klobuchar, the only one of the candidates onstage tonight who represents a state with its own iron range. great thing about the state of minnesota in addition to all their lakes. we are rapidly approaching the start of a new hour of our coverage. democratic debate number seven, six candidates on one stage in the final showdown before the iowa caucuses. >> big parts of the democratic constituency. we need a candidate who will excite all parts of the democratic party, bring everyone in, and give everyone a democrat to believe in. that's my plan, and that is why i'm going to win. >> we've got to move past a washington mentality that suggests the bigness of plans only consists of how many trillions of dollars they put through the treasury. >> i would declare a state of emergency on day one on climate. >> looming over it all, the impeachment of donald trump. >> there's no choice but for

nancy pelosi and the house to move. he has, in fact, committed impeachable offenses. >> and heightened tensions with iran. >> the american people are sick and tired of endless wars which have cost us trillions of dollars. >> msnbc's live coverage of decision 2020 starts right now. welcome to msnbc's special post-debate coverage. i'm joy reid. well, tonight six democratic candidates at drake university in des moines, iowa, for the final debate before the first major nominating contest in the 2020 presidential election. we're just 20 days from the iowa caucuses and in this seventh debate, two important and pretty glaring things were missing -- diversity. despite this being a contest for the democratic nomination of

america's diverse political party, the democratic party, which heavily depends on people of color to win elections. despite all that, this was an all-white debate. also missing, donald trump. the impeached president who barely got a mention by the people running to replace him as president. and yet the lack of racial diversity onstage only really came up at the end in the closing statement by senator elizabeth warren. >> i sat here in the break and just made notes about many of the things we didn't get to talk about tonight, how the disability community is struggling for true equality. how gun violence and active shooter drills worry every mother in this country. how children are living in poverty and seeing their life chances shrink. how trans women are at risk. black infant mortality, climate change that particularly hits black and brown communities. people who are being crushed by student loan debt. farmers who are barely holding

on. people struggling with mental illness. >> warren also had what arguably was actually the only big moment of the debate when she and bernie sanders were confronted with his alleged remark which he disputes making about whether a woman can be elected president of the united states. >> so can a woman beat donald trump? look at the men on this stage. collectively they have lost ten elections. the only people on this stage who have won every single election that they've been in are the women, amy and me. >> so true. >> and honestly that was kind of it. so i guess the question is will tonight's civics night of the local democratic club debate change any minds? joining me now to discuss how it went down, our chief political affairs officer, karine jean-pierre. former congressman david jolly. joel payne, democratic strategist. and jason johnson, politics editor at the root.com and msnbc

political contributor. karine jean-pierre, i always go ladies first anyway, but in this case black women are actually the core of the democratic party. >> they are the core. >> it is weird for me watching a democratic debate where black women were not there other than the one moderator. obviously abby phillip was there. but it was strange to watch a party that is just utterly dependent on black and brown voters hold that debate tonight. your thoughts. >> and we started off with the most diverse, the most talented of candidates in the primary, and it was not represented at all on the stage. it's problematic. this is something that the democratic party has to deal with. i don't think there's blame to go in one place. i think there's blame to go around as to why we don't have julian castro on the stage, why we don't have kamala harris, why we don't have cory booker. that is incredibly problematic especially before we could even have the first contest. we haven't even had the first contest and they're all gone. >> they're all gone.

>> so like you said, it's the base, black women, african-american community, black communities, the base of the democratic party. >> and black women being the base of the base. >> in particular black women, and you do not see the diversity. and the worry that i have is as you go into the general election, as we really move further closer to november, you have to energize the base. you've got to get the base excited. and how do we do that if you do not have a presentation of more diversity for people to choose from, to get excited about? >> you're going to represent the party for us tonight. i'm sorry. you're going to be stuck in that position because i don't understand how the democratic party can do another election like this to be blunt. yes, there have to be criteria and rules. you know, the idea that you have to raise "x" amount of dollars, which is kind of illogical when you have somebody who can put forward their own money. so bloomberg isn't there even though he's polling higher than

some other candidates, even on that stage. and you have a situation where, you know, people of color, younger people, they don't pick up the phone. when is the last time you picked up your phone? i don't pick up the phone if it rings and i don't know who it is. polling isn't necessarily a legitimate way to say what the democratic party wants. is this a viable system to pick a democratic nominee who then has to turn around and appeal to black and brown voters? >> well, it's a work in progress. remember, this system has attempted to be an improvement on what we had in 2016 where there were a lot of folks, particularly those who supported bernie sanders, who thought it want a fair system. it's something democrats are going to have to keep working at. i think the subtext that's disappointing is you've got a candidate like tom steyer onstage by the way who acquitted himself pretty good tonight. but when when you consider he's had to spend some $75 million to generate about 15% of the vote in south carolina, and anyone

who's in south carolina will tell you that that's all due to the fact that he's dominated the airwaves. that's something that kamala harris couldn't do. that's something that cory booker couldn't do because they didn't have that mass of wealth that they could dump into a marketplace like that. so i think it is a complicated issue. look, democrats have certainly not historically, at least recent history have not been hostile to either women candidates or people of color. look at our last two nominees, hillary clinton and barack obama. but there is something at the core level that democrats have to make sure that they are being reflective of the mass diversity of the party, which, you know, what k s correct. it wasn't represented on stage >> tom steyer talked at about 12 minutes and 26 seconds tonight. the most talk time was actually elizabeth warren, who i would argue is the only person -- and

correct me if i'm wrong, jason. i don't know if you agree with me. elizabeth warren was the only person who said anything memorable. it was hard for us as producers to come up where ith sound bite. it was hard to come up with anything other than elizabeth warren making that remark about only the two women on the stage having won all their races in the last ten years. >> joy, so the person who spoke most, elizabeth warren and tom steyer, they're the perfect contrast. tom steyer is essentially the guy who spent a lot of money on really good concert tickets to sit up front, but then there was a group of basketball players in front of him. he spends $11 million to basically get on this stage and doesn't get to talk much because he didn't have that much to say that was all that compelling. flip side, elizabeth warren is number one on the stage, and yes, she had her sort of exchange with bernie sanders. i was most impressed by her comments at the end, joy, where she talked about the issues they didn't talk. that was sort of her marchand

moment. her list of things that should have been talked about during the debate was the most compelling. but for the most part, and we said this before, i don't think this debate changed the needle for anybody. i don't think there's one person who got a new voter in iowa after this debate, especially since they spent no time talking about what's actually going on in iowa. >> you also forgot, you also got to take care of your chicken. don't misquote marchand. >> and your mentals. >> he might get written in on my ballot. i'm just saying. let me get you in here, david, because there's two things that democrats have to do in order to beat donald trump. >> sure. >> thing one, they have to turn out the base of the party, which looks a lot more like this panel than that debate stage tonight. let's just be blunt. that did not look like the democratic party tonight. >> that's right. >> the other thing they have to do is there are people out there like you. and by the way, the party is more focused on the people like you who they think are people they can pull over, people would

wouldn't normal would normally be a republican but are open to voting for a democrat. >> look, the two topics that were covered that i think were important inflection points inevitably towards identifying a candidate was we are within a week or two of a major national security moment. >> yes. >> at the hands of donald trump. and you had each candidate kind of speak to their commander in chief bona fides. that was important whether it was dramatic or not. they tried to establish that they can handle those moments. the other frankly was when amy klobuchar pointed out for the nation that not even the entire democratic caucus in the senate is supportive of medicare for all. that's an inflection point for democrats. are we going to go big in that moment or not? to your question, i am becoming less and less of the opinion that this should be a persuasion election where you try to pull people over. i'm not sure you're going to pull people over. i think it's a turnout election, and that means turning out the people that you started the show talking about. and i will say this as a white

person to other white persons who say, why does diversity matter if the policies are all the same? having lived a political life for 25 years, it matters because the authenticity of life experience, of communities of color and those who have risen through these challenges, it is experienced in a different way than informs the leadership opportunities for people of color to make better decisions on behalf of the entire nation. and when it's not reflected in a political party, i think that's the concern that karine was speaking about. how do you marshal that turnout that's necessary in an election that's probably not going to persuade people? you have to energize people. >> i won't speak for you, but you know that because you have had to run for election in florida. in florida it's a diverse state where you have to build a coalition even on the republican side that is somewhat multi-racial because you have a lat of latino conservatives there. >> that's right. >> so i mean isn't it a problem,

then, for the democratic party to start its process in a state like iowa? my sister was born in iowa. there's some black people there. now that she's left, maybe there aren't anymore, but there were at least when she was born. it's not like that state gives you a -- maybe florida should be first. >> i think florida should be first because you basically have five different states in one. i know jason's going to make the case for georgia. everybody has a different state it could be, right? but you are right. iowa and new hampshire may have had their time as the perfect place for a first in the nation caucus or primary. it does not represent the diversity of the nation now. >> at all. >> and importantly, given the importance of early primary states and their ability to knock out otherwise competitive candidates, let them try to perform in a diverse state, a hypercompetitive state right out of the gate. >> or in a bunch of states like super tuesday. this is cut one from my producers on the point of trying

to establish their national security bona fides. here are the candidates talking about something that isn't recent national security issue. it's the iraq war. take a lesson. >> i said 13 years ago it was a mistake to give the president the authority to go to war if in fact he couldn't get inspectors into iraq to stop what was thought to be the attempt to get a nuclear weapon. it was a mistake, and i acknowledge that. >> joe and i listened to what dick cheney and george bush and rumsfeld had to say. i thought they were lying. i didn't believe them for a moment. i took to the floor. i did everything i could to prevent that war. joe saw it differently. >> i will look at my position on the iraq war first. i wasn't in the senate for that vote, but i opposed that war from the very beginning. >> i bring a different perspective. there are enlisted people that i served with barely old enough to remember those votes on the

authorization after 9/11, on the war in iraq. and there are people now old enough to enlist who are not alive for some of those debates. >> you know, karine, the candidate we worked for in '08, barack obama, we just ran into david plouffe outside. the war and his decision on the war versus hillary clinton's was one of the big reasons that a lot of us supported him who were very against the iraq war. does that matter now, do you think? >> i think so because one of the things that you said, david, was that it started off -- you're not just president. you're also commander in chief, right? so when you have a current president, donald trump, who is on the verge of seemingly to take us into war, i think it is important to remind people, to have that conversation, hey, how did we get into this situation in the region in the first place? >> yeah. >> you think about iraq, and people have made similarities to

where we are now with what happened with iraq. people are thinking about that. that is still on the minds of many voters of where we are currently and what could potentially be happening. so i think it is a very important conversation and we also saw -- we saw that being telegraphed by bernie sanders probably like a week ago, right, that he was leaning in, going after biden. so it wasn't all that surprising to see it play out. and then it gives pete buttigieg an opportunity, who is the only veteran onstage. so i think it's important conversation to have because of the very important moment that we're in, that donald trump has sent us down. >> at least it was an opportunity to sort of set people -- you know, their sort of stage where they are on the use of national force other than the question about would you let iran get a nuclear weapon, which what are they going to say? yeah, i'll let them get one. what was that about anyway? that's just me complaining. up next, senators elizabeth warren and bernie sanders clash over gender and politics.

>> the only person on this stage who has beaten an incumbent republican anytime in the past 30 years is me. >> just to set the record straight, i defeated an incumbent republican running for congress. >> when? >> 1990. that's how i won. i beat a republican congressman. number two, of course -- >> but wasn't it 30 years ago? >> i beat an incumbent republican congressman. >> and i said i was the only one who's beaten a incumbent republican in 30 years.

anybody knows me knows that it's incomprehensible that i would think that a woman could not be president of the united states. >> this question about whether or not a woman can be president has been raised and it's time for us to attack it head-on. and i think the best way to talk about who can win is by looking at people's winning record. so can a woman beat donald trump? look at the men on this stage. collectively they have lost ten elections. the only people on this stage who have won every single election that they've been in are the women, amy and me. >> so true. so true. >> well, that was the moment, the much anticipated clash between senators bernie sanders and elizabeth warren over gender in politics came to a head. the candidates were asked, as

was widely expected, about the news circulating last week that sanders told warren in 2018 that a woman could not win the presidency. sanders flatly denied he ever said saying nobody believes a woman could not be president, especially after hillary clinton won the popular vote in 2016. elizabeth warren's pacface, tho, while she waited to respond. then there was this moment with what sure looked like tom steyer playing billion dollars referee. jason johnson, i saw you talking about this earlier so i kind of know what you're going to say. the thing is what you said earlier on msnbc, i think, is true. if i had $10 for everyone who has said to me, oh, this country is never going to elect a woman, right? i mean women have said it to me. it's not like a thing that no one says. so it is weird to me that sanders is so, you know, hard and fast denying that he said it when elizabeth warren, his friend, has said, yeah, he said it. would it have been easier for him to say, listen, i was just

playing pundit? >> you know, if bernie was ever the kind of guy who would apologize for anything or take responsibility, it would be a bit different. but this is what i found most compelling, and you know, i try not to psychoanalyze candidates too much. but what i saw in elizabeth warren's face after he was asked that question, he flatly denied it, is the face of every single woman, every single black person, every single asian person, every single gay person, every single person who has heard someone say something racist, offensive, or sexist. you know you heard it, and you see them deny it in public. and that's what i thought was the most compelling about that question. look, either elizabeth warren is lying about what she remembered two years ago, or bernie sanders is lying. now, the voters are going to decide which one they think is lying and how they think that's important. but the fact that she was essentially being gaslit, because if what she was saying was true, she was essentially being gaslit by bernie sanders saying up there and saying, no, i didn't say this at all. that, i think, is sort of a larger issue about how these candidates all interact with

each other. and that moment at the end when warren comes out and bernie puts out her hand, she's like whoa because you could almost hear her saying, you know exactly what you said to me, bernie, and i'm not going to blow you up on stage because we have donald trump to defeat. but i'm not going to sit here and pretend you didn't say it and i can't believe you said that in public. >> karine, as women, the problem for sanders in this is that these kind of dustups only hurt you if they play into something that people already low key think is true. so he's the wag the finger at hillary clinton guy. >> and people remember that. >> and people remember that. it's not like people are like, he would never. it doesn't seem uncharacteristic. unless he is flat out calling his friend elizabeth warren a liar, which he seems to have been doing tonight -- >> it was a very interesting moment. that moment that we saw onstage, not at the end but when it came up, we all knew that was going to come, right?

everyone was telegraphing it. we knew. it was playing out in the media for the last 48 hours, and it happened and they decided on how they would answer that question. and what elizabeth warren did is she broadened it, and i thought she knocked it out of the park and it was really smart because the whole thing about if a woman can win has been kind of -- has been kind of under the surface. it's been something that's been there since 2016. >> yeah. >> and now finally in this debate leading into iowa, iowa 19 days away, it comes up. and you're right because it's something that people remember and think about, and in 2016 does bernie versus hillary clinton, potential sexism, well, there was sexism. >> yeah. >> so now it pops up, and he doesn't really do a good job answering it. >> he kind of wagged his finger at the end of it there. >> one of his closest friends in the senate, is he calling her a

liar? >> there's like a way that it goes, which is, you know, she didn't really see that. she's just lying. she's a bad person. he's the victim. somebody posted this on twitter. there's a way this goes when women make any kind of, you -- say that a man did "x." well, she's a bad person. she's a liar. >> or she's emotional about it. >> it's happening to her now. and i wonder if, you know, when i was going around the country just talking to people for the election in 2016, one of the things that surprised me was young women, particularly younger white women, who didn't particularly -- weren't emotionally attached to the idea of having a woman president and weren't emotionally attached to the idea of hillary clinton being that woman or any woman. they're saying that's not what i'm voting on. i'm not voting based on that. only after she lost was there a lot of emotion attached to hillary clinton losing by a lot of women. the same think kind of happened with kamala harris where black people were like, she was a proper. i'm not into it.

then when she was gone, feelings. i'm wondering if as a political matter this helps warren because she is the most viable woman left. >> perhaps. you can also ask the question, there is this lament over loss of diversity over the candidates, but democratic voters have had an opportunity to express support for diversity within the rules of the dnc, and apparently those candidates haven't risen to the top. so it does raise a conundrum. look, the important thing for tonight is a woman has already won the popular vote for the presidency. hillary clinton won by 3 million votes. we know that. so this debate has already been settled. bernie sanders tonight said he would support any candidate up there who became the nominee, and they would support a woman to be president. he said he didn't say it. elizabeth warren said he did. what we know is the appreciation for diversity and elevation of women in politics rests within the democratic party, not within the republican party. and tonight all six candidates who were on the stage and those who failed to make the stage stand on those principles in stark contrast to a republican

party that continues to quash diversity and has no interest in expanding the diversity of their own ranks over the next decade. the democratic party is the place to be, and they will continue to fight for women. we know that based on past performance, and we know that going forward. >> let me go to the guy who worked for hillary clinton. joel, i wonder if in retrospect, you know, if hillary -- you know, it does feel like elizabeth warren is running much more overtly on elect a woman, right, and that being an overt piece of what she's doing. you know, living through what you did in that previous campaign and the result, do you think that it's wise for her to lean in to the idea, give a woman an opportunity? >> i think it's on brand for elizabeth warren to do that. if you talk to people on and off the record around the warren campaign, they have not shied away from talking about the historic nature of their candidacy. so i think if it fits with your brand, go with it. it certainly works for elizabeth warren. two things i want to point out about this. one, elizabeth warren and bernie

sanders here, it's interesting. why is warren doing this now? when i say doing this, i'm talking very clearly about that politico story, which is obviously something that her side put out. i'm not saying they shouldn't have put it out. i'm just saying it's clearly something they put out. they did that because they're struggling in the polls, and they needed something to give a jolt to their side and also an excuse for her to create some space between her and bernie sanders. so i think that that shouldn't be missed here in the subtext. why is it happening now? the second thing is i'd like for bernie sanders to really lean into that partnership with aoc in the coming days to start to give him some cover here. she is his strongest, most notable, most well-known female supporter, female surrogate out there, and i think bernie sanders is really going to lean on her a lot in the coming days to give him the important type of validation that he needs to push back on this. >> it is going to be interesting. let's not forget that the political story came after a script was put forward by the

sanders campaign that made it look like elizabeth warren was the candidate of the elites. that happened first. but it was a script they had that was part of their campaign. that came out. it wasn't like the warren campaign just launched an attack on sanders for no reason. it was the second thing that happened. the first thing was that script. i'm just saying. >> i would really quickly say i get the sense that actually the warren people might have put that out too. i think they were looking for an excuse -- i'm serious. i think they were looking for an excuse to create some space between themselves and bernie sanders. >> all i have to say is all our mentions on twitter are about to be lit on fire and none of us should check our phone. >> i'm used to t. i got to say this, joy. here's the thing. elizabeth warren is the only person in the top four who has basically had to do kung fu karate against both her left and her right. she's gotten attacked by mayor pete, and she's gotten attacked by surrogates of bernie sanders. so when she finally responds, i don't know why anyone can say, well, this was planned. this was a scheme. everybody else has been going

after her. >> because she's a woman. because she's a woman, and whenever she speaks loudly, and she's angry and it's not friendly, and she's not smiling. david jolly, joel payne. smile all the time, ladies. be friendly. karine jean-pierre, feeling friendly? >> so friendly. >> jason johnson, please stay with us. up next, we were all waiting for it, but it took about 90 minutes to get there. impeachment. smiling. >> nancy pelosi has to move. he has, in fact, committed impeachable offenses. whether the senate makes that judgment or not, it's for them to decide. so it doesn't really matter whether or not he's gone after me. i've got to be in a position that i think about the american people. i can't hold a grudge. i have to be able to not only fight but also heal. and as president of the united states that's what i will attempt to do. to do.

wi what that impeachment trial is going to show once again to the american people and something we should all be talking about is the corruption of this administration. that's what lies at heart of it. it is about donald trump putting donald trump first. >> this is a decency check on our government. this is a patriotism check. not only is this trial that -- >> thank you.

>> -- but also this election. >> the impeachment of donald trump, the first ever of a first-term president, didn't come up until roughly an hour and a half into tonight's debate despite the fact that house speaker nancy pelosi announced on tuesday that the house will vote later today, wednesday, on a resolution to transfer the articles to the senate. that will clear the way for a trial set to begin next tuesday. our panel is back with me. karine jean-pierre, jonathan alter, rina shah, and jason johnson. let's play joe biden because he's the person who is sort of the most kind of in play because republicans seeming to indicate that if witnesses get called, they want for some reason joe biden, who is not relevant to impeachment to testify. here is joe biden. >> if you're the nominee, is it going to be harder to run against president trump if he's

been acquitted and able to claim vindication, especially after what he said about your family? >> it's irrelevant. there's no choice but for nancy pelosi and the house to move. he has, in fact, committed impeachable offenses. whether the senate makes that judgment or not, it's for them to decide. so it doesn't really matter whether or not he's gone after me. i've got to be in a position that i think about the american people. i can't hold a grudge. i have to be able to not only fight but also heal. and as president of the united states, that's what i will attempt to do. >> jonathan, you know, the attacks on joe biden's family have been so deeply personal against his one remaining son. and for him to say, i can't hold a grudge. i have to be able to not only fight but heal. i don't understand that answer. do you? >> i thought that was a really bad answer. he didn't have that bad of a debate, and he very well might be the nominee. but you've got to prosecute the

case against trump. you can't win if you don't have your foot on his neck all the way from now until november. >> right. >> look, if this becomes a choice between, you know, a socialist democrat and a president with a good economy, trump wins. it has to be a referendum on a criminal president. the whole election in some ways has to be about getting rid of trump. if that's the question, democrats have a very good chance. if it's a choice, comparative kind of thing, then the economy and these other factors come into play. so this is what's been missing from a lot of these debates, i know they say, the voters say we're interested in health care, these other issues. that's true. it's also true that iowa voters don't need to be convinced what a bad president trump is. but they do want to know who's the best at prosecuting the case against him. >> yeah. i mean rina shah, our republican strategist, did you see in joe

biden an opponent ready to take on donald trump? >> i saw someone who was very tired tonight. and frankly somebody who missed getting that spotlight on himself. he had a couple chances to grab it there, and i think he missed the mark. he and klobuchar sort of -- i think thwe went in knowing ther was going to be that warren feud with sanders, and we were a little bit disappointed until handshake gate at the very end. but i was expecting a little bit more from biden, a little more jabs. i wanted some humor. i wanted infotainment tonight and frankly i think that's what everybody wanted. but all we got seemingly was info, info, info. i think you sort of tune out in general. i know a lot of republicans like myself who likely will vote for a democrat felt sort of like, how are we going to take more of this? >> yeah. jason, i think the challenge for joe biden is that, you know, in the john kerry election when people questioned his integrity

as a warrior, what all of us expected him to do was to say, you're never going to question me. >> right. >> when i went into that battle, i fought. i put the uniform on over there, and you were in the national guard over here, george w. bush. he didn't do that, and it was kind of shocking that he didn't defend himself in a stronger way. i guess that's what i keep waiting for biden to do and he isn't. >> yeah. the biggest mistake i see here -- and i'm sorry. i don't think people are necessarily looking for entertainment. they're liking for somebody who is compelling and can deal with climate change and babies in cages and mass shooters. what joe biden failed to do, which he does from time to time, is if he is not the center of attention, he kind of fades in and out. he's kind of like your grandpa that wakes up on the couch when somebody scores a touchdown. okay. he's back, he's back. he doesn't seem like he's on point the whole time. he only needs one answer whenever there's a question about impeachment. donald trump fears me so much that he got impeached over it.

that's your answer, period. that's the only reason that it matters. when he goes wandering into hunter biden and what happened to him in the past and everything else like that, it shows he is taking his eye off the ball. and i didn't think that a lot of what joe biden did today -- i don't think he hurt himself but he didn't help himself because that's the only answer you need to have for impeachment if you're the former vice president. >> i want to let rina back in since her infotainment line got the tag. i'll tell you who does want entertainment -- donald trump. this is a reality show to him because his kids aren't in cages. his grandkids aren't going in cages. he's not at risk. he can tweet out memes of people in muslim headdress mocking an entire religion of a billion people thinking that's clever. he can do that because he doesn't care. but when impeachment starts, what your party, what the republicans want to do is make it a tv show about joe biden being what they turned hillary

clinton into in 2016. when you looked at joe biden tonight, does he seem like somebody who is up to the task of fighting what hillary clinton fought in 2016, a mass disinformation campaign about him and his family? >> i think he is up to the task because i think joe biden inevitably has that ability to connect. over and over again he's over yum so much adversity in his life and he certainly had that human moment tonight where he talked about being a single dad when he lost his two family members, his late wife and daughter, i believe. i thought that was so very touching, but it came fleetingly. the two women that were great onstage were the two women in telling their stories. people want stories and i think joe biden will bring that back. he will become more human. look, i don't mean to trivialize anything by saying infotainment. i think the fact that trump goes out there and does rallies like he did in milwaukee, he connects somehow with people. he didn't connect with me, but in my native west virginia when he goes out there and makes about you, the former coal mine

who lost his job, he makes it about people. i think biden has that in him but he's tired by how long this process is. it's a draining process. >> that's not good. being president is more tiring. really quickly, karine, because you probably know joe biden better than most of us having worked in the obama white house. >> i'll say this. joe biden's campaign currently has an ad out in iowa that is a pretty good ad. it's about electability and it talks about basically donald trump is obsessed with him. and that's what i was hoping to have seen. and it lays it out so perfectly in that 30 seconds and i was surprised that he kind of went off and didn't lean in just like jason said. i'm living rent free in donald trump's brain, right? that is exactly what is happening. and he's talking about electability from before he jumped in. >> yeah. >> and that's been his main argument. you don't see him pounding that,

pounding that. i think that's the problem. the messaging, where is it? >> yeah. >> you have it. this impeachment should help him. >> right. >> really, right? >> i want a noun, a verb, or 9/11 joe biden tonight. or even a corn pop joe biden. he wasn't feisty. we'll see. maybe he was tired. tired not good if you want to be president. thank you very much. jonathan and jason, please stay with me. up next, the candidates tackle major domestic policy issues like climate change, poverty and education. >> i don't want cost ever to be a barrier to somebody seeking to attend college. and under my plan, it won't be. but if you're in that top income bracket, don't get me wrong. i still wish you well. i hope you succeed when you go to college. i just need you to go ahead and pay that tuition.

in fewer than 20 days, the first votes will be cast in 20920 election in iowa, and the six candidates on the debate stage tonight made their case to appeal to those voters on domestic policy issues, explaining their views on things like health care and education and affordable child care and climate change, things that affect americans every day. >> we should not be one of a few countries that does not have universal high-quality, affordable child care. we should not be one of the only major countries not to guarantee health care to all people as a human right. >> what should we do about long-term care, the elephant that doesn't even fit into this room? we need to make it easier for people to get long-term care insurance. >> as a billionaire, should your children have been entitled to free public college? >> no. we're talking a lot about college. but in fact if you talk about the poor people's campaign, you have to realize that for the youngest kids, they are getting an education that's relative to the taxes in their neighborhoods. we need to redistribute money so

every kid has a chance, so we're not legislating inequality for the next generation, and so we actually invest in every single kid specifically poor kids, specifically black kids, specifically brown kids. >> i have a two cent wealth tax so that we can cover child care for all of our children and provide universal pre-k for every 3-year-old and 4-year-old in america. >> we can create millions of good-paying jobs. we're the only country in the world that's ever taken great kries crisis and turned into great opportunity. and one of the ways to do it is with farmer here in iowa, making them the first group in the world to get to net zero emissions by paying them for planting and absorbing carbon in their fields. >> there was a kid at one of my events raised his hand and pointed out that he expects to be here in his 90s in the year 2100. he will sit in judgment over what we do, not just what we on this stage do.

anyone old enough to vote right now, whether we actually put together the national project it will require to meet our climate goals. coming up, the other major topic that took a while to get to tonight, and that is health care. care when you move homes, you move more than just yourself.

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we democrats may argue among each other about the best way to do health care, but we're going to be up against a republican incumbent who has cut health care for millions of people and is still trying to do that. i'll take our side of the argument any day. >> our panel is back with us. karine, do you think that warren connected on health care. >> yes. >> or do you think any of the candidates connected on health care? >> i think in this debate, warren answered that question on health care the best. i think when you start -- anytime you contrast what's

going on with donald trump, you're winning the argument. >> yeah. >> which is what she did. she's like, yeah, okay. we could disagree, and we disagree all the time. but here's the problem. look what donald trump is doing. >> yeah. >> and she did something else that was really interesting. she didn't mention medicare for all at all. >> yeah. >> she just talked about the policy. she talked about what she's trying to do. and i think she actually did a really good job tonight on health care. >> michelle goldberg talked about the fact she might be the unity candidate in many ways because she is sort of moderating herself on health care enough to where she's saying, listen, i'm going to do what's possible. >> exactly. i think that's right. >> i know that you had some thoughts, jonathan, as far as the warren/sanders dustup, imbroglio. >> so on this question of can a woman win, people, i think, know that in 1960, a lot of catholics believed that a catholic could not be elected president. >> lawrence talked about that. >> and then john kennedy made this famous speech in the

campaign to these protestant ministers. the subject was surfaced for debate and a lot of american catholics thought, you know what? we're going to show them a catholic can win. in 2008, a lot of african-americans were concerned, will the country vote for an african-american? when obama surfaced the issue in ho that they usual way with the can. >> yeah. >> i don't want to mansplain what women are going to do, but i do think that we might have had a psychological threshold that we crossed here where a certain number of women who have been worried about whether the country's ready for a woman are going to say, you know what? we want to show that america is ready. >> yeah. >> and that will help warren and klobuchar. >> i think that's true. i think we should also make a note of the fact that it is perhaps progress that people are past the idea because i remember when joe lieberman there were a

lot of people wondering can a jewish candidate win? we are past that and confident that can actually happen. we have a gay candidate. i think people are past the idea he couldn't be president. i think we are changing. let's play this buttigieg sound bite really quickly. play it fast. >> is it possible that black voters have gotten to know you and have simply decided to choose another candidate? >> the black voters who know me best are supporting me. the biggest mistake we could make is to take black votes for granted, and i never will. the reason i have the support i do is not because any voter thinks that i'm perfect. it's because of the work that we have done facing some of the toughest issues that communities can. >> jason, last thoughts. >> the more they get to know you, pete, the worse you've done. you've got 17% of african-american voters that would be disappointed if you would end up being the nominee. that is higher than any other group. if you can't explain basic things from how you went from 26

black police officers when you got into office to only 4 when you left, you're never going to do well with black voters nationally. >> that's harsh. all my guests tonight, thank you all very much. that wraps up this hour of our special debate coverage. i am joy reid. thank you for watching our special coverage. that coverage does continue after the break while we get jason johnson some happy pills. he's always so cynical. thank you all for watching. road-trip companion.

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so, you can really promise better sleep? not promise... prove. only at a sleep number store save $1,000 on the sleep number 360 special edition smart bed, now only $1,799. only for a limited time well, good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. the final democratic debate be before the iowa caucuses is now history. six presidential candidates all took the stage tonight in des moines. all eyes were on warren and sanders after senator warren condition if you remembered reports that senator sanders told her back in 2018 he didn't think a woman could win the white house.