because of safety concerns your thought is one hong kong is on the verge of a total breakdown of the rule of law. venice has recorded its highest tide in more than 50 years even 2 are sweeping through flooded streets the emergency services have started to assess the damage while some tourist attractions are being completely inundated with water city mayor blaming the exceptional floods on climate change. bolivia senate opposition leader says she'll work to hold a new presidential election as soon as possible after being sworn in as interim president she's janine and then is taking power after the former leader resigned and then fled to mexico he'd faced weeks of protests over a disputed election result so more news on the web site has will keep you company from 15 g. old the twists and turns from washington i will see from tenshi tomorrow up next the bottom line.

and the differences. and the similarities of cultures across the world. hi i'm steve clemons and i have a question what's brewing in heartland america are classic republican strongholds going wobbly and are democrats poised to turn a lot of red states blue let's get to the bottom line. many local elections were held across the united states last week and both parties found reason to celebrate virginia turned from red to blue and as a sign that times are changing to muslim women were elected to public office in that state elsewhere republicans held their ground and even made some gains so is there a national trend here or there are just too many unknowns like impeachment which is going to get really big this week and the lack of a democratic challenger to face donald trump but we're fortunate today because we have 3 people in this room who just have all the answers or brohm

a sure want to seat on the school board of fairfax county virginia just became the youngest elected official in the state's history journal. a strategist for the republican party is co-founder of speak georgia a town hall forum for people to talk about politics and simon rosenberg is strategist for the democratic party and advisor to former president bill clinton and the president of the new democrat network so good to have you all here today abroad or congratulations i know you just want to election is the youngest person ever to win a race in virginia so what's all that about what is motivating you right now to throw your hat in the ring and congratulations on your win thank you and thank you for having me you know it's more so a testament really to where we are and where where are we where are we so you know i would even throughout my work on the campaign knocking on doors while being a member of the party and having to navigate those kinds of relation the democratic party democratic party who endorsed of course because we were i ran as an independent realizing that this connect oftentimes between what the elites are talking about what folks you know who are in power talking about versus just the

basic conversations that are happening at the doors and that's kind of what motivated our campaign and made it about representation having everyone so drill down for me just when you're out there you're running as an independent free talking to republicans are talking talking to other philly aided you know what are the things they care most about when you i know you were trying to run for the school board right maybe you're saying is that what were they saying hey i really want to talk about x. what are the things they want to write i mean you know you had folks who would talk about mental health services in the schools you had folks and that was consistently by the way students especially their number one issue you had families talking about safety in the schools and this conversation about gun control and their concerns related to that you had some of them special needs parents who would just complain about the difficulty of raising a child with special needs and the school systems you know whether they're supportive of that or not so you'd see that the conversations are far more related to their daily life than the grassroots level of what's going on for their child in the school whether they can access an advanced academic memory not whether the

child was bullied in school or discriminated against those are the conversations have these are like real issues and if i wanted to sign me to the. but i want to ask you when you're out there and they're talking and right now you've got the democratic party i know you're an independent so i respect that but it sounds like you've got a little bit of a dorsai democrat you know a little bit of a tilt there and i am so so in a little bit so you have as you look at the process by which we have debates going on we have one coming up on november 20th we've got joe biden we may have mike bloomberg we've got to have with warren we've got mayor pete to judge when you look at that realm of people are they doing it for you. well i do think that we're having very healthy conversations i think that they are a healthy conversation right about time that he laid out for a while while also so i used to work at the d.n.c. actually and it was a year and outed. you know so by law i mean the pretty great ok so just to clarify . there were the rest there was you know with the with hillary's election that's happening with the bernie kind of factional right party you know who are the

progressives who are the all the thousands democrats what's going on and that's really symbolic of the national conversation right lynn what we're seeing again locally versus on a national scale so when we see that array of candidates they're really reflective of the common man's issue that populist kind of argument while you know i still live in tucson i mean if you're deep into the tectonics of the democratic party and you're not independent. what's going on is there a civil war going on you know as as a broad just talked about i mean she didn't say if the civil war but the she did basically said there's a divide down the middle of the party that she has to be expected frankly on empower our parties have to represent 51 percent of the country they hope and so you do have factions and wings and debates that are going on but i do think that i was a senior advisor to the house democrats in 2018 and at the digital sea and i was very involved and i was flipping the house and i think the single thing is a win because of you know i like to say i definitely helped but i think the thing that people underestimate i think many voters right now democrats are not motivated

by ideology as much as they are they feel the country's in trouble and they want to strong leader to be able to take on try and lead the country to a better place and see the candidates who are succeeding right now finds a serious person warren recast herself as the woman with plans who judges a veteran speaks 7 languages conveys the sense of gravity and i think it's those candidates who present themselves as serious people in a time of struggle they're doing well which is why i think joe biden's new set of ads which are very much like a general election taking on donald trump that just came out this morning is really tapping. into the most important sentiment in the democratic family right now which is we're worried about a future we want a experienced person of gravity to take take on these but with the least interesting democrats right now running. well i. think that the most interesting is happened in our race will the candidates have been locked out by the d.n.c. process right this very aggressive debate schedule we've now got the possibility

where mike bloomberg mayor of new york for 12 years book of governor right we've got you know deval patrick if he gets in a governor and there's one more there's a 4th can't michael bennett senator from colorado all thoughtful serious experienced people won't be in this next set of debates but also gabbert in andrea will be right and i think that so the question will be is that do democrats really give this new group kind of a look and will race open up a little bit from sort of the very static race that we've had over the last several months you know you're not an independent either you're a help with your if you're here you know and i really appreciate you joining us today but i want to ask you you know as you look at i interviewed vice president biden in 2016 and he made a comment which i still hear ringing in my head today said you know the democratic party had become a party of snobs and he saw this before the donald trump victory over hillary clinton he said that had become a party of snobs and left a lot of people behind your republican now and i'm interested in as you look at

your own political dashboard why are you a republican and did joe biden's admonition about the party have something to do with that so no nothing that joe biden said to me being a republican but i will say that you know i'm a republican because i fought firmly believe in the principles of the party in the values of the party to what are those principles yet so smaller government personal responsibility being able to take care of your own the 2nd amendment these are things that are really really important to me especially as an african-american what about all those other amendments. the a monument clause and you know which is which which which i mean i don't mean to be facetious about it but sometimes you know folks out there say hey you know republicans know one amendment and it's the 2nd amendment now but you don't really pay attention a lot of the other amendments and i mean that's what's going to play out in this impeachment process is is there a respect for the constitution as a whole and i'm just i'd like to just understand as you look at it whether these other pieces of the constitution matter and whether the leadership right now in the

republican party you worry that it's not paying attention now absolutely it matters but as you say opened this this segment this show we're talking about the ads actual average voter and we're talking about individuals who are not as politically involved as we have the ability to do because this is what we do we're talking about people who go to work every single day we're talking about parents who in some cases a lot of cases they are single parents who are unable to attend p.t.a. meetings because they're working 2 jobs and and so more or less they are focusing on issues that are pertinent for their household so yes all of the other amendments matter and all that it's really important but when i am talking to actual voters and i'm on the ground and i'm doing my town halls i am listening to what actually affects them when the day to day basis and all this other stuff does not put food in their children's mouths or turn the lights on at the end of the day fasting i want you all to listen to a tape a clip we have right here of the president at a rally that you attended called black voices for trump in atlanta on november 8th

. last year democrats even shut down the government to preserve benefits for illegal immigrants never have they forth that hard to do anything for the african american community they don't fight that way. i see a mom with a video fight for the african american community. they would rather have illegal aliens come and health care schools. ginnell and educated political analysts would look at that clip and say classic roger ailes you know the former fox news executive advisor to nixon divide and conquer and so is the president trying to set immigrants against the african-american community from your perspective no not at all what the president is doing is highlighting something that's been going on for over 50 years as african-americans that have voted

democratic city jiggly and for a number a number of years we have gotten absolutely nothing in return other than our vote so he says hey you can't get any worse with seize your wholly agree to leverage this point at this point i and i know a lot of african-americans who said you know what i'm going to try something different and they are pleased with it because oftentimes our community is lumped into the category of minority which is nothing wrong with that in the grand scheme of things however everybody every community may have similar issues but we prioritize them differently right and this is what the president is saying abrar you're the granddaughter of libyan immigrants which i think is totally cool and congratulations again i mean you're you're you're 1st but yeah exactly you know we're going to put a graph up here and we see that in this in this graph the black community actually has less problem you know less of an issue restricting immigration policy in the white community does and we but when you look at the views of immigrants really across the board all americans white black hispanic very very high in the in the

high eighty's and ninety's of appreciate. for immigrants so this says something interesting to me that this notion about immigrants or new immigrants coming in is a new thing but nonetheless you have baked into the d.n.a. of americans across all these groups a real respect for immigrants but i mention what you felt when you were running because people may look at you they may see you and we think that your recent immigrant and when you're not yeah absolutely and that's something you confront you know i confront that on a daily basis in a variety of you know deal with this oh absolutely you know whether it's someone not being able to get past it and only talking to me about middle east politics or arabic are different things that are not the conversation i'm trying to have or you know oftentimes more sinister experiences that we've had but really to me that why this is important is showing the folks who are making gains on a local level or in politics in general are the ones in touch you know immigration or race are just labels really for the feelings underlying a lot of these topics and we can see how you know folks who are running for office

especially as someone who's been doing it you know for the past year and a half now manipulate these different feelings and emotions that underlie a lot of these topics right number stations for their own gains immigration i mean that was never a real conversation about what immigrants bring because there are facts that back up you know how their contribution to society and all of that let alone of course just the humanity and the fact that they're escaping a lot often times horrific you know scenarios but if we were to have a fact based conversation i think we would all agree on that and when it's a one on one conversation even with a voter who may not understand you know what we're scared so you can break a lot of that down to a bore is fair i mean i want to put you on the spot here for a minute and it may be unfair to you as you look at president trump and the republican party are there things that that party could do to appeal to muslim americans here because you know is a contrary and she's interesting you know 8 percent of the voted for president trump so she sort of sees something there but are there things there so most

americans would vote for trump i don't know what the numbers are i know. 32 percent of hispanics voted for president drop in this i'm just issued what would be some of those those issues that would attract you if you saw them yeah no i mean i'll start off by saying that i don't think either party has really positioned itself to accommodate minorities or you know whether it's african-american male it's you know as the muslim community immigrants. because there are still elites who want to maintain that their clenched that kind of power and make it exclusive because about their own survival and that's just the matter of fact the reality of how some of this is set up you know when i was running within the party and of course they faced even from the democrats i mean that's just a reality so we know in terms of issues that would attract me i think my generation has become you know as we know from political attitudes is more inclusive is less respectful of institutions and is kind of tired of this limiting 2 party structure that that forces you to pick a side instead maybe we can talk about you know expanding health care education for

everybody things that are common sense that you can have a republican a democrat on opposite ends can have a conversation about and arrive at a place that is sensible and right works for everyone but on a national scale when it becomes about optics and sensational you know conversation you lose a lot of that nuance and just polarize simon is there anything the republican party or donald trump could do that would impress you in a way and kind of give you if not their support at least your applause i just commenting coming at that in a slightly different way and what's been most interesting to me about the last couple years is that 3 areas where donald trump has gone on the attack right on immigration brain trade on health care attitudes in the country have changed dramatically during his presidency the country now is 25 points more positive on obamacare the cia than it was 3 years ago attitudes on immigration have gone way up and even attitudes on trade and globalization have gone way up trump i think forced

a conversation forced many america. really think about these things in ways they hadn't before and in all 3 of them they've come out against the president and the republican party in a way that i think is going to be dangerous for him as he goes into 2020 and so for me as a liberal i'm gratified to see attitudes around race and immigration to grow in a far more inclusive way during trial but i think he's forced the country to make choices on these things and the fortunate thing for him and the republican party is that they're choosing the other way in many cases are. issues that poll highest with african-american voters or health care and crime and and as you look at the cast of councilman ask you the same thing in a moment but but 1st how do you think president trump is doing on the health care debate how do you think he's doing on the crime debate i think is doing wonderful but i will say this i i don't know necessarily where that data who they polled but when i talk to people in my own community right what i hear more than anything else

the 2nd amendment. we are really really serious about maintaining our guns as well as education and draft americans are also african-american or as republicans as a whole i think right now we're just excited to have a president that is standing up and speaking bag and making sure that whenever there are attacks that are coming against them that he speaks the truth that he leaves with the to 6 he leaves with numbers and leaves were results and that's what we are happy about at this point we don't care much about any of the other aspects of all of this and when it comes to how do you how do you respond in the cases and i mean this you know not a knee jerk way but i really want to understand and i'm listening to you about our about the 2nd amendment and i'm surprised frankly i'm surprised to hear about that being a priority for the black community but when it comes to gun violence you see violence in schools and violence and kids are in a lot of frustration even the president has come out and said we need to do

something we need to get background checks then when the n.r.a. . comes in the president himself has flip flopped a number of times how does that play in there is that not a priority at some level i mean your kids in schools too and yet you know i keep hearing about these duck and cover conversations and what to do and the trauma that this is creating among children is that not true as well you know and so in this goes back to my original statement about prioritizing issues so when we look at the 2nd amendment what we think about is the question around police brutality and discussion around the crime that is in our neighborhoods as it relates to related things of that nature we simply want to be able to protect ourselves and that's that's just it when you add in the children in the schools and all of that into a yes we definitely want our children to be protected and that is highly important but when you have individuals who are just focusing on that one portion of it you grossly neglect the other side which is why our community is actually leaving the

democratic party in a mass exodus going to another is because once again the topic is not being driven out if i made you pick a democrat to vote for who would you like you know what i've said this from the very beginning that i was a democrat and i was looking at it with my democratic ears that i put on every once in a while i actually mayor pete i know that everyone is not with him and i know that there are a lot of issues a lot of contradictory hypocrisy on the democratic side when it comes to him that's one of the conversation. ok but when i 1st heard mayor pete months ago he did enter the just a there to explain to our global audience is that he's a gay former service member mayor in south bend indiana i assume that's the part that it absolutely no progress is that i can't believe a party this will be so tolerant it's not being tolerant to his life but that's just my personal opinion on that but when i go back to it i listen to him and listen to his policies and i felt like he was only when i actually made sense i

feel like i lived with warren does not she can't. accomplish any of the things that she's listing of i feel like joe biden's time has passed and then when it comes to bernie sanders again i mean we are not ready for a socialist so i thought mayor one of the things that strikes me as we talk about the currents going on politically in this country proposed republicans and democrats is that everything's in a 50 percent won i think simon just has this 50 percent one plus one mode and certainly what i just said about virginia going blue after being read bits 50 percent plus one it's barely literally right and it is been red for a long time so how how deep how substantial is this shift that we saw in virginia i mean to get back to the question we asked at the beginning is this a trend that we're seeing right now or is there something deeper from your perspective deeper and more tectonic happening right i mean i would i would say you know like i said when i started that there is a rift or

a disconnect between again the elites the leadership and what the conversations are happening on the ground with the people and that's what we see here i mean when we see people moving away from a party or some of these shifts i think it's more so a dissatisfaction with what they have already been in and not necessarily an opting opting into the other alternative and so you know if someone leaves their public a party because of trump's rhetoric or someone leaves the democratic party because they are disillusioned and realize that they're just as bad as everyone else. you know that then they're forced to make new choices and especially on the local level or even on a state level when there are more discussions and are able in iraq to some of these candidates and hear their views out you end up having split votes we saw you know we had 6 candidates running in my race there were 6 candidates 6 candidates 3 you know a democrat you know before but really. i was very young but i mention it because oftentimes you know people thought you'd people would fall aren't going to vote either the 3 republicans or the 3 democrats right but you would find you know different choices being made i mean even when you look at the numbers some people

voted to a democrat one republican. switched around right side whatever the immigrants simon how about you i mean you see this is it is a deeper shift i mean because right now we're looking at kentucky we see the republicans lost there but they want to cross the slate across the state of mississippi they won every every every seat in a if you saw a red or a blue wave coming you would have seen some slippage there so so i mean just i just talk back to me if you're getting i think and using data and facts is that the biggest divide in the country right now is really among people over 45 and under 45 people over 45 you're saying that you know aging formally or division here right is that you know they're marginally republican right i mean they remember reagan right who is one of the most powerful presidents we've ever had in certainly in recent memory and their view of the republican party is very generous right if you look at people under 45 who have experienced the 2 bushes clinton obama and now

donald trump right in 2018 democrats won that world by plus $25.00 i mean this is why she's such a contrarian right she's not only young which is minority but it's not true that young people who are minorities are leaving the democratic party i mean what's in fact the gap that we see now is bigger than it's ever been there's never been a generation in american history that's been above plus 7 plus $81.00 way or the other so the real challenge for the republican party in the tectonic plates is that the tectonic plates are shifting and the country is looking every day a lot more like california you know than it is arkansas and one of the reasons that georgia is becoming more competitive is because people are moving in because of the strong economy from outside of georgia in the way it happened in virginia the ways are happening in texas and it's are changing our states so now i want to ask you the same but as you do it i also want as we as we bring this this is home i'd like to hear from you because i know that this must be an interesting position for you to to share with us in short form what you think a winning message for 2020 really is and i absolutely think

a winning message for 2020 as a republican is to. focus on business in the economy because i'm telling you that is what i'm hearing that is what the community is needing is someone who understands that and all of the other you know shenanigans that's happening again i go back to my original statement it does not put food on the table and it most certainly does not turn the lights on so that's important just to your point about the yes there is a mass exodus coming from a lot of minority groups which no one pays attention to so it's like everyone's thinking that oh no everyone's still you know all the young people are still democrats but that's typically young white democrats right know a lot of minorities are shifting over it's i think you know what is not winning message is that it is very different the 2nd with a message for the democrats you know we have to be better than trump we can't just it's not about beating him it's we have to present a better vision for the economy and for how we get along and being strong in the world again i think you know most presidential elections are simple right its

foreign policy the economy health care this one i don't think will be any different and i think you know look we're we're far ahead right now in the polls but you know how we choose our nominee we could make a bad choice i think that warren and sanders would be a very dangerous choice for the democrat you're my independent what is that the message because i have a good bet is going to pick that up for the united states and what is the winning message for that campaign athan to city i think that's people want to feel they can trust and connect with their leader you know conversations surrounding things that are in touch with the american what the american people are hurting about and then good pop good policy and promise of solution you know a sense of credibility that this person will get it done i think that's a people looking for what we will leave it there i'd like to thank you all for being with us our bravo maisha newly elected member of the school board of fairfax county virginia john l. king republican analyst and co-founder of speak georgia and simon rosenberg democratic analyst and president of the new democrat network thank you all so much for being with me today this was fun. so what is the bottom line what we heard

today is that all politics is local the conversations that people are having may not fit in. all with the conversations in washington whether they are republican or democrat a muslim american woman the youngest candidate to win ever in virginia didn't win by talking about impeachment but rather by talking about how many already children are being left out of educational opportunities and a black woman in the lancet has very specific reasons why she supports president trump what this tells me is that the year ahead is full of surprises the divides are growing not only between cities and rural areas but within the parties themselves and that's the bottom line. this december make the heroes of europe asia africa the middle east oceania. welcome to a stage made for the germans make connections makes

a state paid for the honor of becoming the world's best city excited to be sure to say i want to be. on this field called. make cuts on your goal. if. we understand the differences and the similarities of cultures across the world. so many times when you call home al-jazeera international bringing the news and current affairs that matter to. al-jazeera. kind of deal with poverty unless you deal with the gap you decide oh i just agree with that thought this sounds like blaming the public the country for the art of knowledge really mean anybody these people are well trained as much a part of the islamic state machine as we have been very end when some version of popular culture teacher joined me mehdi hasan as i put it up from questions to my

special guests and challenge them to some straight talking political debate here on al-jazeera. hello i'm has i'm speaking of this is the news hour live from doha we're bringing you extended live coverage of the impeachment investigation against president donald trump as it moves into a new public phase these are live pictures from the u.s. from kept. hill washington d.c. where the hearing is set to begin shortly after more than a month of closed door testimony the hearing is just minutes from bring broadcast live around the world it centers around a phone call between president trump and ukraine's leader lensky in july for the

1st witnesses up our 2 veteran diplomats acting u.s. ambassador to ukraine william taylor and deputy assistant secretary of state george kent a tailor has said in closed door testimony he had what he calls a clear understanding the trump wanted to pressure ukraine into investigating his political rival joe biden in exchange for continuing military aid to ukraine can't testify the trumps lawyer rudy giuliani pushed for the removal of the former u.s. ambassador to ukraine marie avantage who will testify on friday of the president denies any wrongdoing and says the inquiry is in his words the greatest witch hunt in american history. kimberly how kate is at the white house and castro is on capitol hill for us where that hearing is of course taking place we'll be talking to both of them in just a few minutes but 1st patty cohan begins our coverage. from.