them, which could include articles of impeachment. we filed that with the court and have told that to the court and we're going to do that. >> do you believe that you already are at that point of an inquiry? do you believe what the judiciary committee is doing right now is an inquiry into impeachment? >> we are doing exactly what i said a moment ago we are doing, and that is to say we are examining and investigating the various malfeasances and crimes and so forth of the president. we will reach -- we are going into court and asking for more information to enforce our subpoenas. we are telling the court that we are doing this not just as part of normal oversight but also because as part of our article 1 authority and responsibility to consider all remedies, including possibility of articles of impeachment, and that's what we're going to do. now, whether you call that an

inquiry or whatever you want to call that, that's what we have been doing, are doing and will continue to do. >> mr. chairman, a court battle could take a little bit of time. do you have a deadline, even if it's expedited it could take a while. do you have a deadline in your mind as to when you all will make this decision? >> well, there's a lot of decision and, no, i don't. >> mr. nadler, you mentioned the idea of having the strongest possible case before you go to court. isn't the strongest possible case to get material in an impeachment inquiry? >> the strongest possible case is to tell the court what we're telling the court, which you'll see in the -- i think we'll give you copies of the court filings and i quoted part of the relevant paragraph. and that is that -- i'll read it again. the house must have access to all relevant facts and consider whether to exercise its full article one powers, including a

constitutional power of the utmost gravity, recommendation of articles of impeachment that falls in the first instance to the house committee of the judiciary. what we are telling the court, and this is one of the purposes of telling the court is to say we are exercising the highest authority is that we are considering the malfeasances of the president, we are considering what remedies we can do, including the possibility of articles of impeachment. >> mr. chairman, in your opening -- >> there's chairman jerry nadler, the house judiciary committee, flanked by some of his members, all of whom are for opening an impeachment inquiry. we're going to bring it back to the table here. one of the things that struck me about this was this was in some ways an attempt to rehabilitate robert mueller's testimony. you had nadler there open up by saying just because he seemed older didn't diminish the work and what he presented there. what did you make of that? >> i thought that was an

interesting line and it caught my attention right away. there was another one of his members who also said don't kind of look at how mueller was saying this, look at the substance of the report and the conduct of the trump administration because i think that is what -- that is something that had gotten lost after the mueller hearing. i think a lot of us were struck by how a little uneven the special counsel seemed, which was something else that we focused on. so i think they're trying to steer it back to the substance. they're trying to steer it back to the fact that, look, the special counsel did say specifically that the president was not exonerated. he confirmed a lot of parts of his report and they want to bring it back to the substance and not the style. >> but i think it was extremely significant that the chairman kept on referring to using our full article 1 powers and that language is actually in this lawsuit being filed. article 1 is the article of the constitution that gives the house the power to impeach the president. even though he side-stepped by colleagues and another reporter's question about

whether nadler believes that in effect the judiciary committee is already in an impeachment inquiry, that is essentially the case that he's making without outright saying it. >> when the question came up, he kind of looked around. >> that is essentially the case that he's making without coming out directly and saying it. >> we also know politico reported that nadler in a closed door meeting was urging pelosi and others to encourage impeachment proceedings and get the ball rolling. he's toeing this fine line because he's close with pelosi and he doesn't want to overstep and go around her. all those members that were standing behind him support impeachment. >> and he made it clear there in his statement, he said, listen, pelosi basically wants to hold the president accountable too and she supports all the work of this committee. basically to the point that you're making there. catherine, what did you make of jerry nadler there and the comments from members of his committee? they made it clear that the work, even though they're going to recess, the work is going to

continue. >> they were very clear this continues. they are looking for more materials. this is an escalation of the process, even though they're trying to say we're still looking at this, nothing has been decided. i'm sure we'll hear soon from the president on this. he has been very quick to respond when he feels like he's being pushed on this impeachment issue. >> we heard from him last night. we know hannity misrepresenting actually what came out of the hearings, but i'm sure we'll hear more on twitter. up next, kamala harris unveils two policies aimed at helping minorities, but new polls indicate she has work to do to expand her support. iceline working with top airlines to turn their unsold seats into amazing deals, family reunion attendance is up. we're all related! yeah, i see it. and because priceline offers great deals by comparing thousands of prices in real time, sports fans are seeing more away games. various: yeah-h-h! is that safe? oh, y... ahh! not at all. no, ma'am. nope. and more people than ever are enjoying romantic getaways. (romantic music) that's gross priceline. every trip is a big deal.

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kamala harris is rolling out two big policy proposals today, both aimed at african-americans. the california democrat wants $60 billion to be invested in s.t.e.m. education at historically black colleges. she's also calling on congress to funnel $12 billion to go towards helping minority-run small businesses. these are just the latest proposals harris has up vanveils part of her black agenda. notably the campaign would not signal to cnn how they would be paid for. here's how she described her vision at a speech before the national urban league just a short time ago. >> we're going from, from the doors to many of our country's prestigious colleges and professions were being closed to our community and to the new investments that educate the next generation of black leaders.

we're going from red lining to real opportunity for homeownership. we're going from being excluded from the first industrial revolution to propelling the next one. and urban league, let's be clear, by taking these challenges on, we don't just move black america forward, all of america moves forward. all of america will benefit. >> laura, this is just a small part of her black agenda. she's rolled out any number of other policy initiatives around her black agenda, including combatting maternal mortality, decriminalizing marijuana and expunging past convictions, increased diversity in s.t.e.m. education. this is something she has focused on. we haven't seen it show up in the polls in terms of how she's doing with african-americans and other minorities, but it's a clear focus of hers. >> yeah, we've seen more attention being devoted to her

since the debates but this has been a central theme of her campaign from the beginning months ago, early on this year. a speech that she gave in michigan, she very much hit back against the electability question, back against the fact that, oh, there isn't enough attention being paid to black and brown voters and saying pretty much in a way subtly then taking jabs at candidacies like biden's which is much more focused on not overtly talking about race and focusing on the midwest and other voters that -- white rural voters that flipped to trump last time. so her candidacy as well as warren's, they're very much trying to aggressively talk about black and brown voters and how their policies would specifically help them because they think that will be successful. >> and one of the trends you saw in 2016 was a real dip in terms of african-american turnout. it was down -- the rate of african-american turnout, which had been at historic levels with obama, dropped about 7

percentage points in 2016. a lot of african-american voters in those states that trump ended up winning, pennsylvania, wisconsin and michigan, some of them didn't show up. >> if you look at detroit and milwaukee, they did not see the same turnout they did under obama. that's one of the questions going into this as democrats try to figure out the best way to build a winning coalition. can you boost those numbers, can you get them up, as president trump is also making a play for african-american voters. we've heard him talking about the criminal justice legislation that he's -- >> as$ap rocky. >> yes. but if you are on his side, there is an argument that if this is an election won on the margins, making those kinds of appeals, getting a percent or two could matter. >> and you see this fight between biden and booker too, which also seems to be over african-american voters centered on criminal justice reform. a lot of polls still showing

biden with a pretty commanding lead. there's a fox news poll he's at 33%. the rest of the field essentially half that. bernie sanders 15%, cory booker at 2%, but they have been going at it. >> booker really needs to be able to grab some attention considering his standing in the polls there. he's certainly going to have a chance to do that next week when he will be with the former vice president at the debate. criminal justice -- the criminal justice reform is really a fascinating fault line for a lot of these democrats because we've seen how the former vice president had come under so much criticism for his role in the '94 crime bill. and the fact that this and also health care to a similar extent with the ones where the issues have prompted biden to punch back. he's been singling out bernie sanders, a little hints at kamala harris over health care and their push for a medicare for all system. definitely on criminal justice with booker, you could argue once booker punched, he had to punch back. but it will be interesting to

see those contrasts. going back to catherine's point, criminal justice reform is an actual area where president trump does have an accomplishment to run on. last week the justice department announced that more than 3,000 people have been released under the first step act. so it will be really interesting to see that matchup in a general election and how that plays out. >> and biden just rolling out his criminal justice reform plan because that is going dog him. we'll see the debate next week. democratic candidate andrew yang is setting his crosshairs on someone other than joe biden. he's tweeting, i would like to signal to the press that i will be attacking mike at bchael ben next week's debate. sorry, but you know what you did. apparently it's about math. and you can see both of them go at it, i guess, at cnn's democratic presidential debates. two big nights, ten candidates each night. tuesday and wednesday night at 8:00 eastern live from detroit only on cnn. and before we go to break, a

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we were promised a rising tide that would lift all boats. gdp went up, businesses boomd but our pay checked didn't show it. that is why today i'm sharing a plan that fights to get americans the pay raise we deserve. >> does america deserve a raise? >> yes! >> that's mayor pete buttigieg making his pitch to voters on the economy ahead of the cnn debates. the 2020 candidate directly

takes on big tech companies like google, uber and lyft while putting labor unions front and center. vanessa is covering the buttigieg campaign for cnn. vanessa, lay out what mayor pete is trying to do with this new plan. >> hi, nia. he's really trying to put workers' rights front and center as well as put big tech companies in the hot seat. this plan is very comprehensive. i just want to give a couple of highlights for people to take note of. it guarantees all american workers the right to join a union, introduces multimillion dollar penalties for employer interference in union elections and workers' rights and it allows workers to collectively bargain with their direct parent companies. as you mentioned, in that plan he names three big tech companies, uber, lyft and google. these companies employ contracted workers, more in favor of full-time employees. so those contracted workers

don't get the same rights and benefits as full-time workers. pete buttigieg wants to allow tose independent workers to unionize and collective bargain. now, i asked him last night in an exclusive phone interview i had with him ahead of this rollout, is he really willing to take on big tech? and he said, yes, he was. also, nia, of interest, his big fund-raising of this quarter, this is the second quarter, about $25 million, a lot of that money came from silicon valley. a lot of the people he raised money from were these silicon valley executives. now he is rolling out this proposal aimed directly at them. nia. >> that's really interesting. vanessa, thanks for that report. we'll bring it to the table here. we've got about 90 seconds. julie, what do you make of this? he talked about the idea that he's been able to raise this money but still hasn't gained much traction with voters. he's about 5% in the latest polls i've seen. >> if only his dollars could be poll numbers. i think it's pretty clear here.

he said from the outset that he wanted to try to appeal to voters that have left the democratic party and essentially democrats know they have to appeal to the white working class and become again what in many places they are 23no longe which is the party of unions and working people. i think this plan is clearly focused on trying to win over those voters at a time when president trump is trying to tout the economy and his -- you know, his popularity with working people as a selling point. and so i think he's really trying to focus in on that group of voters that democrats have had a little trouble attracting in the last cycle. >> and going after big tech also a theme from this democratic primary, primarily i think from somebody like elizabeth warren, who's made that a centerpiece of her campaign. >> she's been very aggressive about that. sanders as well. we're seeing from buttigieg's effort to of today up because he has been slow to release these very detailed policy plans, which was a criticism early on

of him. now they're getting into these debates and he's very much likely going to make the fall debate. he has to start putting more meat on the bones. >> he's probably going to make a lot of the debates because of his fund-raising numbers. he's going to probably be able to stay in this thing. >> he certainly moved into the upper tier of candidates at this point. but i think in terms of targeting voters in these states, targeting union voters, he's got competition there. a number of other candidates in this primary are really -- most notably joe biden but also bernie sanders. there's lots of people trying to make a play for those voters that are seen as key people that strayed from the democratic party in the last election. >> and we'll see what he does in next week's debate. tuesday and wednesday next week in detroit on cnn. thanks for joining us on "inside politics." john king is back here sunday morning 8:00 a.m. eastern. brianna keilar starts after a quick break. is skincare from around the world better than olay? olay regenerist faced 131 premium products, from 12 countries,

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i'm brianna keilar live from cnn's washington headquarters. under way right now, if the house won't take up impeachment, some democrats revealing what they will do instead going forward. and the speaker meets the squad, or one of them at least, so what did nancy pelosi and alexandria ocasio-cortez talk about? the tale of two detainees, a rapper and an 18-year-old, both american citizens, but the president is only vocal about one of them. plus the disturbing scene, white college students posing with guns in front of a mem