. >> david axelrod talks debate strategy ahead. >>> hello. i'm casey hunt in washington. hurricane hilary is barrelling toward the west coast of the united states and could dump more than a year's worth of rain where the state has forced evacuations, closed beaches and marks and forced the governor to declare a state of emergency on saturday. as they also prepare for the pr president's visit to survey the devastating wildfires as they face a record breaking year of billion dollar disasters. administrator chris wells, thank you for joining us this morning as so many fellow citizens are facing very difficult times ahead. can you give us the latest on hurricane hilary? how dangerous will it be? and what should people in the affected areas be doing to prepare for this storm? >> good morning, casey. hurricane hilary is going to be a serious impact and threat to southern californians. what i encourage everybody to do is take this storm serious. listen to your local officials. if they're asking you to evacuate or stay in place, they're going to have the best information that you

elliott williams, david axelrod, solve to cover today.. >> sure think. >> yeah. >>> a catastrophic loss of life in hawaii, and a humanitarians cries mae only have just be gun. we have a look at the damage done, and information on how you can help. that's next. the same as yours.most almost is just another word for not as good as mine. save 50% on the sleep number limited edition smart bed. plus, , 36 month financing on select smart beds. shop now only at sleep number. they're off from school, but not really home. images and videos. social media, fine-tuned to suck them in. and steal them away. alone you can't stop it. together we will. we have a plan. join us. ( ♪ ) wow, you get to watch all your favorite stuff. it's to die for. and it's all right here. streaming was never this easy, you know. this is the way. you really went all out didn't you? um, it's called commitment. could you turn down the volume? here, you can try. get way more into what your into when you stream on the xfinity 10g network. >>> we have these before-and-after photo

david axelrod, and david urban.you guys should take the show on the road. >> [laughter] -- >> and if you want to hear, actually, what vivek ramaswamy has to say about all this, just stay tuned right here on cnn. he is on the next hour with our own jim acosta. and coming up next, a black fedex driver allegedly chased down and shot by two white men while doing his job, delivering packages in mississippi. so, why did the trial abruptly and today? we will tell you next. listen up, you dogs with allergic itch! today's talking lesson is just one word: apoquel. ap--o--quel. ♪ you can't teach your itchy dog to talk... ...so, talk to your vet about apoquel. apoquel is for the control of allergic itch in dogs. do not use apoquel in dogs with serious infections. apoquel may increase the chances of developing serious infections... ...and may cause existing parasitic skin infections or pre-existing cancers to worsen. new neoplasias have been observed. i'm glad we speak the same language. ask your vet for apoquel. what do we alwa

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this is his hope, this is his prayer. >> david axelrod larry hogan, i'm so grateful for this conversation.com to sign up for new episodes of david's podcast, the ax files. >> thank you. >>> does the constitution bar donald trump from being president again? a top conservative and eight constitutional scholars say yes. i will explain why, coming up next. i' m tom. noom helped him use psychology to lose weight. the mindful aspect made me feel more conscious about what i was eating and why i was eating it. it'actually working. lose weight and make it last wi noom weight. why didn't we do this last year? before you were preventing migraine with qulipta®? remember the pain? cancelled plans? the worry? that was then. and look at me now. you'll never truly forget migraine. but qulipta® reduces attacks, making zero-migraine days possible. it's the only pill of its kind that blocks cgrp - and is approved to prevent migraine of any frequency. to help give you that forget-you-get migraine feeling. don't take if allergic to qulipta®. most common side effects are nausea, constipation, and sleepiness. l

i want to bring in now cnn senior political commentator and host of the ax files, david axelrod. kel here tonight. but just before you came on the air, we got those mugshots of two of those codefendants in the georgia case, john eastman and scott hall there. it just strikes me that this is going to be some 2024 election cycle. you've got the white house gearing up for what is going to be a three 60 degrees of a legal battle, and also this mugshot from the former president -- >> abby, i am just guessing. this is the first time you have had that instinct, that 24 is going to be something. no -- we are in completely uncharted waters here. we have a front running candidate who is so confident that he has chosen to skip the first presidential debate last night, who has got to the largest lead that i have seen in a very long time. no one has ever lost who has had a leaders beget national polls in this point, but who is under four separate indictments -- 91 felony counts -- and he's going to be running from arraignment to trials. there will be -- apparently there will be a mugshot of pre

let's discuss with the political commentator, david axelrod, and david irvin. the davids.rmer president trump, would you tell him to come to that debate and show up? there are rumors that they're considering some counter programming which is the option that you would advise him on? >> i would advise, and i'm sure david axelrod would advise, option b. when you're 39 points ahead, as he is in this most pacic quinnipiac poll, i think it would be foolish to show up. and i think you will see some counter programming. there are rumors that he will do some sort of event with perhaps tucker carlson on twitter which would be quite a return, right? former president trump returning to the platform which booted him off and kind of a grand fashion on the night of the debate would be something to see. >> as long as it works, right? >> right. >> so ax, look, this is who is on the debate stage so far. you've got, you know, basically the main candidates here. nikki haley, desantis, ramaswamy, christie, pence, trump if he wants to be, but if trump isn't there, what would you advise the othe

. >> with us now, former senior adviser to president obama, david axelrod and political adviser, s.e. cupp. who won, david? >> well, trump won. i think that he made a bet not to go and the rivals with his absence would clash with each other, and they did. look, nikki haley had a great night, and s.e. wrote this. i thought she stood out among the group. pence was much stronger, than i think that people anticipated, and anything that creates more of a muddle among the rest of the candidates serves trump's project. he is way ahead, and the thing that would threaten him is if somehow all of the voter not with him coalesced around one candidate. i don't think that happened last night. nothing advanced that, and i think that desantis is a mid-link performance, and so i think that trump was the winner last night. >> let me play desantis from this morning reacting to his own performance and why, if you say that he kind of stayed in background or didn't, wasn't really attacked or the focus of it, and listen to his take and spin on it from this morning. this is sot 6, guys. >> i am not here to

legal analyst, elie honig, michael moore, and cnn political commentators alyssa farah griffin and david axelrod. david, it's fascinating to hear rudy giuliani talk about how fani willis is going to go down in history. you look at that mug shot of giuliani. i mean, how far this guy has fallen from, i mean, you know, once on the cover of "time" magazine. >> it's extraordinary. you know, i was working the mayoral race in 2001. he was leaving office when 9/11 happened. and he -- i remember how exalted he was for the leadership he provided then, such that he was the front runner for president of the united states in 2008. and so, yeah, this is -- it is an extraordinary fall. but it's also, you know, so cynical to be engaged in a plot or an alleged plot, i guess i should say, to undermine the presidential election in ways that were, you know, clearly, clearly wrong, and then accuse others of undermining. it's orwellian, really. >> that's what he's saying about fani willis, she's attacking the constitution. he was there on january 6th rallying the crowds to go forth. >> right. we remember that crazy r

joining me now is david axelrod. at context how does somebody even navigate this as a campaign person, as a voter, what we obviously have never seen anything like this before? >> exactly, there's not exactly a handbook on what to do if your candidate is faced with multiple trials and the course of the campaign. it has never happened before, but aaron, in certain ways, this whole legal tussle has become trump's campaign. he has used these cases as a rallying point and, in a weird way, the more indictments that are piled on, the more that he makes the case that it is all just an effort to stop him. so i don't know how they are going to manage his time, but i eastern going to use these trials and use these prosecutions to try to press his case that he is a victim and that he is being persecuted because he is a threat to joe biden, he could be president again, and that the elites and the state want to stop him. that has become the essence of his campaign. we're gonna hear a lot of that, maybe from courtroom steps and not

david axelrod, ellis stewart are joining us.r heads around this rather surreal, new normal of the former president and clear republican front. er for the 2024 republican presidential nomination now facing, get this, 91 criminal counts in four different cases? >> wolf, it certainly depends on who you ask. because what we're seeing and hearing from a lot of voters across the country is, this is a clear case of confirmation bias. with each and every additional indictment, this really confirms the previously held notions in many people's minds that donald trump is a vehicle tilk tip of the justice department, and the other side, he is well deserving of these indictments that he is facing. what i'm hearing and seeing from republicans across the country, especially in these key states, a lot of these indictments, they're not paying attention to the details and the substance of these indictments, but rather, they're looking at this from a broad brush and looking at this as a lot of white noise and saying that donald trump is unduly bei

. >> todd: many predict a third party candidate, even david axelrod said it would cut the throat of thelection campaign. >> carley: three years ago, president trump signed the abraham accord, with israel and middle east neighbors. the deal hasn't stopped president biden from criticizing his predecessor. >> president biden: not much i agree with my former predecessor on foreign policy. we are weaker, not stronger. >> carley: rabbi lakestone, senior advisor to donald trump ambassador to israel joins me now. good morning, thank you for joining us. three years since president trump announced the abraham accord. tell us what they are and why they are important in middle east and here in the u.s. >> abraham accord created new paradigm, for 40 years, premise there can be no peace in middle east until you resolve the issue and everything was on hold and secretary kerry in his last public speech when asked, will there ever be peace in arab nation and israel, he answered no, no, no. one of my favorite clips to retweet or repost. august of 2020, president trump hosted phone call with the leaders a

cnn senior political commentator david axelrod is joining us now. far can democrats take this now? this was a huge win for them. >> yeah. you know, kate, you'll remember the kansas initiative back before the midterm elections in which voters there affirmed abortion rights in that state and it really foreshadowed what we saw in the mid-term elections which was a much better performance for democrats than had been anticipated by historical kind of member you ares and what this suggests is this issue is going to live on into the 2024 election and it comes at a time when republican candidates are battling to get to the right on this question, so they're moving further and further away from where the electorate is, and i think this is going to be an issue in the campaign, if there are issues in the campaign and we're want just listening to legal analysts talk about what happened in court that day. >>. >> i mean, republicans can read the same newspapers and see the same data as democrat, though. they see what happened in ohio and kansas before. so what ca

based joining me now, our senior political commentator david axelrod. at context, how does someone even navigate this as a campaign person, as a voter? i mean, we've obviously never seen anything like this before. >> yeah, exactly. it's not exactly handbook on what to do if you are a candidate facing multiple trials in the case of a campaign. it's never happened before. but, erin in certain ways, this whole legal tussle has become trump's campaign. he has used these cases as a rallying point. you, know in a weird way, the more indictments that are piled on, the more he makes the case that it's all just an effort to stop him. and i don't know how they will manage his time, but he is certainly going to use these trials and use these prosecutions to try and press his case that he is a victim, and that he is being persecuted because he is a threat to joe biden, he could be president again, and that the elites and the deep state want to stop him. that has become the essence of his campaign. so we're going to hear a lot of that. maybe from the courtroom steps

. >>> joining us now, cnn senior political commentator, david axelrod, senior adviser to president obama, and political commentator, scott jennings, former assistant to president bush. david, giuliani has issued, we will analyze that in a little while. let's talk about the debate and debate counterprogramming most specifically. donald trump is now talking about counterprogramming the upcoming debate. i wonder why he wouldn't show up to the debate. it seems an easy argument, and he's been making that and folks have been making that. he's far and away ahead, why would he even give them the time? why would he show up? what do you think? >> well, he would show up because he doesn't want others to have the stage. he would show up because he's attracted to the main stage. he would show up because he doesn't want people to think that he is afraid to be there because of these indictments. those are the reasons he would show up. i've thought all along that he would not show up because if he doesn't show up, it's not the same show. the audience will be smaller, there will be less interest. what we

david axelrod the former senior adviser to obama says he thinks that's going to pave a way for donald trump. >> peter: yeah. so, basically, if a majority of the country doesn't want a 2020 rematch, who do they want? somebody like larry hogan we know didn't run as a republican because he just was not generating enough interest when he was exploring it. so, who do they put forward? >> steve: good question. >> brian: joe manchin doesn't have the majority of democrats and doesn't have a majority of republicans. larry hogan could not get more than moderate republicans. >> steve: it's just heating up. peter, thank you for joining us from the white house. lots to talk about today. >> peter: thank. >> brian: now they are asking for more bank records and keep going no, wait a second. you have got all of donald trump's taxes. he wasn't even president anymore. this guy has overseas business operations. he found two aliases what was joe biden up to that he had to have two alias emails department of come out and say by the way if you want to track me i have got these two emails you might want to l

i heard david axelrod who said last week, why should they go for ron desantis when they can have the out of the race, the desantis folks are with trump. he has a big lead. if you look at the statements just this week since the likely and now the formal indictment of former president trump, no one has walked away. unlike that one state senator in iowa, when trump diszed the governor and said i'm switching from trump to somebody else, nobody has walked away. so trump has a good majority of my former colleagues, even in the state of florida where you think desantis would have a strangle hold, but they are all sticking with him. for the speaker, he has this freedom caucus allowing one person to have a vote to call to vacate the chair, and if he walked off that line, guess what, trump makes a call and one of those guys is begingoing to you're out, and chances are could win. >> i want to play the remarks he made last night after the former president's arraignment. >> you're entitled to raise a question. you're entitled to question whether it was honest or not. that's the uniqueness of the

when we think about the no labels party, i think david axelrod is spot on.p in mind donald trump has a large swath of the republican party that will vote for him no matter what. not the same for joe biden. if there is another candidate jumping in the race that is viable, democrats will leave joe biden and go with that candidate if they think this person is viable. not the same with donald trump. >> harris: he has anybody but biden syndrome. thank you. a showdown over parental rights in virginia just as children are headed back to school today. several districts are defying the governor's gender identity policies prefer to substitute their own judgment on the issue. jason rantz next. jason rantz next. mlb chooses t-mobile for business for 5g solutions... ...to not only enhance the fan experience, but to advance how the game is played. now's the time to see what america's largest 5g network can do for your business. the first time you connected your godaddy website and your store was also the first time you realized... well, we can do anything. cheesecake cook

he is like the david axelrod of the ron desantis world. he is running the superpac.his -- his quotes, donald trump is weak. lay off him and not attack him from this stage. it's a questionable strategy. also, it is suggesting that donald trump shouldn't be a part of the discussion, that these candidates who are trying to defeat him shouldn't talk about his legal issues. the fact that the frontrunner has been indicted four times, that shouldn't be on the table. there are a lot of things that are questionable about that. it advises ron desantis to go after ramaswamy, which tells you about who they think the biggest threat is to them. >> which is really interesting. his polls have been creeping up as well. finally, donald trump listening to his lawyers, listening to advice? this is no the what happens. he has been attacking prosecutors and everybody else. he decided to cancel the monday press conference and the way he was going to irrefutably explain what was wrong with the indictment in georgia. >> exactly. it's the first time that -- to our knowledge that donald trump

investigative counsel for the january six community -- karen friedman, cnn political commentator david axelrodant to start on following up with john's point, you're a democrat, we helped obama get elected. but you're also student politics and history with the white house experience. i asked him the context to you, the former president of the united states, who happens to be on this day the faraway front runner in the next presidential election, in a mugshot and he says that he is trying to raise money off this. he is trying to boost his political standing off of this instead of showing any remorse. >> look, i think the bigger concern that i have is not about donald trump, but about the impact that he is having on the country. the fact that, yes, large numbers of republican office holders have echoed his narrative that the system is corrupt and rigged and has been weaponized against him. his political project requires him to destroy public faith in our institutions, and he has been pretty successful, at least among his own party. and that to me is the long term legacy of all of this. everything

well, bill cassidy, larry hogan, and former obama white house chief strategist and senior adviser david axelrod sunday morning at 9:00 eastern and again at noon right here on cnn. >>> if you ever miss an episode of "the lead," you can listen where you get your podcasts. our coverage continues now with alex marquardt who is in for wolf blitzer in "the situation room." >>> happening now, president joe biden hailing a new era of joint cooperation with japan and south korea as the allies confront hostile threats from north korea and china. we

and everyone, including david axelrod, political consultants, has said, you know, it's actually not such a bad idea for him not to participate when he is this far ahead in the polls. that said, we're told that there are some trump advisers who really think that he should be participating for two reasons. one, heaven forbid someone in that group rises to the top and he's not there. we know how effective he can be. the second is if he becomes the nominee, he needs to are you that joe biden should debate him. if he doesn't show up for the debates, that undercuts that argument. >> elliott, i want to get your take on this other thing. the special counsel, in a new filing tonight, is actually pushing back on trump's request for a 2026 hearing date and that other election interference case. they're accusing trump's lawyers of exaggerating the time it will take to do this document review. are they right? >> they're absolutely right. but that's also incredibly common when parties negotiate over when a trial, or anything, is going to happen. one party, to the defendant, will say, no, we need plent

well, bill cassidy, larry hogan, and former obama white house chief strategist and senior adviser david axelrod. that is sunday morning at 9:00 eastern and again at noon right here on cnn. >>> if you ever miss an episode of "the lead," you can listen where you get your podcasts. our coverage continues now with alex marquardt who is in for wolf blitzer in "the situation room." >>> happening now, president joe biden hailing a new era of joint cooperation with japan and south korea as the allies confront hostile threats from north korea and china. we're breaking down the historic summit that just wrapped up at camp david a short time ago. >>> also tonight, we're learning more about donald trump's plans to skip next week's republican presidential debate. sources saying an interview with former fox news host tucker carlson is now in the works as trump aims to steal the spotlight from his rivals. >>> and a category-four hurricane lashing mexico and is posing an unprecedented threat now to southern california. the region is under its first tropical storm watch ever, and potentially facing a year's wor

lame defenses, you known that the bidens are in trouble, which is what obama's old architect, david axelrod, alluded to. >> i'm sure didn't land all that well over at the white house because i think love this hunter biden case to be behind them. anything that extendshing t the hunter biden case into bi year is is not welcome news for joe biden's spelled out in a piece published by politico today about. the biden team resigned to a campaign shadowed by hunten to r drama garland's friday night bait and switch, i think followswitchs yesterday's news a his other special prosecutor, jack smithl pr, had asked the ct to begin trump's january 6 trial on january 2nd, 2024. now obvious, right?there. what he's up to. they're taking off the trail just as the gop primary season kicks off. nice going. these people are shamelessng . se nothing but bad faith as far as the eye can seee.. art, the but as we've been saying fromr the start, the hunter drama, while it's important, is its own distraction. and republicans who think they're going to defeat the bidens with investigations, ,i think they're likely to

. >> some of what the republican candidate said tonight in milwaukee -- joining me now, david axelrod -- abby phillip, alyssa farah griffin, scott jennings, and david urban. let's go around with first impressions. david urban, let's start with you. >> i think tonight prove that you don't need donald trump to be a debate to have a crap show there. >> -- >> it's cable. [laughter] >> the moderators didn't do a great job of controlling the crowd. i think a lot of the candidates were stepping on each other -- the american people don't want to hear this. they want to hear people argue. they want to your policies. i want your ideas. it's a chance to put things forward. and i think a lot of the folks did a great disservice to their own candidacy by just talking too much about things that don't matter. -- talk directly to the people. and i think the big winner tonight was vivek ramaswamy, who took up most of the time in the debate. >> scott? >> i think what surprised me most was nikki haley supplanting chris christie as the principal anti-trump foil in this primary. i did not expect that. but

he's the david axelrod or robert gibbs i guess of the desantis world.line he's studying desantis says about trump. trump isn't here, so let's just leave him alone. he's too weak to defend himself here. we're all running against him. one, that is not even a good line for a debate i think we can all agree, but his entire argument which isn't even -- it's kind of laughable in the truthfulness of it because it's not truthful that trump is weak. he's not weak in the republican primary. he may be for other reasons, but he's multiple digits ahead of desantis. to your point clearhy the advice, the david axelrod of the desantis campaign is advising him to basically pretend trump is weak and not attack him, and that tells you a lot about the issues with their strategy and why it's -- part of why it's not working right now. >> it just doesn't work. and like you said it's not true. politically he's stronger than he's ever been. and jonathan, it seems to me you don't go trump is weak. you ask the question, why isn't he here? i thought this was the 800-pound gorilla.

obama's people, before anybody else, when we'd be outside in the hallways, it was always the david axelrodsalways the robert gibbs. very early on they were saying, "you watch this trump guy. even when the media was going there's no way he could win, they go, watch this trump guy. worry about him." barack obama is still saying it. i remember bill clinton in late summer of 2016 warning democrats that he could win. joe biden was offering those same warnings. i remember ed rindell at the convention saying that everybody is making fun of donald trump, but he could win pennsylvania. everyone was like, "you're joking." joe biden was there, too, in the get-together, live from the convention. he said, "oh, no, no, it's a real danger here." the fact that barack obama is still saying this eight years later, something that everybody needs to pay very close attention to. i'll be honest with ya, i'm so glad that he sent that message directly to joe biden. >> joe, i couldn't agree with you more. look, donald trump can win again. i've got to say that out loud, he can absolutely win again. forget what the p