Battle for California: 2020 Dems Visit Key Primary State.
BASH: This early in the primary season, the focus is usually on early states like Iowa and New Hampshire. But this weekend, it was all eyes on California. More than a dozen 2020 hopefuls flew west to speak at the California Democratic convention, a breakfast for union workers and a progressive rally where each candidate was asked to present one big idea for the future.</s>SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I got a lot of ideas. I'll share one of them with you. And it's about equal pay.</s>SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Stop endless wars. We have got to cut military spending.</s>BOOKER: One of the issues that is most threatening to our democracy which is wealth disparity.</s>WARREN: End lobbying as we know it. They've had enough power long enough.</s>SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND (D-NY), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Let's pay a national paid leave bill that actually works.</s>JULIAN CASTRO (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We're going to hold police departments and police officers accountable in this country for excessive force.</s>BETO O'ROURKE (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Ensure that every immigrant who has come to this country was truly treated with the dignity and respect that they deserved.</s>SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Register every kid to vote in this country when they turn 18.</s>BASH: In recent times California has been the blue state Democratic candidates go to raise money and leave. Not anymore. Now it's a crucial campaign stop. The reason is because in 2020, the Golden State primary is some three months earlier than it was four years ago. California's nearly 500 delegates will be up for grabs on Super Tuesday. What did you guys think of all the performances yesterday?</s>ZELENY: Well, certainly interesting that those candidates are trying to break out and distinguish themselves.</s>BASH: Yes.</s>ZELENY: Those 500 delegates are key, but important to keep in mind how Democrats award their delegates, they're proportional. So, people only get a share of them. So, no one is going to walk away with this big trove. So, California will be important. The question is which candidates make it to California.</s>THOMAS: Exactly.</s>ZELENY: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada, still important before. All candidates will not have enough gas in the tank to be able to get there.</s>THOMAS: Yes. And I think Kamala Harris, all eyes are on her. She put out a long list of endorsements before this big weekend in California.</s>BASH: Her home state.</s>THOMAS: Her home state. Everyone thinks she should be do well. But there are some anticipation of can she actually corral a bunch of Democrats. Is it enough delegates, even though she's not doing well in Iowa and New Hampshire, she can make it to California and take that. If she can't show power in California, for her, that's the problem.</s>BASH: And then the person who was not there who was the elephant or donkey in the room, if you will, was Joe Biden. But a couple of candidates were trying to bring him into the fold not so subtly. Listen to that.</s>WARREN: Some Democrats in Washington believe the only changes we can get are tweaks and nudges. If they dream at all, they dream small. Some say if we all just calm down, the Republicans will come to their senses.</s>PETE BUTTIGIEG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He wins if we look like more of the same. He wins if we look like Washington. So the riskiest thing we can do is try too hard to play it safe.</s>JOHNSON: I think what you just saw there is Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg articulating the tension, the key tension in the Democratic primary which is those candidates who think that Donald Trump is the problem in the American political system and if you beat Donald Trump, a reversion to, quote/unquote, normalcy is the fix we need. And those candidates like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren who want an entire overhaul of the political system, who have a more revolutionary view of things. And I think when Biden is not present and unable to defend himself and articulate what he thinks is the problem, that's a disadvantage.</s>BASH: So, Biden was on the campaign trail, just in the Midwest, not on the West Coast, and he was trying to distinguish himself, going after Donald Trump while at the same time talking about his record in pushing rights for LGBTQ Americans. Listen to this.</s>JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This president, this White House has literally a bully pulpit, callously extending his power over the most vulnerable. Implementing discriminatory policies, the current vice president uses religious freedom as an excuse to license discrimination. We need to send a clear message directly from the top of our government that prejudice is prejudice and humanity is humanity, period, no cultural reason or excuse.</s>BASH: Translation, I'm a progressive.</s>DAVIS: Absolutely. I mean, what you saw in knows two separate appearances was, you know, they asked the California convention, they wanted one big idea, right? You heard all these dramatic ideas coming from the sound you played from Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg. Joe Biden's big idea for his campaign is Donald Trump is bad for this country, right? And that's what you heard him articulate in that comment there, and I think he's banking on -- I don't think it's so much that he feels he's being silenced, doesn't have the opportunity to offer those ideas, I think he's banking on the opposite, which is he doesn't need to prove his progressive bona fides if we can persuade people that what we really is returned to what you all used to, and what, you know, what you saw in the past. But you heard Pete Buttigieg say that's not enough. If we do that, we will lose.</s>BASH: That's such a key sort of tension point and debating point, whether or not voters I think are going to articulate it or it's something that's kind of in their bones. Do we want to go with somebody who we know keeps us calm or do we want to shake things up? I mean, I think Barack Obama wasn't exactly the safe choice.</s>THOMAS: No. I think Vice President Biden, part of the reason he wasn't in California is he doesn't think he needs to do what everyone else is doing. He has the name recognition. He didn't get into the race until late, which was everyone was like, when are you getting into the race? You have to raise money. Are you going to be able to raise money? It turns out he was able to raise money. So, he did something totally different which then got us talking about the fact that he's not in California. So they are playing that in a different way. He thinks that -- he doesn't have to play by the same rules as the other 22 people in this race.</s>BASH: So, the whole question is whether or not the party -- especially the voting bloc have moved so far left, that there isn't a place for moderates. What you call Joe Biden we don't know. But John Hickenlooper, the former governor of Colorado, got the answer loud and clear.</s>JOHN HICKENLOOPER (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If we want to beat Donald Trump and achieve big aggressive goals, socialism is not the answer.</s>ZELENY: That's not the worst kind of boo if you're John Hickenlooper. The reality is this. Look at the results of 2018 and other things. The Democratic Party is not -- the majority of the Democratic Party are not the activists in California and are not the people who live on Twitter.</s>BASH: That's right.</s>ZELENY: They are voters in Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina and Ohio, a lot of big states. Some people agree that the party has moved too far to the left. So, as John Hickenlooper, I don't know if that was a choice or a plan of his, but it may have been. He's a very smart governor. He was from a purple state. I think the reality to all of this is that's why Joe Biden is not at that convention. He might have gotten booed as well. He's marching to his own drummer here. And the first and last sentence of every possible proposal, I can beat Donald Trump.</s>THOMAS: To give John Hickenlooper a little credit, California Democrats elect a new chair yesterday. There was a progressive woman who had a lot of energy behind her, but they elected a labor leader, Rusty Hicks, as the Democratic chairman, which said there are still people who are in the party who kind of want to play it a little safer.</s>BASH: OK. So, before we go to break, we have to talk about the new debate rules that the DNC announced this past week. So, right now, the rules are that to get on the first set of debate stages, you have -- the criteria are 1 percent in three approved polls or 65,000 unique donors. If we can put that on the screen, that has set up a very large field of people who are already qualifying. It could be even larger for the first set of debates. Here is the change. The change is, the new criteria are 2 percent in four new polls after June 28th and at least 130,000 individual donors. Right now, as of today, the reason those candidates are in shadows is because, if you had those criteria today, they would not qualify for the debate.</s>ZELENY: It's significant in every way. It's a huge change. Some of these candidates, frankly, won't make the debate. They are saying, look, the DNC is trying to tip its finger on the scale. Again, there are accusations --</s>BASH: Try to winnow the field.</s>ZELENY: If you're Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders or others, you don't want the field to be winnowed either. You benefit from a large field here. There's a couple different things at play. We'll see if that stays in shape or not. But if so, the September debate is going to be a much smaller table -- could probably fit around this table right now.</s>BASH: This is a fine place to have it. All right. Julie, you mentioned this earlier. We're going to talk next about Pelosi's problem. Over 50 House Democrats say it's time for impeachment hearings. She says not yet.