the politics of perception. i'm michael smerconish in philadelphia. if it were still the economy stupid, then joe biden's presidency would be in much better shape. something else is at play here. yes, inflation is souring americans, but by many measures, the economy is booming. the economy is clearly grow ing. the gross domestic product is up 5.2% in the third quarter, even faster than previousliest mated. if gdp is rising, the economy is considered to be in solid shape and the nation moving forward. the dow jones rallied this week to a new high for the year. wages had been losing ground to inflation for two years, but since may, wages have return to outpacing inflation. and unemployment is at an historic low. the u.s. unemployment rate has been below 4% for 21 straight months, the longest stretch since the late 1960s. how about gas prices? they have fallen or remain ed steady for ten weeks. you barely reed about that, but if they were headed in the other direction, it would be on a loop with videos of pump prices. the holiday season, that's another bram terse, it's looking promising for retailers. according to data, lured by the deep discounts on black friday cyber monday, u.s. shoppers spent $38 billion over thanksgiving weekend. that's a jump of 7.8% over last year opinion outstripping the 5.4%. but still, president biden receiving no political dividends. as th"the washington post" recently noted, that disconnect between a booming economy and how americans feel about it appears to be widening at a critical time ahead of next year's presidential election. it's also shaping up to be a key liability for the white house even as its policies are boll terse ing stering job creation d business investments. in a variety of battleground polls, president biden trails former president trump as politico recently pointed out among the latest surveys this month, from 13 different pollsters, biden's position is worse than their previous polls in all but two of them. might it be thatter perception has overtaken reality. consider the case of the big mac. allison marrow was among those who told the story of to fer olive. he went to mcdonald's and ordered a a limited edition smokey double quarter pounder with fries and a sprite. total cost was $16.10. he posted the receipt on tiktok. it went viral and keeps being recircumstance islated on tiktok and youtube. then a recent youtube video incorrectly reported that it was a big macmeal. and more than 1.7 million viewed that video containing false information as to the price. the narrative became that the cost of a fast food meal was upwards of $16. the price of a big mac on biden's watch has gone up. but not like that. the viral story reached the white house office of digital strategy. but as one source told "the washington post," what are we supposed to do? tell the president or chuck schumer to send a tweet saying, hey, most big maces aren't that expensive. it would look ridiculous. i felt bliemged to do some field research. my big mac cost me $10.09 before tax. the perception is impacting even the president's base. enter the "new york times" with this headline, even most biden voters don't see a thriving economy. the times noted that a majority of those who backed president biden in 2020 say today's economy is fair or poor, ordinarily a bad omen for those seeking reelection. part of the explanation might be due to the loss of covid relief. while inflation has subsided, prices are still high. groceries are up 25% since the pandemic. the resumption of evictions and student loan payments have led to less disposable income. and credit card debt is now at a record trillion dollars. 57% of americans say they don't have a spare thousand dollars for an emergency. the resulting national funk has had an impact. it's not just that we think things are worse than the data suggest ises, we're also no long confident in the american dream where the dream is defined as getting ahead or doing better than your parents and grandparents' generation. that's the finding from a "wall street journal" survey which included two questions. if people work hard, are they likely to get ahead in america and will your generation do better than the generation before you? the results is shocking. in 2012, 53% of americans said the american dream still holds true. just last year when the journal asked a similar question whether americans who work hard were likely to get ahead, 68% said yes. in the current poll, that number is down to 36% in other words, it's been cut in half. so is it perception or is it reality? i want to know what you think. you want to compare results of ours to the journal. go to smerconish.com. vote on today's poll questio agree or disagree, if people work hard, they are likely to get ahead in america. erin joins me now. he's covered this data for the "wall street journal," where he's a writer and editor focusing on how politics are driven by demographic and economic change. he wrote the piece "voters see american dream slipping out of reach ts." great to see you. people tepid to think that our best days are behind us, right? >> yeah, is and that's what's dour about this poll finding. we have known for awhile that people aren't feeling the good economic numbers, as you described there. but with we get to the idea that the american dream is now slipping away, this is an nbc news finding, they found a record low saying our children's generation will have it better than our generation. that speaks to something more pervasive and possibly more durable. it's the sense that something structural has changed in the economy and that more fragile and that this is a longer term problem than say inflation, which tends to be transitory. >> i was struck by the democrat you can differences in this poll. what am i making reference to? >> that's right. look at a lot of polls and i think about politics. mostly when we look at a poll, it's about democrats vs. republicans. this is different. in this poll, young people, is and those by young people, anyone under age 50, was much more pessimistic about the american dream than seniors. the gap by age was much biggeren that the gap by party. and the gap in gender was really striking women much more than men are pessimistic about the american dream. that gap was about 20 points bigger than the gap by party. twice as big as the gap by part. so young people and women are feeling most fragile in this economy. >> to your objeservationobserva >> are we just all going to pretepid we are fine? because the more people i i talked to, the more young couples in their 20s and 30s or even singles, everyone seems to be having a hard time making ends meet. >> i'm a teacher. i can barely afford to pay rent with my salary. my salary is basically my rent minus $500. i realize every single month i'm transferring money out of savings into my checking. i'm actually going to go into debt if i continue being a teacher. >> you want to get coffee somewhere social security $5 or $6. a drink at a bar is $10 or $12. you might as well go home. >> we just got paid this past friday. we paid the mortgage. bought some groceries, put some gas in the car, and we have like $200 to last us until next friday. >> someone please explain to me at what point did cereal become $10. what kind of world are we living in that struggle meals are luxury now. >> i find those to be authentic and compelling. for those folks, it's not a perception. it's a reality. >> that's right. gas, groceries and housing. they affect everybody, but if you're starting your career, maybe you're not at the peak of your earning years yet, let's talk about housing. having a home is part of the american dream for many people. it's also foundational to a young person becoming an adult. it goes with starting your family and establishing yourself the kind of life your parents might have had and with mortgage rates so high and housing prices so high, that could be really weighing on younger people. and i'll say one other thing. you may not know, since i have a feeling our musical references end with led zeppelin, but the song on the radio from green day is called "the american dream is killing me." that also tells me that someone who is marketing to americans through the radio thinks that message is going to residnate with people right now. >> is it possible that where everybody has a flat screen and everybody has a cell phone, we peaked. it couldn't always continue on the trajectory it was post the greatest generation. >> i called people up on the phone who participated in our poll. i heard some sincere and real and deep understanding a at the economy and fears that something fundamental the had changed. one, i heard about pensions. hey, my father had a pension. me, yeah, i have a 401(k), but now i'm at risk. before my father's company took on that, i'm alone in this economy. i heard about labor unions, maybe because labor unions in the news with the the strike in hollywood and auto workers, but people said my uncle was a journeyman carpenter. people are aware that there's union representation. so maybe people are feeling structural change that's making them feel more fragile and alone. >> quick final thought. if i were a political strategist and listening and analyzing this data that suggests a lot of americans think our greatest days are behind us, i just had a lightbulb moment. i know. here's a slogan. make america great again. >> i got to believe that joe biden went into this year thinking working class voters, huge in nevada. huge in michigan. huge in wisconsin. he was going to speak to them. these bills that democrats passed, you hear biden talking about them again and again as six-figure jobs for people who don't even have a college degree. it was jobs, jobs, jobs for working class americans. but as your data showed, unemployment is low. americans aren't so worried about jobs right now. don't be surprised to see biden shift to more of an inflation message maybe about drug prices and things like that. >> would be der elect if i didn't mexico your colleague is still in prison. >> thank you so much for that. our colleague has been in a russian prison now for about 250 days for committing journalism. we rely on journalists to tell us what's going on all around the world. journalism is not a crime. russians have taken him while he was on our reporting trip and kept him in jail for eight months now. we hope your audience helps us keep the pressure on the american government and the russian government to free evan and bring him home and help all reporters keep us informed about what's goingen opt around the world. >> thank you. that was excellent. i really appreciate it. >> thank you for having me. and thank you for remembering evan. gang, i want to know what t you think now. go to smerconish.com. ree or disagree, if people work hard, they are likely to get ahead in america. can't wait to give you some of the result at the end of the hour. social media reaction, what do we have? just one, i think that we have time for. focus want the economy better than the present no matter its current state. p polls reflect that fact. we always want it to be better than it is now. that's human sbi wigs. i'm not here to sell you on the fact that everything is going great. i think, and i have great support from our staff,s we gave you a nice, balanced view. but on balance, more favorable than unifavorable, a lot of cherry picking goes on. we didn't do any of that. if it's the economy stupid, you would think biden's numbers would be higher than they are. perception has a lot to do with it. up i head, if you hold a presidential debate, will thaw come? i'll ask the cochair of the debate committee, which just released the 2024 schedule. and "the new york times" broke the story that israel had intelligence warnings of hamas' october 7th attack more than a year before it took place. was this a failure of imagination, intelligence, or something else? richard clark, who tried to warn the bush administration about al qaeda, is here to discuss. was israel's failure to heed a warning a failure of imagination, a failure of intelligence or something worse? this week the "new york times" reported that more than a year before the hamas brutal october 7th attack, israeli officials obtained a 40-page document describing the battle plan. according to the times, the military and intelligence officials dismissed the plan finding it aspirational. assessing it would be too difficult for hamas to carry out. additionally in the days right before the attack, the u.s. intelligence community produced at least two assessments warning the biden administration of an increased risk for palestinian-israeli conflict based on intelligence from israel. as soon as i read the report, i thought of richard clark, the counterterrorism adviser for george bush. he famous wrote a january 2021 memo warning the security adviser about the threat pose bid al qaeda. and he reiterated his rn concerns just one week before the world trade center attack warning of the possibility of hundreds of american deaths. the 9/11 commission report made this point crystal clear. here's what they wrote. the most important failure was one of imagination. we do not believe leaders understood the gravity of the threat, the terrorist danger from bin laden was not a major opt topic for policy debate among the public or even in the congress. indeed, it barely came up during the presidential campaign. al qaeda's brand of terrorism presented challenges to governmental institutions that they were not well designed to meet. though top officials told us they understood the danger, we believed there was uncertainty among them as to whether this was just a new and venomous version of the ordinary are terrorist threat the united states had lived with for decades or radically new posing a threat beyond and yet experienced. as late as september 4 20rks 01, ray chard clark long responsible for policy coordination asserted that the government had not made its mind how to answer the question. a week later came the answer. richard clark joins me now. he advised three presidents. he's the author of ten books. richard clark, great to see you again. what does cassandra have to do with any of this? >> cassandra in greek me anesthesiology was the woman cursed by the gods to accurately see the future. but the curse was that no one would believe her. and these israeli intelligence officers strike me as yet another set of cassandrass. my colleague and i in the analysis of dozens of cases like this, this happens all the time. not just in war and intelligence, it happens in the economy. it happens in engineering. in every field there are cassandras, experts, recognized experts, data driven, who make accurate predictions and are ignored. >> in a case like this to a layperson like me on the sidelines, say, my god, a 40-page report that spelled it out. how could they not have paid attention to it? is the reality the that there are so many threats of all kinds constant ly coming in that it just makes it impossible to distinguish one from the other? >> i don't think that's the case. the problem is that the israelis didn't have a system for dealing with warning. we proposed a system in the book. we propose d a system for evaluating threats and placing hedged bets. as the threat grew closer as the evidence grew stronger, you increase the hedge. that wasn't done in israel. unfortunately, it wasn't den in the case offen 9/11. it wasn't a failure of imagination it was a failure of management. >> in the case of 9/11 and the commission as i referenced, page one after the executive summary said it was a failure of imagination. uh-uh don't know you can say it was a failure of imagination because the 40-page report was very real. it wasn't something that defied logic. they had data that suggested this might happen. >> yeah, they did. and we did too. specifically, the attacks that occurred, a large catastrophic terrorist attack in the united states was spg that we anticipated. the failure of imagination in the book we looked at why this we found a couple biases. we found several biases. two that are particularly relevant in the case are the warning was outlandish. two, this is the most important, it was warning of something that had never happened before. we called it the first occurrence syndrome. if something has never happened before, even though all the evidence looks good, decision pakers won't routinely reject it because in the back of their mind, that's never happened. terrorists flying over the wall in hand gliders to land and shoot up can ikibbutzes had nev happened. so a system of warning would have caught that and evaluated it and escalated the decision making. and hedged by making preparations. >> i'm so glad you brought this up. because on the issue of that's never happened before, we really need to think outside the box. i had heard about and then it was written about just a year ago something that the biden administration did in the immediate aftermath of september 11th. the rap. i'm going to put on. 20 years ago, just a few weeks after the 9/11 tragedy, a group of elite hollywood figures and a handful of top u.s. army brass met for a summit straight out of a novel, a lot of what tra transpired that night is still top secret, but this much we do know. in october of 2001 just weeks after terrorists took down the twin towers in manhattan and maimed the pentagon, a group of about 30 hollywood top creatives, a-listers like oliver stone, dick wolf, david fincher, the late john singleton were quietly invited to mingle with high-level members of the u.s. military. the point was to brainstorm about what would have been far out scenarios. for all i know you were involved in that endeavor. what reaction do you have to it? >> hollywood usually gets it right in advance. if you look at the hollywood thrillers. a large meteorites striking the earth, a pandemic wiping out thousands of people in the united states. gee, those are still the h headlines. >> i remember if i could throw this in the mix, i remember admiral john point dexer came up with this idea to have a futurist trading market and the media scowled and said this is outrageous that there would be anticipate toir wagering by academics and by think tank individuals to predict what might happen. i'm sorry i interrupted you, but that just popped into i my head. >> that's one way. it's worth trying. the key here is to have a system. to have someone in the united states government at the highest levels who has access to the highest levels, who is in charge of warning. scanning the horizon, looking for the califorssandras who areg i guess fored, looking for the evidence. and this is key, following the evidence as it comes in. when the evidence crosses the certain threshold, start getting prepared. >> ugh it remains to be seen whether this 40-page recport go to the highest level of the israeli government and military quick reaction from you on that? >> i bet it didn't. it sounds from the "new york times" reporting like it got stopped at mid-levels. that's why you need a system to find the cassandras before the disasters. >> thank you. appreciate it, as always. >> thank you, michael. >> social media reaction. from the world of x, what do we have? it can't with be a failure of imagination if they saw details of the attack in black and white a year before it happened. i think i said that to richard clark. how about the idea that a month after september 11th, there was word of this at the time, but what allowed the rap to finally write about it is the individual who was responsible for it came forward and said, here's who was in the room. oliver stone was in the room. i kind of like the willingness. it also shows how flat footed we were caught on september 11th is that we were willing to engage that kind of thinking outside the box. i want to remind you. go to smerconish.com and answer the poll question. agree or disagree. if people work hard, they are likely to get ahead in america. up next, the 2024 presidential debates are set is, at least in terms of dates and places. but when it comes to format, there's been some debate about aspects including whether moderators take up too much time. i'm going to ask the cochair about that and more. also a reminder, if you subscribe to my free noosewslet, you get cartoons from legends every week like this commentary from rob rogers. first time i connected with kim, she told me that her husband had passed. and that he took care of all of the internet connected devices in the home. i told her, “i'm here to take care of you.” connecting with kim... made me reconnect with my mom. it's very important to keep loved ones close. we know that creating memories with loved ones brings so much joy to your life. a family trip to the team usa training facility. i don't know how to thank you. i'm here to thank you. the presidential debates have been announced. but will the candidates show up? this week 34.7 million viewers tuned in for the unusual debate on fox news between california governor gavin newsom and ron desantis, who has been losing ground in the polls to nikki haley. newsom cheekily state d that neither of them will be the nominee for their party in 2024. but what will happen debate wise when the actual nominees are determined, per the commission on presidential debates, whose cochair you're about to hear them. the first debate will be at texas state university. the vice presidential debate september 25, easton, pennsylvania, the second presidential debate october 1st, virginia state university, petersburg, virginia, that's the first historically black college or university to host a general election presidential debate, and the third and likely final the presidential debate will be october 9 at the university of utah, salt lake city. there's a 15% threshold polling minimum for candidates to get on the stage, which this year could get interesting. with robert f. kennedy jr. polling above that and no labels continuing to get on various state ballots. although we have grown accustomed to the tradition, there's no requirement to hold these debates. after richard nixon famously said to have lost the 1960 election due to the televised debates against kennedy, he declined to participate in either of his future runs. and there wasn't another until 1976 when president ford faced off against jimmy carter. it has sponsored every debate since that year. it also provides technical assistance to emerging democracies and others interested in establishing debate traditions in their countries. i spoke with commission cochair and former chairman of the republican national committee frank farncough. >> mr. chairman, welcome back. nice to have you here. as i understand it, neither party thus far has agreed to participate. so i guess if you build it, will they come? >> we have nothing to do with the party. we have no connection with the rnc or dnc or the libertarians, those two parties i just mentioned will probably have ballot access if they decide to run candidates. we deal with only those people who are nominees and who meet the constitutional requirements. if we assume just for a moment if president biden was the democratic nominee and trump becomes the nominee of the republican party, we won't have any contact with them until we're down the road where we see who meets the constitutional rights. it's not unusual a year out to not have anyone agree they are going to participate on the commission of presidential debates in the fall of 2024. >> i think the citizenry has come to expect that there will be presidential debates, but correct me if i'm wrong in the modern era, we went 16 years where there were no presidential debates. >> that's correct. everyone thinks back to it and remember kennedy and nixon debates which was in 1960, but then we went three cycles without ever having them again until we got to the general election between then president ford and jimmy carter. you can't force, there's no law saying that a presidential candidate has to debate with anybody. and it turned them down. you'll remember in 1980, we had a third party candidate named john anderson who was invited, but president cart would not go if he was involved in the debate. >> in this age of polarization, where everybody seems to just suit up in a red or blue jersey do the debates even matter? >> i think they do. what we have done year after year we have gone through this, i think i told you one time we have completed 33 of these presidential and vice presidential general election debates, starting in 1988. and we always go back after the psychal and ask voters what the effect was. were the debates a factor in how they voted. and consistently, it's been about 60 to 65% of the public that says the debates are a factor in how they vote. st it's not the only factor, it's not perhaps the most important factor, but it is something that's in the mix as to how they are going to decide to go to the polls or mail in their ballot under the modern world we live in today. so i think it's a significant contribution to what i feel is expand ing democracy and trying to get people interested in the election and knowing where the candidates stand on the issues that are important. >> i know that there's often a lot of discussion, some would say controversy about the mod rauters becoming too much of an influence. "the wall street journal" editorial page recently gave you and your cohorts at the commission on presidential debates some advice. i'm going to put it up on the screen and read it to the audience. the unstablement elements of 2024 pose a risk that the candidates might never meet on stage. but they also offer a chance to break the commission's beltway formula to try something new. how about a debate with no mod rauters, only a time clock, until each contender's microphone shuts off. what does frank think about that? >> we have examined after each cycle what we have done, how we have done it, whether we can improve it. we have had had major changes over the years. it used to be there was a moderatorer on reporters ask questions. but the deficiency is was there was no ability for any of them to dig down. we then changed at michigan state when jim lair saud let's do thp th. half of the debate with the regular panel, one-half with just a single moderator. it was so scuffle, we decided that's how we were going to continue in the future. there would be one moderator. then we made significant changes in how we conducted it at the university of denver. when romney was running against president obama and what we did is we divided the 90 minutes into segments and the moderator would take about a week before what each of the six setting thes would cover. one on tax vags, one on defense, and then the moderators would have the ability to drill down for 15 minutes to get more specific statements from the candidates other than just something if their tv spots. it's been consistent. where there's actual debate, whether they talk to each other for years. >> finally, it's been a long time since there was a third party candidate on that stage. there's a lot of activity this year. robert f. kennedy jr., thus far, seems to have a sufficient number to maybe get to the 15%. who knows what no labels will do. there are other candidates. don't want to exclude anybody, but what is the requirement for a thursday party candidate, or any candidate, to get on that stage? >> requirements are pretty simple to say, but hard to accomplish. you have to be important in the united states, be 35 years of age, but the problem that most people have is you have to be on enough state ballots to conceivably get to 270 electoral votes that's the real difficult one. there's also the requirement that a week before each debate, you must be at least 15% in the polls. some people will make it, i think, this time. they have made it in the past. the problem is always the 270 electoral votes. >> so you've got to have 15% and be be on enough states to reach 270. one without the other doesn't cut it? >> doesn't do it, nope. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, michael. checking in on your social media comments. this from the world of x, formerly known as twitter. ask yourself this. would biden be willing to do a one-on-one debate with trump with someone like sean hannity being the moderator, or is your side chicken? >> first of all, it's not my side. i don't have a side. here's the answer to your question. i really appreciated watching desantis and newsom together this week. yes, on fox. and it reaffirms something i believed since the 2016 cycle. i have to say this quickly, but it's really important to me. cnn asked me to go to the reagan library in the 2016 cycle to be one of the congremmentators tal about that debate. it was the year there was so many candidates they had a junior varsity squad and two debates. those debates with ten people, eight people, even six people are ridiculous. there's no substance offered. you can't offer sub is stance in 90 seconds. we ought to imitate march madness. the ncaa brackets. let everybody go one on one. not as an elimination round, per se, but you get to see these individuals and learn. who doesn't want to see right now nikki haley and ron desantis? no disrespect, but without vivek ramaswamy or chris christie, because they are not going anywhere. give us more of that and do it throughout the whole process. you know wo won't allow us to do? the parties because they want to maintain control. we ought to have more of what we just had the other night. that's my view. i've long believed it. still to come, more of your best and worst social media comments. i want to remind you. answer the poll question at smerconish.com. agree or disagree, if people work hard, they are likely to get ahead in america. while you're voting, sign up for my free newsletter. you'll love it. and you'll get the work of jack oman, cartoonist, who sketched this this week. i love it. here's a quick look at social media to today's program. many low-income people work two to three jobs just to make ends meet. hard work is not enough. they need access to asset-building strategies that sustain wealth, says martha. i was having a conversation with a colleague earlier today on the poll question, which is if you work hard, are you going sto get ahead. a younger me would have said absolutely anybody that works hard gets ahead. and i largely still believe that. the older i get, the more i believe luck has something to do with it. i know some people that work hard and don't seem to get ahead. and i know some that haven't worked hard and lightning seems to strike them. i should have mention ed in the opening commentary, the $33 trillion debt that the people faces. because that doesn't get enough conversation. and the younger americans who don't feel so robust about our future probably aren't even thinking about the bill that will eventually have to be paid for the debt and deficit is. another reaction if i have time. what do we have? people complain about the economy and then buy all kinds of expensive stuff. i said to aaron from the "wall street journal." if everybody seems to have a flat screen and an iphone or some other cell phone of choice. do we ever reach a point in this country where you just can't keep going with all of that prosperity? i don't know. it's a question for the economists. one more, i think i have time. i like this. this is my favorite part of the show. for debates, give each candidates ten uninterrupted minutes to determine topics. former governor ed rendell loves telling a story about a gubernatorial debate in which he participated. it was very similar to that. he said it was really taxing because anybody -- i could answer a question here on any subject for 90 seconds. 90 seconds is nothing. but make them go deep. then you'll really separate the weak. still to come, the final results of the poll question, please go and vote. agree or disagree, if people work hard, they are likely to get ahead in america. sign up for the free daily newsletter when you're there, and you will get exclusive content from aerd-winning cartoonists, how about this from steve, that says a lot. so there's the result thus far, the poll question, wow, 69%, hey, you know what's inte interesting about that, 9% of those who have -- 69% of those who have voted so fa with more than 30,000, if people work hard they're likely to get ahead in america, that is exactly where "the wall street journal" was two years ago and the reason this caught my eye, that number has been halved in their survey and in line with what the journal found two years ago. one more social media if i can react to it. disagree, the american dreamers have arrived, working hard won't get you there, luck, generational wealth and health are essential, i think all of those things are true. you know what is interesting? there is a nostalgia among many for the way things were 50 years ago and we're in the political ramifications and where they come in, among many, i will say whites, there is a nostalgia where the country was 50 years ago and not so much around women and minorities either. keep voting. see ya. tomorrow on the "whole story" -- first time i connected with kim, she told me that her husband had passed. and that he took care of all of the internet connected devices in the home. i told her, “i'm here to take care of you.” connecting with kim... made me reconnect with my mom. it's very important to keep loved ones close. we know that creating memories with loved ones brings so much joy to your life. a family trip to the team usa training facility. i don't know how to thank you. i'm here to thank you. . hello, and welcome. it's time to sit