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2020 Race: Biden, Harris Face Attacks From Dem Rivals at CNN Debate. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired August 01, 2019 - 05:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND (D-NY), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The first thing that I'm going to do when I'm president is I'm going to Clorox the Oval Office.

SEN. MICHAEL BENNET (D-CO), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Mr. President, kids belong in classrooms, not cages.

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If you cross the border illegally, you should be able to be sent back. It's a crime.

JULIAN CASTRO (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Mr. Vice President, it looks like one of us has learned the lessons from the past and one of us hasn't. Let me begin by telling you --

VAN JONES, CNN HOST: He was able to get the lines in, escape unscathed and he brought himself a new life line. He will be back.

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. And welcome to a special edition of NEW DAY. It's Thursday, August 1st, 5:00 here in Detroit.

So much drama July couldn't handle it all.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: No, it quit.

BERMAN: It quit.

CAMEROTA: It quit on us.

BERMAN: So we had to make it August.

This morning, who's waking up in a better position than last night? Was there a breakout or a breakdown in the Democratic presidential debate? Much of the instant analysis is in and the verdict is bruising.

This was a demanding get-it-from-all-sides event, particularly for Vice President Joe Biden. Just about every candidate on stage was attacking one aspect of Joe Biden's record or another. But this time, he was ready, and a lot what you will read this morning is that he had a better and more energetic debate this time around, not perfect but better.

CAMEROTA: Senator Kamala Harris came out swinging and landed some blows on Biden, but she found herself on the receiving end of some jabs, too. She was challenged on her new health care plan and her record as prosecutor. So, we have a lot of key moments from last night's combative debate to show you and discuss.

Let's begin with CNN's Athena Jones.

[05:00:01] She joins us now with the highlights -- Athena.

ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Alisyn.

As expected, front-runner Joe Biden was the top target on the stage last night, taking hits on all sides from everything from health care, to tough on crime laws, women in the work force, immigration, trade, climate change. As promised, the vice president was more aggressive in fighting back, delivering a steadier, if not spectacular performance than he did in his first outing in Miami.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JONES (voice-over): It didn't take long for Kamala Harris and all of the Democratic rivals on stage to pounce on former Vice President Joe Biden.

BILL DE BLASIO (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Mr. Vice President, you want to be president of the United States, you need to be able to answer the tough questions.

JAY INSLEE (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Mr. Vice President, your argument is not with me. It's with science. And unfortunately, your plan is too late.

SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If you want to compare records, and frankly I'm shocked that you do, I am happy to do that.

GILLIBRAND: Mr. Vice President, you didn't answer the question.

JONES: But Biden came swinging, too.

BIDEN: I have guts enough to say his plan doesn't make sense. You can't beat President Trump with double talk.

JONES: The former vice president slamming Harris' health care plan, bringing back one of his old catch phrases.

BIDEN: So, this idea is a bunch of malarkey what we're talking about here.

I don't know what math you do in California, but I tell you, that's a lot of money.

JONES: Harris hitting back.

HARRIS: Your plan by contrast leaves out almost 10 million Americans, so I think that you should really think about what you're saying.

JONES: After Senator Cory Booker brought up Biden's support of a controversial crime bill in the '90s, Biden lashing out.

BIDEN: The bill he talks about is a bill that in my -- our administration, we passed. We passed that bill that you added onto. That's the bill, in fact, you passed.

And the fact of the matter; secondly, there was nothing done for the entire eight years he was mayor. There was nothing done to deal with the police department that was corrupt.

BOOKER: Mr. Vice President, there's a saying in my community, you're dipping into the Kool-Aid and you don't even know the flavor. You need to come to the city of Newark and see the reforms we put in place. This isn't about the past, sir. This is about the present right now.

JONES: Former Housing Secretary Julian Castro also sparring with Biden on decriminalizing border crossings.

BIDEN: If you cross the border illegally, you should be able to be sent back. It's a crime.

CASTRO: First of all, Mr. Vice President, it looks like one of us has learned the lessons of the past and one of us hasn't. Let me begin by telling you --

JONES: Biden wasn't the only one taking jabs from the other contenders. Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard slammed Senator Harris's record as a prosecutor.

REP. TULSI GABBARD (D-HI), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: She put over 1,500 people in jail over marijuana violations and laughed when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana. And she fought to keep cash bail system in place that impacts poor people in the worse kind of way.

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I did the work of significantly reforming the criminal justice system of the state of 40 million people which became a national model for the work that needs to be done, and I am proud of that work. And I am proud of making a decision to not just give fancy speeches or be in a legislative body and give speeches on the floor but actually doing the work.

JONES: Some 2020 hopefuls were tired of talking about the past.

BENNET: This is the fourth debate that we have had and the second time that we have been debating what people did 50 years ago with busing when our schools are as segregated today as they were 50 years ago. We need a conversation about what's happening now.

JONES: Political outsider Andrew Yang implored his rivals to stop attacking each other and instead take aim at President Trump. ANDREW YANG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We're up here with makeup on

our faces, and our rehearsed attack lines, playing roles in this reality TV show. It's one reason why we elected a reality TV star as our president. We need to be laser-focused on solving the real challenges of today.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JONES: Now, the question now is who if anyone will get a meaningful and lasting bump in polls and fund raising from their debate performance. Meanwhile, several of the candidates we saw on stage last night are staying in the area today. Biden has an event in a restaurant in Detroit this morning. Harris has a union event in the afternoon and Cory Booker has an organizing event. So, the beat goes on -- Alisyn and John.

CAMEROTA: OK. Athena, thank you very much for showing us all the highlights.

Joining us now to talk about it, we have Toluse Olorunnipa, White House correspondent for "The Washington Post", Sabrina Siddiqui, White House correspondent for "The Guardian U.S.", John Avlon, CNN senior political analyst, and Arlette Saenz, CNN political reporter who has been on the trail with Joe Biden.

So, Arlette, I'll start with you. Because you've been on the trail with Joe Biden, he showed up last night.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLTICAL REPORTER: Yes.

CAMEROTA: He was -- he maintained his energy, all of the things people worried about. Will he have flagging energy? Will he'd bee too tripped up to know sort of the nuts and bolts of policy? He showed up.

[05:05:00] SAENZ: Yes. It was certainly a much different performance in the first time around when Joe Biden, you know, had that blow in that first debate from Kamala Harris. He did show up with a lot more energy and he showed that he was willing to punch back.

And, you know, there's a long time that Joe Biden was saying he has information on people's past but he's not going to go there. But that is something that he did in fact do yesterday. And he took the hits on health care, on criminal justice, on immigration. In some he was steady and others, it was a little bit more rocky.

But I think the question now going forward is, can he actually prove that he is the solid front-runner? I'm not sure the debate last night did that for him. But I think in these coming weeks, we're going to see how he is out on the trail and as we get closer to that next debate, where he's going to be on stage with that top tier candidates, can he hold his own heading (INAUDIBLE)?

BERMAN: You covered them day in and day out, Arlette. Did you have a sense over six hours ago or so, over the last six hours from Team Biden than you did in the first debate? SAENZ: Well, they certainly tonight were able to stand -- or last

night were able to stand --

(CROSSTALK)

SAENZ: We don't know what day it is.

They were able to stand there and say, you know, he took the hits and he was able to fight back. And that's something they have been telegraphing over the past week, was that he was going to be more aggressive going into this. They thought it was a solid night. There's some room for improvement there, but I think going forward we're going to see over the next few weeks how this all pans out.

CAMEROTA: John, your top line takeaways?

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Look, I mean, you know, when your team says there weren't new sort of fatal blows and takes that as a win, it indicates a degree of a low bar. I thought Biden did have a better debate, he was substantive and he was attacked from all sides. He was ready for it.

Kamala Harris was not as ready for it. She was visibly sort of taken aback by attacks on her record that showed deep oppo. Just sort of faded compared to her last performance, but a very strong closing statement.

Winner of the debate if I had to pick one, Cory Booker. He really focused, he stood up and he sort of reconnected to that happy warrior self where he presented as more of a uniter than a divider. And so, there was an authenticity to his performance.

Other folks outperformed. Michael Bennett had a better night than most people expected, really passionate talking about education reform.

But I think a lot of that field is not going to be here next time. But Biden, Harris, Booker, Bennet, those folks all had solid debates. They get their ticket punched.

BERMAN: Sabrina?

SABRINA SIDDIQUI, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think this was a debate without a clear winner. There were a lot of candidates who had a better night than they had had before to John's point, whether it was Cory Booker, Julian Castro or Michael Bennet, but the question is, did they do enough to really rise out of that lower tier or middle of the fact? There was sort of two dynamics playing out on stage. One was those candidates who have yet to breakthrough, trying to have a moment because this could very well be their last opportunity to leave a national impression given the tightening of the threshold, going into the next debate. And, two, was trying to present themselves to clear alternative to Joe Biden and knock him off of that front-runner status.

Unlike the last debate where you had that very searing confrontation between Kamala Harris and Joe Biden. That was without question the takeaway for many people coming out of the debate in Florida.

There wasn't really such a moment and I do think a question really for Democrats was, is this really going to continue to be a circular firing squad where the party does more damage to itself than it does to President Trump. That's where Cory Booker did have the good line reminding everyone on the stage that they're pitting moderates against progressives. The only person benefitting right now is the person who's sitting in the Oval Office.

BERMAN: Look, that's a huge subject and I want to talk about that a lot coming up. We'll come back to that in a second.

Toluse, what is your timeline?

TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I would definitely say that Biden is seen as a weak front-runner by the entire field and that's why you saw him taking attacks from all different corners. Different people on that stage saw Biden voters as their voters potentially, whether it's African-American support, whether it's the moderates, or whether it's the working class who right now are migrating towards Biden, all of the various candidates saw those voters just up for the taking and that's why he took him on directly.

One other thing I thought was important was, we did see those candidates start to take on parts of the Obama legacy, very directly, talking about immigration, talking about trade, talking about even foreign policy and attacking Biden by proxy but also attacking Obama who is a popular Democratic president.

BERMAN: And that's the other thing, besides -- I think those are two giant themes this morning.

Go ahead, John.

AVLON: It's so through the looking glass. I mean, the fact that the entire Democratic field -- Barack Obama is sort of -- is revered within the Democratic Party. And if you didn't pay attention last night, you think he might have been Republican, because everybody defending his policies is not just Biden who's accused of using Republican talking points.

That is a mark of a Democratic Party that's moving left. That is also not a good thing in terms of historic consistency because, you know, the idea that Barack Obama was some sort of a crypto conservative is laughable on its face.

CAMEROTA: All right. So, let's take a look at that. Let's take a look at all the time people went after Biden's record vis-a-vis President Obama. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DE BLASIO: I asked the president point blank, did he use his power to stop the deportations, he went around the president.

[05:10:03] BOOKER: Vice President, you can't have it both ways. You invoked President Obama more than anybody in this campaign. You can't do it when it's convenient and dodge it when it's not.

HARRIS: Your plan by contrast leaves out almost 10 million Americans so I think that you should really think about what you're saying.

CASTRO: Mr. Vice President, it looks like one of us has learned the lessons from the past and one of us hasn't.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Arlette, that's interesting, right? I mean, I don't know that he expected that because as John says, no Democrat expects Obama to be used as the weapon against Biden.

SAENZ: That's right. I think the Cory Booker's line about you can't use this when -- Obama just when it's convenient is a very effective line. Biden was asked by de Blasio to explain what he advised Obama about on deportation. And Biden claims, oh, I keep my advice private.

But there are times that he has shared his advice he gave to President Obama specifically on the Osama bin Laden raid. Biden does use President Obama as his biggest credential. But there are areas where he has to be careful and he is tied to him and the candidates want to point out some issues that they have with the president.

BERMAN: Look, Toluse, you brought up the fact that you think that every candidate out there sees some of Joe Biden's voters as their voters. I think that's an astute observation. I don't know that I've ever seen a debate with these many candidates where one candidate was in the spotlight so much. You really did have to take it from all sides.

So, did he survive those attacks?

OLORUNNIPA: Oh, he definitely showed he could take those attacks and sort of take a licking and keep on ticking, if you will. He did show he pushed back on a number of those different attacks. He stood on the stage and took attacks from all different sides. You saw even the governor, Governor Jay Inslee attacking him over climate change.

He was ready to respond to those attacks. He was, as Arlette said, halting in some stages and he didn't have a clear response to every attack, but he did show he could stand in the ring and take attacks from all different sides and stand up, and I think that's what a lot of voters are looking for, for someone who's going to go up against President Trump, someone who can stand in, take a punch and keep on going.

SIDDIQUI: And, you know, I think the other contrast that you saw if you're looking at night one and night two of this round of debates is on Wednesday night -- Tuesday night, sorry, you had Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders put in the position of having to defend this progressive agenda of which they have very much been the architects and a number of centrists on the stage who are trying to argue that perhaps this will actually hurt the party in terms of appealing to some of those independents that they want to win back from President Trump. Whereas, last night, it was Joe Biden who was really kind of

commanding that centrist lane and everyone around him was picking at some of his record when it comes to issues like criminal justice, immigration, and health care areas where they don't believe he was in line where the party has come to be at this particular point in time.

That really speaks to the question before Democrats in terms of whether this is going to be an election about electability, which is where Joe Biden has put all of his eggs that's been at the center of his pitch since he launched his campaign, or has it been about starting a movement, a grassroots movement that inspires the Democratic base of the polls. That's what Elizabeth Warren was getting at when she said we're not going to win through small mindedness -- small ideas and spinelessness, and also said, we shouldn't be running on what we can't do. That's not going to inspire anyone to the polls in November.

AVLON: The difference between moral victories and real victories. All elections are about electability at the end of the day. And there's this idea that we saw this rift last night where people were talking about the cost of a plan to have basically a single payer, and it was dismissed as Republican talk points.

Well, I'm sorry, math isn't partisan. And if we're getting into a place where we're considering that, we got a real problem as a country and the Democratic Party has a problem as a party.

CAMEROTA: And, John, do you think that anything changed last night? I mean, Sabrina was saying that nobody had one of those breakout moments that Kamala Harris had in the first debate, but I think that everybody had a breakout moment. And in some ways, that was sort of an equalizer, like everybody had a strong moment.

AVLON: Everybody gets a trophy.

CAMEROTA: No, every single person on that stage, I could tick through it if we have time, luckily we have four hours, where everybody sort of rose to the occasion and got in whatever they came and set out to accomplish, they did it.

AVLON: Except Bill de Blasio.

CAMEROTA: De Blasio had the whole thing about deportation.

BERMAN: What gives?

CAMEROTA: Come on.

(CROSSTALK)

AVLON: I say that because he did a whole riff on led which actually like is one of the least distinguished things about his mayoralty.

CAMEROTA: OK. However, he is the one that had Joe Biden back on his heels that most with the deportations, that Joe Biden actually couldn't answer about whether he was proud they were deporter in chief.

AVLON: Yes, he interrupted and inserted that question in a role as a moderator. And I think that is a quite tough question for Joe Biden, because, again, the responsibilities of being president are very different than the current environment in this Democratic primary debate.

But in all seriousness, I thought Andrew Yang had a message of discipline unlike any candidate I've ever seen. He is a very good communicator for a single issue candidate.

[05:15:01] And I think, look, yes, Kirsten Gillibrand exceeded expectations for much for the debate. I think Tulsi Gabbard took shots that really stung for Kamala Harris.

So, look, everybody can point to something. But not everyone is going to survive to the next round, folks.

BERMAN: Can I ask you -- we have to take a break which we will in a second. But I will pose this question to think about over the break.

CAMEROTA: Homework.

BERMAN: I think if we take several giant steps back and we assess this this morning, the big questions are, is Joe Biden a stronger or weaker front-runner than he was going the last night? And we can answer that. And are Democrats at a better or worse position to beat Donald Trump? I think that's a legitimate question after last night as well, and I hope we got a chance to get to this.

CAMEROTA: OK. Well, this morning, the good news is we have five of the ten candidates who were on the debate stage last night. So, we can pose some of the questions to them and themselves.

Coming up on NEW DAY, we will speak to Andrew Yang, and Senators Michael Bennet, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker.

BERMAN: We have like half the Senate. I hope there's not a vote this morning because they have to come here to the set.

All right. We have a lot more coming up including what's next and be where does this go from here?

Stick around.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:20:52] BERMAN: Welcome back to Detroit where the dust is still settling after the CNN Democratic presidential debates or it could just be the wind is blowing this morning.

Before the break, I used my senatorial privilege to suggest that I think the two biggest questions coming out of this are number one, is Joe Biden the stronger or weaker frontrunner than he was going on? Number two, are the Democrats in a better or worse position to take on Donald Trump. Back with us, Toluse Olorunnipa, Sabrina Siddiqui, John Avlon and

Arlette Saenz.

Let's start with the second question first, Toluse, and I think that's the big one. If there's sort of global criticism from overnight, is that the Democrats aren't making their job easier to beat Donald Trump. What's your take?

OLORUNNIPA: Well, they had plenty of opportunity, a long night to take on President Trump's record, attack and it seemed like they wanted to dump all of their opposition research before they're booted off the stage against one another. It left President Trump sort of rejoicing in his campaign, rejoicing that Democrats are tearing each other apart. They're moving way far to the left.

And I think they see an opportunity, the Trump campaign, to highlight what's happening with this internecine fight on the Democratic side and show that, you know, even a lot of people don't like what President Trump says, they don't like his approach to politicking, at least he's not moving the country way off to the left, and at least he's not involved in these back and forth battles and discussions that we're seeing on the Democratic debate stage.

So, I think that at least as a field, as an entire Democratic field, they didn't do themselves a lot of favors by attacking each other so much and letting President Trump off the hook for a number of different issues. They could have spent the whole two hours attacking President Trump. I think we'll see that in the future debate. But instead, they wanted to be able to distinguish themselves between one another and it left President Trump off the hook for a number of things he's done over the past days.

CAMEROTA: Yes, Sabrina, I wonder why they didn't do that. I mean, again, they missed these opportunities. There were some memorable moments and they stood out frankly because when the candidates did go after President Trump, it was sort of like the audience perked up and realized that's what they were supposed to be doing.

Here's Kirsten Gillibrand. Here's a moment that she got a lot of attention for. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GILLIBRAND: The first thing I'm going to do when I'm president is I'm going to Clorox the Oval Office. The second thing I'm going to do is I will re-engage on global climate change.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Clorox the Oval Office. The audience seemed to like that one.

But other opportunities they missed to go after President Trump?

SIDDIQUI: Right. There were a few moments where there was perhaps a really good zinger with respect to the president or cutting line like you heard from Kirsten Gillibrand or watching Governor Jay Inslee openly said that there's a white nationalist in the White House, and that drew a lot of applause. But this is what happens when you have a sprawling field.

And to your point earlier, there were moments, almost everyone had a moment but no one in particular stood out or was able to claim the night. And so, what you had was all of these candidates who were kind of vying for attention and really trying to make it to the next debate and that's why you saw them really throw out the opposition research book against one another. I think that a lot of Democrats think it's healthy for the party to have this debate, to really think about who was best positioned to represent what was an increasingly young and diverse party.

But at the same time, if you're wondering about the Obama administration's record on immigration, yes, they did have a record number of deportation, but the party is also trying to focus on the fact that this president has passed or tried to enact some of the most restrictive immigration laws in the country. They're focusing on the family separation policy and that message gets lost when they're much more focused on relitigating the past.

AVLON: And this is also the unreality of our current debates. I mean, Barack Obama had a very tough record on deportations but that wasn't enough to stop Republicans from running on a fear-filled fantasy of illegal immigration epidemic in this.

Look, I think, first to Joe's two question, one, I think Biden is bodily strengthened going out in this debate, because going into it, there was a real question whether the wheels could come off.

[05:25:02] And he showed he could take it. He was probably attacked more on the stage last night, in the first half than Donald Trump.

CAMEROTA: Really?

AVLON: And that takes a lot to withstand that.

The second question is, is Donald Trump stronger? I think everything needs to be seen through the prism of the fact that Donald Trump's campaign is clearly predicated on making a case for negative partisanship. The Democrats are too radical, too extreme, too socialist.

And to the extent that the Democratic Party starts playing into that narrative, they're weaker. And that's why this divide within the Democratic Party is so significant.

BERMAN: Let me give you an and-but here, though. And-but because one of the things we saw the last two nights as opposed to the first round of debates was a muscular middle. The a ascendant moderates, you love that --

AVLON: Yes, I'm -- go on.

BERMAN: Because I think for the first time, you had candidates defending a position as opposed to where Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were. You heard much more about it last night or two nights ago from John Delaney and the others, last night from Joe Biden and Michael Bennet. It was there, it was much stronger and louder than we've heard before.

AVLON: Yes, and I think that is right, I think that is fair. And notably, it comes from a lot of people with extended governing experience, a lot of governors tend to be centrists because they have a responsibility of governing, and it's not an ideological debating society. And this is serious at this point. It's always later than you think.

And, again, for folks who say, I have a plan and not worry about passage or the price and attack anyone who questions it as a crypto conservative is not a sign of being very well-moored when it comes to actually, you know, governing. And that's the reality we have to face. It's a good sign that the senator is getting his back up and starting saying, you know what, these are principled positions that are deeply held. This is not just expediency. This is about principle and pragmatism and governing.

CAMEROTA: Also, Arlette, I thought tactically what we saw last night was that people figured out, probably before they got on the stage, that if they brought up one of their rivals they got more time because then you engaged. The rules were then that person got a retort and you got to respond. And so, I thought that they were tactic tactically doing it intentionally bringing up Joe Biden and Kamala Harris so they got some more FaceTime, and they had that split screen and go after each other, which was on some level helpful for voters to be able to see the difference between them, but I thought it was strategic on the part of the candidates.

SAENZ: Yes, you know, when Kamala Harris was asked about healthcare and when other opponents like Gillibrand would bring up an issue, she would turn it right back to Joe Biden. That was a fight that she had been preparing for.

Bill de Blasio acting like a moderator. Always turning to Joe Biden. And it does presents those contrasts that the candidates were hoping for.

I think with Biden, you know, he's still the front-runner. I think he's slightly perhaps a little bit stronger because he survived the night. But I think going, forward, the question is going to be, if he can actually convince voters that he is the singular best candidate? I think there are a lot of options.

I think the next debate that's really going to be telling is having them on stage with Elizabeth Warren. That's one person he has not faced off against. She is very sharp. They are on opposite ends of the ideological spectrum. And I think that that is going to be a key match-up as we get closer to the summer.

BERMAN: And their careers have been in opposition to each other for a long time. This isn't a new thing. So, that will be fascinating. Arlette, before we leave the point. I do want to ask. You know, we

like to think that all of our ideas are novel and new, we just came up with it, but this has been out there for a while. Why isn't Joe Biden spending more time on the debate stage talking about President Trump?

Was there a reason the campaign gave for why he decided to go after each one of the candidates one by one as opposed to trying to turn everything to Donald Trump? Every one of Biden's answers should be a noun, a verb and Donald Trump. It wasn't last night.

SAENZ: Yes, I mean, you have from Joe Biden, his opening statement, which was going after President Trump and the closing statement but everything in between, he had to find was to differentiate himself from his rivals, because he has to get through that Democratic primary. Biden has really tried to stay above the fray early on in this campaign only talking about President Trump, but they feel there have been major mischaracterizations on this record, and that he is going to be ready and prepared to fire back.

CAMEROTA: And, Arlette, one more question, why isn't he one of the candidates who's coming on NEW DAY this morning? Why is Joe Biden --

BERMAN: We want to get to the important things.

CAMEROTA: Yes, there's a larger question here. Why is Joe Biden still avoiding live interviews for the most part?

SAENZ: Yes. I mean, they've been very selective in the way that they are doing interviews with the national press, only sat down for a few formal interviews. He has been engaging a little bit more with reporters on the trail, he's holding more gaggles. We'll see if we get a chance to talk to him later today.

But, I think, going forward, he is at some point going to have to come and sit here on NEW DAY.

BERMAN: Who's done, Toluse, Sabrina? Who are we not going to see in September at this point?

OLORUNNIPA: Yes, there are a couple of candidates who have not broken through yet and they're still waiting to see polling that would get them on the stage, waiting to get the donors, maybe Jay Inslee, he maybe off the stage, Kirsten Gillibrand, Andrew Yang seems like he's going to be in good position. But even some of the.

[05:30:00]