that these sort of rollbacks will be challenged. they have questions about it. shell, for example, specifically saying that they're going to continue to operate in a way that would roll back the use of these sort of emissions. they plan on working to cap these emissions because they understand the impact on the environment, fred. >> all right. we'll leave it there. rene marsh, thanks so much. i'm fredricka whitfield. thanks for joining us. "inside politics" with dana bash starts right now. welcome to "inside politics." i'm dana bash. john king is off today. it's days away from hitting, but getting stronger by the minute. dorian now forecast to be a category 4 hurricane with florida in its crosshairs. james comey is on the defensive today after the justice department's watchdog concludes the fired fbi director violated agency policy and set a dangerous example by leaking

memos about his meetings with the president. and shut out of the democrats' next debate and nearly out of money, kirsten gillibrand bows out of the 2020 race, but others outside the top ten are still hoping their message catches on. >> there are a lot more lovers than haters in this country. and that does not mean to me saying, oh, okay, and going home just because the dnc says to. not now. it's too early in the process. what i feel, what i feel when i am around the country, people are processing, people are thinking. >> a lot of news to get to this hour. we begin with hurricane dorian, threatening the entire state of florida. dorian swept through the british and u.s. virgin islands and sideswiped puerto rico on wednesday, lashing the islands with dangerous winds and heavy rainfall. and now the storm is moving across warm and open waters, gathering strength. florida's governor has already declared a state of emergency

and dorian could become a category 4 strength before it hits florida early monday. president trump says the state is prepared. >> we were ready in puerto rico and we're very ready also in florida. the bad news is it looks like it's going to be making a turn into florida. it looks, i don't know with certainty, but according to the folks over at weather, they seem to think it's going to be making a pretty decisive turn into florida. >> the president's name sake business empire, the trump organization, owns 11 properties in florida. let's go live to meteorologist chad meyers at the cnn weather center. chad, what's the latest? >> yeah, the most troublesome part of this last forecast is category 4 status at 130 miles per hour making landfall in florida. it will make landfall first in the bahamas and a

130-mile-per-hour storm in the bahamas will do significant damage there as well. somewhere plus or minus a couple hundred miles from the space coast north or south is where it will make landfall on labor day monday. if your plans are to go to florida friday, you know what, they're going to kick you out on saturday. today would be a real good day to cancel those plans and get your money back if you can. 75 miles per hour right over orlando sometime during the day on tuesday. that's only 100 miles in 24 hours. so once this thing makes landfall, it's going to sit there for a very long time and rain and rain and rain. so there's dorian. what else came out of this area? irma, frances, jean, hugo. warm water, no shear, lots of open ocean, no mountains in the way. this is going to get bigger. every single model says so. there's nothing that even says, you know what, this isn't going to happen. hurricane hunter in there just now, 89 miles per hour they founding. so we were 85, now they're

finding slightly higher. the european model much farther south than the american model. dangerously close to miami-dade on the european model where the gfs or the american model closer to the space coast at landfall. it is a storm that's gathering strength. it isn't that circular saw blade that you sometimes see. there's a little bit of dry air coming up into the storm right there from the south. i suspect that that will stop and this will become that major hurricane that is forecast for sure. dana. >> thank you so much for that, chad. and communities from the florida keys up to southeast georgia are keeping a very close eye on the storm and preparing. ben mallick is the mayor of cocoa beach and joins me live now. mayor, your community has been hit before, just a couple of years ago hurricane irma. what is your prehurricane checklist for dorian?

>> hi, dana. unfortunately we're well versed in these events. we pretty much have been meeting with staff and city officials all day. basically we have our firehouse which was newly built and serves as our emergency operations center so it's almost like a military position type event and just getting all the plans and getting ready for this event. hopefully it will burn a little further and i pray that we get spared. if not, we'll have all the plans that we need to have in place to hopefully get through it. >> and you obviously have to deal with the infrastructure, the residents there, but you're a tourist destination. millions of people visit cocoa beach every year. what's the plan to keep them updated on the latest forecast and warnings? >> we certainly have social media. cocoa beach has a facebook page, twitter, we have an emergency operations center where people

can get information via text and the web there as well. we just, you know, hopefully as we keep monitoring this, if we're told to evacuate, we really hope people will pay heed and evacuate. we are a barrier island that is surrounded by water. >> let's hope so for sure. thank you for that, and the fact that you have a military precision-like plan in place, i'm sure people in your city there are breathing a sigh of relief. we'll be in touch with you, thank you, mayor ben malik. brian mcnulty is the senior hurricane researcher at the university of miami who also works for "the washington post." brian, you've been researching hurricanes for 18 years, i believe. you're looking at these models and forecasts. how is this storm different from others? >> hi. well, it's -- for the time of year, it's not all that different. this is, of course, the peak of

hurricane season and this is a system that came from africa. so in that regard it's not too different. what is different about it is if it does end up hitting, say, the central to northern coast of florida, that's a very rare spot for hurricanes to hit just because of the way the coast curves. it's happened before, but it's uncommon. so most -- most hurricanes that are located where this one is right now actually recurved before they hit the u.s. there's a few exceptions to that and they're all storm names that we know, unfortunately. >> you're quoted in "the washington post" today about the forecast cone of uncertainty becoming a cone of confusion. what does that mean? >> yeah, i think in general people tend to misunderstand what the cone of uncertainty is. it does say at the top of it if you look at that, it is not to

be an impact cone. so being inside or outside of that line doesn't suddenly make you safe or unsafe. it's really just meant to represent a historical likelihood where the center of the storm might track. and it's only a two-thirds likelihood at that. >> i have to ask about the climate crisis. you are an expert in this. how has the climate crisis made hurricanes like the one we are seeing on the screen right now more dangerous? >> in general, i don't think it has to a large degree. we haven't seen a large signal in storms becoming more frequent or stronger yet. probably the largest impact we see from year to year is as the ocean levels have risen, of course. so anywhere along the coast might experience storm surge now that wouldn't have before.

or places that would have before will have it worse now. >> okay. well, that sounds like an impact. thank you so much for your expertise. appreciate it, brian mcnulty. up next, james comey is facing a tough report from the justice department's inspector general who says the ex-fbi director violated agency policies. that's after a break. those darn seatbelts got me all crumpled up. that's ok! hey, guys! hi mrs. patterson... wrinkles send the wrong message. sorry. help prevent them before they start with new downy wrinkleguard.

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the justice department's inspector general concludes fired fbi director james comey violated bureau policies by sharing memos documenting his meetings with president trump. the i.g. report states comey set a dangerous example for the over 35,000 current fbi employees and the many thousands more former fbi employees who similarly have access to or know of nonpublic information. now, remember, comey testified to congress that he released those memos with a very specific purpose. listen. >> i asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter. i didn't do it myself for a variety of reasons, but i asked him to because i thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel. so i asked a close friend of mine to do it. >> the i.g. report went on to say that, quote, comey had several other lawful options available to him to advocate for the appointment of a special counsel, which he told us was

his goal in making the disclosure. now, despite those conclusions, prosecutors declined to bring a case against comey. here with us to share their reporting and insights, carl hulse with "the new york times," tarini, shimon prokupecz and margaret talev with axios. let's start there, shimon, since you're resident expert here at cnn on all things fbi. what do you think the reason is that the fbi isn't going after comey in a -- charging him? >> it was ultimately up to the department of justice. the inspector general here made their finds, made their referral to the department of justice. ultimately when the department of justice looked at everything, they said there's not enough here to bring any kind of charges against the former fbi director. i think one of the key things here is that, yes, he violated policy, the fbi's policy on releasing sensitive information, internal information, that's very clear.

but it's not so clear on the classified aspects of it. in fact it appears from the inspector general's report that he didn't release any classified information to the media, and those memos were classified after the fact. so what happened is after comey writes these memos, these memos get out there, the fbi then takes a look at these memos and said there's a couple of words here, a couple of things that should be classified on the lowest level, confidential. so they looked at everything at the department of justice. given all the facts, they decided there wasn't enough to bring charges against the former fbi director. >> i think jim comey made his peace with this a long time ago. i mean this is on balance somewhere between neutral and good news for him. it means there's not a lot of ammunition if the president wanted to try to pursue something on the classified or, quote, leak front. but, you know, this has certainly had reputational implications for jim comey. it's created divisions and changed his reputation.

but in his view, i think he thought it was worth staking his reputation on this. he felt that his goal was more important than the fallout over that. what's the point of having a decades-long reputation if you can't use it for something. he thought putting the president in check, i guess, or taking that stand during the campaign was more important and this just means that there's not going to be kind of a leak investigation. >> comey basically said in a tweet today, a few tweets, he said doj i.g. found no evidence that comey or his attorneys released any of the classified information contained in any of the memos to members of the media. this is comey speaking. i don't need a public apology from those who defamed me, but a quick message with a sorry, we lied about you would be nice. and to all those who spent two years talking to me going to jail or being a liar and leaker, ask yourselves why you still trust people who gave you bad info for so long, including the president. >> i don't think this is going to stop those same people from

attacking james comey. they are going to say there are violations here. he broke departmental policy. this is all part of the cover-up. it probably is good for the former director that he's not going to be charged with a crime. but the same arguments are going to be made against him now, i think. >> it does seem like there's something in this report for everyone, for both sides, and they're going to continue to make those points that they have been for the last two years now, so everyone will go back to their political corners and keep regurgitating those same talking points. >> i don't think he's going to get his apology. >> and here's a republican who -- john kennedy, who was on this morning on fox, is somebody who is a partisan republican but sometimes calls it like it is. in this case he was being pretty partisan. listen to what he said. >> just because it's not criminal in the opinion of the department of justice doesn't mean it's not sleazy. now, in terms of mr. comey's

response, i think it's pretty apparent to the american people at this juncture that mr. comey is not exactly mensa material. he never should have been appointed the head of the fbi. >> as i was saying -- >> as you were saying. but to be fair, this is what comey said when he testified back in june of 2017 about keeping the memos, why he did it. >> i created records after conversations and i think i did it after each of our nine conversations. if i didn't, i did it for nearly all of them, especially the ones that were substantive. i knew there would come a day where i would need a record of what had happened, not just to defend myself but to defend the fbi and our integrity as an institution and the independence of our investigative function. >> how does that play in the fbi, shimon? i'm trying to help the fbi, not hurt the fbi. >> initially i think people were on comey's side. for months people initially inside the fbi, senior level

people were all on comey's side. but slowly, as the drama started to unfold and more information was getting out, people started to turn on comey. i don't think he has the support of some of the high-level people that he once did at the fbi. even the rank and file. i think people were very upset he did this the way he did it. in comey's mind, and this is comey, he has a history of doing this. he felt he couldn't trust anybody. he couldn't go to anyone in the administration about this, at the department of justice. jeff sessions was the attorney general who he didn't trust. he didn't trust rod rosenstein who was the deputy attorney general at the time. he couldn't raise these concerns to anyone internally. his ultimate goal was to get a special counsel appointed. so he does this, he gets this out there, he gets this information out into the public sphere. and then what does rod rosenstein do? immediately turns around and appoints a special counsel. so i think looking back, i think people internally at the fbi

certainly are not happy this is how this played out. the other thing, i think there's going to be some changes as a result of all of this in the end. remember, there's another inspector general report coming out that has to deal more with the russia investigation. likely some changes after that at the fbi. >> to your pointiuyour point, c graham tweeted out this is the first of what i expect will be several more ugly and damning rebux of senior fbi officials regarding their actions and biases toward the trump campaign of 2016. neither side is letting go the political pluses they see in keeping the story alive. >> comey has managed to do almost the impossible. he's irritated the democrats with hillary clinton and the republicans with this. and i think what really gets a lot of people about this, and i don't know what you would say, is that in both cases there was a lot of protecting jim comey involved. he was doing certain things to cover himself later.

and i think that that has had a negative reaction among people. >> and yet we did have the special counsel's investigation. i mean it's impossible to divorce the steps that he took and i think thought through first from everything that's happened since. as exhausted as you were and all of us were by the special counsel investigation, that became an important part of the history of this presidency. >> certainly did. this was his goal. ultimately he got what he wanted. and you do make a good point. comey did want to protect himself. he said he wanted to protect the fbi and the investigation. >> and you can do both at the same time, to be fair. everybody stand by. the president in a fox news radio interview answers critics from his own party who say his trade war is hurting the economy. at fid we believe your money should always be working harder. that's why, your cash automatically goes into a money market fund when you open a new account. just another reminder of the value you'll find at fidelity. open an account today.

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the president often goes it alone and follows his gut, but today new signs he at least is hearing some republican dissenters. in a fox news radio interview, the president put a number, 8,600 on the u.s. troop presence in afghanistan. that after big warnings that a complete and total exit could help revive isis and al qaeda and put the u.s. homeland at risk. as for the china trade war, that's another issue where republicans in congress question the wisdom of what the white house is doing.

one of the objectors is pennsylvania senator pat toomey who told politico there is no question that the trade uncertainty is contributing to the slowdown. the danger is where are we going to be a year from now. if concerns about trade continue to be an irritant to growth. asked about toomey's concerns, trump shied away from personally insulting toomey, which is sometimes unusual. instead he asked if not now and not me, who will take on china? >> so what does pat toomey wanting me to do? does he want me to say let me put my hands up, china, and continue to rip us off. tell pat -- i like pat. tell pat continue to rip us off. let me give up right now, china, even though we're winning. let me give up right now. but when pat toomey says, oh, i don't like that, that only means one thing. that means raise your hands and get used to paying $500 billion a year to china, plus, plus,

plus. >> i hear ya. >> and josh jammerson with "the wall street journal" joins us now. that was one of the most articulate arguments that the president has made for what he is doing with china, if not now when and why not and i should be the person to do it. but pat toomey is not the only person on capitol hill in the president's own party who is saying, okay, we're done with this, because it's really hurting the economy. ron johnson of wisconsin, joni ernst has said that and others. so is this squeeze plus the fact that the economy, the economic numbers are showing what his approval and the actual economic numbers are showing that it is hurting? how much is the white house hearing that, carl? >> i think what you have is the senators are looking -- they're looking at their electoral map right now and this is really tough for them. they really wanting to hold on to the senate. it's going to be tough. they probably have a little advantage right now, the

republican republicans, but the states where it's going to be played out, this is the kind of stuff that is hurting them so they want to back out of this. if not now, they want not now. they want later. and the farmers especially, you're starting to hear more and more from the farm states. you know, this is really hurting us. they're worried. and plus they're by nature free traders. pat toomey certainly. i think pat toomey is probably pretty happy, though, that's how the president talked about him. >> exactly. i was waiting for -- i was listening, waiting for -- >> that was actually good. but i think they're looking down -- i mean when they say what's it going to be a year from now? what's a year from now? the real election. so i think that's on their minds. >> i think it's also interesting that the republicans on the hill, one of the things they can look past the tweets sometimes and look past the rhetoric as long as the economy is doing well, as long as they feel like they're getting the things, their priorities like tax cuts and conservative judges. but when we see things like

today the economy, gdp being revised down for the last quarter, consumers are still spending, corporate profits are still doing fine but the exports are down and weighing on the economy. so when does the trade war start to impact how the republicans on the hill are willing to look past some of the other stuff. >> you mentioned exports are down. this is something that the president said which is a fair point which is china knows what it's doing with this trade war and targeting the key areas that matter to the president and republicans electorally. listen to what he said. >> what i did is i gave the farmers $12 billion the previous year, $16 billion this year to make up because the farmers have been targeted. that's how vicious they play the game, they actually target because they know that the farmers like trump and trump loves the farmers actually. i love what they do, they're incredible people. they don't want any subsidiesub they don't want handouts, but they know something has to be done with china and they're with

me all the way. >> i thought the president's defense was very interesting because when i was in iowa talking to farmers, the ones still supporting the president, what they pointed out is he said he's going to take on china and he's doing it for us. we'll have negative impact in the short term but in the long term he's doing what he said and that's exactly what he said in the radio interview. i'm the one taking on china. if not me, who else? and that's something that his base at least feels very comfortable with. >> there's another issue that is really splitting the president from most republicans on capitol hill and elsewhere, and that is the ukraine. sources say the white house is considering blocking $250 million in military assistance earmarked for that country. most republicans view a strong ukraine as a big check on russia and vladimir putin's influence and the investment as a deterrent for putin expanding power to ukraine. so that is another issue. the president said today on other issues that it's pretty

clear that he has taken putin's side. maybe not today as much as at the g-7 on the issue of the ukraine. >> yeah. i think on this issue we'll need to hear more from the president or perhaps even better john bolton or both of them on their thinking as this goes forward. there may be some china implications to this foreign policy kind of calculus, but as it relates to russia, and it clearly does, whether that's the intent or not, there are a lot of republicans in congress as well as the american people as well as the national security advisor who are not particularly comfortable with a stance that is too generous towards russia right now. >> can you imagine if a democratic president said i'm just going to think about taking military assistance away from ukraine, which effectively means empowering vladimir putin, what republicans would do? >> i think people on the hill would go again with the russians, what is the deal? and i think this is an issue where they have consistently

pushed back against the president. mitch mcconnell doesn't like the moscow mitch nickname and part of his pushback against that is look at how hard i've been on russia over the years. i think the president is going to run into real trouble. >> they have put him in a box already, i read about that. everybody stand by. up next, general james mattis is providing details on why he couldn't stay as president trump's defense secretary. stay with us. an, if you haven't thought about switching to geico, frankly, you're missing out. uh... the mobile app makes it easy to manage your policy, even way out here. your marshmallow's... get digital id cards, emergency roadside service, even file a... whoa. whoa. whoa. whoa. whoa. whoa! oops, that cheeky little thing got away from me. my bad. geico. it's easy to manage your policy whenever, wherever. can i trouble you for another marshmallow?

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topping our political radar today, 2020 hopeful senator kamala harris unveiled a plan for americans with disabilities. it focuses on employment through

access to education and social programs. the proposal comes soon after a drop in polls for her campaign. now, cnn's latest national poll shows her tied for fourth at 5% after clocking in at second place with 17% in june. harris' campaign says on this plan that she is the only candidate with a proposal focused exclusively on people with disabilities. now, in response to british prime minister boris johnson's announcement of a five-week suspension of parliament, opposition leader jeremy corbyn says the government is trying to, quote, undermine and damage our democracy. another labor leader says many peers in the house of lords are prepared to work through the night to block a no-deal brexit. and former defense secretary james mattis is explaining in stark terms why he left his post in the trump administration but stopped short of criticizing the president. here's what he told "the atlantic." he said you don't endanger the

country by attacking the elected commander in chief. i may not like the commander in chief one fricking bit but our system puts the commander in chief there and i want people to understand why i couldn't stay. interesting. carl, i will tell people what you were saying in the break about the subtly of james mattis and whether you think that's going to break through in the trump era. >> i think he was trying to say a lot without saying a lot. i think people get it. but obviously i also think people wish he would be a lot more forceful. he commands huge respect in washington, in the military and in that establishment. and i think people -- they know he was very unhappy, did not trust the president to make proper decisions. in that story he says he was worried if trump got away from him a minute or so on north korea. it's a little bit like the mueller report. they expect you to read between the lines and this is not particularly a lines between

era. >> and this is not just a government report -- this is not a government report, this is a book he wants people to buy. >> exactly. i do wonder how, you know, if i'm him and looking at the people that have come out and done similar things, how far it would even go in making a dent in -- you know, what's the purpose of doing it? i'm sure his calculus is probably all over the place. >> you don't see anything as strong as the statement that he put out when he actually left. >> exactly. >> he seems to be the type of person that doesn't want to get into a twitter war. >> everybody stand by. up next, the stage, singular, is set with more than half of the candidates for 2020 on the democratic side missing. some of them are crying foul, but is it really fair? we'll talk about it next. at t-mobile, what can you get when you a buy a samsung galaxy note 10? a netflix subscription on us. and for a limited time. buy any samsung galaxy note 10 and get one samsung galaxy note 10 for free.

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the houston debate for september is officially set, and with that a clarifying moment for at least one candidate. kirsten gillibrand announced the end of her presidential campaign last night after failing to qualify for the next debate and facing a rapidly dwindling war chest. the new york senator acknowledged, quote, it's important to know how you can best serve, adding let's go beat donald trump and win back the senate. now, little more than half of the democratic field missed the

cut to be on the debate stage two weeks from tonight. explaining that to voters will be important, probably as important to this campaign for them as it enters a new phase. congresswoman tulsi gabbard responded by blaming the democratic national committee. >> there's a lot of questions that have been and are continuing to be raised around those qualifications. there's no explanation or transparency around why certain polls are qualifying while other very credible, recognized polls are somehow not qualifying. >> before we discuss this, i just want to show what a spokesperson for the dnc said. she said the dnc is asking candidates to reach 2% in four polls. that is not high at all. there have been 21 qualifying polls, that is 21 opportunities to reach 2% in four polls. that's not hard. i want to show you what a former

dnc spokesperson said. if you are a few months before the iowa caucuses and can't get 130,000 donors and can't crack 2% in a couple of polls, that's on you. there's an appetite to start being able to focus on the candidates who have demonstrated the most movement in this race. >> i think the big thing that democratic voters want to see is electability. whether or not whoever they nominate can beat donald trump. if you're not on that debate stage, how do you make that electability argument. it gets tough if you can't get those numbers up in the polls and cross those donor thresholds it gets harder and harder to make that argument. i think we'll see some candidates make the same calculation that kirsten gillibrand did, which is to drop out now rather than keep trying to make it on the debate stage when you really can't hit those thresholds. >> clearly she didn't drop out for lack of money because she had $8 million in the bank or something like that. i think whether the party wanted to win on the field or not, that's the practical effect

they're having. when we talked to tom perez before the first set of debates, he said that he was kind of comfortable in the referee role. that in this very crowded field someone was going to have to call balls and strikes. >> at one point kirsten gillibrand did have a pretty good war chest. i think she burned through a lot of it. but the point is that there are other candidates, michael bennet and others who are facing the same issue who are not making the debate stage who have a little bit more money. money buys you time to somehow find a way to catch fire. >> i think for bennet and bullock in particular, they hold special roles in this contest. they were late to enter, but they're also from the west. they have executive experience. they just have different segments of the democratic party. they'll probably hang in there a little bit longer. but even when you talk about the coverage of this contest now, you talk about it in terms of three candidates or maybe five candidates, right? it's biden, it's warren, it's bernie sanders, it's buttigieg

and it's kamala harris and then you talk about the rest of the field. maybe that isn't fair, but i think the life isn't fair argument -- what does it get you? you're trying to win the nomination for president so you can run in the general election. you have to put on your big kid pants and do it. >> what do you think about kirsten gillibrand dropping out. she's a sitting united states senator from a state that has a lot of people with a lot of money? >> i do think and we've talked about this, her position on al franken hurt her with some of the party and she had to overcome that with some donors. al franken, no matter what happened, was beloved in some of that progressive community. i agree with margaret, i think you'll see bennet and bullock focus on iowa. they want to say iowa is the first big test. but you're literally being defined as a second tier candidate and that's hard to

overcome. >> i think the problem with someone like bennet or bullock, they are hoping to be the moderate alternative to joe biden. what we're seeing in polls, the voters who are not supporting joe biden, who are going to other candidaes, they're moving to an elizabeth warren or even a bernie sanders rather than a more moderate option. >> he's got the more moderate democratic voters. everybody stand by because a redo election is going on, at least the campaign, in north carolina. but first look at this, joe biden just moments ago might have found a new running mate if he gets the nomination. watch this. >> as president, how will you fix the damage donald trump has caused? >> by making you vice president.

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this is the family who wanted to connect... to go where they could explore and experience adventure in unexpected places... ♪ who were inspired by different cultures ♪ and found that the past can create new memories... leading them to discover: we're woven together by the moments we share. for everywhere you go, expedia has everything you need, all in one place. there is still an undecided election from the 2018 midterms last year, and now very much a preview of 2020. north carolina's ninth district has a do-over election next month after november's results were thrown out after allegations of election fraud by a gop operative. now, it's a traditionally red district. the president won there by 11 points in 2016, but the margin

has practically disappeared. at least that's what it looked like in november of last year. now, republicans are increasingly looking at this as a must-win election because of how much it portends for 2020. they flooded the state with nearly $4 million to boost the republican candidate, dan bishop, and they're pulling out the big guns, the trumps. >> we're here to prove that we can keep winning, that we can keep fighting, that we can keep instilling american values for americans, for the people of north carolina, because those are things we hold dear. this is a winning track record that we need to perpetuate. that's why we need more people who are willing to fight. that's why i need you out there fighting for dan. >> this is going to sound crazy, but it's not that they really need to win, they just really need to not lose. >> exactly. it's both sides too. obviously i think if the democrats walk away with that seat, that's a huge loss for

republicans. at the same time, if the democrats can't get turnout near to where it was in 2018, what does that say about their electorate heading into 2020. are democrats in the suburbs or voters in the suburbs as likely to vote democrat as they were in '18. >> and it's not just the number and whether this big trump the subjects that they're also- talking about and the messaging that's going on. >> gun violence, health insurance. >> diane gallagher has been down there and she talked to the republican candidate, dan bishop. here's how that went. >> is a vote for dan bishop, a vote for donald trump? >> i certainly will go to washington and work very aggressively to help president trump. >> do you feel like you're running against dan bishop or do you feel like you're running against donald trump? >> well, i'm running against dan bishop. unfortunately for him, he's not running against a socialist, he's running against a capitalist who's built a business from scratch.

>> that was dan mccready, the democrat there. >> he's also a veteran, which is what democrats are really emphasizing this time. this is a big race. we always overinterpret special elections but this one has real potential. if the democrats can win that, it shows that the suburban voters, trump has lost them. he has really pushed health care, which was their winning issue in 2018, and we'll see if that still has the power that it did back then. >> i don't know, i'm going to disagree with you there. i think more times than not we interpret the special election the right way because it pour tendings -- sometimes it doesn't go that way. >> i've blown a few. >> it will have some impact based on how republicans down ballot decide to campaign, how much they nationalize their races and how much they distance themselves potentially from donald trump based on how this race potentially turns out. >> and the suburban thing is really incorporamportant. it's not just where it is in the electoral map, it's where the

district is. >> if suburban voters in the south are turning on republicans, they have a real problem. >> thanks, everybody, for joining us. thank you for tuning in to "inside politics." brianna keilar starts right now. i'm brianna keilar live from cnn's washington headquarters. under way right now, hurricane dorian poised to hit florida as a category 4 storm and everything from disney world to mar-a-lago is in its path. the president considers yet another move that would please vladimir putin. plus, why the trump administration wants to add automatic citizenship for the children of some members of the military and civilians serving the u.s. overseas. and the former defense secretary says the president's actions left him no choice but to quit, and james mattis didn't stop there. we begin with o