joining us is david chalian for much more on this. take it all together, and taken in piece, what do you think of what bill barr said last night? >> he is such an interesting character in this episode in american history, because you recall in the run-up to the 2020 election, he was fully on board with what trump was seeding the ground with a little bit, and then it took him a little while in the aftermath to come out to say enough is enough, and then in the january 6th testimony, he sort of broke with him on all of this, and what is intriguing about his analysis is his progression on believing that donald trump knew that he lost the election. in that in the indictment he is listed as one of the experts who looked into this, and informed donald trump that he lost the election, and he believes that donald trump believed that, and this is going to be critical to this case. >> look, i'm with you, and it is riveting to see that it is very hard to get beyond, this is the bill barr part of it, and the whole time you are thinking, this is bi

not on the stage, but other candidates want to carve their own path forward to build support. >> david chaliantimes news central anchor. >> yes, i am in the renegotiations with the contract right now. >> thank you, david. >> and the reason that popped up is because john berman started to be extremely rude, and david chalian is the only gentleman on set who would come to someone named kate's defense. >> i am here for you. >> all right. thank you. >>> and now, president biden is going to designate a new monument in his western swing to appeal to new constituencies like younger voters. we will be back. [announcer] carvana has hundreds of thousands of five star reviews and counting. to be honest, i thought it was almost too smooth, financing, every step. there were no surprises. well, my monthly payment did come out lower than expected. financing my car with carvana was super smooth. [announcer] finance your next car with carvana today. we never just see the numbers. we see the people. marcus: detroit, it's just changed so much. you can see what it once was. and then, i think about what it can be.

in the last couple of week, and now, we are following this, and i'm no political director like david chalianublican favorite at this point? he is now concentrating on the general. >> that is exactly right, sara. i will say that i know from my conversations with donald trump's team, and we know as well that donald trump, himself, even he is privately and publicly boasting about his commanding lead in the polls, and exactly what david just laid out there. he also feels emboldened by his current status as a frontrunner, but of course, we are very far away from the 2024 election, and also far away from the primaries and a lot that could change from now and then, and this ad is released by maga, inc., one of the donald trump superpacs and it is interested in drawing the contrast of donald trump and president biden and i know that from my conversations with the trump team they want the former president and the republican voters to think about the big themes and his key agenda items as he is heading into the election season, and it seems that the economy, and the border and the crime and china and

david chalian, your thoughts?ave been watching now a slow burn here for four weeks of a campaign reboot. so first of all, getting the campaign reset seems to be going as well as the campaign itself for the desantis team. i don't know why it's taken this long, if you're making the decision, things are not going well. we have to shed a third of our staff. we're way overspending money. that needs to get into control. our polls are slipping. our donors are starting to complain to us. this has been happening for weeks. now you invite yet another round of questions because now you're switching the person at the top. so i don't think this is a role model for any campaign of a four-week process to actually say, hey, we know it's not working. we're put ting a new thing in place. >> i just keep going back to, you know what, a campaign is a reflection of the candidate. you can change a lot on the campaign. but it's the candidate that seems to be the big issue here. now is he going to act differently? is he going to implement

joining me right now is cnn political director, david chalian, who is at the state fair.w there were a lot of people yelling questions to the former president. i don't know if you were able to hear and were privy to all of it. was he ever asked about his reaction to jeff duncan now testifying or appearing before the grand jury on tuesday? >> reporter: he wasn't asked, fred, about the georgia news that we are reporting at the moment. but he was asked about the protective order that was the subject of the hearing yesterday in washington, d.c. he said he would take a look at that order. he then went on to use his usual comments of saying that he sees this as election interference on behalf of biden and the biden administration. he then was asked if he intentionally attempted to overturn the 2020 election, he was asked that by a reporter going around the state fair with him. his answer to that question was, you know the answer to that. that is what we heard from the former president as he was making his way around the iowa state fairgrounds. he's still expected to address sup

here with me at the table is jeremy diamond, rhonda colvin of "the washington post" and david chaliannt i promised we would have a graphic so we can better explain to our viewers -- >> the magic of television. now you have it. >> it's amazing. poof, there it is. let's zero in on march because we were talking about that. actually, let's go back to january. take us through that and talk about -- i know there's some dates we don't yet have. >> correct. >> we don't have new hampshire and we don't have nevada, yo believe. >> nothing is set in stone yet because each state party has until october 1st to get their plan approved by the rnc. we have a vague sense of how the calendar. iowa was announced january 15th. as you said, we don't have new hampshire. if new hampshire moves iowa could move. nothing is set in stone yet. the e. jean carroll civil trial coincides with the iowa caucuses in january and then when you advance up until march, now we have this new date and what is so consequential here is that donald trump is entering into this early period turning the year, starting to build mome

cnn's david chalian is lye with me here in milwaukee. nice to see you here. what are your sort of big-picture thoughts that people should be focused on head ing into tonight? >> one thought that i had in looking at the setup without trump there is how much is trump going to be a factor. we have heard from the fox hosts in some pre-debate interviews and previews they have given they plan to bring donald trump up. they plan to make him a character on that debate stage. so i'm wondering how much time are these candidates, who many of whom are not all that interested in talking about donald trump, going to have to bes forred to spend on donald trump versus what they would like to be talking about, joe biden. looking at that comparison will be interesting. >> is there any other way to look at this other than these individuals will be debating for a chance to be a consideration as number two? >> i would look at it as a consideration that in all the state polling in iowa and new hampshire, there's still roughly half or slightly larger than half of the republican pri

david chalian, no surprise, the timing of donald trump doing an interview with tucker carlson, that'stake some of the air out of the room, i'm sure. what are you watching for tonight with eight, maybe seven of the candidates? >> yeah, well, as you mentioned, with donald trump not on the stage, sara, i am looking to see how much of a presence he still has in this debate. it is, no doubt, the fox hosts have sort of previewed in some pre-debate interviews questions about donald trump will come up. that seems pretty certain. how much time is spent on it and how much percentage the other candidates see in talking about donald trump versus taking the attacks to joe biden, trying to introduce themselves to the republican electorate and largely tuning in for the first time in this race to make the case why they are the best positioned to beat joe biden next fall. >> when you look at this group of people, is this something that you see as a moment where you're going to start people fall off that don't do well during this debate because the front-runner is clearly donald trump by 20 points in p

. >> with us now, cnn political director david chalian.as making there, look, usually re-election campaigns are about the incumbent, about joe biden, but how is not everything that's going to happen and the primary and if trump wins the general election how is this not now about trump and to an extent this actual case? >> well, it's interesting, john, because the biden team would like it to be about rejecting maga extremism, as they say. so therefore putting trump at the center here if not just the specifics of this case, a broader argument against extremism, but to your point you have to remember here republicans largely as jessica just walked you through those numbers with the new york times/sienna poll. they don't see something that threatened american democracy here, at least the vast majority of them and in fact, still you look at polling and the majority of americans think he did win the 2020 election and they bought into the lies in the indictment that donald trump has been selling and so this creates now a real test for the entire

cnn political director david chalian is joining us, he's on the scene. the candidates who will be on that debate stage tonight? >> different things from different campaigns, wolf. one candidate, ron desantis' campaign, expects he's going to be taking a lot of incoming, that a lot of the attacks will be coming his way. as you know, the candidates are aligned on the stage according to where they are on the polls. without front-runner donald trump here participating in the debate, that puts ron desantis and vivek ramaswamy in the center. i do think that is something to watch, how he handles those attacks. other expectations, chris christie says that anybody on this stage who defends donald trump, he's going to try and turn into donald trump. make them so much an ally that they are identified with the former president. of course, given the former president's standing in the polls, that may not necessarily an bad thing in the context of a republican primary. one other thing to note, wolf, usually these candidates take this moment to really introduce themselve

joining me now is cnn political director david chalian who has been there at the iowa state fair taking seeing all of the candidates, and david, let's just start by zeroing in on this incredible split screen, which is the former president in iowa campaigning for -- to be the nominee yet again ahead of what could possibly be his fourth criminal indictment. >> it is quite the split screen, jessica. there's no doubt about that. it kind of captures the picture of the 2024 campaign that donald trump, the front runner both nationally and here in iowa, the kickoff state to the process has all of these legal woes looming over his head and most pressingly now, this next potential fourth indictment in georgia this week, and yet, here he is making his way through the fairgrounds getting a ground swell of support, huge crowds as the president, the former president tends to get at events like this, and he is using the indictments as political fuel for his campaign. he is making his legal troubles, jessica, a political cause, and it is helping his grass roots donations and fortifying his base of supp

cnn political director david chalian joins us now. d david, you are fresh off a visit to the iowa state fair. donald trump seems to make each of his legal troubles central to his campaign and this looming fourth indictment is no different. >> no different. they have a playbook they employ. they use it to really juice grassroots donations. he uses it from a messaging spe perspective of being a victim of what he calls a political persecution. that rallies and fortifies his supporters to come to his defense. and it is inextricable from his campaign at this point. it is his campaign, his legal defense. and we have seen since the indictment started his fund-raising has gone up and his poll numbers have gone up. >> did you get a chance to speak to voters there that shared any hesitation over how the legal trouble might play in 2024? >> oh, speak to a lot of voters who have that hesitation. more than half the republicans in iowa are looking for a non-trump alternative. they haven't coalesced around any one person for that. but it is not -- it

. >> here to share their reporting and insighting, david chalian and pollster kristen anderson. based on all the court cases and investigations and audits. >> absolutely not. >> i joke, but this is going to become important to not allow this to spread to some degree. and that's my question. alayna makes a a great point. they have a strategy and a playbook, which they deploy ed over the last three indictments, all of which have been effective for their republican primary audience, but this is different. why do they go down this route? >> first of all, this indictment is so much more sprawl ing, so much more sweeping that we have seen in the other previous three indictments. obviously, there are indicted in this case making this instance so much more far reaching than in the previous cases. but i feel like the trump team needs a broader base of attack in responding to these charges. that's a part of it as well. i also think one thing you're going to see from the trump team is what the clerk's office in atlanta says was a mistake in posting of that early version of an indictment th

. >>> joining us is david chalian, phillip, and former assistant attorney for the southern district of new york hoelie hon. david, i want to start with you. we saw kevin mccarthy come out yesterday and make public comments. it's not a rarity. try to make the comparison to strawman, but what's most interesting is in the indictment itself as it relates to kevin mccarthy, there's actually a passage in there, and i want to read it and show people. it says at 3:00 p.m., the defendant had a phone call with the minority leader of t united states house of representatives. that's mccarth the defendant told the minority leader that the crowd at the capitol was more upset than the leader. there's very few instances, there's no sourcing or details for the call. i reported on this call. we had some of this. what do you make of that? >> we had quite a lot of it. there were other members of congress telling what they understood and overheard mccarthy describing about the call. so there's a lot of information that's been out there. the context of that moment and that being the indictment, it's interes

david chalian previews who made the cut. >> rorter: you have ron desant and vivek ramaswamy in the center of the pack. and on either side of them, mike pence and nikki haley and then chris christie and tim scott and at the end, asa hutchinson and doug burgum. but obviously this is a debate without the dominant frontrunner and that will impact the debate. fox moderators have indicated that donald trump will be a topic that comes up, there will certainly be questions about that, so he will be looming over this debate even though he won't be here. >> trump is expected to be at one of his golf clubs during tonight's debate. all the candidates set to participate have signed a pledge to support the party's eventual nominee no matter who that might be. it is not clear whether trump has signed that pledge. >>> tropical storm 23r57frankli threatening to bring heavy rainfall and flash floods to hispaniola today. the center for the storm is southwest of santo domingo and it is bringing with it strong and gusty winds. >> and they have already issued tropical storm warnings and tropical storm conditio

joining us, cnn political director david chalian and as ashley alison and alice stewart.ocrats in all these recent elections, including in several so-called red states. what do you make of that? >> i thisnk this is much different than pro-life across the board. the pro-life community agrees that the fda failed to consider certain safety guidelines that are used with regard to mail order abortion pills. they do believe these are dangerous. when a woman goes and gets these three the mail, they're not seeing a doctor, they're not getting supervision and many of them, thousands of them, are seriously injured, some are gravely injured and, look, there's obgyns across the country that don't perform elective abortions and they are treating these women seriously hurt from these abortion pills. nothing will change immediately as a result of this, it will go to the supreme court but this is a huge step in protecting women's lives and ultimately the lives of unborn children. >> ashley, how do you ever see it? >> i think this is a continuation of the decision that happened overturnin

. >> here to share their insights and reporting, david chalian, gloria borger, amy walter and cnn's danielome, nice to have you here as part of the team. so let's just look at what the former president is saying on his fundraise ing appeals. because that's always a very good insight as to where they think they can stir up their supporters. if you can, please make a contribution to evict crooked joe biden from the white house and save america during this dark chapter in our nation's history. gloria? >> what do you expect? this is what he has been doing and he's going to continue to do this, and they are going to use that mug shot, that menacing mug shot to raise money. he's going to continue to portray himself as the victim in all of this, who is somebody who represents your grievances and is martyred because he's actually doing this for you, so this will not happen to you in the future. and we're going to be hearing that for the entire campaign. >> our colleagues, who tries to wrap up everything that happens on a daily day a basis put it this way and it's so true. for any other politician,

with us now, cnn political director and sometime cnn news central anchor david chalian. of the other economic terms that i remember from college is the marginal rate of return which is that extra little bit of return you get from one more action. if we're talking about a fourth indictment here, what's the marginal rate of complications for donald trump with this fourth indictment politically? >> yeah, well, as you know, john, donald trump thinks the fourth indictment ensures his election to another term as president. we have seen the playbook that will be put into place this week as well. obviously, they'll juice grassroots donations, fortify that base of support. he'll continue to go after the prosecutors in this case and the others. and try and portray himself a victim here in a way of bonding with his supporters that he's the victim, but that they are coming for them as well. this will just be rinse and repeat as donald trump deals with the very real world implications of the fact that his legal woes, his trial calendar, this is his campaign trail of 2023, 2024. >> it

. >> let's discuss all of this and more with our amazing panel, amy walter, david chalian and jeff zeleny. amy, i want to start with you. trump has always wanted a crowded field. nearly nine candidates on that stage. is that a win for him? >> and yet in the poll that we have just been talking about, he's at 62%. there's not another other vote there to consolidate. there's been donald trump and then in second place for now has been ron desantis but there was a point he was within maybe ten points and now that has faded. really the question coming out of this debate is does somebody now become a clear second place challenger out of this field. is it still ron desantis or has somebody else come and taken that from him? >> and, jeff, with asa hutchison going to be on the stage, how does that change the challenge? >> these indictments should be taken seriously, that the former president is not fit for office. but beyond that i'm not sure it makes all that much of a difference. asa suchison has been out there toiling away. so getting this threshold, hitting the donors is a big deal for him. and

cnn's nia-malika henderson is here, david chalian and jackie california cynic. good to say you all. i can hear you ringing in my ear. that's just the vibe. this is important. this is a national poll. it is a snapshot of the national mood. this is not how in america presidents are elected. presidents are elected state by state. so the feeling of voters in these key states matters more as we get closer to the election, but having an idea of what the national mood is very instructive. let's go a little bit deeper into this particularly as we were referring to katelyn polantz being outside the grand jury and trying to get a sense of what's going to happen there to look at the potential impact when it comes to the national sentiment. donald trump committed serious crimes. 51%, threatened democracy, 53%. >> a majority saying two things. donald trump committed serious crimes, a majority of registered voters saying he threatened democracy, and yet it's a tight race. not only is it effective, it's instructive, it's not irrelevant, it's also a national poll 15 months before an election. so th

. >>> david chalian is here with plea in "the situation room" with more on how trump's georgia arrest24 campaign. david, only two of trump's gop rivals have been on the campaign trail since he surrendered last night. what are they saying? >> well, you know, it is a little bit of a repeat of what we saw on the debate stage. they were asked about this topic to raise their hands or not if indeed they would still vote for donald trump. wolf, if he's convicted in any of the cases, six of the eight did sew as you recall. ron deantis in iowa, he's sticking with the question he's used often, he believes if the republican party looks backward at january 6, 2021, and the evens there of, they will be lost. he's saying the candidates can't get consumed by this and have this overshadow everything. that is his way to avoid it and just pivot to his own message. visitic ramaswamy reasserted his pledge to pardon donald trump and even after this. he also was out and about today with a little bit of bravado about his -- how he sees his relationship with trump going forward. give a listen. >> i expect pr

. >> joining us now isk political director david chalian andçx political commentator michael smerconishen, welcome to you. some of the big momentsa know the exchange betwkcv nikki haley and vivek ramaswamy, which many people saw as one of her7] stronger moments in the evening that really stood out to you. >> w'yeah, nikki haley did hav quite a few strong moments where she could fundraise,bs but it'so strucktive because that moment, yes, a good moment for nikki haley to4 appeal to the more traditional establishment[úk4 interventionist republican party. the question is that still the republican party? so she scores this point against vivek ramaswamy, but is vivek more aligned with the current gop primary electorate here. will it actually help nikki haley advance, or is it going to help her stay alive in the race by bringing some money in, more support from that establishment wing. when we look at these debate moments, we have to assess it in the context of what the primary electorate is looking for, which is why vitt vek was this place hold