JUDY WOODRUFF: Now let's
turn to politics Monday.
I'm with our regular
duo, Amy Walter of The
Cook Political Report and
host of public radio's
"Politics With Amy Walter."
And Tamara Keith from
NPR, she also co-hosts
the "NPR Politics Podcast.
"
Hello to both of you.
It is Politics Monday.
So let's talk about this Iowa
poll we were just discussing.
Amy, what do you make of it?
AMY WALTER, The Cook Political
Report: Well, Elizabeth Warren
has had a great summer, and
it shows.
When you talk to folks who
are in and around Iowa,
that's what you are hearing.
At the Iowa State Fair this
summer, all the buzz was about
Elizabeth Warren, and now it's
borne itself out in this poll.
And I do think it's important,
yes, as Ann Selzer points out,
that these things are fluid.
Everything is fluid in Iowa.
In fact, I remember going
back to other Democratic
primaries where, at
this point, after a very
good summer, it looked like
Howard Dean not only was going
to win Iowa, but was going
to be the nominee.
So was Hillary Clinton in 2008,
who was doing quite well in the
September Des Moines Register
poll.
But Iowa, it tends to be
that, around Thanksgiving
time, Iowa voters, even
though they're paying
a whole lot of attention,
really get it into another gear.
What's different, though, this
year, I feel like that Iowa
has taken just on a whole new
dimension.
It's always important.
It's always -- it sets
the pace for the campaign.
But this year, with the issue
of electability so important
in the minds of the voters, the
winner then gets to make the
case that they are a winner.
Now, you can't say, just
because you win a primary, that
means you are going to beat
Donald Trump, but folks
are looking for a winner.
And I think they're going to
take cues from Iowa in a way
maybe even more than we have
seen before.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And so
Elizabeth Warren gets a little
bit of a bump out of this.
TAMARA KEITH, National
Public Radio: Yes.
And if you have been out
talking to voters, you have been
hearing she is, at the moment,
the excitement candidate.
And part of the way her campaign
has been showing that is,
they don't want to talk about
polls.
They don't want to
talk about horse race.
But then they hold a really
big rally in New York.
And that is sort of another
way that they're making an
electability argument, which is
to say, look, Elizabeth Warren
can get a really big crowd in
a very liberal urban place.
You know who else
did that in 2016?
Bernie Sanders.
I actually went to a rally
in the very same park that
Bernie Sanders held that looked
a whole lot like that rally.
And Elizabeth Warren is sort
of capturing that mood at
this time in the campaign, in
a way that Bernie
Sanders did last time.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Huge crowds,
Bernie Sanders was getting.
At the same time, we know
that there are a number of
candidates who are struggling.
Those are the ones who are
in the single digits in Iowa
and in other polls, Amy.
And, in fact, one of them, Cory
Booker, has said in the last
few days -- he said it openly:
If I don't raise $1.8 million
in the next few days, I can't
stay in this race, because
of the pressure to do better.
AMY WALTER: The
pressure to do better.
Plus, no campaigns die because
the member who's running decides
or the candidate decides,
you know what, I guess I
didn't want to be president.
(LAUGHTER)
AMY WALTER: They always
run out of money.
And it's hard to sustain money
when you're not either moving
in the polls or making any
change, it looks like,
in the other dynamic.
He's been on the stage
in all the debates.
I think, personally, he's
done a very good job.
He's been very
effective as a debater.
But it hasn't seemed
to really translate.
And I think, for so many voters
now, they like, basically,
the known brands, and they're
choosing between the
known brands of Biden,
Warren and Sanders.
And they haven't been interested
as much in looking around for
those people who they don't
know so well.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And,
Tam -- go ahead, Tam.
TAMARA KEITH: Yes.
One of the challenges that
Cory Booker has been facing and
that several of the candidates
have faced is the cost
of acquisition of donors.
AMY WALTER: Right.
TAMARA KEITH: And that is a
very technical thing that I'm
saying, but it's a real issue.
They are -- they are having
to spend a lot of money on
Facebook ads and other ways of
going out and getting
more individual donors.
And that is all related
to the Democratic Party's
qualifications for the debates.
It's really creating
a dynamic that hasn't
existed in past primaries.
AMY WALTER: Yes, I have
heard a lot of grumbling,
the same grumbling you
have, from campaigns
saying, boy, if we didn't have
to spend all that money trying
to get these donor -- online
donors, we'd have enough
money to be in this race.
JUDY WOODRUFF: You're seeing
that in a number of places.
In fact, there's a
story in Politico today
quoting the former Iowa
State Democratic Party
chair, saying, "It's a
national primary, based
on the worst foundation,
name I.D. and money."
He said, "We're supposed
to be the party of ideas."
He's criticizing what
the party is doing in
squeezing these candidates.
AMY WALTER: Right, in some ways.
But I would argue part of the
reason that Elizabeth Warren
has been so successful is
because she has been the
candidate of ideas, because she
has been the one candidate to
really break through, not
just with, "I have a plan,"
but she has a narrative.
She has a narrative and a
case that she's making for not
just her, but for her entire
presidency, that people
are really attaching to.
She's made it personal.
She's -- she's very much
connecting with people
beyond just -- it's
not just a, like, shiny
object kind of attachment.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But we could
be heading for debates in the
next -- in the coming months
with many fewer
candidates on the stage.
AMY WALTER: Right.
TAMARA KEITH: Right.
And when you talk to voters,
they are overwhelmed by
the number of candidates.
And, certainly, these debates
have been overwhelming,
in that when there are
10 people on stage,
even -- like, we try
to talk about it on
our podcast afterwards.
And you can't even fit
all of the candidates into
the podcast afterwards.
It's very difficult to manage.
And so that's part of
what the DNC is doing.
But then you have candidates
who say, but, wait, this is
my only shot to get in front
of people.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Completely
different subject, all the news
of the last few days about the
whistle-blower in the
intelligence community
talking about the president
having a conversation
with the president of
Ukraine, Amy, in which there
may have been a promise.
We don't know.
It's believed to have been
about pressuring the president
of Ukraine to investigate Joe
Biden.
AMY WALTER: Right.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So the question
I have for the two of you
is, is this leading some of
those Democrats who've been
resistant to pushing to going
for a full-blown impeachment?
Is it changing some minds?
AMY WALTER: I think that's the
question that Tam and I were
both searching around for today,
making calls and trying
to figure out if it's
really changed the dynamic.
My sense from talking
to some folks is, look,
this is certainly a new
wrinkle, because it's
no longer about Mueller.
I think the sense was, the
Mueller report has sort
of played its way out.
And, yes, they could continue
to have more hearings about
some of the characters there.
But this is an entirely
different situation.
There's still a worry.
As you pointed out, we
don't have the facts yet.
And so what they were
telling me is, we need
to see that transcript.
We need to understand
what was actually said
before we come out.
But this is -- this
is definitely opening
new territory.
JUDY WOODRUFF: There was
a member of Congress,
Tam, I guess we have just
learned this afternoon,
freshman Democrat from
Minnesota, Dean Phillips,
who had been in the camp
of no on impeachment
proceedings, is now
moving in that direction
because of all this.
TAMARA KEITH: And there has been
a slow movement of Democrats.
The numbers do continue growing.
And this is another thing that
is weighing on some of them.
Nancy Pelosi, yesterday -- I
believe it was yesterday -- used
stronger language than she's
used before in referring to the
way the administration is sort
of stonewalling investigations.
I think we will know more by
the end of this week whether
the whistle-blower complaint
will be seen by the relevant
congressional committees or
whether this is going to be
that same dynamic that's played
out over any number of issues
that Democrats in Congress
have been trying to investigate.
And, in some ways, they're
just -- they're just stuck.
AMY WALTER: Yes.
And if Republicans don't
move, then the dynamics
remain the same, too, right?
If there's no movement either
from Republicans in the House
or a sense that Republicans in
the Senate want to push this
forward, then we're kind of
back at square one, to your
point.
TAMARA KEITH: And one
tweet from Mitt Romney,
the senator from Utah...
JUDY WOODRUFF: Yes.
TAMARA KEITH: ... sort of
wringing his hands is not
really a big movement there.
AMY WALTER: Yes.
JUDY WOODRUFF: All
right, we heard it here.
(LAUGHTER)
JUDY WOODRUFF: Tamara Keith,
Amy Walter, thank you.
AMY WALTER: You're welcome.
TAMARA KEITH: You're welcome.