today. i'll see you back here next saturday at adm. eastern smerconish is up next setting the bar i'm michael smerconish in philadelphia, thursday here on cnn is the first of two scheduled debates between president biden and trump. >> jake tapper and dana bash will moderate the debate will last 90 minutes with no live audience. there will be no opening statements, answers will be two minutes rebuttals will be one-minute closing statements will be two minutes based on a coin toss, trump will go last. >> there will be two commercial breaks and perhaps the biggest wrinkle microphones will be muted when it's not someone's turn the stakes are high. >> the racist tight weather measured in national surveys or by battleground states. so the debate is a very big deal and opinions as to who won will no longer be influenced by expectations advantage joe biden. >> and here's why call it, be careful what you wish for in the last two weeks, president biden traveled overseas to participate in a commemoration of the 80th anniversary of d-day then he came home on june 10. he attended a juneteenth concert on the white house lawn, and it'll widely circulated video, he looked well stayed standing amidst a crowd dancing to the music. that video was shown on a loop over at fox news. then he returned to europe to participate in a meeting of g7 leaders. the result was another viral video, no doubt you've seen this footage of the president on june 13. and if you watch the version presented on a certain outlet, he looked lost, befuddled and. ultimately rescued by the italian prime minister. it's not that the video was edited. it's all a matter of the camera angle that was shown. the washington post did a nice job in giving the full view and seen from a wide lens, we see that the president's attention was captured by parachute ists, whom he seemed eager to engage and maybe congratulate on their landing then came last saturday night at a star-studded los angeles fundraiser. this time the first video that went viral, recorded by the hollywood reporters, christopher gardner, seem to show president obama rescuing a frozen president biden this to shown on a loop and once again, then we got to see additional angles of what happened. they depicted the president standing still basking in the glow of a supportive crowd, perhaps until obama signaled it was time to go the video from the la fundraiser has become an election rorschach test republicans, they see frailty democrats, they see friendship. the white house accused opponents of playing cheap fakes video and promoting misinformation. fox responded that they only played unedited videos and then took the opportunity to play them again and again. and, again americans holier than now, so called journalists that are really talk show hosts that are very liberal reported that a streaking of very real videos showing your president joe biden struggling in public, calling them cheap fake videos the media mob and democrats sets in new favorite word. >> take a look cheap fakes videos of real events that are intentionally manipulated. corinne john pierre, and others are calling these cheap fakes. >> but what it is is truly deceitful behavior. what the white house is calling cheap fakes we're hearing about so-called cheap fakes. its then came tuesday at another juneteenth celebration. president biden seem to lose his train of thought and forget the name of his dhs secretary my name is joe biden. i'm jill biden's husband thanks to all the members of congress and homeland security secretary giger i'm not sure going to undo show why all can decide. secretary mayorkas here's the thing. >> the president's mental acuity, it is relevant. yes, it is. i talked about it on my radio program but the airing of these videos and the resulting conversation may have just done president biden an enormous favor expectations are important to determine debate performance biden's opponents have now so lowered the bar for the incumbent. that if he can just remain standing and deliver cogent sentences, viewers will think he had a pretty good night and the burden will shift to donald trump we've seen it before. recall that in the run-up to president biden's state of the union address on march 7, there were suggestions from some that it was time for biden to step aside and surrender the nomination due to his fading mental acuity and those advocates were not normally democratic detractors the drumbeat started with david ignatius and the washington post back in september. he said, i don't think biden and vice president harris should run for reelection. it's painful to say that given my admiration for much of what they've accomplished. but if he had harris campaign together in 2024, i think biden risks undoing his greatest achievement, which was stopping trump biden's age, isn't just a fox news trow. it's been the subject of dinner table conversations across america this summer then james carville said this to me here in february about biden's skipping the opportunity to do the traditional pre-super bowl interview he said biggest television audience, not even close. and you get a chance to do a 2025 five-minute interview on that day. and you don't do it debts account of sign that the staff for yourself doesn't have much confidence in you. there's no other way to read this and he's not going to do debates he is, oh, i know what it is because i'm almost as old as he is and it's never going to get better you've never, you know, today as the youngest, you'll ever b. for the rest of your life a few days later, as reclined from the new york times, said similar things on his podcast i was stunned when his key passed on the super bowl interview biden's not up by 12 points. he can't coast to victory. he's losing whether it is true that biden has it all under control, it is not true that he seems like he does so, yes. >> i think biden as painful as it is should find his way to stepping down as a hero soon after nate silver was tweeting, quote, biden needs to reassure the american public that he's capable of handling public appearances that aren't on easy mode or he needs to stand down, or he's probably going blues to trump in the accompanying articles, silver elaborated, it's become even clear that biden's age is an enormous problem for them, as many as 86% of americans say he's too old in one pole this was referring to biden doing more lengthy interviews, but then in the state of the union, president, biden spoke forcefully and he received positive reviews. >> the top of him stepping aside, quieted, at least for awhile and yet now with these videos that biden detractors show and discuss on a loop, the talk is back perhaps it's a case of be careful what you wish for, because all the talk has lowered biden's debate bar so far that it won't take much for him to exceed it and be perceived as the winner as happened with the state of the union and this may be why after months of assailing biden's mental abilities even suggesting that biden would need to take drugs to enhance his performance. trump is suddenly shifting his tone during an episode of the all-in podcast hosted by silicon valley entrepreneurs released on thursday while continuing to attack him, trump said this i assume he's gonna be somebody that will be a worthy debater. yeah, i would say i think i don't want to underestimate him so who's going to win on thursday night for all these reasons? joe biden begins in the lead i want to know what you think. go to my website. it's were carnage.com. answer a different question. who's gotten more to lose in the debate? biden or trump joining me now is john don van, who was a best-selling author a four time emmy winner, and since 2008, the moderator in chief for the group now called open to debate, which bills itself as a nonpartisan debate driven media organization dedicated to bringing multiple viewpoints together for a constructive, balanced, respectful, exchange of ideas, their group recently published this report. discourse correction. what's wrong with the presidential debates and how to fix them. he's also the co-author of in a different key, the story of autism, which was a finalist for the pulitzer prize, john, i remember in your oxford style debating when people used to vote as they would enter the theater and then vote at the end and you would measure change. >> here. i'm arguing that it's a function of expectations. what do you think i think you make a very good, very good case to the extent that this is a horse race type of vent. >> all politics has that horse race element to it and if there are questions about joe biden's cognitive ability a debate is a very, very serious cognitive challenge. it cognitive test in itself, we've done 300 for debates and we've had some very, very high-powered people on the stage. we've had ceos and ambassadors, and members of congress and famous philosophers and foreign politicians. and they all find it a challenge and some of them are very, very bright people. nevertheless, they find the pace, this speed, the fact that they're being rebutted in real time. >> quite a challenge. so if joe biden were to come through this with not just meeting but exceeding expectations, i have to say i think that i agree with the case that you made i think that your groups advice suggestions for how to change the debates, fascinating. for example, you say, begin as you question with a binary choice, get them to answer yes or no and lock them in before expanding beyond that, talked to me about it that's that framework is inspired by what we do at open to debate, where we take a single question and we bring people on to talk about that. one question for an hour. >> well, how they would answer yes or no and what happens by virtue of the fact that we have a full hour for a topic as you get to see in-depth, not just how a person would make their case, but how they would defend their case, where their basic philosophy comes from, how their logic works, how they think, and in real time. but for that to work, there needs to be clear division of sides, yes or no sets that up better than anything else. it really sets up a dichotomy of two views that are in common conflict with each other. just basically from the beginning. and that has not been the case generally with the presidential debates. very often, there's a question that's put to one debater for example, years ago, bernie shaw asked mike dukakis what he would do if his wife were raped. what his reaction would be i think that was a terrible question because it wasn't a debatable question. he didn't then ask everybody else that he didn't ask everybody else. what do you think of mike dukakis is answer. it was much more like a press conference moment. there wasn't a back-and-forth a yes or no for anybody else on the stage to debate. and that's where we think things really can go deep and get meaningful. >> john, as you say, you've, you've moderated more than 300 debates. oxford style debates, and i am a huge fan of the group and the organization. and as i tell you, i take you for a walk because they're timed to two for the same distance that i like to take this normal path i also have great respect for jake and for dana. what are the unique challenges you think they face in a presidential debate like this the biggest challenge i think that they will face has been addressed by having this silent the mics, so giving them the ability to silence the microphone. the biggest challenge in these debates has been particularly in recent years, and that's what we've seen in the study that we commissioned our ceo clear connor asked to researchers at princeton to go look at the past debates and the fact is that the tendency has been particularly in the last several rounds of election cycles for the control to get lost because the debaters don't observe time, they don't shut up when the other person is talking. it's particularly one was more liable to do that than the other. and the problem with that is things go off point time, run the clock, and being able to turn off the mic is a really powerful tool. and i think that jake and dana, dana are very, very much more empowered now to control things that way. and the other thing along the way is to just check the debaters. and are you answering the question to call them out when they're not answering the question, not get into an argument with the debate, with the candidates don't try to fact check them because i think that's a very, very problematic area. but but just two to know that they are going to come in with things that they want to say that they prepared. they may even have memorized that they're going to resort to again and again. and to not let that happen, to call them out and keep things on track. >> i'm concerned that the the moderation of the mic is going to stifle some of the better exchanges that have come from past debates. why am i wrong? >> no you're not wrong. there's no question that there's a sort of atmospheric buzz that you get when they can break in on each other in an r debates, we do have a portion of the debate in which that's allowed. but we also have a portion of the debate in which you have to not speak in the limited time that's allowed for the topics in these presidential debates. you know, two minutes, two minutes, one minute, one minute, maybe a little bit more. and then they move on to another topic if, if they're, if they're interrupting each other interruptions tend to be not in good faith, which they are in our stage or is such a thing as interrupting in good faith? but they tend to take things down a sidetrack. i did say that, no, i didn't say that. you're misrepresenting me. you're not misrepresenting me. that takes up time. and frankly, how useful is that kind of thing? so given the choice between losing that atmospheric buzz and keeping the substance on track in this case, i vote for keeping think the substance on track. if i were moderating the debate, i would want to have that mike switch myself open to debate. john don van. thank you, john, for being here. i appreciate your expertise. >> mike, can i just say one thing? my sister nancy is a huge fan of yours. i'm sure she's watching. she listens to your radio show all the time. so i just want to say hi, nancy so, do i thank you for that? >> what are your thoughts? hit me up on social media and i'll read some responses throughout the course of the program from x, formerly known as twitter. this is a real risk for biden. everybody knows this sterile environment, no studio audience. biden friendly moderators, and network demanded by his team to help them. he has more to lose. i think he has more to lose as well. and that is today's poll question. but i think that the lack of studio audience actually is advantageous to biden, not a detriment to him because don it's like stepping on donald trump's oxygen hose. i think that he feeds on an audience when you watch him address a crowd, even an unfriendly crowd, you can see the wheels in his head spinning and determining what line is working and what line is not. and he will be missing that ability to base his responses on how it's going so yeah, interesting. i want to know what you think go to my website at smerconish.com. answer today's poll question. who's gotten more to lose on thursday night? who has more to lose in this debate? >> up ahead when it comes to the recent convictions both hunter biden and donald trump, former white house special counsel, lanny davis has a radical proposal based on what happened with president nixon. >> he says, pardon them both and do it now. and commute any prison terms. and he's here to explain and defend that view. plus joe biden has landed on what his main message about trump will be, that the threat trump poses would be even greater. in a second term that it wasn't a first is that going to win? i'll ask david axelrod please make 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