welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king live today from detroit, the site of this week's cnn democratic presidential debates. live to gilroy, california, in just a moment for the latest on a tragic weekend shooting, three killed, 12 injured when a gunman opened fire on the city's annual garlic festival. plus, new predebate plans from two contenders. elizabeth warren offers her thoughts on trade, while kamala harris stokes a new fight over medicare for all. and a treat for me right here in detroit, lunch with four undecided african-american voters. they weigh in on the president's repeated attacks on democrats of color and they share their takes on the 2020 democrats and what it will take to win their votes. >> i've gotten text messages

from candidates like could you please donate to my campaign so i can participate in the bedate? i literally text back i'm not donating anything until i know your plan on student loan forgiveness. someone actually responded so i was like, my bad. >> back to that conversation in a moment but we begin the hour with some telling predebate maneuvers. elizabeth warren outlining her policy on trade mindful of this weekest democratic competition. joe biden rolling out 91 new endorsements. a shaky first debate hurt his long-term prospects. and kamala harris giving her final answer on a critical question in the democratic primary. what happens to insurance if she gets her way in the health care debate? the new harris version puts her to the right of bernie sanders and to the left of moderates like biden. the california senator offering a role for supplemental private insurance called medicare

advantage. but she would do away with private employer-sponsored health care. harris wants a decade-long transition to medicare for all. sanders proposes four years. she pays for it by raising taxes on families making more than $100,000 a year. harris today defending her plan right here in detroit. >> frankly, i have a vision of what it should be, and the existing plans that have been offered did not express what i wanted. over the course of these many months, i've heard from people and they want -- they want a different way. and so i went back to the drawing board and said, okay, let's create our own plan. >> with me here in detroit to share their reporting and their insights, cnn's phil mattingly, laur lauren. let's start with senator harris and her version of medicare for all. this has been her frustration, unable to give a consistent

answer with what happens to private health insurance. under this plan there's a modest survival if you will. you can have a medicare advantage plan but it does away with the employer-based health care that millions of americans get, so she's moving to the right of sanders. help me out here. >> what it does is it tries to find a sweet spot between where vice president biden and senator michael bennet are and a full medicare for all proposal senator sanders is laying out. it's been a sweet spot she's been grasping for and we've watched it play out in realtime. the transition period would be longer. four years for sanders medicare for all, ten years for harris medicare for all. for the period of ten years private plans that fit into the medicare advantage structure, which is structure than other private plans, would be allowed to be maintained so that hits the three key areas, which is how are you going to pay for it. she said raising taxes on people over $100,000. what the transition period is going to be, six years longer than bernie sanders and what

happens to private plans. so she's trying to find that middle ground between sanders an biden. putting this out right before the debate tries to undercut any attacks she's almost certainly going to have on the debate stage. the policy is very important. there's a lot of details that need to come fufrther to get th gist of how it will play out. >> it will be interesting because she'll be on night two with vice president biden. they'll clearly have some issues. she will not be onstage with the purist, bernie sanders and medicare for all. elizabeth warren will be there with bernie sanders. the sanders campaign calling this a retreat. so continues her gradual backdown from medicare for all. this is why you want a candidate with a lifetime of consistency. let's take a popular good government-run program, add privatization and profit seeking into it. what could go wrong. and the press secretary reading you haven't read the plan, disappointing. you mentioned trying to hit a sweet spot. the question is in the democratic primary where is that sweet spot.

there's a separate question of selling these changes in a general election but where in the primary is going to be the sweet spot on health care? >> i think she's clearly politically speaking trying to stake out this middle ground and saying i'm still for medicare for all, but her plan if you dig into the details is not actually the medicare for all plan that bernie sanders has been touting, because it maintains a significant role for private insurance companies. the medicare advantage plan that already exists, she wants to make sure that that is a part of her medicare for all plan. so politically speaking, she wants to make sure she can tell her supporters that this is sort of reflective of medicare for all, but actually it isn't. i think the flurry of tweets that we've seen between the bernie sanders camps and kamala harris camps, this is a preview of the fight we are going to see and the clash we are going to see between kamala harris and bernie sanders or elizabeth warren, probably just not this week on stage because they're not taking the stage together. >> i think you will see it as

part of the biden thing. harris has a strong first debate. she's looking to keep growing and looking to answer a question about her. you knew that vice president biden was going to turn for her and say you can't give a straight answer on this. >> and even during the first debate there was confusion when they were asked would you get rid of private health care insurance. this is an attempt to stop having the confusion follow her. right ahead of this debate it puts elizabeth warren in an interesting position because now she's the only leading democrat without a health care plan. she says i'm with bernie but hasn't released any details. >> since you mentioned senator warren, she'll be in toledo, ohio, tonight to unveil her new trade plan. the debate it right here in detroit, michigan. both of those states carried by donald trump after being carried by barack obama in the previous election. what are the highlights of this warren trade plan? why is this significant, a, in the primary and, b, more broadly? >> what i find so interesting overall about the fact she's putting out this plan is how much elizabeth warren has been

going on this economic patriotism theme. she's put out a couple of plans over the last couple of months that get at this theme. you look to the fact that she is going to toledo, ohio, tonight. tomorrow obviously she's taking the debate stage here in detroit, michigan. you think about a state like michigan. a state that president trump actually only won by 10,000 votes. i think the key strategy for the democrats going forward will be really, really going hard on the economic message, right? telling maybe the trump supporters of 2016 this is a candidate, the president, who said that he would bring manufacturing back but he hasn't. this hasn't come back to a state like this. at least that's the message that i think we're going see from the democratic candidates who want to make sure that they do better in the rust belt. >> as we spend the next couple of days here, joe biden is rolling out 91 current and former elected officials to endorse him. smart campaigns do this, keep a file cabinet with the endorsements in it so when

you're having a bad day or bad week, and need to prove all this talk of us falling in the polls is wrong, bang, endorsements. obviously there are 10 or 12 lesser known candidates for whom this can be the last act. beyond that for biden, who did have a shaky first debate performance, rolling out the endorsements saying, hey, i'm okay, is part of a very important week for him. >> and those endorsements come right as "the new york times" wrote that there are allies that are nervous about how steady he is. they didn't like his first debate performance. they want to see that he will perform better this time, not be giving back his time the way he did when he was asked questions and cutting himself off, but actually challenging other democrats. we saw a preview of that in the last few weeks with him being a bit more aggressive and going on offense in his attacks against harris and booker, so they want to see that he has the stamina to win this primary. >> what do each of you think about the big stakes? the vice president, a lot to

prove. mayor buttigieg, who was the surprise early candidate in the race has kind of plateaued. what else are we looking for? >> there's tiers, right? for the lower level tier this is probably it for a lot of them. most of them won't qualify for the next debate coming up. so if you want to have a moment, this is going to be your moment. in the last debate senator kamala harris proved you can have a moment and it can have repercussions. on the top tier you've gotten a better sense of who's competing for whose voters and does that mean you need to go to war with whoever you're competing with and do you need to draw the distinctions everybody wants to see. i think to m.j.'s point on senator warren and her plan on trade, in this area, and shoutout to toledo, my hometown, great up to, it's extremely important. you talk to congressional democrats, where do you differ from president trump on trade. and they have a difficult time explaining it. i think how that is conveyed

over the course of the next couple nights will be very interesting for these very, very important states in the midwest. >> we'll continue the conversation as we get ready for the debates. the debates start tomorrow night. two big nights, tomorrow and wednesday from detroit right here on cnn. up next we go live to gilroy, california, where we're learning more about the 19-year-old who opened fire on an outdoor festival. ♪ i want it that way... i can't believe it. that karl brought his karaoke machine? ♪ ain't nothing but a heartache... ♪ no, i can't believe how easy it was to save hundreds of dollars on my car insurance with geico. ♪ i never wanna hear you say... ♪ no, kevin... no, kevin! believe it! geico could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. this melting pot of impacted species.

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back to the debates and politics in a moment, but to california now and the police hunt for a possible second suspect in a shooting that killed three people and wounded at least 12 more. police shot and killed a 19-year-old gunman. this is how one man described the moment he realized there was gunfire at the annual garlic festival in gilroy. that's a city of about 50,000, 30 miles south of san jose. >> shots rang out and at the same time the music started for the concert so i thought it was like an opening act for the concert. but after a few seconds, there was so many shots and i saw people falling down, kids falling down. >> police say the gunman snuck into the festival and into the grounds by crossing a nearby creek and cutting a hole in the fence. one of those killed, just 6 years old, steven ramiro. his mother and one of his grandmothers also shot. they are hospitalized. sara sidner joins us live now from gilroy.

sara, what more do we know about this gunman and this possible second suspect? >> reporter: so far we've gotten zero new information about a second potential suspect. one thing police have not said is there was a second shooter, just that there was one shooter, this 19-year-old. we have also seen some of his social media posts on instagram which have been taken down at this time. one of those instagram posts he directly mentions the gilroy garlic festival. he says an expletive as he feels things are expensive at the festival and also recommends a book that is a known book filled with white supremacist ideals. so those two things are new information about this 19-year-old who police shot and killed, saying that he was the shooter that killed three people and injured as many as 11 people. we are getting new information as well about those people who were shot during this terrible

incident here at the gilroy garlic festival. just to give you some idea, this is a summer pastime in northern california. i lived in this area. when you come through gilroy, you know it's the garlic capital because you can smell it. people come here with a lot of joy in their hearts on sunday, which is family day, to enjoy this festival. as it was starting to wind down after 5:00 p.m. it ended up being a crime scene with people running for their lives. but ages 12 to 69 are still in the hospital, one person in critical condition, john. >> sara sidner with the latest of a horrible tragedy. sara, keep us posted as this plays out. appreciate it. coming up for us, the president continues his attacks on an african-american congressman from maryland. we sit down with some african-americans to ask them their thoughts about the president, politics and race. my insurance rates are probably gonna double.

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president trump escalating his feud today with maryland democratic congressman elijah cummings. he's now adding bernie sanders and al sharpton to his twitter attacks. crazy bernie sanders recently equated the city of baltimore to a third world country. president trump then adding that

baltimore can be brought back, maybe even to new heights of success and glory, but not with king elijah and that crew. these tweets just the latest from the president who has tweeted more than a dozen times since saturday about congressman cummings. the president going so far as to call cummings a racist and demeaning the city of baltimore as disgusting and filthy. democrats call it more racism from the president. he says this has nothing to do with race, but it is another trump attack on democratic lawmakers of color. cnn analyst david gergen joins our conversation. the president says it's not racist. democrats say it is. why? what is the president's objective here? >> well, his main objective is to mobilize his base, but he's doing so at the expense of the country and the kind of things that hold us together, he's driving us apart. clearly race is at the heart of this, it's wound all through it. he's speaking to whites, but most of his base is white, he's

white and he's trying to scare them into thinking if you let these other people grow in numbers and we let in more immigrants, we're going to be a nation that's a minority white nation. we're heading that direction anyway but he wants to scare us before we get there and make diversity our enemy, not our friend. >> and i think the last 48, 72 hours have really foreshadowed a dynamic we're going to see over the next year and a half. you know, when we have a president who is constantly and eagerly sowing racial divisions, demonizing immigrants and getting defiant and untruthful when he's faced with criticism for those comments, we see how easily and quickly policy ends up falling to the wayside. i think this is a dynamic that the democratic candidates are going to have to confront because they are so eager to talk about policy right now. i can't think of another recent presidential campaign where policy has been sort of this sexy and candidates are so eager to talk about it. but when you have a general

election candidate, the president, who is taking this kind of tone and creates these kinds of distractions that the democrats have to engage to some extent, i think it's a tricky position for them to be in. >> and that he keeps doing it. he thinks it's fertile ground for him, for bad reasons maybe, but he thinks it's fertile ground. >> he finds this to be an effective strategy. this is something that he engaged in in 2016 with the build the wall chants. we saw it in the lead up to the 2018 midterm with him tweeting out the racist ad about the migrant caravan and mexicans. now we're seeing it with his repeated attacks on black and brown members of congress and with the "send her back" chant. so this is very much a part of his motive when it comes to running for the presidency. it's going to be throughout. again, as m.j. said, democrats have to find a way to respond to this and we have seen more and more of them explicitly talk about racial identity. >> i'm old enough to remember when some republicans, yes,

would say liberals have it wrong, liberals can't run urban america, liberals are making mistakes. you had jack kemp and his protege, paul ryan, say there's a different way to do it. you had rudy giuliani, got elected mayor of new york city, said the liberals before him did some things wrong but this is not a policy argument. this is the president, show up in baltimore say you're going to do something but listen to rush limbaugh. he said mr. president, don't listen to the media, don't listen to the democrats, keep at it. >> detroit, flint, los angeles, san francisco, massive homeless problems. wherever you find this decadent dec decay, you're going to find democrats having run the operation. this is classic pushback. people elected trump, this is exactly why, push back against conventional wisdom. the democrats take every one of these minority groups' votes for granted and it's about time somebody pushed back against the real human misery. >> the pushback would be great

if it was a policy proposal, if it was a trump plan for urban america, not filth, rodents, crime-infested. >> i'm going to shock you when i tell you this is not the kemp republican party anymore, and many of his acolytes are no longer in the republican party or have made clear with their silence related to some of these comments that they're uncomfortable but unwilling to challenge the president. i think it's interesting, i'm very reluctant to ascribe some three-dimensional chess political game here where the president is tweeting these things out. what's more interesting is he tweets it out, sees the response and everybody slots in behind him and then it becomes part of the strategy. i don't know necessarily either with the four freshmen women that he tweeted about sending them back or congressman elijah cummings, whether in his head he thinks this is a great strategy to rile up my base. but he does it, sees the response and that's when everybody piles on that supports him and they tweet out videos of baltimore. what's most interesting is not that the president tweets these

out as if it's some grand political plan but how quickly his supporters slot in behind him, turn it into a campaign issue and take whatever sliver that may be true and say that is what we're going to focus on. >> go ahead. >> he's become our contemporary modern george wallace. this is what wallace was all about. we've had demagogues like this in the past. john meacham, a wonderful histori historian, going back to the depression, joe mccarthy later on and then on to george wallace. they normally get about 35%, 40% support in the country. the good news is they haven't yet hit 50. >> we'll see what happens. you mentioned the challenge facing the democrats. the president was among the topic of conversation with four undecided african-american voters. our conversation was over a fabulous lunch at an iconic bakery, sweet potato sensations. we'll share some of their thoughts tomorrow on the 2020 democrats but we begin with why they think trump won here in

2016 and how he conducts himself now. >> i want to start with a little history. how did trump win michigan? >> speaking for the younger generation that voted, i know for me i wasn't completely satisfied with hillary clinton as the democratic nominee. when she ran, i believe that her campaign didn't really speak to the needs of the people. i believe she kind of ran with this idea that she was a shoo-in. >> to that point i also think to your broader question of how did trump win michigan, i think trump appealed to a lot of people in rural parts of michigan. i think he appealed to a lot of people who are just fearful that they're not going to have jobs that, quote unquote, want things to go back to the way they were when they felt more stable. i think trump kind of used those people and made false promises of what he would do and that is why they came out in such high numbers. >> and i think that detroiters -- well, voters,

they're not coming out, they're not showing up, and those numbers could have made a bigger difference. even now. i think a lot of black people don't vote because they feel that it does not count, and they're absolutely wrong, every vote counts, so we've got to so up this time for sure. >> when you say show up this time for sure, is the president himself a motivator or is it up to the democrats to give you a candidate who will get everybody to turn out? >> he's the motivator. and hopefully if they don't get out this time, nothing is going to motivate them. >> so when trump gets up on a sunday morning and tweets that four democratic women of color, go back to where you came from, how does that break through out here? >> well, it was a gut check for me. anybody that ever has had that statement said to them, it's not meant to be a compliment at all. okay? and being a minority, we always

resent that. >> i think for me it was really just -- it revealed to me exactly how ignorant trump is because we already knew he was a racist, we already knew he was a bigot. but the fact that many of those congresswomen and their families have literally been in america longer than trump's family, he's just saying things to be z xenophobic and hateful. >> i sdprdisagree with that. i think he's the epitome of reality tv, fake news. any time he wants to change the direction, he'll just throw something in the air and hope that it sticks. so he's masterful at that. he's not ignorant, he's just ignorant of government, the policies and so forth. >> do you think he's a racist or just thinks it's entertaining? >> i do think he's a racist, but that's irrelevant. >> i think it goes to decorum. it goes to what's right.

and i believe that we are emotionally bankrupt in this country when we don't have empathy for over peopther peopl? we don't have to resort to name calming. we can have civil discourse without name calling. up next, the president picks a new intelligence chief and the republican near silence speaks volumes. free wi-fi... ...and the price match guarantee. so with hilton there is no catch. yeah the only catch is i'm never leaving. no i'm serious, i live here now. book at hilton.com and get the hilton price match guarantee. stay on top of things. a faster laptop could help. plus, tech support to stay worry free. worry free. boom! ha.ha. boom! now, save up to 40% off furniture. up to 40% off at office depot officemax or officedepot.com. hi, i'm joan lunden. when my mother began forgetting things, we didn't know where to turn for more information. that's why i recommend a free service called a place for mom.

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today an important shuffle atop america's intelligence community. out, the director of national intelligence, dan coats. in, if the president gets his way, texas congressman john

ratcliffe. the why now is easy. the president and his top intelligence official, mr. coats, have repeatedly clashed over national security priorities. why ratcliffe? that's easy too especially if you watched the mueller hearing. senator majority leader mitch mcconnell praising coats as deliberate, thoughtful and unbiased in saying he's, quote, very sorry he's stepping down. that statement from the senate's top republican made no mention of ratcliffe but it did say this. i want to thank director coats for his role in the administration's comprehensive response to russia's ongoing efforts to interfere in our democracy. cnn's abby philip joins us live from the white house. abby, is the white house worried about the tepid republican reaction? >> reporter: john, ratcliffe has been on president trump's radar for a while now. since last year he's been under consideration for a number of jobs, namely attorney general, but was passed over for william

barr. now president trump is naming him as his top intelligence official. last week in that hearing with robert mueller, radcliffe made the case that robert mueller should never have written the second volume of the mueller report on obstruction of justice at all. now, that performance got president trump's attention, and even though dan coats' departure has been in the tea leaves for some time now, it seems that this decision was made in the last several days. but the problem is, as you noted, republicans are pretty tepid on radcliffe. a few mentioned him even as they praised dan coats who is leaving the job. there is some concern that not only is radcliffe too political for the job, he clearly has taken president trump's view of this entire russia investigation, pushing for an investigation into the investigators. but he also has fairly limited intelligence experience. he's only been on the house intelligence committee since january. so there are a lot of questions now about where this goes. will republicans back him, and

will it be easy or straightforward to get him through a senate confirmation process. we will find out in a little while, but as of right now, many republicans are not on capitol hill so it may be quite some time before we find out what's behind some of this reticence that we're seeing in the written statements, john. >> republicans not happy but rare are the days these days where they challenge the president. abby phillip, appreciate the live reporting and the insight. david gergen, you served several presidents. nothing against congressman ratcliffe, he's 53 years old, mayor, u.s. attorney, romney campaign aide back in the day. five years' experience. no deep experience. he's been on the committees a couple of years, but no deem experience in this realm. this job was created after 9/11 to try to bring together the fbi, the cia, the defense and military intelligence agencies. is this the right guy? >> no. it's not just his lack of experience, it's the fact that

he sees the world through an ideological lens. we spent billions upon billions of dollars trying to understand and analyze a very complex world and making sure that the president and people around him understand that world. when you begin cherry picking the facts out of a national intelligence estimate and using those for the basis on how you make decisions, you can get into real trouble. example number one, john, as you well remember, many of us think we got into iraq in large part because the evidence there was cherry picked and we were presented with a view that was not accurate. >> right. mike pompeo, the current secretary of state, saying a lot of people raised the same questions about him. he was a west point graduate, he served in the military and in congress a lot longer than congressman ratcliffe. we'll see if republicans rise up against the president or whether they bite their tongue, which is what they do mostly. we talked about this new medicare for all plan by kamala harris which tries to split the difference. it doesn't go as far left as

bernie sanders. it takes ten years to implement. it preserves some role and medicare advantage plans and would elimb nainate -- we get o health care from our employer. it would eliminate that. this is from the former vice president deputy campaign manager. this new have it every which way approach puts extremely challenging implementation of medicare for all ten years into the future. it would not occur on the watch of even a two-term administration. the result? a bernie sanders light medicare for all and a refusal to be straight with the american middle class, who would have a large tax increase forced on them with this plan. >> he accuses her of attempting to unravel the affordable care act which is popular so this is a strong line of attack for biden. we expect him to continue this into tomorrow night's debate.

so he wants to really pinpoint harris in the same camp as warren and sanders, even though as phil pointed out she's trying to do a bit of a balance. >> and i think half the battle for kamala harris will be how exactly she sells this on stage. she has to own this policy plan. health care is incredibly difficult and complicated. because this is a new plan for her and because we've seen her struggle to explain exactly where she falls on the issue of medicare for all and what her vision is of health care in this country, i think wednesday night will be really critical for her, purely in terms of this performance aspect. >> it's extremely personal to people as you look at any polling. what the biden campaign is making clear and the sanders campaign is there's two lanes here. don't create a third one and i agree with m.j. she's going to get hit on this and going to need to be able to explain it in detail on stage. i have no doubt they are prepping her to do just that and she knows what she put behind

the plan. but this idea there is a sweet spot, both polls will try to take that away from her. >> and can the former vice president make that case. his first performance not so great. we'll see what happens wednesday night. coming up for us, what history tells us to watch for in this week's debates. but for some candidates, one simple goal. >> what is your mission in this debate specifically? >> to not mess up. sorry. a little too much sugar. sweeps and i get to be in this geico commercial? let's do the eyebrows first, just tease it a little. slather it all over, don't hold back. well, the squirrels followed me all the way out to california! and there's a very strange badger staring at me... no, i can't believe how easy it was to save hundreds of dollars on my car insurance with geico. uh-huh, where's the camel? "mr. big shot's" got his own trailer. ♪ wheeeeeee! believe it! geico could save you 15% or more on car insurance.

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let's talk about tomorrow's debate and what it means for the people right here in michigan. i'm joined by a columnist and david axelrod, former senior advisor to president obama. welcome to the conversation. i want to start with something you touch on in your column. i want you to listen, we sat down with four undecided african-american voters. i asked them about this city and how it's doing. >> how is detroit doing? >> i think better. i really do. i think we've made some gains. i moved back about a year ago and i've seen a lot of progress. but i think the question is who is the progress for. i want to see it for people who have been here, who have been here through the recession, have been here through the bankruptcy, who have never left. like my parents who have been

here, lifelong detroiters and i think too often people who are in the neighborhoods get left out of these conversations. >> that's part of your point too. >> right. >> we look around. it's great to be back in a downtown detroit that is vibrant, but we are at sweet potato sensations and they're worried that the new prosperity here is not going to reach them out there. >> no, john, we are sitting right now in what i call an island of op lens. outside of this downtown business district, you have mass economic desolation. and the u.s. census report, 2016, says troid leads the nation in big cities on poverty. the second city that comes close is cleveland. we are in the belly of the beast and this is ground zero and that's why i think it's incorporate and significant for the presidential candidates to be here in detroit. >> they will come into detroit and come at a time when the president is talking about another american city and calling it rat-infested and

putrid and saying no human being would want to live there. how do democrats get, without getting too drawn into trump, get at the challenges. you're from chicago, we're sitting here in detroit. you mentioned cleveland. should urban america be a bigger issue in this campaign? >> look, i think that the issue that is most likely to reach most americans is trump himself and his propensity to divide every single day for his own political project at the expense of cities, at the expense of minorities. i think people wherever they live may be weary of that by the time voters come to the polls. i think democrats need to concentrate on that. we'll see what happens tomorrow night. but he throws this stuff out. he mentioned they have reinstated the death penalty, for example. he's throwing this stuff out at catnip to get the conversation he wants. >> some democrats look at it and think it's an either/or. you heard those voters here in the inner city. look at 2012, obama was seeking

re-election, he gets 61% african-american turnout here in the state of michigan. hillary clinton is the nominee four years later and it drops to 49%. she didn't lose michigan all that much. you could make the case right here in wayne county if african-americans had turned out. turn out the base, that's why bernie sanders or elizabeth warren would say focus on the base. but i want to show you these other numbers here. other democrats say, no, wait a minute. go up to mccomb county, mitt romney lost the state. he won the white vote by 17 points and lost michigan. donald trump wins michigan. is it an either/or or can you do both? >> you can. in mccomb county, he talked about how he's going to give everyone a job. in detroit here, the clinton campaign virtually abandoned this state. bernie sanders won the pry naer in 2016. the next day hillary clinton was not here. they abandoned this state and she only came here during the

weekend of the election which was too late. i think it's also about the message of the candidate. it's about what message the candidate has. at the end of the day economic inequality cuts across race. trump talked about economic inequality in warren. detroit is the belly of the beast when it comes to economic inequality. i hope democrats do not repeat the mistakes of 2016. >> there's been enough analysis done to say this isn't enough just to talk up his base. but you have white men, i think white women and even women in rural areas and small towns are going to be a big target for democrats. >> appreciate you both coming in. you're going to stick with me. when we come back, some lessons from barack obama on the debate stage. the good, the bad and what mr. axelrod would agree was the ugly. you try hard, you eat right... mostly. you make time... when you can. but sometimes life gets in the way, and that stubborn fat just won't go away.

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and you'll also get this free beneficiary planner, and it's yours just for calling. so call now. close the hour today with david axelrod who was chief strategist for the barack obama presidential campaign back in 2008. your candidate was proof you can have a bad debate or three and still be president. let's have a flashback as we go back, january 2008 and the likeable enough moment. >> what can you say to the voters of new hampshire on this stage tonight who see your resume and like it but are hesitating on the likability issue, where they seem to like barack obama more? >> well, that hurts my feelings.

he's very likeable. i agree with that. i don't think i'm that bad. >> you're likeable enough, hillary, no doubt about it. >> i appreciate it. >> do you think that hurt? >> oh, there's no doubt about it. we all grimaced in our war room when we saw that because it seemed like an ungracious thing from a guy who was known to be gracious. and we were ahead going into new hampshire, we lost by two points. i think without that moment, we may have -- we may have creeped across the finish line. >> you could have won that. you would have won iowa and new hampshire and that would have been it. instead you had the protracted race. that race, think back, got a little testy at times so this is kind of a blood bath moment. >> you talked about admiring ronald reagan and you talked about the ideas -- >> while i was working on those streets watching those folks see their jobs shipped overseas, you were a corporate lawyer sitting

on the poured of walmart. >> you talked about ronald reagan being a transformative political leader. i did not mention his name. >> your husband did. >> well, i did not. >> i can't tell who i'm running against sometimes. >> you had one-on-one and by that point there was a lot of tension. >> john edwards was on the stage. the myrtle beach, south carolina, and south carolina primary was huge. they backed up the truck and let everything go. it was quite different than many of the other debates. >> so when you hear sanders and warren don't want to go at each other, at some point whether you want to do it or not, it happens. >> there is a physics to all of this, yes. >> that's a good way to put it, i guess. thanks for watching us on "inside politics" as we get ready for the debates here. don't go anywhere, as we prepare for the debates here in detroit, we're going to go talk to some voters. brianna keilar starts right now. have a great afternoon.

i'm brianna keilar live from cnn's washington headquarters. under way right now, three dead in california by a gunman opening fire on a crowd at a festival. a 6-year-old boy among the victims. police took down the shooter, but a second suspect may be on the loose. and racism as a political strategy. aides close to the presidency the politics of hate as a winning message. plus president trump nominates a staunch loyalist to be in charge of america's biggest secrets. and just before the cnn debate, kamala harris, who's delivered mixed messages on health care finally unveils her plan and her rivals pounce. first, more on our breaking news. another deadly mass shooting in america. this time in the small town of gilroy, california, at a popular food festival. any moment now we are expecting to get an update from officials who are on the hunt for a possible second suspect. looking at