-Joe Biden is set to join the 2020 Democratic race.

-I am in this fight all the way! -I'll speak on his behalf here.

He's gonna run for president.

How about that? [cheers and applause]

-They call me Mayor Pete, and I am running for president.

-I announce my candidacy.

-I'm Deval Patrick. -Tom Steyer.

-Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg --

-I follow politics for a living, and even I'm overwhelmed.

Aren't you?

Let's get some help.

-Drew, you're gonna need these. -Thanks, David Ignatius.

Karen Tumulty. -Hey, just a sec.

Let me finish this tweet. -Mm-hmm.

I have some french fries here.

You have years of political expertise.

What do you say we trade?

-Deal. -Alright.

Is that enough for you?

This year feels historic.

I'm not making that up, right?

Can you just walk me through the ways that this cycle is so crazy

and tell me that I'm not crazy for thinking so?

-There are three big things

that are really different about this year.

-Right.

-One is there is no obvious front-runner.

Joe Biden's leading in the polls,

but he looks like a pretty weak front-runner.

-If you want to check my shape on, let's do push-ups

together here, man. Let's run.

Let's do whatever you want to do.

Let's take an IQ test.

-The second is the size of the field.

The sheer number of people who have jumped into this race

is astonishing. -Right.

-At one point, there were over two dozen Democratic candidates.

-Right. -And, then, finally,

the challenge of this calendar is much harder,

I think, than we have ever seen,

because some really big states, like California and Texas,

have moved up their contests, which means that you have

to have the resources up front to be able to compete.

-We have, like, people from all across the board.

How are you thinking in broad categories of the candidates?

-We've got ethnic and gender diversity

like we have never seen before --

more women candidates, African-Americans,

Asian, Latino.

We also have more diversity, I think,

in life experience than we've ever seen --

current and former senators, one of whom was vice president,

two billionaires, current or former mayors.

We've never had a mayor as President of the United States.

And until Donald Trump,

we had never had a President of the United States

who had not spent one minute in public service,

whether working a government job or serving in the military.

You have this great diversity of candidates.

-Right.

-And who are the three leading contenders?

-Right. -Three white septuagenarians

and then one fourth person who's Pete Buttigieg.

-Right. How can I speak intelligently

about the reasons people are getting out?

Kamala said it was because of money, right?

-I'm not a billionaire. I can't fund my own campaign.

-There were a bunch of other factors, I think.

One is that had she stayed in, she would have had to file

to be a presidential candidate in California.

-Okay. -Super Tuesday, March 3.

She is the home-state senator. -Mm-hmm.

-And she was running something

like third or fourth in the polls.

-Mm-hmm.

-For her to have gotten humiliated in her own home state

could have had long-term implications

for what is still a pretty bright career.

-I am still very much in this fight.

-I think it was a very smart move on her part.

-See, now, that I can say at a dinner party.

-I think the big "X" factor

in all of this is does Joe Biden stumble?

-Uh-huh. -And if he stumbles,

when does he stumble, and where does he stumble?

-Has he not been stumbling?

-He still kind of has the national poll numbers.

If you get to the point where the assumption is that he's not

the "electable" guy that you thought he was,

that suddenly opens a lot of space.

One of the people I've been keeping an eye on

is Amy Klobuchar.

-You go back to what James Madison, who I love,

'cause he was 5'4",

which is my height, and you as a president --

-It doesn't show up in the polls,

but if you go to Iowa,

you just run into a lot of support for her.

-I have the most endorsements of electeds

and former electeds of any candidate --

any of them in Iowa. -Yeah.

-But, again, as long as Joe Biden is in the race,

she doesn't really get the kind of running room.

This time around, it's a lot more complicated

I think than it has ever been.

-Mm-hmm. -So, we go to Iowa February 3.

Right after that's New Hampshire,

Nevada caucuses, South Carolina. -Right.

Boom, boom, boom. -Right.

A month after the Iowa caucuses, Super Tuesday.

Boom, boom, boom, boom.

-15 states, a third of the population of the country,

will be voting on one day.

-Right. It's crazy.

What is going to determine

whether they can beat Donald Trump?

-You know, I go back and forth on that.

There are some days I wake up and think,

"Which of them couldn't beat him?"

I mean, he's got the lowest approval rating of any president

since polling began,

so he does seem like a really uniquely vulnerable president.

But he also, the way he fights

is unlike anything we have ever seen.

-The Democrats' outrageous conduct

has created an angry majority

that will vote many do-nothing Democrats out of office in 2020.

-In 2016, he was essentially living off the land.

As late as the spring of 2016, he had a campaign staff

that consisted of about six people.

He was spending very little of his own money.

He had almost no ground operation,

even going into the fall of 2016.

He basically had to borrow what the RNC had built.

-Mm-hmm.

-That isn't gonna be the case this time.

-Money. -They are raising money

like crazy.

They have a very sophisticated digital operation,

and they are pouring enormous resources into organization.

So this Donald Trump is not going to be

your 2016 Donald Trump. -Last question,

I promise, for this -- -I got to take this.

Sorry.

Leave the fries.