titles in the beginning. rick, yours isn't even in here. joy reid, the host of a.m. joy every weekend, and most importantly, the author of an amazing new book "the man who sold america, trump and the unraveling of the american story." that does it for our hour. i'm nicolle wallace. mtp daily with steve kornacki in for chuck starts now. if it's tuesday, the battle at the border intensifies as more democratic lawmakers get inside the detention centers. new outrage, new hearings, a new inspector general report, and a new call to prosecute members of the trump administration. plus, the race is on. kamala harris hits a new high. she's in a virtual tie with joe biden in a new poll, as the

primary power in the party shifts to the left, we'll ask one 2020 candigate if he's worried about the risk of a general election backlash. good evening. i'm steve kornacki in new york, in for chuck todd. we begin tonight with breaking news. we have got outrage in washington over the humanitarian crisis at the border. and a bombshell report from the inspector general this afternoon confirming, quote, dangerous overcrowding at migrant detention centers. you're looking at pictures from that report, which describes how adults and children were not allowed access to showers. it details overcrowding, prolonged detentions, and desperate attempts to escape, as border patrol agents prepared for possible riots. the inspector general also faults dhs for not taking, quote, sufficient measures to address the crisis. this report comes as house oversight committee chairman elijah cummings announced his

committee wants to hold hearings with the administration's border chiefs next week. now, politically, this issue has caught fire with democrats. party lawmakers are speaking out after touring migrant facilities in texas yesterday. and in florida today. some lawmakers reported seeing deplorable conditions. >> one of the women said that she was told by an agent to drink water out of the toilet. >> i saw young girls under 5 years old, quarantined in a small box of a room, 8 x 10 feet because they had the flu. not able to eat because they have the flu. >> i want to talk their parents. the mothers. the abuelas, the tias, the madres i sat with, who wept openly in our arms. >> no child ever has to suffer for the benefit of another. and i will never accept that argument.

>> as you can see, the democratic lawmakers are angry, and just a few hours ago, the chairman of the house judiciary committee advocated for criminal charges against the administration. >> all the people in the administration who have done this, who have permitted it, are guilty of child abuse. which is a crime. we ought to prosecute. >> the administration right now is defending the work of these border agencies. in some cases they're saying they're doing the best they can given the surge in border apprehensions. in other cases, people inside the white house, including the president, are placing the blame squarely on democrats. in just moments, i'm going to speak with one of the democratic congresswomen who was at that tour of some of the migrant camps. i'm going to ask her what she saw and what she plans to do about it. first, let's bring in nbc news correspondent juliaanesly. she's been going through the report detailing troubling

conditions at border patrol facilities in texas. thank you for joining us. we mentioned in this report, the says the inspector general's report that dhs did not take sufficient measures to address this crisis. what particular steps is the ig's report saying dhs failed to take? >> well, they're saying they knew that the influx was coming and that it had been -- these conditions had been prolonged for months and they should have taken steps to get more sanitary conditions, in order to provide places for people to sleep, and that they should have alerted their higher ups in washington of this issue. of course, dhs has been saying for some time that there's overcrowding, and they have warned about that, but there are other conditions that come up in this. and especially when it comes to the morale of the people, the detainees who are in there for a long time. as you saw one of those pictures, there's a child who is holding up a note there that says help, 40 days here.

that is way longer than anyone is supposed to be in a border patrol facility. these are temporary facilities, not meant for anyone to be there over 72 hours. i also just want to take a step back here, steve, for our viewers, because they have been hearing a lot of reports of different terrible conditions at border patrol facilities. we reported on one yesterday on this show. another inspector general report. most of these we first heard of were in el paso, the infamous clint, texas, facility. this is in the rio grande valley. the largest, high traffic area for immigrants as they're crossing into southern texas. we have heard here about thousands of immigrants who have been stuck at these facilities for even weeks or months. far past the legal limit. >> so let me just to put this in some perspective because we hear there are different anecdotes that you get from different facilities, as you mentioned. there are some big numbers floating around. i saw 144,000 apprehensions of migrants at the border in may.

how many, do you have a sense, collectively when you look at all these facilities that are out there, how many folks are being detained right now for extended periods of time at these facilities? and also, do you have a sense how mane of these people are children? >> we do have some reporting that we're working on. we know that the numbers have gone down. for example, in may, the numbers were at their highest. that was at 144,000 that you point out. that's how many immigrants were apprehended or turned around at the border. in this case, we're talking about migrants being held in border patrol facilities. as of may 30th, the number of children was about 2,300. that's extremely higher. the total number of immigrants was somewhere close to 10,000. we believe that number has come down because the june numbers were lower. partly because they're sending immigrants back to mexico. partly because they did get that bill passed last week that

expanded facilities so they can move these immigrants out to i.c.e. and health and human services. and partly because the numbers are lower because of the seasonal difference. usually, we see a drop in immigration in the summer because it gets warmer. >> julia, quickly, again, to put this in perspective for folks, we hear so much, and we talk about children. there was the child separation policy of last year. are these children that you're aware of, to your knowledge, are these children who have a parent or came with a parent or children who came unaccompanied? >> that's a good question. the unaccompanied children are rarely separated from their parents. since that policy ended, we're back to where we would have been under the obama administration, where you only separate a child if it's in the interest of that child's safety or if that parent is considered a felon and needs to face criminal charges. so most of these children came on their own, but often with a relative, a grandmother, an aunt, someone who could take

care of them, but under u.s. law, they're not allowed to be that child's guardian, so they have to be sent to another facility. >> okay, julia, thank you for taking a few minutes. appreciate that. and democratic congresswoman judy chu from california was in that group of lawmakers who got a look inside some of these migrant detention centers down in texas. she joins me now. congresswoman, thank you for taking a few minutes. the conditions you saw, we gave folks a sense of what you and your delegation were saying after your visit. the conditions that you saw, how much do you think those conditions will be alleviated by the passage -- i know you voted against it, but by the passage of this funding measure for the border? do you think it will improve the conditions you saw at these camps? >> i hope it does alleviate it, but i'm really concerned because it doesn't have the provisions that we fought for, which is a minimum standard of medical care, of hygiene, of the fact

that the money should be targeted to the purposes for which it was intended. these are important provisions to make sure that the money goes exactly where it is supposed to go. and i was very, very disappointed that the senate bill passed and our bill did not pass because we have to hold the government accountable. the taxpayers expect it. >> what is your sense, the conditions that you saw, is your sense that it is more the result of, because you hear the case from the administration here, as we said, 144,000 apprehensions alt the border in may. that was up, i think something like 182% year over year. it was up six fold over two years ago. they make the argument that, hey, the border right now is just being flooded. these facilities are being flooded beyond the breaking point. and conditions like these, they say tragically, are going to result from that. and they're doing their best to alleviate that.

that's the administration's case. how much do you think that is valid, or how much of this do you think is a result of the management directly in these facilities? >> i think that the it has a lot to do with the management at the facilities. it's my understanding at clint, the border patrol station where the unaccompanied children were, was there were open spots at the orr facilities where they could have been placed but they were not placed, and as a result, they're being held for longer than the 72 hours. in reality, the processing is what is stuck right now. there are greater requirements that the administrators, the caretakers, are requiring, such as fingerprinting, such as background checks on those with whom these children could be placed. and as a result, it's delaying things. and in fact, there's really no transparency on how they're making these determinations as

to whether a child can go out and be placed with that relative in the united states. >> so you have called for shutting down these facilities. how would you like this -- what would you like this process to be, to look like? how would you like the process to be handled for one of these children? one of these children who is unaccompanied? >> there are alternatives to detention. and in fact, it's less costly. but if there is proper care, then these children can be placed. and in fac, if they get legal representation, they can have their case heard in a proper way. there are nonprofits and legal entities, legal clinics, that are ready, willing, and able to provide the services. in fact, we provide for funds in our version of the border bill that the bill that was just passed out, so that they could do their job even more efficiently. it's the cost effective way to

go, and it also would facilitate the movement of these children out from these facilities. >> what was your assessment just of the management of the facility you saw, of the work that the border agents are doing? i know there's been some discussion today about this facebook group, some current and former border patrol officers. the officers, the agents that you saw doing their jobs, do you think they're doing their best in a tough situation or did you have concerns there too? >> i was extremely disappointed to see the officials at the clint border facility sanitizing the situation. first of all, there was a high of 700 at one point at that camp, and when we went there, it was just 25. they clearly had lowered the numbers in anticipation of our visit. and then, they took great pains to show us all their supplies of tooth brushes, soap, and food. but when we asked them about the conditions that had been

documented by these lawyers, they actually denied all of it. they didn't acknowledge a single bit of it, even though the lawyers had so, so detailed these toddlers running around in shirts that had not been washed, full of snot and tears. they denied all of it. in fact, they pointed to the toothbrushes and said they were there. it was blaming the children. they weren't using those toothbrushes. >> just to be clear what you're saying, are you saying that the folks managing and running the facility, you think, moved folks in and out before you got there, altered the conditions in some way before you got there? go ahead. >> there is something amiss when you have them claiming that there is a gigantic surge at the border, and then we get there and there's 25 children. at one time, they had 700 children in the facility that

can house 106. and so we got there, and there were only 25. why? i don't know. they moved the children around. as you know, they move the children out, and then they moved like 100 of them back so they have this capability of doing this type of thing. now, of course, this is on top of us learning yesterday about the facebook page of the cbp agents, which was shocking and disturbing. how could 9500 of them belong to this facebook page in which they laughed at the deaths of migrants and talked about throwing burritos at us congress members because we were investigating, and then had denigrating portrayals of one of our congress members, alexandria ocasio-cortez. what is going on there with the customs and border patrol agents? what is going on, and are they out of control? >> congresswoman judy chu, thank you for taking a few minutes.

>> thank you. we should note, another bit of breaking news since we came on the air. the trump administration is apparently standing down on the president's threat to delay the census after the supreme court's ruling effectively blocking them from including a citizenship question. the justice department spokesman has confirmed to nbc news the administration will begin printing the census without the citizenship question. we have got more on the latest developments at the border coming up. and later, are moderates facing some extreme trouble? new numbers show 2020 progressives are gaining fast. most people think a button is just a button. ♪ that a speaker is just a speaker. ♪ or - that the journey can't be the destination. most people haven't driven a lincoln. discover the lincoln approach to craftsmanship at the lincoln summer invitation. right now, get 0% apr on all 2019 lincoln vehicles

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comcast business. beyond fast. the humanitarian crisis along the southern border has ignited a political storm on an issue that has been vaulted toward the top of the 2020 conversation. let's bring in some experts. i'm joined in new york from "washington post" political reporter philip bump, msnbc political analyst and republican strategist susan del percio, and

democratic strategist and former executive director of the new york state democratic party, basils michael. >> philip, i'll start with you. i was looking at a poll out late yesterday, asking that question, is the situation at the border a crisis? the number now is up to 74%. it's broad agreement among the parties. that's a big shift for democrats in particular from four or five months ago when i think that number was down in the 20s. now you have the parties agreeing there's a crisis down there. but not agreeing on much besides that. >> that's exactly right. it will be interesting to see how that's affected by the fact we're starting to see the numbers come back down as you saw in the previous segment. i think the fundamental question here is, if you are going to detain people who cross the border illegally or detain people seeking asylum as you start to process asylum claims, you have to somewhere to put them. if you have hundreds of thousands of people coming across a month and a system that's not set up for that, then you have some problems. i think that is fundamentally one of the issues that everyone

can sort of agree upon. one of the places people disagree, for example, is whether or not those people should be detained, which we saw in the democratic debates last week. the problem for the administration, obviously, is these images we're getting now, the images and reports we have been hearing for the past week or two are so emotionally impactful to americans that it's real really, the crisis can be seen as these images as readily as it can be seen about trying to accommodate all these people crossing the border. i think it's hard to estimate at this point in time how damaging this could be for president trump in 2020. not that everything is about 2020, but it's still important to think about how will the administration, if we're talking about partisan politics, i don't know how this will play, but it's hard to see how they can put a positive face on this. >> in terms of what philip is describing, so many flashbacks to probably this time one year ago when all the talk was about the child separation policy. you can look and i can point to so many different areas in polling where i think polling on

immigration is a complicated topic and there are areas where trump has tapped into things where there's more support, more of a popular sentiment than maybe democrats will admit or say, but when the conversation is overwhelmed as it was a year ago by child separation, by the stories people are absorbing, by the pictures they're absorbing right now about the conditions in these facilities, that seems to be the only thing people are going to notice. >> this is what donald trump was concerned about all along. that's why he put a hold on the round-up in the cities, the i.c.e. round-ups, if you recall. what you have now is an administration that simply puts politics ahead of policy, that chose no decency to anybody, and most of all, is showing its incompetence, whether it's going back a year ago or other things they don't know huh to implement anything. how can you have 100,000 people at the border and not be able to house and feed them? it's not just because -- i wouldn't argue it's not that they don't want to, they just don't know how to handle the

crises that they cause. and that's what you have here. something that this administration decided that was good for them politically, they made an ad hoc policy decision, and they no idea how to carry it out. the fact is that our government is fraying and not getting things done. and this is just a very sad example of that. >> in terms of the political response, though, looking at this from the democratic party side, i say both sides agree there's a crisis here, but the solutions you hear are often very different. we heard this in the debate last week, julian castro started this the first night. he said one of the problems is criminalizing crossing the border. undocumented people crossing the border. he said decriminalize it. next night, there was a show of hands on it. a lot of candidates were in favor of decriminalizing that. the question of folks who come here who are undocumented, should they have health insurance? should the government provide health insurance. democratic candidates, it seemed like a lot, moving in that

direction. that response there, politically, is that in touch with where the country is? >> i think so. here in new york, they now have driver's licenses, free college education. so i think there are a lot of states moving in that direction. i think that's a good thing. i think it's mindful of where the party is and is going. i mean, even in my neighborhood, you talk about the i.c.e. raids. there are flyers everywhere with instructions on what to do if i.c.e. comes into your home or store. to me, there are organizations, there are lawyers, there are activists mobilized around this issue if no other. even if there is some disagreement on who created the crisis and whether or not donald trump can actually fix the crisis that he created, there is, i think, broadly throughout the democratic party on the ground, a lot of folks mobilizing around this issue, which i think going to your point about 2020, really does help us down the line, and look, it may, as you alluded to earlier, it may set us apart from some of the voters that

others think we need, but the truth is if we're going to grow our party, this is the right move. >> i think we can put this up. do we have the polling on this? this was from the cnn poll yesterday. the question about health insurance for undocumented immigrants. something that was popular. there you go. the overall number, all voters, 38% yes, 59% no. you know, philip, there's a lot of discussion this week from the democratic party, the response to trump, is it triggering the democratic party to move too far to the left in a way that exposes itself in 2020? or is that an overrated concern? >> it's an overrated concern from the context of 2020. i wrote a piece, the struggle within the party, if you want to overtake the senate, that's different than winning the white house. you have to turn people out nationally. winning the senate means you have to win places like kansas potentially, alabama, and it's a different message nationally. it's a struggle that democrats

that have republicans don't. i want to get back to this idea of how people perceive the immigrants who are trying to cross the border. that's fundamentally where the partisan difference comes down. donald trump and his allies are trying to point to these people as a threat, a risk, a cost to society, which is reflected in poll numbers like the one you saw, whereas the democratic party sees it much more empathetically. you see images like the crowding of those places with the families and women and children. that's fundamentally where this break is going to happen politically. which side do you fall down on? do you see this group as potentially a threat to american society and american culture, which some aspects of the right wing focus on, or do you see it rather as a group of people who are deserving of it. >> this is what i keep seeing. i saw it last year with child separation. when you polled that policy, widespread disgust. that was just a deeply, deeply unpopular thing. i think when you ask people for their reactions to these stories, people are horrified by

what they're seeing. but i remember seeing this last year. when you then ask the question, with child separation, okay, what do you do? you have parents and kids. what do you do? the most popular response in polling is you detain them together. wasn't you release them. and the most popular response when you ask, a quinnipiac poll that said folks seeking asylum, they have to wait, where do they wait? it was wait in mexico, 51%. >> that's right. i would also say this. after this delegation went, there were hispanic ministers who went down there as well and had a very different view of what they saw. and they reported a far better circumstance than what the democrats had reported out. they described themselves as evangelical ministers. what's interesting to me there is even though you have on the democratic side a lot of folks very forcefully using those images and talking about the crisis at the border, it will be mitigated by to some extent by evangelicals and others that are trying to sort of make the case that this is really not a bad

idea that we have to put them somewhere, and the trump administration is doing all that it can. it's really incumbent upon us as democrats to really be forceful about the message and the narrative there. >> basil, susan, and philip are sticking around because there's new polling out on 2020. we have to talk about it. but first, heading to the big board. back after this. er this. -keith used to be great to road-trip with. but since he bought his house... are you going 45? -uh, yes. 55 is a suggestion. -...it's kind of like driving with his dad. -what a sign, huh? terry, can you take a selfie of me? -take a selfie of you? -yeah. can you make it look like i'm holding it? -he did show us how to bundle home and auto at progressive.com and save a bunch of money. -oh, a plaque. "he later navigated northward, leaving... progressive can't protect you from becoming your parents. but we can protect your home and auto when you bundle with us. but we can protect your home and auto heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, diarrhea. ♪ausea, (vo) try new pepto liquicaps for fast relief and ultra-coating. (flight attendants) ♪ nausea, heartburn, indigestion,

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welcome back. well, if you're the biden campaign, yesterday's polling numbers were post debate polling numbers, they looked pretty bad. you hoped, well, you get a bad poll every now and then and it's an outlier, maybe it's a fluke. that's your hope if you're the biden campaign. 24 hours later, another new national poll conducted entirely after that first debate. let's show it to you. here it is. look at this. this one even worse for biden than the one we were talking about yesterday. quinnipiac now has joe biden, after the debate, down to 22%. barely leading kamala harris. she's at 20%. that's obviously a significant drop in this poll from where biden had been polling throughout the spring. that's obviously a significant rise for kamala harris. not the first poll we have seen now since the debate. showing this kind of dynamic, a very troubling one for the former vice president. a very encouraging one for kamala harris. elizabeth warren, about where we saw her heading into the debate. no big gain, no big damage for

her. bernie sanders sitting there now in fourth place in this poll. pete buttigieg, all that money we talked about him raising yesterday, but 4%, his numbers in fact have been dropping a little bit over the last month or two. we can take you through some of the breakdowns. first, we were talking about the breakdown by race. joe biden leads among white voters. kemamala harris right behind hi. 20%, tied with elizabeth warren. with white voters, particularly white liberals, has spiked after the debate. so has her support with african-american voters. look at this. 31/27. we have talked all spring about joe biden doing so much better with black voters than white voters. black voters powering joe biden into that lead, that big lead he had nationally. now here's kamala harris. she's only four points behind him for the black vote in this poll. another poll out yesterday had her at 24% with black voters. she had been in single digits with black voters in some polls. now she's within striking distance of joe biden. remember, 1 out of 4 votes cast

next year in the democratic primaries will be by black voters. if kamala harris can put together african-americans and white liberals, we have seen that coalition work in a democratic primary before. you can ask barack obama about it, because it's what got him the nomination back in 2008. also, a gender gap in this poll a bit for kamala harris. among men, she's at 14%. among women, she leads. she's at 24%. biden, 22% in both of them, and one other poll to tell you about today. this one out of iowa. the lead-off caucus state. joe biden leads. it's only an eight-point lead. second place, you guessed it, kamala harris. she has surged nationally. here's a poll that says she has surged in the first in the nation caucus state as well. so they're starting to come in fast and furious now. polls that measure not just the debate itself but the few days of reaction after the debate, all so far it seems very encouraging for kamala harris and perhaps not so much for joe biden. up next, we'll dig more into what this all means for 2020. stay with us.

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and welcome back. as we just showed you a minute ago, the new quinnipiac poll shows kamala harris on the rise. joe biden falling back. that is just the latest sign that the democratic presidential race is lurching to the left. we saw it on the debate stage last week as many candidates embraced liberal policy ideas on health care and imgrigz, and now the campaign and one of the candidates who has been most vocal about his situation is in shambles. philip, susan, and basil are back. the candidate we're referring to is john hickenlooper, the former colorado governor, one of those 25 candidates joe sestak got in last week. what about that interpretation, this sequence of events of the last week that biden supposedly, the moderate here, falling back. you know, five, ten points in these polls. elizabeth warren we saw rise a couple weeks ago.

kamala harris rising now. you saw those answers the candidates gave on stage. that idea the democratic party is moving to the left. what do you make of it? >> i think that there's a lot at play here. quite obviously. i guess that doesn't need to be said. but i'm saying it. a lot at play here. i think one of the aspects of joe biden, he came out of the gates and he said i'm the guy who can beat donald trump. i'm going to focus on donald trump. look at me, talking about donald trump, with the presumption he could do a glide to the path like hillary clinton did in 2016. there are people in the race, and when i pass them, i'm the electable guy. that worked for him for a while. one of the interesting things about the quinnipiac poll is the drop in people who said biden was the most electable candidate. he dropped 14 points. there's a piece in the "huffington post," and it said how electable are they, and harris and warren were considered almost as electable as biden was. if biden loses that sense, there

are people in the democratic party who are much more progressive than joe biden, who see him as out of touch, and who don't really are thrilled about voting for him, but they want to see trump lose. if they have the sense of biden has to do it, and kamala harris coming at him so hard and effectively, made people wonder is that how he's going to handle the campaign. >> kamala harris is getting her moment in the spotlight. polling right here is going to keep this attention going for a while. i think one of the questions around her when you say does she have staying power? i think one of the things people are getting at is you saw in that debate with biden, that was obviously a rehearsed moment and it was conceived and executed brilliantly. you see the effect of that in these polls. she's also gotten herself in trouble on the campaign trail a couple times with sort of unscripted moments. asked in a cnn town hall, and again asked to raise hands in this debate on that idea of getting rid of private health insurance, also in that cnn town hall when they asked do you want voting rights, it would include the boston marathon bomber.

she said initially let's have that conversation and later tried to clean it up. how convinced are you that kamala harris has staying power? >> she appears to have it, but again, this is a snapshot. let's see what happens when she has her records scrubbed over. she has not gone through the scrutiny yet that biden has over time, and that bernie sanders did last year. this is her first time at the rodeo, if you will. and there's a lot she has to show that she can stand up to whatever criticism comes, because it will come. no one is perfect. but she has shown she has a way of handling herself that is presidential. and i think that really showed on the debate, and i don't think that's something that disappeared. i think that goes to philip's point about biden being the most electable -- the person most likely to beat donald trump. losing those 14 points is huge for biden because biden's cycle in the polls, one fed the other. so that number was up, so his

numbers went up. so his general election numbers went up. he's facing a challenge in dealing with kamala harris because he doesn't know how to handle it, and i think also, there's another big difference. harris' campaign is just starting to gear up. so we're going to see her out in iowa and other places field operations. biden seems to have a campaign that needs a reorg immediately. i would not be surprised if we heard there was a reorganization in the biden campaign in the next week. >> would reorganization do anything, or is it the performance he delivered in that debate? did that just unnerve democrats who maybe were looking at him, as philip was saying, this is who we have to go with to beat trump, and they're saying really? >> the reorg may reshape the stories and the narrative out of the debate, but the behavior in the debate spoke volumes. i don't know if anyone ever quoted "the wire" on the show, but i will. if you go after the queen, you best not miss.

she was presidential. it was incredibly surgical. what it did, it wasn't his gaffes on the hyde amendment or any other gaffe that he's had. she essentially brought all of that together and said, you know what, you're a man out of your time. it looked incredibly powerful at that moment. >> and he didn't have a strong reply to it. >> he did not. pushed back on his heels. going to philip's point, voters looked at that and said wait a minute, we thought you were the guy to go against donald trump. you don't really look like that guy right now. i think what i would add to this is that it's also evident that donald trump doesn't know how to talk about her. with that, you have in the voter's meantime, well, wait a minute, she may be a lot more powerful on this stage than we gave her credit for. i don't know how long it lasts, but she can build a strong campaign and strong fund-raising base off this. >> i think the next debate, they're probably going to have two nights, two stages. let's see if she's on the same one with biden again. >> i think it's also worth

noting, she's run a very effective campaign so far. she had her launch on mlk day, and she got a huge response. she had a huge rally in oakland shortly after that. if you look at google trends, she was one of the most searched candidates after his launch. a senator from california, who knew that was going to happen. there's more to it than just her debate performance. >> the other name here, too, i think we should get in something here, bernie sanders. fourth place. >> bernie who? >> bernie sanders, who got, you know, how many states did he win against hillary clinton? nearly won iowa. won new hampshire. fourth place in the quinnipiac poll nationally. how about this? iowa, 9%. single digits in that poll today. >> bernie sanders has done nothing between 2016 and today to expand his base, to expand his policies, to do outreach. he just thinks he has a built-in operation that he turned the key and they would show up.

he has a different way about him. i think he comes off as mean. i think he's disparaging. i think that there are a lot of other candidates that can take over the space and the policy sense. and when you look at elizabeth warren, she's able to deliver it. she's able to deliver it with heart and not nastiness. i think that makes a big difference. >> she's also a democrat. she's also a democrat, and where would say that that counts a lot post-2016, because when it was bernie and hillary, bernie could run against the policy and talk all of the policy he wanted. if you're a noninstitutional person, you're like, okay, let me go to the alternative. you have a lot of alternatives to bernie sanders who are actual supporters, that support to party, that would go on to support the party infrastructure. and for party leaders, they want that. they don't want somebody constantly running against them. >> they also want someone who doesn't have to constantly defend the use of the term socialism.

>> we have been talking about polls that have biden up 30 points with black voters. to see it come down that fast, did it surprise you? >> it didn't surprise me that much because i don't know if it was going to last. black voters are attracted to the democratic party because for a long time, it was a source of political economic power. and the truth is, if you're not going to be the candidate to deliver that, whoever is going to go up against you doesn't just have to talk policy but has to have the fortitude to pull those votes away, and in that moment on the debate stage, kamala harris seems like that debate. the truth is, and we were talking about this before. i think joe biden needed to have been talking policy a long time ago. and he hasn't been. and that, in the absence of that, you have black voters saying we're not going to give it to you. you have to earn it. they want to see him earn it. >> let's see. i think we're about three weeks away from the next debate. philip, susan, basil. thank you all for being here. >> and ahead, we've got a

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welcome back. former vice president joe biden took a hit in the polls this week. so what does that mean for other moderate presidential candidates running in that so-called moderate lane? joining me from the campaign trail where he just finished up an event in ohio.

presidential candidate tim ryan. congressman, thank you for joining us. we just went through these polls. we have seen a number of them now since the debate, and it looks like a lot of democratic voters watching that debate promised he would reduce the anxiety in the country and he's made matters worse.

he's not delivered on the economy, and i think the best person to do that is someone like me that's from those areas. >> when you look at the movement that kamala harris has gotten in the polls since that debate. the positive movement for her, and the negative movement for joe biden, do you attribute that to the issues, the issues that she stressed there? there are some folks that are saying, it would push the party to the left. do you think that's where democratic voters are responding to? or the stage craft of it? >> i thought it was the stage craft of it, and i think again, vice president biden didn't have good responses to that. i don't think he was as sharp and pointed in his responses as he needed to be. that's why you saw the shift, and that's why you saw the shift in polling, and the reality of it is, we have to beat donald trump, and people want someone that can take him on, and that's -- i think in large measure what you're starting to see now, the field is now wide

open, and they're going to be looking for somebody who can i think not just beat donald trump, what i've been saying too, this is about winning the senate, this is about making sure mitch mcconnell is not the senator from kentucky and not the majority leader. so our nominee has got to be able to go to those senate states, north carolina, beat lindsey graham in south carolina, take on mcconnell in kentucky, we have to play in iowa and kansas. these are states that look a lot like the state i'm from. i believe i'm the best person to be able to build this movement and take mcconnell out. we got some of our folks back here too supporting us here in iowa. i think we can win the senate back with a nominee from a place like the rust belting. >> you're talking about what you see as the strategic imperative. i know this came up in the first debate that you were in.

julian castro was on the stage. he called for decriminalizing border crossings. the second night, it looked like the field was behind that. where are you on that? >> as long as we have provisions that say, if you're coming here to sell drugs, to commit crime, those are criminal acts and they should be treated as criminal acts, i think that's a separate issue. the reality of it is, we have to make sure the immigration issue is not an issue like it is today that trump thinks he can win on the separation issue. trump thinks he can win on the border security issue. we have to be firm that we are not for drugs coming into the country we have to be firm on the border, we have to be firm on comprehensive immigration reform, so we can have a

economically viable system. i want our country -- >> to be clear -- when you say be firm, does that mean you're against the idea of decriminalizing it, and shifting to a civil penalty for border crossings? are you against that, is that what you're saying by firm? if you are a criminal, if you're trying to come to this country and sell drugs, if you're here for some nefarious purpose, those should be tried as criminal acts through the immigration laws, period end of story. >> folks who -- that's not the case for, folks who just crossed the border illegally, who right now would be charged criminally or could be charged criminally for that, are you saying change that? >> i'm open to have a conversation about that. i think that's a perfectly honest conversation that we need to have. the issue at the border today is about how we're treating these

kids, the issue at the border today is how we're treating human beings, and we're treating them like they're inhuman. like they're not human, and that's the main issue we need to address, we can have strong border security and be compassionate with these families that are coming over, fleeing violence. we all need to ask ourselves, where are these folks coming from, and why are they coming here. they're coming here, because they're fleeing violence. we should be a strong enough country to be able to accept them into our society and provide them asylum, so the kids don't get killed and the girls don't get put in the sex trade. >> the kind of conversation you're talking about, though, potentially decriminalizing some, and maybe a significant number of border crossings. talking about beating trump in those places, wisconsin, the mahoning valley, is that going to go over well there? >> i think our position should

be very clear that people who are trying to do wrong in the united states. if they're trying to come here for nefarious purposes. they should be treated like criminals. and they should be prosecuted. what people in ohio are going to worry about is the economic issue, and that trump hasn't delivered. this would be the point i'm making now and i'm going to continue to make as trump is the distracter in chief. he doesn't want to face the reality that 75% of americans are living paycheck to paycheck. everyone is doing so great, everyoness doing so great, why does everyone feel so bad. we have to get this middle class built up again, steve, and that means getting a candidate that will focus on the economy. how do we lift up the middle

class. go to tim ryan for america.com. help me out. >> congressman tim ryan, thank you for joining us. be right back.

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that's all for tonight, we'll be back tomorrow with more "meet the press daily." the beat with ari mel better starts now. >> this is the beat, and we have a lot going on on tonight's show. democrats suing donald trump for his tax returns. later tonight i'm joined by professor eric michael dyson. the homeless crisis in america, and why donald trump is bringing that up. a breaking story we'll bring you later in the hour that we just added to a rundown. we begin with what is shaping up to be a human rights crisis at our nation's border. many say in a large measure,