welcome to "inside politi politics." i'm john king. thank you for sharing your day with us. a new face on the 2020 debate stage. mike bloomberg qualifies for a showdown in nevada, a test for his ability to mix it up and for those being burned out by his staggering spending. the vermont senator leading big in a new national poll and he hopes for nevada this weekend to cement him as the democratic

frontrunner. and the former president, barack obama, shares a reminder that the longest expansion began on his watch. >> we have a solid economy here. the economy is doing great. if you lived through the obama years, which everybody watching this show did, they remember what it was like. >> it's a good economy now. it's a great economy now. all i'm asking you, wasn't it a good economy then as well? that's all i'm asking you. >> no, it wasn't. it was a poor economy during the obama years. >> back to that a little bit later, but we begin the hour with a slightly more crowded debate stage in nevada. this morning the former new york city mayor michael bloomberg qualifying for his first democratic debate. the poll shows bloomberg second

only to bernie sanders. tomorrow night is a key test for bloomberg, his first debate in this campaign. he is expected to be asked about women's issues, race and his time as mayor. he said, our crowds continue to grow and our coalition continue to broaden. there's a desire in every corner of this country for a proven leader, for someone who will stand up to bullies and special interests and get things done. that person is mike bloomberg, and we look forward to more americans seeing that on wednesday night. jeff zeleny, this changes things. >> reporter: it certainly does. he's been shaping his own narrative. he's been introducing himself largely through an unprecedented amount of ad spending, more than $4 million alone into finding his narrative. that is going to change tomorrow evening here in las vegas.

we're already seeing what the other candidates are doing. bernie sanders is taking great delight in this as well. he is using mayor bloomberg as something of a foil to point out what he views as being wrong with billionaires, what he views as being wrong with this policy. the question here for mayor bloomberg. he has been planning for this debate for quite some time, but can he execute it? this is something we see in cycle after cycle. it takes a while for most candidates to get used to the debating format. it takes a while for most candidates to get in the rhythm of presidential debates. by now most of them have practiced and they have nine under his belt. for bloomberg this is his first one, but how he chooses to engage others, how others choose to engage him will be defining going forward. but it also means troublesome for others. it means less time for pete buttigieg, less time for amy klobuchar or joe biden. no question all of the incoming is going to be directed at michael bloomberg, but he's not a novice at politics or policy

as well, so going forward, this is going to be, a, a determining factor into how much of a presence he will be with bernie sanders. are they going head to head here, or are others going to get a lick in as well? so, john, certainly a surprise development that most of us expected, but it will make that debate here in nevada tomorrow evening more interesting. >> with me in the studio to share their insights, julie pace with the associated press, michael bender with the "wall street journal", npr. what are the stakes for michael bloomberg? >> i mean, there is a lot at stake, in major part because thus far he's been able to present his views without any competition. he's not a candidate who does a lot of open town halls with q

and as from voters. i am curious to the degree to which he has to engage with his rivals and engage with them in a kind of limited format, right? these are not extemporaneous long form speeches that he can deliver. to some degree also, it's also a chance for voters to actually get a glimpse of him. beyond the television advertisements, most folks don't have a clear sense of who he is. >> so the test for most democrats when they meet them around the country, which can best bring donald trump down? anti-st anti-establishment, anti big money bernie sanders loves this. >> mr. bloomberg, like the rest of us, have a right to run for president. he does not have the right to buy the presidency! we say to mr. bloomberg, you are certainly not going to win when you have a record in new york

city that included racist policies like stop and frisk. >> you can see two of the many tracks that are going to come at michael bloomberg on this debate stage. sanders is going to say, you're trying to buy it, we don't like that in the democratic party, and i think, more importantly, to try to get to the substance of the record as mayor. stop and frisk, other issues as mayor, to try to make the case. now us you have a new criminal justice plan, now you say you're sorry, now you say you learned your lesson, but this is your record. >> this is coming at an important time of the democratic cycle where we're starting to see more minority voters, particularly black voters in south carolina and those who will get their say in the mostly white states. michael bloomberg's money is just a cap to it. bernie sanders has gone after all the billionaires and now

he's got one on stage. elizabeth warren has chosen in a lot of these debates to be more constrained, she hasn't been comfortable, really, to go after her rivals. will she use this as an opportunity to try to make a last stand in her own campaign? >> a tweet from senator warren saying, mike bloomberg's example of stop and frisk devastated black and brown communities. for years, he used racial justifications to defend the practice and more comments are already resurfacing. we need a nominee that democratic voters can trust. >> i know bernie sanders talks about you shouldn't be able to buy this race. i don't know how much voters care about that, because he's spending his money to beat donald trump, right? i think that argument falls short. we saw that argument fall short when bloomberg was attacked on that in new york. there was a similar line of

attack his opponents took on him in those races. it didn't make a difference. but one of the underreported things i think in this bloomberg campaign so far is that he really doesn't like to get pushed around. when he's challenged by reporters, mike bloomberg sort of has the data for his answers and there is sort of no challenge in that. and it's easy to push him off a script or -- and he doesn't follow his handlers, and on some of the stop and frisk issues and racism questions that came up in the last week, he strayed very quickly from the script his campaign put out. his stump speech is very short, and that part might actually translate well on a debate stage unless he's pushed by some of his challengers. >> i was going to say his democratic rivals, their campaigns are telling us they're going to try to get under his skin, that they're going to try to rattle him. i think the question for

bloomberg is can he keep his cool? does he get irritated at some of these questions and lose his temper? that's going to be the challenge for bloomberg because he wants to show he can fight trump and he can take it to trump, but there is a risk at being too aggressive in lashing out at some of these democratic candidates. they want to see their candidates fight against trump, but they don't necessarily want to see them pummelling each other. >> and the question is how do you explain your past? in the case of bernie sanders, he was once an nra guy, anti-gun control. he said, i was from rural vermont, i was voting with my con constituent yents and thstc learned my lesson. michael bloomberg is trying to make the same case saying i learned my lesson, it was different then. he has a lot to answer for, essentially bragging about stop and frisk, saying you send the cops in the neighborhoods and you push the kids up against the wall. the tone of that was hard to explain. these things happen. people find your record. this is on the so-called

practice of redlining, which is whether or not to loan money into poor communities. >> redlining, if you remember, was the term where banks took hold of neighborhoods and said, people in these neighborhoods are poor, they're not going to be able to pay off their mortgages, tell them you're salesmen, don't go into those areas. then congress got involved, local elected officials as well, and they said, that's not fair, these people should be able to get credit. once you started pushing in that direction, banks started making more and more loans where the credit of the person buying the house wasn't as good as you would like. >> he goes on to make the case that that was part of the 2008 financial collapse. it sounds like a very clinical answer there. to some people it also sounds incredibly insensitive. >> his whole theory of his electability is the notion that he is the only candidate besides joe biden who could theoretically do real well with voters of color.

i think some of these past statements really poke holes in that theory. there are questions of his spy surveillance program that he had as mayor. there are a whole slew of tactics he had when he was mayor of new york city. i think it poked holes that he could do well with black and brown voters. >> and he was defending stop and frisk into last year. he only decided to apologize as he was looking again to run for president, so you have to question how genuine that apology is, knowing it's not going to be popular with black voters. his campaign will point to the fact, and this is true, in some of the polls we've seen recently, some of his numbers are looking good with black voters. some of the challenges for writers are the other candidates' are not backed by glossy ads.

>> you changed your mind a couple months ago when you decide to do run for president, but he can recover unlike others who are at a crossroads, including joe biden who did not do well in iowa, did not do well in new hampshire, saying, it's only two states, everybody calm down. but biden knows going in this will be bloomberg's unveiling, if you will. a lot of attention on senator sanders because of his rise. we'll talk about those numbers in a few minutes, and joe biden is trying to gain traction back in the race. this is last night in a fundraiser in denver. he says, by the way, mayor bloomberg says the health care bill was a disaster, it's a lousy bill. but it's obamacare. >> a lot of curiosity to see how bloomberg performs in this debate, but biden needs a strong debate here, too. it's a question of what he needs to do in south carolina to make clear what his path forward is,

because right now there are a lot of questions on how he goes forward even with a strong showing in south carolina. >> there is also a risk of other candidates getting overshadowed by mayor bloomberg tomorrow who is not really on the campaign in nevada. there is a risk if they all focus on bloomberg and go after him, then they don't get as much attention on this debate and get the momentum they need. >> it will be fascinating as i suspect this will drive up interest in the debate. five presidential town halls, sanders, buttigieg, klobuchar and warren all live starting at 8:00 p.m. eastern right here on cnn. and then we have the race for the super tuesday state. with some homemade biscuits! >>oh, that's so nice! and a little tip,

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bernie sanders at your peril. he has momentum in nevada, has the resources to play when the primary calendar gets more crowded in march. and now a new national poll shows senator sanders leading the 2020 democratic pack. let's take a look at the numbers, and they're wow numbers when you think about bernie sanders. 31% now in this marist poll. a big lead over the second place michael bloomberg. joe biden at third at 15%, warren at 12, klobuchar at 9, buttigieg at 8. watch how the race has changed since december. sanders gaining nine points. bloomberg almost $4 million in spending, up 15 points. biden down nine, klobuchar down five, buttigieg. bernie sanders jumping up in the race. bloomberg does have some strength in this race and they're coming at joe biden's expense. moderates like mayor bloomberg. these are the constituencies joe

biden thought would be his when he got in this race, now he has fierce competition. bernie sanders is very strong with voters under 45, with voters with college degrees and urban voters. sanders expanding and you know what he says? everyone is nervous. >> the democratic establishment is getting nervous. you know what? they should be getting nervous and they're trying to figure out all kinds of ways, how do we stop bernie and the movement? but they are not going to succeed. >> it is, if you look at the national numbers, again, i think too often people say, oh, yeah, sanders. he's got this group over here but he can't get anywhere. i forgot to introduce nathan is with us. i can't ask you a question without saying hello. nathan gonzalez, publisher for "inside elections" joins the

conversation. there is this tendency. we did it in 2016 and people say, yeah, bernie has his group, but. we better drop the "but." >> looking at last year, two of the consistent polling numbers were biden and sanders. they were consistently one and two. what we're seeing now is what we thought it was going to happen in that biden was going to struggle in early states. but what we're figuring out is what is the real life impact of that? that is biden going down and sanders increasing. i think there are some comparisons to 2016 where candidate donald trump didn't have a majority of the vote until well into the process, but he had a hard-core 25, 30%. the key difference from 2016 in the republican race is because of the proportional allocation of delegates, it's going to be hard for bernie to get a majority when you're only getting a certain percentage. if he doesn't win the nomination, he's going to be in this race for a very long time. >> in an odd way, it's hard for other candidates to stay in when you think if you get out,

sanders will go up. but then the issue then is he's still getting the most delegates. >> it's a real dilemma. i actually talked to a couple people who worked for jeb bush's campaign in 2016 because they were working the same issues with trump, and at that time the moderates figured, maybe trump's numbers won't go up, but they also found out winning begets momentum. that's what i would watch with senator sanders. we've worked on this assumption that his group of voters may be loyal but he can't grow. i think he does have the potential to keep growing if his results continue to keep looking good. >> that's been the other issue for bernie sanders is we all talk about how much more difficult it will be for bernie to beat trump. but this poll, as other national polls have shown, sanders is beating trump pretty close to what the other candidates are. biden is plus 6, bloomberg is plus 4 over trump, but biden is

plus 3. >> sanders is competitive, without a doubt. now let's take it from the national poll into the state polling. we should be careful, i'm going to be a broken record on this, we pick presidents state-by-state. national polls tell you about the trends in the race, they don't tell you who is going to win. but sanders won new hampshire. most people think he's leading in nevada, there hasn't been new polling, but a lot of people on the ground say he has momentum there. then you come to super tuesday. among the states in super tuesday, virginia. there used to be a purple state and a red state, but bloomberg and sanders on top here. everywhere you look, sanders is there, competitive. everywhere. >> there is a couple reasons. i did some reporting last summer on how so much thought was that the progressive movement would splinter between elizabeth warren, bernie sanders and maybe julian castro. now you look at some of those same progressive groups and they've largely aligned behind bernie sanders. to me that's been an amazing shift. to your point i think a lot of

folks thought bernie sanders had a ceiling. i think time and time again what we've seen is that ceiling seems to be a lot higher than many journalists thought initially. i would argue that his campaign, his base of voters is a lot more diverse than what we saw in 2016. you talked about biden doing well with people of color. he seems to do well with older african-american voters. il bernie sanders doing better with african-american voters and younger voters. >> this is a monmouth poll that bernie sanders is among those that consider themselves liberals. bernie sanders at 32%. but look at elizabeth warren at 11%. we use these same idealogical labels that i think a lot of them need to be flushed in today's politics. it's not how people are align g ing themselves.

they're diagnooing it with issu personal affinity. >> i go back to 2016. i think ted cruz was running the best -- he ran the best campaign for what we thought the republican party was and then candidate trump just came and swept up all this anti-establishment. i think in this race, maybe senator warren is running the best campaign for what we thought the democratic candidate really was, but bernie sanders has not just a high ceiling but in a crowded race. that's a good place to be. >> as trump turned on the governors and the senators, he didn't have a title. somehow sanders has managed, even though he's a career politician, he has somehow managed -- it's a gift to be a career politician and no one is viewed quite like him. >> you are seeing where there is just a feeling that elected

leaders in their own party didn't do enough for that. they haven't paid attention to what's really going on with health care, with education, with college debt, and that's why i think with young voters in particular, they look at washington and they just don't see anyone who represents them. he has managed to make that case to them very effectively. >> in virginia numbers among younger votes, can you turn them out, can you excite them? it's a challenge as to whether bernie sanders is bringing out new voters. 39% of those 18 to 49. he owns. if you come over here, it's a little bit more of a competition when you get to voters 65 and older. but with those younger voters, if they turn out, they are overwhelmingly for sanders. >> and we have to look at california and texas, some of these massive states voting on super tuesday. the electorate, if you're honest, seems to be favorable to a candidate like bernie sanders. you have young voters, latino voters, a lot of diverse voters.

as unclear as the map looks to me for amy klobuchar and elizabeth warren, it looks pretty clear for bernie sanders. >> i'm not going to get into the calendar because it gets really complicated. this goes from iowa, new hampshire, nevada, south carolina into a blur on super tuesday in march. it's going to be a major test for energy and enthusiasm. up next, a judge says roger stone's sentencing will go ahead as scheduled. from the president, he's sending new tweets attacking that very same judge. $9.95 at my age?

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the federal judge presiding over roger stone's case made clear today sentencing for the trump ally will go forward as scheduled on thursday. judge amy berman jackson letting attorneys from both sides know her intent on a call this morning. all happened from loud music from the president of the united states tweeting again both against the mueller investigation and again attacking judge berman jackson. sara joins us now. what did she say? >> she wanted this call to get everyone on the same page, but she made it clear she wasn't going to address the merits that roger stone has been bringing up lately. the judge opposes that motion. she just wants to say, can we

move forward? stone's attorneys were trying to get her to delay this sentencing, but as she went back and forth between stone's attorneys and the government, she decided to go ahead and schedule the sentencing on thursday. but they will be appealing, so even if roger stone spends time behind bars on thursday, he will not be detained immediately. it was interesting to watch this all play out. in the background of this case, we saw the president tweeting, we saw four attorneys involved in the case remove themselves. amy berman jackson did not address any of this in the call today. she kept it pretty short, about 15 minutes, to say, we'll see roger stone in court on thursday. >> i need the memo on how she blocks that stuff out. some of us could use that memo. it is extraordinary, i'm skbroekiskbroek i -- joking about it, but here's

a federal judge where you're under constant attack from the president of the united states, and the person you're about to sentence happens to be a friend of decades, of said president of the united states. judge jackson now has a request for a new trial, based on the bias of the foreperson of the jury. he goes on, existence of these tweets which are so harshly negative about the president and the people who support him, we would order a new trial. i'm not so sure about judge jackson, i don't know. the president tweeting other people into this. every day we're having conversations about the norms being busted, but this one, the president directly getting involved in the sentencing of a friend, and attacking personally a federal judge in the process. >> he doesn't really have legal stralt ge strategies, he has pr stra strategies. it worked for him in the

investigation into mueller, it worked for him in the impeachment trial, and now he's trying to insert himself in the legal system. maybe the judge should have simply said to the president, your tweeting is making it very difficult for me to do my job. >> you mentioned barr. they have a meeting to talk about this, saying barr is getting too involved in the day-to-day workings of the justice committee. you have people saying, you should resign, you're overstepping here. judge jackson is deciding how long to put roger stone in jail, and how soon after that might word from the president come, because interpretation is he'll pardon roger stone. >> it comes against this backdrop of the president really pushing the boundaries of the traditional independence of the justice department. he looks at bill barr as the attorney general that he has

always wanted. he has always assumed that that role was more of his lawyer, the president's lawyer, than a quasi-independent member of the cabinet, and that's why i think he's willing to put up with some of this public criticism weav'v seen of bill barr and tof the president. many say bill barr should retire. that doesn't move the president. he says, it's a deep state. they've been after me from the beginning. so officials expressing their displeasure does little to move the ball with president trump. >> and the criticism of tweets from barr is such low-hanging fruit. we hear it from republicans on capitol hill, including mitch mcconnell saying, i agree, the president should stop tweeting. barr, every step of the way, shows he's in lockstep with the president. he tapped an outside prosecutor to relook into the michael

fin -- flynn case. >> he's been busy this morning. there were prosecutors and an investigation set up a seemingly fake dossier. everything in this investigation is badly tainted and should be thrown out. it goes on and on and on. in the context of why today, knowing this roger stone hearing is happening. anything you connect to mueller, in his view, is fraudulent. >> i think another thing you want to keep an eye on is that this attorney general investigation is happeni -- thi durham investigation is happening in the background. trump believes the durham investigation will finally unlock all the difrty secrets about how the mueller investigation got started, and you can bet he'll campaign on that through november. >> for anyone who has forgotten

the drama on roger stone, he was convicted of witness tampering. he was convicted of lying to congress and whether he gave the president a heads-up and the like. he was convicted of very serious offenses here, and the president is trying to essentially say it's all b.s. >> yeah, that's right. this is the president sort of bringing us back to the mueller investigation, the russia investigation. he views this as every problem he's had in office can be traced back to the russia investigation and the missteps along the way go back to -- you know, which is, in his view, a problem of the democratic party and his democratic opponents instead of the people he surrounded himself with and how he's chosen to -- the division he's set for this administration. >> as he points the finger, it's just important to remember, plea agreements or jury verdicts from ro roger stone, michael cohen,

michael flynn, paul manafort, rick gates. we could go on. how a tweet from the former president barack obama set off what president trump calls, quote, the latest con job. come on. no. no. n... ni ni, no no! only discover has no annual fee on any card.

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topping our political radar, john bolton says he has something to say about the president of ukraine, but doing more tweeting than talking. bolton urged the white house not to suppress his upcoming back, which he says includes details of his conversations with the

president. when asked if he agreed that the phone call with the president of ukraine was perfect, bolton said, you'll love chapter 14. pam pompeo calls on china t more transparent about coronavirus. the amount tops 73,000, and more than half of china's population is living under some form of travel restriction. >> it took us too long to get the medical experts in the country. we wish that could have happened more quickly, but we are hopeful that the chinese government will increase its transparency, will continue to share this information. and trump now accusing the former president, barack obama, quote, for trying to take credit of the strong u.s. economy. this after barack obama put out a tweet after more than 11 years of signing the trade act. he was asked on cnn, why not

give credit to both presidents? >> what president trump realized was we had a structural problem. he fixed the structural problem. that set up the economic boom we're having right now, and back in the obama/biden years, it was horrible. barack obama himself said you need a magic wand to bring half a million manufacturing jobs back, and guess what? president trump was the magic wand. >> a little simple math and then you can all help me with why, why, why. the economic expansion has been underway for 126 months. that's a record. donald trump has been president for 35 or 36 months, depending how you want to do the math. 126, 36. that means it started before him. >> it's indisputable that the trend line has been going on well before president trump took office. it's stunning they would make this point because there are a lot of economic indicators that

really have taken off under trump. there are parts of this economy they can really celebrate to sort of sta stack this up as a trump versus obama thing doesn't make sense. >> you did have certain pieces of the economy that have gotten more robust, but they want full, undeniable credit for it even though the numbers don't stack up. >> the house democrats actually did internal polling, and it shows when there is this blame game between obama and trump, trump actually wins in that matchup. it's not necessarily a benefit for democrats to say, obama should get all the credit for this. they need to find a way to talk about the economy without putting down trump himself. >> really regardless of which way the metrics go if you're

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trump on his way to nevada

at this hour. up first, two fundraisers in california where the president is expected to raise about $14 million. then a string of campaign events in other key states in the region. in phoenix tomorrow followed by colorado springs thursday, and a rally in las vegas friday, that, of course, on the eve of the nevada caucuses. he's doing what every president does in a reelection year, add a couple official events, taxpayers pay the bills. that's the way it works. this president of the united states is not going to win california next year. but then it's interesting, arizona, colorado and nevada, fascinating states for him, and in the case of colorado and arizona, senate races as well. >> it's not just about his own reelection, he's out trying to protect the senate majority, which is really up for grabs, and he's going into states where there are vulnerable republicans up for reelection. but unlike susan collins and

lisa murkowski, i think they will embrace the president because part of their votes for colin gardner in colorado, they need his support. >> let's just look at the case of arizona, because the debates here in washington, especially the impeachment debate, now a big issue in the campaign. >> martha mcsally is complicit in trump's crimes. martha mcsally didn't do her job. but we are ready to do ours. vote her out. >> liberal mark kelly supported their impeachment sham. kelly said he would have voted to remove president trump from office and the november ballot. he's too liberal for arizona. >> we'll see if the issues debate. the ad content moves on as impeachment is in the rearview mirror and we get closer to november. but some of these races will be laboratories about what the voters think.

washington decided, the senate acquitted, but the voters get their word. >> trump is the center of our political conversation, and so in some ways it's not surprising that in some of these senate races, and even in house races, you are seeing him really define the battleground, the battle lines here for these candidates. i do think, though, you're right, melanie, for some of these republicans -- cory gardner is looked at in washington as a little more of a moderate, but he had to go all in with trump. he doesn't have a path to victory unless he is lockstep with trump. martha mcsally, the same thing. we have seen her after her senate race turn more to the right, turn more toward trump. there is no way out for them -- they rise and fall with trump. >> arizona, 11. democrats think they have a shot at arizona because of the changing demographics there. hillary clinton won nevada and won colorado. 6 and 9% there, but hillary

clinton carried nevada by 2.4. trump only won arizona by 3.5 and clinton won nevada by 5. with the exception of california, those three others reasonable to be, a, competitive to a degree, and for those republicans, and we can show you from martha mcsally and cory gardner, it's critical for them that the president at least invest in their state, turn out those voters, because without him they're doomed. >> this is one of those things that's interesting to see where trump goes. he's had roughly 19 campaign rallies since he won in november 2016. about ten of them have been in states that hillary won. he'll have two just this week alone. in arizona there is a very competitive senate race there, but outside of the midwest, arizona is where the folks around the campaign and in the campaign see as their most vulnerable state. outside outside of those midwestern states. california is obviously the atm. these are the things trump hates

doing. this is trump's least favorite part of the campaign is going and playing small rooms and doing these fundraisers. >> he'd rather be in daytona, right? >> absolutely. he'd rather be in a campaign rally, and how are they mitigating it this time? if bloomberg keeps rising, and so far money has not been an issue for trump and bloomberg. if trump has to start spending more time raising money, it will be interesting to see how he reacts to that. >> he doesn't like those kinds of things. $2 million on hand for the trump campaign, so they can experiment a little bit and see what happens. "inside politics" will return tomorrow. don't go anywhere. brianna keilar starts after a very quick break. your room with your phone. i can read minds too. really? book at hilton.com and get the hilton price match guarantee.

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i'm brianna keilar live from cnn's washington headquarters. underway right now, bernie sanders wants to take on billionaires and now he'll do it face to face as they compete for the same job. and pressure builds as thousands of former justice officials call for the resignation of the attorney general. plus, who gets credit for the economic boon? the president and his predecessors spar is over who did it better. and since he doesn't jump at the chance to speak to congress and the press, he wants to tell people