[Shimon Prokupecz, Cnn Crime And Justice Correspondent:] We await this decision.
[Kate Bolduan, Cnn Anchor:] Absolutely. Thank you, Shimon, I really appreciate it.
[Prokupecz:] Sure.
[Bolduan:] We'll see what the police commissioner has to say very shortly. Thank you all so much for joining me. "INSIDE POLITICS" with John King starts right now.
[John King, Cnn Anchor:] Thank you, Kate. And welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm John King. Thank you for sharing your day with us. Breaking news. In the hour ahead, New York's police commissioner plans to announce the fate of the police officer involved in the choke hold death of Eric Garner. We will bring you that event live. Plus, a Massachusetts primary drama with national implications. Congressman Joe Kennedy moves to challenge incumbent Democrat Ed Markey, looking to follow his grandfather and two grand-uncles to the United States Senate. And an up day in financial markets plan new trade talks with China and efforts to stimulate Europe's economy cheer investors today, as team Trump feverishly makes two arguments at once. There won't be a recession, they say. But if there is, blame the Fed, not the president.
[Wilbur Ross, Commerce Secretary:] It's ridiculous. Our interest rates are high relative to many other countries. It was announced last week that the Seung Bank in Europe that's making mortgage loans with negative interest rates, paying borrowers to borrow money to buy a house.
[Maria Bartiromo, Fbn:] That's incredible.
[Ross:] And yet the U.S. is paying a positive interest rate. What is wrong with this picture? I very much hope that Chairman Powell goes forward and does lower the rate this next time around.
[King:] Back to the economy in a few minutes. We begin the hour, though, with an important moment in the 2020 race for the Democratic nomination. An apology from the Democratic candidate better known for policy plans. Elizabeth Warren in Iowa today at a Native American forum. Yes, she came to promote a detailed plan to help a group of Americans long ignored and underserved. But this was about more than that.
[Elizabeth Warren , Presidential Candidate:] I want to say this. Like anyone who's been honest with themselves, I know that I have made mistakes. I am sorry for harm I have caused. I have listened and I have learned a lot. And I am grateful for the many conversations that we've had together. It is a great honor to be able to partner with Indian country. And that's what I've tried to do as a senator. And that's what I promise I will do as president of the United States of America.
[King:] Proof right there her campaign sees the test for Senator Warren and the campaign biography she hopes will help her win the Democratic nomination and then the White House. She insists Senator Warren insists she received no advantage, but as an aspiring law professor, she did say she was of Native American heritage. More recently, as an aspiring presidential candidate, she took a DNA test to prove it and then apologized to Native American groups who took profound offense. President Trump calls her Pocahontas. And by that he means a fraud. Warren's rise in the Democratic race is very real, as is the debate in the party about whether she can win a general election. A lot of that debate is the challenge of selling a very liberal policy agenda in swing states. But a piece of it is whether she can survive a Trump character onslaught. Here with me today to share their reporting and their insights, CNN's Nia-Malika Henderson, Katie Rogers with "The New York Times," Rachael Bade with "The Washington Post," and Jackie Kucinich with "The Daily Beast." It is not every day candidates apologize. The question is, is that enough? She apologized to the Native American community. She apologized for hurting them. Says she gets it. I don't suspect that is going to get the president to back off. The question is, do voters at some point say, OK, she's acknowledged mistakes, although I'm not exactly sure which mistake she was acknowledging there.
[Henderson:] Yes, in some ways I think Elizabeth Warren, who really damaged her prospects in the beginning when she did this DNA test. She righted the ship. I mean she's doing much better among the voters who really took a lot of offense around this, in addition to Native Americans, obviously, who took a lot of offense at the DNA test. White liberal voters didn't really like that she took this DNA test because it was such a misunderstanding of what tribal identity and tribal community is all about. So, we'll see. I mean you see her rising in the polls. You see Bernie Sanders. She you know, they kind of play in the same sand box in terms of those voters. But this is, I think, a necessary move. She's probably going to keep having to do that. Whether or not it makes any difference actually not whether or not it makes any difference with Donald Trump, it's not going to make any difference with Donald Trump. He's going to
[Katie Rogers, White House Correspondent, "the New York Times":] Right. He seemed almost wistful last week in his rally
[Henderson:] Yes.
[Rogers:] When he said, I should have, you know, maybe we started this too early, this Pocahontas thing. I can bring it back. It was kind of a classic campaigning tactic.
[King:] Well, let's listen to that. I don't mean to interrupt, but that to me told me, number one, the president did do damage to her by making it an issue. Number two, to her credit, she has fought back and she is the rise she's the growth stock, if you will, in the Democratic race right now. Nobody votes for five months. But at the moment she is the growth stock. And the president, as you noted, sounded almost regretful, but it's also proof that he's noticed that her polls are better.
[Donald Trump, President Of The United States:] I did the Pocahontas thing. I hit her really hard. And it looked like she was down and out. But that was too long ago. I should have waited. But don't worry, we will revive it. It can be revived. It can be revived right? It will be revived. And it can be revived very easily and very quickly and we're going to have some fun in the state of New Hampshire.
[King:] Now that's the president there talking about a potential Trump- Warren matchup. But it's more than that also. She's in Iowa today. She's rising in the polls in Iowa. A lot of Democrats say I like her policies. Can she beat Trump? And, again, you have a policy and then the character conversation. The president there is in New Hampshire. If Warren wins or comes in strong in Iowa, then she goes home to her neighborhood she's the senator from Massachusetts and New Hampshire and can win there. That's the trajectory she wants in the race. The president is up there in New Hampshire essentially telling Democrats, as well as Republicans, you should think about this.
[Rachael Bade, Cnn Political Analyst:] Yes, and, I mean, Trump is going to continue to double down on this whole Pocahontas cheer. I mean the best that Warren can sort of see in the future is that this only, you know, resonates with his base and gins up his own base, but that it doesn't affect at all those voters that she needs to reach in order to win the primary. But, I mean, today she she went into this speech, to Native Americans, doing her homework. She not only apologized, but she had a, I think, a 9,000-word policy proposal about how to help the American tribes. Things that she would do as president. And, you know, people said that that is the most extensive proposal they have seen any Democratic 2020 hopeful actually put forward. And so she's definitely taking those steps that she needs to put this behind her as she continues to go up in the polls.
[Jackie Kucinich, Cnn Political Analyst:] But to your point, John, I think when you talk about the Democratic primary, it just depends on what voters are talking about because when you see the people that are supporting Joe Biden, they sort of just want to right the ship. They want the country to kind of cool down, maybe pull away from some of the chaos that the Trump administration has injected into the into the atmosphere. And where Warren's policies tend to be more radical to these left of center voters. And when you look at the makeup of the current Congress, the reason the House went back to the Democrats wasn't because of the progressives, it was because of these moderate Democrats that were from districts that Trump won and, you know, that may have flipped. So that's what I think party leaders are looking at. And that's what's making them a little nervous about Elizabeth Warren because she does have all of these policy proposals. That definitely would mean a drastic change from where we are right now.
[King:] And the question, as she rises to the Democratic field, are any of the Democrats going to bring this up? Say, you know what, you know, she has said these things in the past that are open to criticism about, you know, who she was. She's listed this on applications or she has promoted this. And is what she has done in the past a liability if she is our nominee? Senator Warren trying to make the case, to your point, apologizing generally there and vaguely for what she has done in the past, trying to make the case that she has the big plans for the future.
[Sen. Elizabeth Warren , Presidential Candidate:] The federal government's history with our tribal nations has been one of broken promises. We need to make change. We need to honor our trust and treaty obligations. And we're not going to do that with one little statute over here and a couple of changes in regulations over there. It's going to take big structural change.
[King:] Can she convince enough Democrats that a, that that's the right way to go, that you can sell that in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania
[Henderson:] Right.
[King:] And, b, again, that you can sell not only that, that Trump's going to say socialist and he's going to say Pocahontas.
[Henderson:] Yes, and that's the big question for her, right? I mean Medicare for all. She obviously signed up with Bernie on that. And that is the fight that Democrats want to take to her, right, this idea that it's too much, as you say, Jackie, it's you know, it's too much too far to the left for the country at this point. I think the problem that the Democrats have the sort of moderate Democrats is that she is a very effective politician, right? I mean she knows policy. She's got passion. She can explain that policy very well in a way that it connects with people. We see that on the debate stage. I mean she's probably she is, I think the best debater of this field. So all of these moderate Democrats who want to make this argument that, you know, this sort of far left agenda, if you want to call it that, isn't where the party is, isn't where the country should be. They've got a real formidable challenger in Elizabeth Warren.
[King:] And they're you see the Republicans coming after her, the Republican National Committee today, with talking points. They're coming after her. The president, again, with such vigor. They say that it's just fun and in some ways they say it's easy because of things she has said and done. I would argue no. They see her as a threat too.
[Henderson:] Yes, I think that's right.
[King:] And they're trying to test they're trying to test their own messages
[Rogers:] It clearly hasn't stuck.
[King:] Right, it hasn't it hasn't they're they're worried about that. The question is, now she's taking down at the beginning, every candidate slips. Every candidate makes mistakes. Every candidate does one thing they thought was right on Monday and a week or a month or two months later you realize, well, maybe not. She had put up the DNA test results. There was a video on her website. They're now taking that down. The question is, does her campaign, at a time when they're rising in many ways, do they get it? Do they do they are they going to try you know, what are they going to do here to try to make this, OK, maybe that was a misstep? Forget about it.
[Rogers:] I mean I think she today we saw her say, you know what, like anybody who's made mistakes, I regret this. And I think she's actually pretty savvy to bring it up, to address it, but then also move on and say, I have this idea and that idea and basically think ahead of everyone else on policy matters, that way when a personal attack comes, she can say, yes, like anyone else, I'm sorry. I mean the president's going to revive the Pocahontas stuff with her and I think that there are definitely voters who don't want to listen to him make fun of anybody all the time and it will just be
[King:] Right.
[Rogers:] It will get to be too much for them. But it just remains to be seen whether or not
[King:] That's a great point too, in the primaries you can ask, forgive me. Lyin'Ted, little Marco and low energy Jeb. It works to a degree. But the question is, in the second campaign, when a lot of suburban voters just think, this is not what a president is supposed to be doing.
[Rogers:] This is enough.
[King:] That's a great it's a great point. We'll see it play out. Up next for us, the Trump administration says the economy is doing great. And you can ignore anyone who says otherwise. And, as you watch today's program, if you have a question for any of the great political reporters at the table, tweet us with #insidepolitics. We'll try to answer some at the end of the program. We'll be right back.