also with us, a political commentator for republican congresswoman keirsten sanders and david chalian. david, as we pause in this moment, there is a lot of work ahead as we know. put it in perspective for us, how significant, how important is this moment for democrats right now and for joe biden? >> it's a pretty big deal. to put it in context of the week that was, remember, this week started with president biden signing into law that bipartisan infrastructure deal so the other piece of his big domestic agenda, and then the weekends with this months-long battle of democratic infighting, if you will, coming to an end in the house, at least. you were right to note that is going to go on with negotiations in the senate and will have to come back to the house, and whatever comes back to the house from the senate will have to be acceptable to the house. this moment didn't look assured at all at certain points. and i would say if you go back from may until just a couple weeks ago, the story of this bill that the country was getting was all about democrats arguing over numbers. now the house

. >> so joining us now, cnn political director david chalian. david, remember here, it is lauren boebert who made the bigoted comment about ilhan omar. and now boebert has this apology basically asking for an apology to her. it really is an example of turn around here and explains the challenge to kevin mccarthy who chooses to try to deal with this in private rather than make a public statement of condemnation. >> yeah. also, i mean, lauren boebert there is acting somehow offended that ilhan omar is asking for a public apology in boebert's own telling of the conversation, she didn't even offer her a private apology. never mind a public apology for insinuating that her fellow member of congress was a terrorist. john, the incentive structure in american politics is so perverted and this is yet another perfect example of it, because what boebert gets here is the opportunity to put out that video on her twitter page that has a link at the top of it to her win red, donate here to lauren boebert's campaign website, and so she is able to fund-raise, ral

joining us now, cnn political director david chalian. yeah. no. i spoke to a republican operative last week and they said, hey, it may be a shocker at some sort of high single digits. but you are looking at a one-point race right here. now, i will note this murphy lead, anderson, could grow. a lot of the outstanding vote -- i think we have 87% of the estimated vote in. that remaining 13% or so of the vote -- there are a lot of democratic-heavy areas. so that could pad. he may end up being in the mid-single digits but this was a state joe biden won by 16 percentage points just one year ago. so, the fact that this the race is this close speaks to this national-political environment that we have been talking about, which is where the president's low approval numbers, the inaction in congress, and the democrats sort of uncertain about how best to appeal to voters on their agenda right now. equals this kind of dramatic finish in a blue state. obviously, good news for the democrat that they won. but that's about all -- all you can say is good n

i want to bring in cnn political director david chalian.g a look at the first exit polls out of virginia. what are you learning? >> that's right, wolf. remember, these are early numbers. these numbers will change throughout the night as more and more respondents to the exit polls come in. but these preliminary numbers give us a sense of what the el elength rat in virginia looks like. look at the gender split. 53% of virginia voters in this race are female. that's a slight uptick from 51% that we saw in the presidential election last year. 47% male. take a look at race. this is a whiter electorate than we saw in the presidential race last year or in the 2017 c gubernatorial race. they can change throughout the night. but right now what we're seeing, 73% of virginia voters in this gubernatorial race are white. that was 67% of the electorate just last year when joe biden won the state by ten points. 17% of this electorate is black. just a tick down from where it was last year. 5% latino. 3% other racial and ethnic groups. 2% asian. that's the

let's bring in david chalian, cnn's political director. k to us about the numbers and what they tell us. >> yeah, victor, there does seem to be a disconnect between how the american people are perceiving their priorities to be and where the biden administration is keeping their focus at the moment. take a look here. 58% of americans in this brand new cnn poll, conducted by ssrs say that biden has the right priorities. only 42% say he does. 58%, nearly six in ten says he does not. i want to look at this by party and over time. 75% of democrats say he has the right priorities, but that's down 15 percentage points from april among democrats, his base. look here in the middle of independence. he's down 16 percentage points from 52% in april who said he had the right priorities, to only 36% of independents, obviously republicans, never thought that he had the right priorities here, he's losing the middle and losing a little bit of his base on this too. >> david, what do americans think are the biggest issues he should be focused on right now? >>

david chalian, cnn political director. thank you. >> sure. >> turning now to the investigation into the insurrection. we are learning what the former president has been trying to keep secret. the national archives, which inherited former president's papers, outlined in a court filing for more than 700 pages of handwritten notes and call logs with vice president pence, white house, visitor logs, all related to january 6th. >> the court filings are in response to a lawsuit filed by donald trump two weeks ago. the former president is attempt to go block congressional investigators from accessing these records, and now a source tells cnn that same committee is also working on legislation to protect the voting process of certifying an election in order to prevent another january 6th from happening. >> let's bring in cnn senior legal analyst, elie honig, what do we know about the documents, how important they could be? >> these are going to be absolutely crucial documents. they go right to the heart of the january 6th committee'

so david chalian and kim whaly are also here with me. give me your reaction to what the judge is doing rejecting this and saying he is trying to buy time, and she's saying i'm not going to help you with that. >> well, understand the federal rules of appellate procedure, rule eight actually, if trump wants a stay from the court of appeals, the rules do require that he first second degree the district court judge for the stay. so it is almost like an exhaustion process. had to go to her first and then has to make the same showing to the appellate court that she rejected, and that is a four-part test that includes a showing of what we call likelihood of success on the merits. so he's got to show he'll probably win his appeal, and that is the weakest -- the weakest part in my mind. but i have to agree with paula on the supreme court here as well -- >> wait, hold on. i'm going to let you get to that but why do you say that's the weakest in your mind? >> that's the weakest in my mind because the presidential records act under which this lawsui

. >>> let's bring in or political director david chalian. thanks for being with us.ng republican party decided would be their future with liz cheney. they have voted that they will not recognize her as a republic republican. and we've known for some some time that any criticism of donald trump is the pejorative of the republican party. so what does it mean for her and the party? >> liz cheney knows that she's in the political fight of her life. she's in that republican prooi primary that takes place next august to try to get reelected to the house seat that she currently has. and she understood when she made her stand, all of this related to the president's be schaffer a -- behavior of january 6 and her decision to join the select committee and be vice chair, all of that she understood could be a political death knell for her. she believes that she will make the argument why it shouldn't and that that could be successful. i think that there are four republicans in total running and donald trump has already endorsed one of heropponents. and the republican party of wyo

chief domestic correspondent jim acosta and david chalian is watching all of this very closely. just how big of a wake-up call is this for democrats? >> it's huge. this is -- yes, it is the swinging of the pendulum of american politics, but it swung pretty convincingly last night and there are real lessons to be learned here. most specifically, democrats need to find a way to run campaigns that are focused on what voters are focused on. there seemed to be a disconnect in the way terry mcauliffe was running his campaign and what issues he was being front and center with throughout the campaign and what we saw voters say were their most important issues yesterday. the economy, jobs, and, of course, education which the republicans sort of converted into a powerful issue for him. the winner youngkin. so i think democrats can look across the board last night and say they're in a tough political environment but there's no indication that political environment is going to get better for them so they need to get back and come up with a different approach to deal with how to run in a tou

have a positive outlook on the economy, and 35% say not so good, and 8% say poor. >> thank you, david chalianority of the commonwealth of virginia cares about education, and they want parent involvement in the parent education and you is the candidate terry mcauliffe saying that i don't think that the parents should tell the schools what to teach, what does that mean? >> i recognize a rhetorical question. look, that is a disaster for him. the context was a little skewed, but the bite was there, and when he said it, it triggered. and youngkin and the republicans seized on it, and it has clearly galvanized the voters. and it is not the leadership of virginia, but augerings of the future, and one thing that people are going to be looking at is if youngkin wins, how would he get some of the suburban vote back. >> and what does that mean for the republican party out there, and can you be a republican and not support the former president and still vote republican. >> there were many nods here to some of the cultural issues that trump issued, soft core versions of it, but yes, youngkin kept trump at

correspondent manu raju, white house correspondent for the "new york times" and our cnn political director david chalian. david, let me start with you. you're behind our polling here and i want to walk through some of the numbers. president's approval rating, majority disapprove and look at the top issues facing the country. 36% of americans say the economy. 20% say it's the covid crisis and 14% say immigration, but 36 and 20 are the top two. let me blank this out. this is the two different worlds, two different countries president biden is trying to good afternoon, everyone. among democrats 34% say the coronavirus is still our number one challenge. if you look at republicans, only 4% of republicans say that. more than half of republicans say it's the economy and, look, under penalty increasingly are siding with the republicans. the president is having a hard time because he's essentially governing two countries. >> i mean, these are mars and venus numbers in that way and what you see in the numbers is that coronavirus keeps coming down all year long as the most important issue as it recedes, as people

. >> i want to get straight to cnn political director david chalian at the magic wall for us. david, what do the numbers reveal? >> it was amazing listening to tim kaine, former governor of virginia. the number one issue for virginia voters last night, according to the polls, economy and jobs. 37% said that. 24% of virginia voters said education was the most important issue facing virginia. that is an issue that usually favors democrats, but in this race it favored the republican glenn youngkin and shot up to the second position. 8% say abortion. terry mcauliffe was not running on these two issues up here. that was glenn youngkin and you see that helped him. also look at the succession of virginia voters of the democratic party. we asked voters, is it too liberal or not liberal enough? a majority of virginia voters in this election said, 52%, that the democratic party is too liberal. 31% said it was about right, 13% say not liberal enough. so this is something the democratic party is going to need to think through if that's their best positioning, ana. >> david, both youngkin a

. >>> joining us now, cnn political director david chalian and margaret talbot, managing editor of axiosould really stretch this process out even further. david, i'm curious, adding back in paid family leave, which we know is very popular around the country with voters, is that in some way a reaction to what we saw on tuesday night, that this gives them something to run on in 2022, a kitchen table issue to point to and say, look, we said this was important, maybe it didn't make it, but we knew that this is what you wanted? >> reporter: yeah. i don't know that it's a direct reaction that nancy pelosi watched the returns and then decided to put family leave in. it seems to me she understands that the senate process is going to be elongated and the bill is likely to change in the senate, so why not put a popular thing that the great vast majority of her members actually want in the bill so at least they can go out and say that they voted on the family leave to voters next year in the midterms even if it doesn't actually come into policy. but what is interesting i think, is the timing of whe

let's bring in cnn political commentator and former republican congressman charlie didn't and david chalian. what kind of litmus test this election? >> i think we'll overread the results, no doubt, but there are national implications here. both psychologically for both parties but also to give us a sense of where people are a year into biden's presidency. you noted, of course, that biden won virginia a year ago by ten points. you know, this is a moment that we're going to see the great pendulum in american politics to the, and one of the things we'll watch for is how significantly does it swing? we know the history in virginia going back four decades is that the party that didn't win the white house tends to win -- does win that gubernatorial race the year after except for one example which was terry mcauliffe himself in 2013, but we're going to look and see what does the biden political environment look like? that's up thing and then, of course, we're going to see, and this will have national implications as well for republicans, is sort of how do you navigate trump, and is trump still a p

cnn political director and the host of the cnn political briefing podcast david chalian. the door isn't completely closed on the bill. prescription drugs, explain this provision to us. >> you know because you've been on the campaign trail for years, this has been a rallying cry not just of the left actually. this has been one of the issues where republicans have realized the popularity in campaigning on the notion of allowing medicare to negotiate with drug companies to lower the prices of prescription drugs, having some sort of government negotiation. many people feel prescription drugs are too high in this country so this is something year after year, every politician is promising they're going to work on and it hasn't come to fruition, and so you say the door's still open. the door is still open because the time line keeps slipping and so with the door still open we learn from lawrence fox this morning that nancy pelosi, the speaker of the house and kiyrstn sinema ma, one of the moderates in the senate were meeting on this very issue because sinema has been sort of the

cupp and bakari sellers and david chalian. john, let's start with you, sitting right next to me. we've been waiting for leader mccarthy to say something about this. what we heard from him, i wrote it down here. rules for thee, but not for me, two dozen times. >> that was a campaign speech by, you know, leader mccarthy, who desperately wanted to make, as his colleagues did, this vote not about the core question, which is, is it okay to threaten a colleague's life? that's the question. that's why gosar is on the verge of being the 24th person censured in the history of the house. there were other arguments about process, about precedent but at core, that's it. and, of course, the context matters after january 6th. the precedent matters. because folks have been censured for everything from charlie rangel over tax and ethical implications to consulting a speaker to attacking a colleague on the floor. at core, all that noise boils down to this. is it all right to threaten the life of a colleague, especially after january 6th. that is what this is about. nothing else. >> s.e., we heard