Midterm Elections; Biden Prediction; Midterm Election Prep
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Wolf Blitzer, thank you so much. Great to be with all of you on this Monday. I'm Brooke Baldwin. The election is tomorrow and the polls are breaking Republican. Should the GOP secure a net gain of six seats in the 100-seat Senate, then the Republican Party will own Capitol Hill, will control both houses of Congress, something Barack Obama has not yet faced in his nearly six years in the White House. But hold on though because you have to run these elections first, right? So here is the vice president speaking to CNN saying his Democrats still have hope. Roll it.</s>JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: First of all, I don't agree with the odd makers. I predict we're going to - we're going to keep the Senate.</s>GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: You do?</s>BIDEN: I've been in 66, 67 races all told and I don't get the feeling that the odds makers are giving.</s>BALDWIN: Be that as it may, here is the bad news, Mr. Vice President. Bad news for Obama. In fact, bad news for the Dems. In Iowa, a Democratic seat the Dems have hoped to hold, Republican Joni Ernst has taken a seven-point lead in a Des Moines register poll. Georgia, another hope for the Democrats may be waning as a weekend poll showed Republican David Perdue outdrawing Michelle Nunn. And West Virginia, South Dakota, Montana, these are Democratic states right now but will not be after tomorrow. We can pretty much say that for sure. Three more takeaways and just do the math and the GOP owns the Senate. Joe Klein with me, political columnist for "Time" magazine. That Joe Klein sitting with me here on set. So nice to see you, sir.</s>JOE KLEIN, "TIME' MAGAZINE COLUMNIST: Good to be here.</s>BALDWIN: Let's just begin with - so you have the polls breaking Republican. You --</s>KLEIN: Sort of.</s>BALDWIN: Kind of, sort of. But then you have the vice president saying, no, we're going to hang on. Which is it?</s>KLEIN: I don't know. I mean, you know -</s>BALDWIN: Honesty. I like it.</s>KLEIN: Obviously the election sets up pretty good for Republicans. It looks like they're going to do it. But all -- there are all these states out there that are not runaways. A four-point difference in Georgia may mean nothing. You know, a lot of it depends on turnout. Polls down ballot from, you know, the presidency are notoriously inaccurate. Nobody's going to do what Nate Silver did four years ago -</s>BALDWIN: Called them all.</s>KLEIN: Who called them all, right. And so, you know, I would suspect the Republicans are going to take control of the Senate. But for people like me are stupidest when we say they're absolutely going to take control.</s>BALDWIN: We're not calling it. We're not calling it. We will have that moment when we wake up Wednesday morning when it's over.</s>KLEIN: Leave that to Wolf. Wolf will - Wolf will do that.</s>BALDWIN: We'll have it. So, woke up this morning, read your piece, time.com, and the five things to watch for. So let me just begin with the first that jumped out at me. You talk about Democrats and women and you write this, point blank, "the alleged toxicity of Barack Obama has made it unsafe for Democrats to discuss much else." So are you saying the only thing that Democrats can bring to the table are so-called women's issues?</s>KLEIN: Well, that's pretty much the way it's looking around the country. I went on a road trip through the south and that was just about all Democrats we're talking about.</s>BALDWIN: Women.</s>KLEIN: Yes. They used to be able to talk about foreign policy, but that's gotten a lot more complicated over the last couple of years, especially with the rise of ISIS. And so they have clean arguments there, equal pay for equal work. It just sounds right, doesn't it? How can you be against that? And yet Republicans are avoiding that issue throughout the south and in other places. It's the democrat's strongest point. But I don't know whether you can pin a whole party and hang a whole party on that one issue.</s>BALDWIN: It's the women issue you point out is one of the five things to look for.</s>KLEIN: Yes.</s>BALDWIN: You also talk about where Democrats are really struggling. You talk about states where it's not surprising that they're struggling, so let me quote you here. "There is no excuse for the tight races that estimable Democrats Jeanne Shaheen and Mark Udall find themselves struggling through in New Hampshire and Colorado." Do you think it is the president -- you mentioned before his toxicity -- do you think it's the president that's dragging them down?</s>KLEIN: It's the only issue.</s>BALDWIN: It's not anything else?</s>KLEIN: It's not anything else.</s>BALDWIN: Wow.</s>KLEIN: I mean Jeanne Shaheen is a legendary politician in New Hampshire. I was just up there yesterday, Hillary Clinton was there campaigning for -</s>BALDWIN: Lots of women you were saying.</s>KLEIN: Yes. In fact, New Hampshire is the future. A women governor, sitting governor now, two women senators, two women congresspeople or congresswomen.</s>BALDWIN: Congresswomen.</s>KLEIN: And Jeanne Shaheen is a legend. She's the only woman who's ever been both a senator and a governor and she's very, very strongly regarded up there and she is in a knockdown, drag-out, one-point differential race with Scott Brown, who, you know, is a carpet bagger. He came from Massachusetts. So -</s>BALDWIN: So singularly playing (ph) out the president.</s>KLEIN: Yes, I mean people look -- people do not understand where this president has gone. And especially in this fall with Ebola and, you know, the summer and fall with</s>ISIS - BALDWIN: Yes.</s>KLEIN: And, you know, people don't feel the impacts of Obamacare because it only affects very few people, but it's a bad label to have hung around your neck even though the program's kind of succeeding.</s>BALDWIN: And we were talking earlier, and we'll talk a little bit more, on just about how the economy's so, so, so much better -</s>KLEIN: Yes.</s>BALDWIN: Yet people still aren't totally feeling it. Joe Klein, thank you so much. A pleasure having you on.</s>KLEIN: My pleasure.</s>BALDWIN: So, back to Joe Biden. He is certainly defying the odds makers. Says his Democrats will hold on to the U.S. Senate. Gloria Borger asked him essentially, what if you're wrong? Take a listen.</s>GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: But what if that were to be the case?</s>JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, I don't think it will change anything in terms of what we're about. We know we have to get done the last two years and quite frankly going into 2016 the Republicans have to make a decision whether they're in control or not in control or they're going to begin to allow things to happen or they're going to continue to be obstructionist. And I think they're going to choose to get things done.</s>BALDWIN: Gloria Borger, she joins me now live from Washington, our chief political analyst. And so did the vice president offer specifics as to how the White House would approach this post-election reality in which both houses are run by the opposition.</s>GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: No. No, I - I think what we see is - I think what we see is the beginning of a strategy here, Brooke. You know, he's sort of putting out his hand and saying, OK, yes, we can work together and he said to me, we're willing to compromise and if they are willing to deal. And what he did say, which kind of surprised me, was that he admitted that the White House really needs to do a better job of communicating what it's doing to the American people. I mean, he wouldn't say that what they were doing was at all wrong or bad or anything else. He just said, look, we effectively haven't been telling our story as well as we need to tell our story.</s>BALDWIN: All right. So all this talk of compromise, Gloria Borger. You have the vice president, 71 years of age, talking as though he just might have another election left in him.</s>BORGER: Yes.</s>BALDWIN: Maybe for the white house. Roll that sound bite.</s>BORGER: It's not about Hillary?</s>BIDEN: No. Well, it really is not. I mean you know me too well. I mean if I run, I'm confident I will be able to mount a campaign that can be financed and it will be credible and it will be serious.</s>BORGER: Would you run if she runs?</s>BIDEN: Absolutely. That's not the reason not to run or to run. The question is, am I - do I -- am I convinced I am best positioned of anyone else to lead the country the next four years.</s>BORGER: Are you?</s>BALDWIN: Uh-huh. Does it - I mean he's considering it. he is considering it. Does that surprise you?</s>BORGER: Yes, he is. Look, first of all, he's not going to say it right now because -- let's say he decides not to run. He's not going to say it right now because he doesn't want to be a lame duck, right? I mean the president has that problem, why should he have that problem, right? Then, what did surprise me, though, Brooke, was when I asked him whether he was -- didn't like all the attention that Hillary is getting. And he's the sitting vice president and he's not getting the attention and Hillary Clinton, everybody's buzzing about her candidacy. He said, you know, I really don't feel badly about that. He said, even when I say it, it doesn't sound real, but that's actually how I feel. I don't feel badly about it. So he wasn't giving away any secrets there but, you know, not closing any doors, at least not yet.</s>BALDWIN: How about just in the final moment I have you, you know, when the cameras weren't rolling and, you know, when you were talking, as we reporters do, anything, you know, on the record that he shared with you that you want us to know?</s>BORGER: No, I think, you know, he's sort of the eternal optimist. And, you know, when I asked him the first question, you know, can the Democrats - you know, what - everyone's says the Democrats aren't going to win, he really even privately is not giving up on that. And, you know, I think they've got an awful lot at stake there and they understand that and they know that. And I think what we're all going to be talking about after election night is the strategy and the question of whether all these red state Democrats should have kept the president out as much as they have because could they have gotten the base out more with the president out there on the campaign trail and will the base stay home? And I think that's a worry that everyone in the White House is having right now.</s>BALDWIN: Something we may be talking about in 48 hours from now.</s>BORGER: Right.</s>BALDWIN: Gloria Borger, thank you so much, and for that interview with the vice president. Thank you. You know, this is the election that will shape the nation for the next two years. Make sure you join us tomorrow night here on CNN for "Election Night in America." We will be here until that final vote is counted. 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