Biden Focuses on Trump; Buttigieg Takes Dig at Biden.
KING: It's a big day for some of the Democratic presidential candidates not named Joe Biden. Bernie Sanders, for example, giving a big speech today, defining what he means by Democratic socialism and rebutting those who say it is too far to the left. Beto O'Rourke outlining how he would protect LGBTQ Americans from discrimination. And Pete Buttigieg rallies with faith leaders here in Washington. The hope is to break through at a time a ton of media attention is focused on a war of words between the Republican incumbent and the Democratic frontrunner you just saw on your screen. Joe Biden wants the very early 2020 Democratic primary to look and feel like a general election campaign. And President Trump is helping, if that's the right word.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He mentions my name 74 times in one speech. I don't know. That reminds me of crooked Hillary. She did the same thing. And then, when it came time to vote, they all said, you know, she doesn't like Trump very much, but what else does she stand for? Same thing's happening with sleepy Joe.</s>KING: Now, Biden, as you saw, he's still in Iowa today. President Trump is back from Iowa. He's at the White House. The question for Biden is, will we hear more of this?</s>JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I believe that the president is literally an existential threat to America. Four years of Donald Trump will be viewed as an aberration in American history. There are thugs all over the world using the same kinds of language he's using now. He says, let's make America great again. Let's make America America again.</s>KING: Mr. Zeleny is just back from Iowa. Thanks for your travels. I'm surprised you came back. It's interesting to watch. He is the frontrunner. In the national polls, a relatively strong frontrunner. In the Iowa poll, relatively weak frontrunner. There's some fragility to this. How do voters -- how do Iowa voters, do they buy his argument, buy his strategy that the other people are nice people, I don't want to talk about them much, I want to focus all my attention on Donald Trump?</s>ZELENY: It's a mix, but the voters I talked to yesterday who were watching the former vice president were happy to hear him sort of, you know, go after the president. One voter I talked to who lives there in Ottumwa, he said that he believes that voters and Americans are getting, you know, so used to what the president says, you know, it's just sort of become ordinary. He said he does not think it should be ordinary. He appreciated the moral position that the vice president was coming from. But, look, I think one thing that they hope it will do is to sort of increase the excitement level around Joe Biden. Yes, he is leading in Iowa. Although it's narrow, as you said. But the enthusiasm, the enthusiasm, the passion is not quite there for him. But he wants to kind of refocus this debate once again that this is what the presidential election is about. But, boy, a lot of progressives who are watching this are saying, why this? What about new policies, new ideas? So it's a challenge for Biden. He did change the conversation away from his wobbly last week over the Hyde Amendment to going directly after the president.</s>KING: And, in part, the president helped him. Again, I'm not sure if that --</s>ZELENY: For sure.</s>KING: I'm not sure if that's the right word, in the sense that if you're Donald Trump and you genuinely believe Joe Biden, at least at the moment, would be your toughest general election opponent, why are you helping him make the case in the Democratic primary that the Republican incumbent is worried about me and I have his attention.</s>KNOX: Yes, Biden versus Trump is much better for Biden than Biden versus the progressive base, right? I mean the -- you know, the Hyde Amendment thing really reinforced that, no, he can't run as sort of the presumptive general election nominee. He can't. He has to pay attention to what that activist base, the people who actually vote in these Democratic primaries are doing. I thought that was a huge warning for the -- for the -- for the Biden campaign.</s>KUCINICH: Well, and you already saw -- you saw in the speech yesterday him trying to clean up the China comments from a week or two ago when he said China wasn't a threat, I'm paraphrasing there. And so yesterday, in that speech, there was this whole section about how China actually is a threat and how the president is handling it wrong. But I do question whether, you know, these two men, both going in different places, saying the other is so obsessed with them, how that is -- like, why is he so obsessed with me? I don't know how that plays long term with voters who are kind of sick of this --</s>KING: Right.</s>KUCINICH: This sniping back and forth and name calling.</s>KING: Or how it plays with somebody who's worried about the future of the economy in their town --</s>KUCINICH: Right.</s>KING: Or how much is the green new deal going to cost? And should it be Medicare for all or fix Obamacare, if you're a Democrat? And what -- but what it did do, the split screen yesterday, of Biden/Trump, is it does -- it blow out the other candidates. They're not happy about this. The other Democrats are trying to find some way to get attention. On another day, we might have paid attention to the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, gave a very long, very thoughtful, you read it, you can agree with it or disagree with it, but a thoughtful speech on his view of the world. And an -- in it there's in part here what you could call an implicit criticism of Joe Biden and not necessarily his age, but the generation for which he -- from which he comes.</s>MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Faced with this moment of enormous challenge and great possibility, it is not enough just to say that we won't conduct foreign policy by tweet, nor would it be honest to promise that we can restore an old order that cannot in any case meet the realities of a new moment. Democrats can no more turn the clock back to the 1990s than Republicans can return us to the 1950s. And we should not try.</s>KING: What does he mean there? 1990s is one thing. Early 2000s would be Joe Biden's vote for the Iraq War, which Pete Buttigieg says was a mistake.</s>ZELENY: He means all of the above there, I think. But I think one thing that was unusual, it was a policy speech. What's that? I mean we have not seen nearly as many formal speeches like that. So he was trying to, again, fill out his suit a little bit there. But he is making it clear, he says that virtually everywhere he goes, talking about the '90s and warning against going backwards.</s>KING: Right.</s>ZELENY: He is leaning into his age, not necessarily going after younger voter, going after older Democratic voters who want a new generation there.</s>KIM: But that's also what's prompting a lot of criticisms from inside the Democratic Party about Biden's world view. I think one thing that gets constantly criticized by his fellow Democrats is Biden's view that he can work with Republicans.</s>KUCINICH: Yes.</s>KIM: That once Trump is out of office, I believe what he says is, the fever will break. And Democrats I talked to constantly say, have you met Mitch McConnell? The fever is not breaking any time soon. This was a problem before President Trump went into office and it will be a problem after he leaves.</s>KNOX: What's interesting with that, about the fever will break concept, that was -- that was one of the things that Obama talked about in 2012. He said, maybe if I -- if I win re-election, maybe the fever -- I mean, obviously, when you're describing your opponents as a fever, that's not exactly a bipartisan olive branch offering. I think at one point he said it would pop the blister of the --</s>KING: Yes.</s>KNOX: So, I mean, that's not exactly appealing. But I was thrown by that because I thought to myself, wait, I thought that was the whole point of 2012 and forward from there. I thought that we already had the experiment where you guys said, well, maybe we'll be able to work together, et cetera.</s>KUCINICH: Yes. And "The Daily Beast" had a story yesterday actually quoting a lot of these former Obama officials saying exactly what you're saying, saying, oh, yes, then -- when Joe Biden comes, it's going to be utopia and everyone's going to get along. That's just not -- I don't -- I don't know many Democrats who think that's true. And it also -- it -- taking -- there -- there is this strain that wants to take the fight to Republicans and working with them right now. Is it something some of the progressive base wants to hear?</s>KING: That's -- that's the balancing act. Sure, I think there are a lot of Americans who wish their government would work better. Are -- is that -- can you sell that at a Democratic primary where -- whether it's the issue of the Hyde Amendment or the green new deal or just Trump where the energy is not -- not so conciliatory, shall we say. Up next, President Trump and the Polish president meeting right now inside the Oval Office and promising a significant announcement when they come out to speak.