back with david chalian, nia-malika henderson and david axelrod.tood out with mayor pete buttigieg ander cooper pushed him on the lack of specifics he's laid out on his website. take a look. >> i also think it's important we not drown people with minutia before we've vindicated the values that animate our policies. as democrats this is -- we expect people to figure out what our values must be from that. i expect that it will be very easy and clear to tell where i stand on every specific policy challenge of our time, but i'm going to take the time to lay that out while also talking about values and everyday impacts. >> he's going to take a little time. he's going to figure it out. he'll get back. is that -- i mean, is that the right answer tonight? >> you know, it's the only answer he has. at this point. i guess at some point he was saying well there's going to be something on the website where you can do a search to see how i feel about something. >> then it was there. we confirmed it had been added. >> this is a problem beto o'rourke has had, wher

one of the correspondents who broke this story, david sanger, as well as cnn political director david chalian. david sanger, this is your reporting. take me through this. why were they told not to bring it up? >> i think it's pretty straightforward. since the beginning of the trump administration, kate, the president has reacted poorly to any discussion of russian election interference because in his mind, it calls into question the legitimacy of his election. and so he went through a very lengthy period of time, a few years, you might argue, he has never really emerged from it, in which he has essentially denied that the russians were involved, downplayed the importance of that involvement in my reporting on this earlier for a book, the president called me at one point after he met putin for the first time and made the argument that putin made to him, which was the russians couldn't have been involved in the election interference because they were so good at this that they never would have been caught. and he said to me, you know, doesn't that sound right to you? you cover cyber issues and s

with us right now david gregory, josh campbell, anne milgram, david chalian. out politics unfortunately now, the ag is part of a political process, this is a pageant that's going on. we know he wants to talk about why he did what he did in terms of forming what we're going to get later this morning. what's the plus/minus on the political play here? >> well, we have a little bit of history, recent history, about how the politics played out here with his four-page summary or principled conclusions that he came to from going through the mueller report and we saw how sort of the battle lines were formed. i remember a lot of us said at that time clear political victory for president trump obviously that he wasn't indicted and that there was -- that this was out of the criminal realm now, that was a huge cloud lifted but that was going to be the best day for him in this process. what's going to happen today as we see this, 400 pages minus the redactions and each one of those pages is likely to have something that chips away at total complete exoneration, nothing to s

david chalian back with us again. david, trump saying there, i think we beat him easily. speaking about joe biden. cnn's reporting is that the president seems to be nervous because he's asking a lot of questions about him. why is that? >> yeah, i mean, the president and his team see joe biden and this entire democratic field as the candidate most likely to go and grab some of the voters that actually helped deliver the oval office to donald trump. some of those middle-class rust belt older white voters in places like, you know, wisconsin and michigan and pennsylvania, that joe biden has a unique ability when looking at the entire field of 20 democratic candidates to go in there and try to win some of the voters back. some of the voters, you recall, voted for the obama/biden ticket in 2012. they see that as a real clear and present political danger to them, which is why i think you see the president commenting on joe biden and trying to develop some sort of framing, negative framing around him more so than he's done with any other candidate in the field. >> this is one cas

david chalian, thank you so much. >>> joseph yun confirming to cnn that the trump administration did agree to pay a $2 million hospital bill to north korea for the care of american detainee otto warmbier. yun is a diplomat sent to north korea in 2017 to bring warmbier home, and here's what he said this morning. >> well, as soon as the north korean side told me that -- that his bill for $2 million would have to be paid. i contacted my business and then secretary of state littlerson got back to me be a said no, request ahead and sign. >> was it your understanding that the president gave his authority. >> that was my understanding. >> warmbier was held as a prisoner for a year and died after being returned to the united states. >> we cannot pay money for our great otto. there was no money paid. there was a fake news report that money was paid. i haven't paid money for any hostage. >> admiral john kirby, a former spokesman for the pentagon and the state department, and you heard what the president said there. >> right? >> mike pompeo, the secretary of state said it is still the policy to

cnn's political director david chalian is here to walk us through what this crowded 2020 race is lookingike right now. david? >> 20 candidates for 2020. take a look. here are their pictures. this is the largest field we've seen in modern presidential campaign history, brianna, and it's almost the most diverse field that we've ever seen in presidential politics. let's look at these candidates by the numbers just to show you a little bit about the field. 20 candidates in. look at the age range among them 37 years old at the young end and 77 years old, bernie sanders at the oldest end, but joe biden who got in today is 76. six women in this field, 13 of them are current political office holders. ideologically this group here took a look at the liberal to moderate scale here. they say the average of 2020 candidates hits at 55, so you see bernie sanders, elizabeth warren, kamala harris on the more liberal side of the average. you see hillary clinton, barack obama just to give you some perspective and joe biden all the way over here at the more moderate end of the scale, and that's going to be

david chalian. the tweet overnight is remarkable. in one 280 character statement or less pushes it past the next election. >> i mean, i think he's acknowledging the political reality. somebody finally got through to him that this would not work. you guys remember when he first got into office and republicans were in control, both chambers of congress and were debating how to repeal and replace obamacare. john boehner, the former republican speaker said one of the most true things about this issues is that republicans have never agreed as a party on how to do health care. on what to replace it with. and so when you have no agreement on the party, it not only is an issue that democrats have an advantage on in the polls but it's an issue that actually divides republicans. that's not where you want to begin a reelection campaign. it doesn't sound like the president is putting fort that he has a secret plan he's holding off on. he just says we're going to show this after the election. >> we'll see, alex, if the president's slogans work on

joining me now cnn political director david chalian.k at the first two attacks fired here, is this effective moving forward? >> well, let's first be clear about what this means, right. joe biden is the big dog in the race because when you get in the race and you instantly draw fire from the primary opponents and president trump all on the same day, it shows you are a target because of how -- how much you are seen as a formidable foe in this race. here is what is so interesting to me, erica, about the lines of attack. elizabeth warren at our town hall on monday night started to draw this contrast and didn't mention biden by name and then yesterday he got in the race and she mentioned him by name. it is from the most -- in terms of the -- these comments, it is from the most progressive folks in the party. the warren/sanders wing. and to benefit their own candidacy they are trying to dry the biggest contrast possible and paint joe biden on day one of his campaign as sort of the centrist corporate establishment democrat. they want to immedi

gloria borger and political director david chalian.is part of a larger thing going on with the ousters and potentially other ones that are coming. what do you make of this? >> well, i think that around these immigration and security issues, the president is clearly indicating to us this is what he sees as his path to reelection in 2020. that's what we're seeing. steven miller, you have evan and teams reporting this is all part of this near systemic purge in the department of homeland security. there's reporting that steven miller has more things he'd like to accomplish as the chief domestic policy adviser and this is the area of his focus. i read clearly donald trump thinks t these issues that gived him to the white house and he plans on utilizing these issues and setting up a team that he thinks is not soft on these issues going forward to try to get reelected. >> kirstjen nielsen executed the family separation plan and having troops on the southern border. how is this someone who is soft on this issue for the president? because that

we'll speak with our political director david chalian in just a moment.g in from new hampshire, but first we have major breaking news in the terror bombings that left nearly 300 people dead, including at least four americans. our senior international correspondent sam kiley is joining us from colombo in sri lanka. sam, there are important developments unfolding. what are we learning? >> reporter: well, cnn's barbara starr, wolf, sources say intelligence believes they know who the king pen behind the attacks s. they are working with sri lankans to find out the extent of his network, but they have not yet said anything other than he has islamist connections, perhaps inspired by the so-called islamic state. the extent of the cold blooded ruthlessness of this group, though, wolf, killed 290 people or more, is revealed by some cct footage we obtained from the saint sebastian church. take a look at how ruth lieutenanless this bomber was. today video shows what church officials believe is a bomb in his back pack. he pats a toddler on the head as he crosses the c

a bunch of good ones here right now starting with david chalian, our political director.er vice president makes a strong case why he should be elected president in this official announcement on video today. he refers to the violence that occurred in charlottesville, virginia. watch this. >> that's when we heard the words of the president of the united states that stunned the world and shocked the conscience of this nation. he said there were, quote, some very fine people on both sides. very fine people on both sides? those words, the president of the united states assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it. and in that moment, i knew the threat to this nation was unlike any i had ever seen in my lifetime. >> what do you think of that decision by the former vice president to immediately target what arguably is certainly the lowest if not one of the lowest points of the trump presidency? >> i think there are three things going on there. and it was a strategically wise decision. i thought it was a strong debut. th

let's go to david chalian to break this down.just how big of a boost did he get in these latest polls? >> he definitely got a biden bounce with his announcement, brianna. this is the first national poll since joe biden got into the race and entirely conduct after he got in the race and look at that. 39% for biden. 15% for sanders and everyone else in this top six, warren-up buttigieg, o rock, harris, all in single digits and you'll see a big jump for joe biden compared to the last poll. 27% last month and now 39%. the only other candidate on this list is to make a jump was pete buttigieg, you see o'rourke and harris went from double digits to single digits and sanders lost had a little bit all to biden's benefit and a little bit to buttigieg's ben f. of course, there's a lot of time. this is an initial snapshot of where the race is now. take a look. nearly two-thirds of democrats. 64% say they might change their mind. 36% say they are definitely going to support the person they are with now. even a majority of biden supporters at

let's go to cnn political director david chalian now. markable numbers for joe biden. he was already leading. now he's leading by a long shot, and really among all groups. democrats, independents, non-white voters as well. >> yeah, across the board. you're absolutely right. this is the biden bump, as you said. the first national poll taken entirely after biden got into the race. let's look at the movement from last month to this month. you were showing those numbers that 39%, he was at 28% last month, jim. a jump of 11 points there. the only other candidate to make that kind of movement was pete buttigieg, who went from 1% to 7%, but sanders went down a little bit. o'rourke and harris down from double digits to single digits. clearly, biden does have a commanding lead at the moment. this is a snapshot, i say that because look at this. nearly two thirds of the democratic electorate said they might change their minds. only 36% say they definitely support the candidate they're with now. even a majority of biden supporters say they might chan

. >> joining me now is cnn political director david chalian from manchester, new hampshire where cnn holding a series of town halls tonight. we'll be talking about that in a minute, david, but what do you think about moulton or what do you think he thinks he brings that others don't? >> well, he says he's going to run on themes, service, security, patriotism, themes he thinks that the democratic party has sort of ceded to the republicans in recent years, and he's going to look to reverse that. you see in the video you were playing and in the longer video as well he leans heavily into his service for the country in the iraq war as well as his time in congress and being on the armed services committee so that clearly is going to be front and center. you know, he -- there's no clear path for seth moulton to the nomination that anybody can sore of see at the moment but he does fit into a lot of different categories out there. there's a bunch of house members. sits in there. in the 40s and younger crowd for younger people and tulsi gabbard, pete buttigieg and seth moulton who served in the

cnn's senior washington correspondent jeff zeleny is here and david chalian. months now, there was really no question when i had interviewed him back at the beginning of february after he had launched and exploratory committee, but now raising a million dollars in the hours after making it official, what does that say about where his campaign is right now? >> first i will just say this is why candidates like to have a couple bites at the apple, why they sit down with an interview but then have an announcement speech so they can raise money off of that. that much accomplished, i guess. using that moment correctly, but to your point there is no doubt by any metric that pete buttigieg had a surge of momentum over the course of the last six weeks from now many people knowing who he was at all to just talking about how to pronounce his name to being squarely in the pack of that second tier of contenders, not joe biden and bernie sanders, very well known, former presidential candidates, but he is right there now with beto o'rourke and kamala harris and elizabeth warr

david chalian, thank you. >> sure. >>> despite the evidence, all of the facts, jared kushner isdown playing the conclusions of the mueller report as the president's son-in-law puts it, when it comes to the 2016 election interference russia's role amounted to a couple of facebook ads. speaking today at the time 100 summit. >> quite frankly the whole thing is a big distraction for the country and you look at what russia did, buying some facebook ads to try to sow dissent and it is a terrible thing, but i think the investigations and all of the speculation that has happened for the last two years had a much harshers impact on democracy than a couple of facebook ads. >> while the special counsel concluded quite the contrary, this quote said it all, the russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systemic fashion. cnn analyst matt rosenberg is a national security correspondent for "the new york times" so thank you for jumping on. and just starting with the comments today and -- that's obviously one person's opinion. we don't know if that represents the mindset

our political director david chalian is here with us. anders has repeatedly criticized the wealthy. now he, himself, says he's a millionaire. how's this going to play? >> he has, indeed. you remember, you pressed him on this at a town hall, about releasing his tax returns. he said soon. that was a couple of months ago, wolf. he still hasn't done it. now, he says we'll get to see them on monday, if not before. ten years' worth and he's a millionaire. i don't expect his reporters to actually abandon him because of this. i really don't. but i do think it is important to note bernie sanders' political identity has been about bashing the millionaires and billionaires, he's done it over and over again and he bashed them all the way to joining their ranks. i doubt he's going to change his policies about it, but it is a discordant note, obviously, that sanders is keenly aware of, which is why he's trying to get out ahead of his tax returns being released. >> and he said one of the reasons he has that money is because his book or books were best s

we have cnn's political director david chalian here which is really good because i'm losing count. >> sell haven't heard from terry mcauliffe or steve bullock and governor de blasio and with tim ryan in the race we've got 17 in there already. >> this is a sustaining problem, pripgt? >> where's the room? >> you'll have like five different debates. let's look at the folks who are still considering a run. democratic congressman eric swalwell could run. the former canned damt for the governor of georgia is still mulling a run. let's listen to what she had to say on msnbc. >> i am truly thinking about it. i think the timing for me is first deciding about the senate because i do think you cannot run for an office unless you know that that's the job you want to do. i don't think you use offices as a stepping stone so my first responsibility is to determine whether a senate run is right for me and then the next conversation for myself will be if not the senate then what else? >> you find those remarks interesting? >> i do. >> tell me. >> i do. we know that chuck schumer, the democratic leader

here with me at the table cnn political director david chalian.an't wait for this download because there's so much to discuss. let's begin with what kaitlan was talking about. obviously there are incredible politics at play in anything that any president does with regard to immigration but particularly donald trump. >> yeah. i was just thinking listening to kaitlan, you realize we're two months away from the four-year anniversary of donald trump coming down the escalator and launching his campaign for president and putting immigration front and center as the issue, and it has been four years of consistency of staying on this as what he sees as the sort of lifeline and his support to his base. this clearly is part of that. we've s donald trump having the ability of raising immigration in the consciousness of americans as an important issue and when he talks about it all the time it does become more important. americans tell us that in polling and it doesn't necessarily play to his positive. obviously it also riles up a key part of the democratic ba

let's bring in david chalian. what is hillary clinton's message. >> she notes that some pay may say she's not anything but a flawed messenger because she was his 2016 opponent but she's making a clear argument for how house democrats should proceed. take a look at this first part of what she said. our election was corrupted, our democracy assaulted, our sovereignty and security violated. this is the definitive conclusion of special counsel robert s. mueller iii report. it documents a serious crime against the american people. the debate about how to respond to russia's, quote, sweeping and systemic attack and how to hold president trump accountable for obstructing the investigation and possibly breaking the law has been reduced to a false choice. immediate impeachment or nothing. clinton goes on to say, congress should hold substantive hearings that build on the mueller report and fill in gaps, not jump straight to an up or down vote on impeachment. in 1998 the republican-led house rushed to judgment. that was a m

joining us now to discuss more about this and the whole 2020 race cnn political director david chalianive in washington. we know bernie sanders is a millionaire, he has come under fire for not releasing his tax returns, he promises he is going to do it today. could this hurt him politically? >> as you heard ryan say the campaign doesn't think there is anything explosive in there. we will have to wait and see and look what is inside the tax returns. he, of course, because he had not been releasing his tax returns until today was sort of a flawed messenger on the democratic message of pressuring president trump to release his tax returns, ana. so he clearly by releasing ten years' worth of tax returns today can now sort of join the democratic ranks in applying that pressure to donald trump. not pressure by the way that i think the president has any intention of folding to. >> president trump's campaign announcing a $30 million first quarter fundraising haul. those are big numbers, especially when you consider that the top two democrats combined are essentially making that amount of money

>> joining us now mj lee cnn political correspondent and david chalian cnn political director. ieg is in -- >> i thought he was already in. >> that's a formality, we will put mayor pete to the side here for a second. the stacey abrams comment was fascinating because she's opening that door ever wider on a presidential run and to me at least and chuck schumer is not going to like this, this kind of shut the door at least a little bit on a senate run there. she wasn't all that enthusiastic about running for senate in georgia. >> she wasn't, but i would caution, again, that it is entirely isn't ruled out for her. i have been speaking to people who are familiar with her thinking on this and for the longest time they kept saying, you know, i think a presidential thing is something she's clearly giving thought to because people are coming to her and asking her to think about t but they all sort of seem to think that a senate run was more likely. i agree with you, john, just listening to her it sounded at least she wasn't showing any cards, let's give it that much. i don't know that sh

david chalian, of course, our political director, says money begets money and that's so always true,oney you bring in the more money you'll be able to get. but can you make a case -- some have suggested to me. can you make a case that it's not about this money this cycle and why? >> no, i can't. i think we know from what happened in 2016 that the person who spends the most money is not guaranteed to win. >> right. >> but you do need to have enough money as a democratic primary candidate to run for serious well-organized campaign in the four primary states if you have any chance to be seer crouse presidential candidate. there is going to be a sorting process is a the fund-raising goes on about which candidates can do that and which candidate cannot. money does matter, but whoever has the most money does not necessarily win. >> not the end all, be all, do all, but nice to have it when you're running for president. >> better to have it than not. >> great to see you, man. really appreciate it. thanks so much for being here. thank you. >>> coming up next, new details about the inferno at

let's talk a little bit about the money, david chalian. $6.3 million raised by the former vice presidentover the first 24 hours. >> yeah, so not only does he get into the race, he's already leading in the poll. he's now showing that he has that muscle more that first 24-hour fund-raising period to compete with beto o'rourke and bernie sanders, who put up roughly $6 million in their first 24 hours. we have to ask a lot of questions around this, which is, if you front load everything into that 24 hours to get a big number in that 24 hours, are you robbing from what you need in the rest of the quarter. we won't node joe biden's fund-raising until july 15th. so there's a long way to go here. but obviously, he's got a big donor base. there's no doubt about that. but i think it was something like 96,000 individual contributions to add up to that amount, versus on bernie sanders' first day, wolf, it was 200,000 plus individual contributions. so he doesn't yet have that grassroots online, big donor base that he could keep going back to again and again. he's being fuelled by large dollar, big bun

david chalian, he spoke for about a half an hour. what'd you think? >> you can see why president trump has joe biden under his skin, why he's getting under his skin a libtd, precisely because of how joe biden was messaging and where he was. he was in pittsburgh, taking a union endorsement, showing the example, i am the person who can make an economic appeal on middle class values to these people that drifted away from this party last time and went to donald trump. that is why trump's advisers are so fearful of him. it was so sort of shocking to my ear to hear joe biden. it was as if sherrod brown did get into this race. dignity of work, real economic populism. he sounded a little bernie sanders at times, wolf, taking on millionaires and billionaires. he continued to call himself middle class joe and wear that as a banner of proud. this is the economic piece of the overall biden rationale for his presidency, which is to campaign on rebuilding the middle class and win back those voters that drifted away. >> on that point, let me play a little clip. this

what do you think, david chalian.y need until may 6th to review the request, they have to determine whether it is consistent with law. >> yeah, i would be a lot more shocked if the letter said, here's the president's tax returns, we're ready to hand them over. this is going to be part of a strategy to make sure that this takes as long as possible, delay, stone wall, and it's part of this larger strategy that the trump administration is employing right now, against the house democrats who are in charge of this, you know, half of the legislative branch right now, and the president has made clear to his team that he has no intention of handing over his tax returns. >> they say in the letter, steve mnuchin, the treasury secretary, a final decision will be made by the administration, by may 6th. >> yeah, so this is clearly just a stall tactic. the letter sort of references this idea that they're consulting with the department of justice, as if there's some genuine disagreement as to the law. there really isn't. the law is

. >> david chalian, thank you very much. joining us now abby phillips, jonathan martin national political correspondent for "the new york times" and john avalon cnn's senior political analyst. john avalon, these numbers for joe biden, 39% is a very big number just on its face for a 20 candidate field and then when you go underneath he's leading everywhere. >> that's what's stunning in this poll. it's more than just a biden bounce. the broad base support. i mean, you know, areas where he's been considered weak looking at the primary, he's leading among voters under 45, leading among liberals over bernie sanders, the nonwhite voter number at 50%. that is really stunning in terms of how broad based this poll shows joe biden's support is. he's really lapping other candidates in a lot of categories. this is very good news for joe biden as an out of the gate poll and it shows other candidates got a lot of work to do. >> that number 64% still say they could change their minds. i should hope so, we are more than a year away. i'm gla