The gunman remain at large. Thanks so much for joining us. Well see you back here tomorrow. Ac30 60 starts right now its thursday, may 16, right now on cnn this morning its on joe biden and donald trump signing off on do debates. The first one next month, right here on cnn plus trumps lawyers planning a new strategy with Michael Cohen former fixer, back on the stand this morning in the Hush Money Trial, and two partners with a pledge, Vladimir Putin and xi jinping together in beijing vowing to deepen their ties. What does this mean for the west . All right. 5 00 a. M. Here in washington alive. Look at capitol hill on this thursday morning, were almost there. Good morning, everyone. Im kasie hunt. Its wonderful to have you with us. Joe biden and donald trump will be facetoface next month for the first president ial debate of this election cycle, the two presumptive nominees have accepted Debate Invitations from cnn and abc cnns set to take place first, its going to be june 27, in atlanta. Both candidates have been engaged in this escalating feud. It came to a head yesterday when biden posted this trump lost two debates to me in 20 0. 20 said he hadnt shown up for debate. Now hes acting like he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day pal. Ill even do it twice. So lets pick the dates, donald, i hear youre free on wednesdays shortly thereafter, this was posted, trump responding on social media saying this quote, i am ready and willing to debate Crooked Joe Biden at the two proposed times in june and september. Just tell me when ill be there. Lets get ready to rumble joining me now is National Race and politics reporter for the Associated Press matt brown, mack. Good morning. Thank you so much for being here. So this is what Mark Mckinnon wrote in the atlantic about this quote, i view the challenge, throw down as a strategic Master Stroke for biden shore, a debate could ensure his defeat at the president s unable to rise to the oratorical occasion. But i think that theres a strong argument. Its the only way he can win the election and most importantly, it Shows Confidence i know from experience, the most important asset of president ial candidate can have is the perception of strength and the worst thing they can have as a perception of weakness which is what biden was dealing with until this morning. It does also seem to potentially acknowledge that they needed this the Biden Campaign needed this, that they were, but they are national polling. Weve got some new fox news pulling out this morning as well. The biden has been behind it. What what do you how do you think this is going to impact the race . Well, i think that this shows that the Biden Campaign is and the Democratic Party really in general are entirely on biden here and theres not really seeing any significant downsides to Debating Trump at this point. When i think one of the striking things that we saw yesterday is that both donald trump and joe biden believed that they can highlight the strongest negative about their Rival Candidate in debates like this. And i think that thats something that theyre going to be really stressing in. Whats going to be the most the earliest debate in an a general election president ial election that were going to have seen in years it really is a major shift in that the timing is so much earlier, right . Its its gonna be in june and one of the arguments is, of course, that Many Americans now are making their decisions earlier in the process, right . That it would be too late. But of course the part of the reason why the biden team was reluctant to do it the way the commission wanted to do it is because the moderators in some cases, we saw in 2020, there was less control of the stage and it led to moments like this one where joe biden and donald trump went, went back and forth and part of this new format is that theyre going to be able to cut off the microphones, watch this moment from 2020 im going to pack to make sure you in fact, let people know. He doesnt want to senator russia. Im not going to answer the question. Did that because the question the Question Justice the rational left. Would you will you shut up, man . So part of this is they werent happy with how the commission was handling things they wanted to set the roles themselves, right . I think two of the things that were talking about here are just fundamental changes to american democracy. Were looking at the demise of the committee on president ial debates in many ways and how the changes of how americans are getting their information and want to see their president ial candidates debate. And at the same time, were also seeing changes in, as you said, early voting i mean, by remember a lot of americans are going to have the ability to cast their ballots in this election, which means that whats going to happen in the election, say in october, i mean, an october surprise my it didnt matter that if millions of people have already voted for joe bidens campaign, who needs every single vote they can to rebuild that coalition that elected him to the white house theyre very determined to change his perception as early as possible. On the flip side, Donald Trumps campaign is saying that they want every opportunity to be able to highlight what they perceive as joe bidens week this and thats why there are asking for more than just two debates. They want to be able to say that theyve already saw that theyve accepted a debate on fox, for instance, because they want every opportunity they can to have donald trump, their candidate out there right . And of course, part of this mckinnon alluded to the strength and weakness thing, and that often comes up with voters in terms of the age of the president at mostly, but we should note there are only three years apart. Donald trump and joe biden. This led mitt romney to make this crack watch do we have that romney sayyed, okay. Sorry about that. Anyway, its the muppets we have the muppets. I know we had the muppets because he was talking about the muppets lets look, lets just look at this. This is what romney said. Hey, this debate is going to look like this. Watch it looks like two ancient old guys sitting in a theater box watching television crazy. No one would watch junk like that. So romney, i suppose. Okay, lets, lets watch romney able to where were going to play in the other order. But i think they found this out. Lets play with watch the image that comes to mind as those two old guys on the muppets, you know, that sat in the back that learned walgreens waldorf. All right. Thats what comes to mind. But i actually think therell be a huge audience for these debates so in seriousness, i mean, this is, these are seminal moments in our collective political history. We dont have a lot of opportunities to do that. And it is going to be striking, i think as well that it really reminded me going back and watching those clips. Oh, this is a rematch. And that is a really remarkable thing. Yeah, i think that the thing that the american, the American People are frustrated about in this election is that its a rematch, but i also think that thats going to highlight the salience of what these two men stand for in this election. I mean, while we can make jokes about how these are two old men who were just waiting vlan each other and a lot of ways, this is really an election that is going to be about some of the most substantive Policy Differences that weve seen into president ial candidates in decades. I think that thats going to be something that these debates are going to highlight more than americans i think are at the moment really at wherever it really i appreciate it thus far all right. Matt brown for a certain toughness morning, matt, thank you. Very grateful to have you. All right. Just ahead here, the decision made half a world away that triggered riots its on a pacific island, will dig into this and why its important plus senator bob menendez is legal team throws shade on his wife during his corruption trial. And another foot chase on capitol hill by our own manu raju. 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And four people are now dead with nearly 200 arrested protesters clashed with the military and police again, Wednesday Setting Fire to cars and buildings as gunfire erupted in the streets. So all of this has come after the french government proposed constitutional changes that would give more french residents the right to vote Independence Groups accused france of trying to consolidate power in the region as paris has declared a state of emergency, sending 500 more Police Reinforcements to the area cnns International Anchor max foster joins us now, live from london with more about this. Max. Good morning to you. This really does feel like a bit of a colonial throwback at what what is the story with the french are doing here. I dont want to say i thought we were passed this as the world generally, but that was kinda my initial reaction to it. What is really going on . Well, theyre all remnants of these empires all over the place. So there are lots of islands still belonging effectively to france as there are other places belonging to the uk and portugal. And its becoming more and more contentious as you can imagine. So theres too broadly as this is a very simple way im looking at it, but you have see it was ireland ticket over by france. You have french residents there, many of them regard themselves as local. Then you have the Indigenous Community who are largely proindependence. They want to effectively get the island so theyre the two sides of this argument. And then Emmanuel Macron announced that there are french residents who are living there who will be given a vote in local elections because there is some autonomy, there and that infuriated a lot of people. Youre seeing on the screen right now, these protesters who basically say it will dilute the pressure for the island is a vote for independence. They say its a tactic for france to keep hold of the island. So its gone down really badly. There have been votes. It sounds like in recent years to secede from france, but those have been voted down. Im curious why and how that played out. Well, the french will tell you its just a numbers game. So more people have voted to keep the status quo. There are, of course advantages to it in terms of economics. Theyre supported and defended by france. So there are lots of people i think theyre making a very sort of practice scott decision about how would i be better off under local government or the one that i know, which is big and powerful, even though its a very long way away and how much of macron lets focus on this has to do with the geopolitics and trying to maintain french influence in the indopacific. So hes built up this whole strategy that he wants to build inference in the indopacific because of the threat from china. And that also ties up with us. So it becomes part of this bigger, powerful alliance. He needs these islands arguably to have that influence can station troops there, for example. And also john lets have influenced there, but its backfiring to some extent with certain parts of the community. His solution was to say, we want to speak to the local Independence Campaigners and invited them to paris to do that, which obviously doesnt match their vibe. They think you should go to them for sure. All right. Max foster for us in london, max really appreciate having you talking about everything under the sun. Shall we say, honore show, i really appreciate it. All right. Coming up next here at slovakias Prime Minister is out of surgery after he was shot five times by a wouldbe assassins will bring you the latest on that. Play. The trump legal team, looking for that. Gotcha. Moment from Michael Cohen when he returns to the stand for more crossexamination the trump Hush Money Trial gavel to gavel coverage. 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