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...