rupert safe replace csac. >> we cpt like be placed arthritis pain. we said >> we give you your day bag so you can give it everything. tylenol. number one, doctor recommended birthright his pain lactate is 100% real melt just without the lactose delicious to just ask my old friend kevin. >> now going like you can join the call one while watching the game who's willing? we are my friend we are it's terms de but neutrogena, ultras, your sunscreen is still on the clock. >> vital sun protection goes six layers deep, blocking 97% of burning uv rays. it's light, but it's working hard he liked me neutrogena ultras your sunscreen. what if we don't get down at time to get a birthday gift for zoe, don't panic with etsy. >> we can find the perfect gift and center a preview right away thanks sky. don't panic, just easy with etsy this is cnn the world's news just three days and counting president biden and former president trump facing off in a cnn the primetime debate, trump hitting the trail and testing out some potential debate strategies. >> the biden camp says the president is preparing for many different versions of trump plus the second of today's hearings in trump's classified documents case set to take place in minutes. the special counsel's office will be calling for a gag order on the former president. we're live outside court with the latest the death toll climbing after attacks on places of worship and other targets in southern russia will tell you who the kremlin thinks is responsible we're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here. the cnn news central the countdown really is officially on in just three days. >> president biden and former president trump will face off in cnn's primetime presidential debate, which is the first first major showdown of the 2024 race. and it is the earliest general election debate in us history right now, both candidates are honing their strategies. president biden, getting ready for different versions of his predecessor on thursday's debate stage including a more disciplined trump well, he has been preparing all weekend it camp. david trump means i'm taking a different approach. >> he's holding private policy discussions with advisers and allies and he spent a chunk of his weekend on the campaign trail let's get the latest from the white house with cnn's mj lee and cnn's kristen holmes, whose life for us in west palm beach tracking the former president kristin, let's start with you what more are you hearing about trump's plans for the coming days well, currently the former president is in bedminster on his golf resort. >> he'll be at a fundraiser in louisiana later today and then he comes here to palm beach where he'll be hunker down for the next two days until that debate holding various policies sessions, having financial calls, meeting with his top advisers as they really try to hone his messaging ahead of thursday's debate. and i can talk about biden preparing for potentially two different are multiple different versions of donald trump's. so our his advisers, they have stressed to him that it is important for him to focus on the issues like the economy, like immigration, things that he does well on in polling. but as, you know donald trump is tough to keep on message. in fact, his teams, as they don't even use the word preparation with him because it's likely that he'll veer off course instead. >> as you said, they refer to it as policy sessions. >> now, trump was on the campaign trail, as you noted, and he told the audience, the crowd at one of his rallies as to how he should handle the debate. take a lesson how should i handle him? >> should i be tough and nasty? or should i be should i be? she said should i be tougher, nasty and just say get a worst president in history or should i be nice and calm? and let him speak and just a reminder that donald trump's team and former president's itself both agreed to the terms that those mics would be muted after i finished answering the questions. >> he doesn't really have an option on letting president biden speak, however, his advisers will hold but that he will be calm, that he will be measured, and that again, he will focus on that messaging particularly around immigration and the economy, things he does well at a polling. >> but of course you never know which donald trump is going to show up. yeah we will see kristin. thank you. now, to mj lee at the white house, mj, what are you learning about how president biden's preparing? >> well, we certainly don't expect to see much of president biden and public the next few days as he is hunkered down at camp david and joined by more than a dozen of his top aides to prepare that intensity certainly underscores the high-stakes moment for the biden team going into thursday and just how much energy the team is pouring into preparing for this face off against former president trump. but the bottom line is, nobody on the biden team knows exactly what version of donald trump is going to show up. there's a night and a senior advisor is telling me that they are preparing for really all options, including the possibility of a very disciplined donald trump. this adviser was saying that so far they think the former president's 2024 campaign has been a lot more discipline than the 2020 campaign or even going back to 2016. so that is a possibility that they are preparing for and they think that this could all translate to the former president being just a little more restraint, a little bit more on message certainly compared to the donald trump that we saw on the debate stage. in 2020, when you really unleashed a torrent of insults and there were some name calling and a lot of sort of rambling answers that the moderator had a hard time keeping in check. now, this is also just one of the big reasons why mock debates are so important for the biden team aides have said that the important thing that they see about these mock debates is trying to get if president biden sort of the experience of going up against donald trump, including replicating how relentless he can be on the debate stage. we certainly know that they are also preparing for really wide range of policy issues could come up, including reproductive rights. the economy, threats to democracy really any topic that could potentially come up on thursday night, they certainly want the president to be prepared for all right. >> i'm jay. thank you so much for that. we appreciate it. >> many voters have made it clear that they just don't like the choices, either choice for president, this cycle and it's not clear if they're zeus debate is really going to do it anything to change their minds on that joining us now is cnn chief national correspondent john king. >> all right. >> i mean, that's the truth of it. it's kind of sad news, but i wonder what you're watching for on thursday. >> so one of the big challenges in this big debate, you get the largest audience the campaign so far, my biggest question is, do they just sparked each other? they don't like each other. they don't like it so they haven't been in the same room that close in a very, very long time. so does that take it over and it just becomes nasty or do they are they disciplined enough to deal with their biggest weaknesses for president biden? that is, questions about his age. so is it a spirit of this is a lively performance. more importantly, i would argue it's questions about uva plan to deal with the cost of living, the president gets defensive. sometimes he says, look at the numbers. the numbers are better but in my travels around the country, rents are going up. families growing, families can't sell their own home even if the value has gone up because they can't get a mortgage to buy in the same market grocery sticker shock is still pretty high. what does the president say about that for president trump? fascinated one of his problems in the suburbs. it's getting a nikki haley voter to come back over. they don't like january for a six. how does he answer the question? you know, president biden is going to push him on january 6. is he still going to say i would pardon those people or does his tone change there? that's one of his biggest weaknesses. the tone and the threat to democracy. so how do they deal with their biggest weaknesses to christine's point we've been hearing these rumblings about a very disciplined donald trump. >> i think it's fair to say many folks are skeptical, many observers are skeptical going into the perhaps at camp david, how does biden prepare for either scenario? because as kristen said, you don't know what trip you're gonna at some of this becomes. i've been at this a long time. forgive me at some of this to me becomes washington silly season because if you you watch a trump rally what you're trump rally, it goes on for like 90 minutes, right? thank go even longer than that. there are many, many donald trump's that's who he is. he sometimes comes in with a focus, sometimes he sticks to the teleprompter, sometimes somebody in the audience guesses attention, it goes off on a tangent. sometimes he disappears into stories. it's like where are we going here? >> that's just who he is. he's an entertainer and he's a politician sometimes he's disciplined, sometimes he's not, sometimes you think he's being disciplined and suddenly he goes off on a tangent. so i think the idea that you think which one is going to show up no, several are going to show up because that's who he is. that's it can be his biggest weakness sometimes, but it's also part of his appeal to his base that he is different and unpredictable. and so that's what you have to prepare for. he is unpredictable. >> let's talk about one of the logistical details of this, which is that if it's not your turn to speak as a candidate than your microphone is going to be muted but i was thinking about it and i thought you know, your microphone might be muted. but if you are speaking the audience may not hear you, but you could still be distracting to the person next to you who sow microphone. the audience could hear. i mean, what do you do you think this could create? >> i think this is a really interesting experiment in the sense that you're right because you can't hear me as well, but people can still hear me if i raise my voice. and so just distract me so so does one of the candidates and the odds are this would be trump tried to say, the media is trying to silence me. they don't want me to have spirited debate, so they turn my mic off so that i can't answer him. i would assume that the format often becomes an issue to the candidates. will each come in with a strategy if things aren't going well and you need something to complain about, it's usually about the moderator, so the format, it's just, it's an old, it's an age old foil in politics that they take a shot. you could ask chris wallace, he was there for biden and trump last time. you can go back before that to campaigns. before i go, it is interesting. it's a format that we had cnn think was very necessary because of just the chaos last time of the shouting over each other, the american people deserve to have answers on all of these legitimate questions. but we'll see, i mean, you go in with rules, but these two candidates agreed to the rules could also. agree to break them. and if that happens, that's an interesting challenge for the moderator is not you know, jake and dan are very talented. they know what they're doing, but it is a challenge then do you say no, you signed a paper to agree to these rules or you say, okay, gentlemen, are you sure because you just ripped up your plan, go for it. >> yeah. it'll be entertaining no matter what happens, john, i'm curious to go back to something you alluded to before and that's what what's on the mind of voters right now. you laid out some of the issues that are going to be at play at the debate, which do you think wins out in terms of the attention of the folks that you've been talking too. >> well. so let me give you an example here, and you'll hear some sound here from a woman named linda rooney. she's a nikki haley voter. she voted for nikki haley two months almost after nikki haley get out of the race in the pennsylvania primary, she wants her party back. she voted for trump in 2016. she couldn't do it in 2020 says she voted for biden. now she is so torn because she's a republican by dna. she has won a vote to re-elected democratic president, but she can't stand donald trump. and so just, you talked about at the beginning about how so many americans, so we get this from the far left, the far right? so i really is this the best we can do? so listen to linda rooney wrestle with this choice in terms of your personal politics, you say a carrying conservative you decided to vote for nikki haley in the primary couple of months after she dropped out of the race? yeah. >> why yeah, i'm sad that we only have these two choices. >> honestly and i'm tired of celebrities sort of being in politics. i don't i don't like trump, but i have to say we are for us personally, we are better off when he was president. i don't like how you can't he's so unreliable in some ways. you never know what he's gonna do next. i just want a normal person. like i just want someone normal. i don't want a celebrity and i don't have confidence in biden. so i feel like i don't have a choice so i hope people can listen to this podcast because we stopped listening to each other. >> and so if you listen to people talk for 51015 minutes about their wrestling and their torment about the choices people with whom you might disagree. but we can learn from each other when you listen to these voters for the thing, but linearise, facet, so that she can not forgive trump for january 6, but she might vote for him. i mean, think about that. so think about that because she is a republican by dna, so she's going to be watching the debate, the challenge for president biden. she essentially to vote trump are right, somebody else in that she won't vote for biden if you're joe biden, she lives in the philadelphia suburbs. people like her will decide that state, the commonwealth of pennsylvania, which usually settles the white house, the president has to convince or if i can't, when you back, right, somebody it donald trump has to convince her. i'm safe. i'm okay. you might not like my behavior, but i'm a republican like you. that's a big challenge. >> this is the phenomena of the double haider, right? but it's so interesting and i just love how you do it, john, were you bring their real people with very nuanced constant opinions and it's so important to learn a lot listening from them again, again, for people at home, if you're a strong democrats drone, probably am i completely disagree with some of these people. we can learn from each just like scouting the opposition team, if you're a sports fan, listen, we learn when we listen, it's really wonderful, amazing insight. john king. thank you so much and be sure to listen to john special all over the map podcast series wherever you get your podcast, episode one is out right now and also be sure to join cnn as president biden or former president trump meet for their first debate of the 2024 election, are jake tapper and dana bash will be moderating all live from atlanta this thursday beginning and 9:00 p.m. eastern zeroing in on some of the former president's legal troubles, the judge and his classified documents case who trump appointed aileen cannon is holding the second pretrial hearing of the day in trump's case, this time over the special counsel's request for a limited gag order on the former president, but this is coming after a hearing this morning on trump's bid to just let's get the case dismissed where his attorneys argued that jack smith's office is being unlawfully funded. >> cnn senior justice correspondent evan perez is outside of court. he's with us now. so evan, what more should we be expecting from the gag order hearing? >> well, we will see the president make the former president make the argument. his lawyers will make the argument that any kind of restriction on his speech is a violation of his first amendment rights. and of course, they also raise the idea, the fact is that not only is he campaigning, but also he is scheduled to be on a debate stage later this week. and how can it be that a judge can impose any kind of gag on the former president when the person who he believes put them has brought these charges against them is going to be opposite him on the debate stage. that's gonna be one of the arguments are going to hear from the defense team this afternoon so now, the prosecution over the weekend really added some of the language that they believes is of concern and why they're asking the judge to make a gag order as part of the fence as part of as part of his release conditions, one of the things they brought up is the fact that people have been making threats, including against an fbi agent who was involved in the hunter biden investigation, that person made a threat against fbi agent saying that they were going to be slaughtered and hunted down. and prosecutors also said that the former president does a lot of things to incite his followers and takes absolutely no responsibility for some of the consequences of those actions. that's part of their argument to judge cannon. now, of course, you guys know that this is probably a very tall order for the prosecution to get any kind of restriction from this judge who views the former president, does somebody who's, who deserves a lot of deference? >> evan perez live for us from fort pierce, florida. thanks so much for the update let's discuss the case now with retired judge george grosso. he served on the queens county supreme court in new york judge, thanks so much for sharing part of your afternoon with us. what do you make of the argument from the defense that the special counsel holds two much political power without sufficient accountability great to be with you so objectively, if i would just look at it using the normal rules of steroid decisis, meaning that precedent should be a guide to how we're going to rule now, i wouldn't make much we have a history going as far back as 1974 and u.s. >> v. phoenix. and where a unanimous supreme court forced nixon on the request of a special prosecutor, archibald cox, to turn over key tapes and the water watergate case, which spelled the end of the nixon presidency. since then, we've had special prosecutor laws that have been upheld right through we saw it with president clinton we've seen, we've seen special prosecutors over the decades. >> but the rules of styrene decisis don't seem to matter as much to this particular supreme court. let's look at roe v. wade 1970 3722. now it's no longer the law over the land. i just use that as an analogy because i think in this particular case with this tearing, there's no reason objectively, the judge cannon needs to be doing this huge hearing and letting, amex amaka says people filed amicus briefs, friends of the court, warren actually even parties to the case come in and do a hearing. now a lot of people are attributing a lot of legal scholars who i respect well, she doesn't really know what she's doing. this just shows how in competency is well, i'm kind of looking at it as another angle. >> i think you know, listen to what she's saying, listen to the question, the probing questions that she's asked, she may be very well getting ready on the basis of this hearing to strike thank down. >> the current statutory scheme and recommend that the case be dismissed on those serious procedural grounds. now, i believe is mostly everyone else does. if she did that, the 11th circuit would come down very hard and probably rather quickly overruling her. >> but then we also know the trump team is going to go right to th