wolf blitzer in the situation room. >> thanks very much for watching >> erin burnett outfront starts right now outfront next, trump demands of drug tests before the debate, as we're getting new report into outfront this hour about a possible shift in strategy for biden tonight plus the most expensive house primary race in american history, with everyone from aoc to hillary clinton weighing in, who is favored to win in this crucial race tomorrow. and will take you to the southern border tonight. we're a small community straddles both sides of a dangerous part of the border. >> what they're witnessing every day and what they fear is still to come out front good evening. i'm erin burnett outfront tonight demanding a drug test. >> so for president trump now says president biden should be tested for drugs you saying this three days before the presidential debate right here on cnn and all caps, trump tonight writing online quote, drug tests for cookie joe biden, three exclamation points. >> i would also so immediately agreed 13 exclamation points trump upping the ante on a distraction campaign. and the final hours before the debate, making up a campaign out of thin air to accuse biden of using drugs so we could stay alert during the upcoming debate. just listen to what he's saying. >> right now. crooked joe's gone to a log cabin to study, repair no, he didn't he's sleeping now because they want to get them good and strong so a little before debate time, he gets a shot. the and that's they wanted to strengthen them up so he comes out, he'll come out okay i say he'll come out all jacked up okay it is not just trump who is pushing this dangerous line. so is congressman ronny jackson. you may remember him, right? because he started out as trump's white house doctor, obama's white house doctor actually you back at one point, listen to him i'm going to be demanding on behalf of many megan's of concerned americans right now that he's submit to a drug test before and after this debate specifically looking for performance enhancing drugs it's quite ironic, but these calls for drug tests are coming from these two particular man. >> i mean, one is a doctor who always gave trump a glowing bill of health, saying at one point it could live to 200 a doctor who actually do withdraw his nomination for the secretary of veterans affairs after being accused of writing prescriptions for well, what could have been illegal scripts for ambient and percocet while serving as the white house doctor in trump's administration. as for trump, if he is willing to take a test before the debate, that is new i mean, remember trump-allied after testing positive for covid three days before the september 2020 debate between trump and biden went out there with covid right on stage in front of everybody. new, he had it lied. >> days later, you'll remember trump trump was really sick. trump had to be rushed to walter reed medical center for treatment, spent days there it all comes as he is going all out to raise expectations for biden. now, maybe worried that he has set them too low. just listen to trump. >> now i watched him with paul ryan and he destroyed paul ryan boren with the water who was chugging water at a left and right. i didn't think a human being would be able to drink so much water at one time before ryan. so i'm not underestimating him. i'm not underestimating it so he's talking about a shot and you know what? and then trying to act serious as if he doesn't want underestimate him and look, it's all been part of a move for trump because just last month when it came to underestimating biden, it was a very, very different thing. trump wrote on may 15 on social media, crooked joe biden is the worst debater i've ever faced. he can't put two sentences together. perhaps top is remembering what happened last time when he successfully set the bar so low for biden that it backfired. just listened to the aftermath on fox news i do think that joe biden clear the very low bar that had been set for him? it was a very low bar that he was able to go over the bar should never have been set that lower as for biden, are kayla tausche has new reporting right now on the decisions taking place inside biden's debate inner circle, and the preparations ongoing as we speak, hail is out front live outside the white house. and what are you hearing right now about biden's strategy and the shifts happening, kayla? >> aaron several prominent democrats tell me that they've urged the biden campaign to have the president take a different tack on the economy during thursday's debate, moving away from his tendency to tout his accomplishments, instead focusing on the contrast of his plan with trump's planned because they acknowledged that the messaging so far has not worked with vote voters the four sources that i spoke with who requested anonymity to describe some of these private deliberations with the campaign. said that biden is a lifelong politician, is perhaps too inclined to take credit where it's due. and recently he's been talking about the 15 million jobs created the wage growth, the economy's ability to resist a recession. and while all crew voters, and their feelings are feelings of deep frustration about the higher cost of living, which has persistently been among their top issues. and one of the reasons why they give trump better marks on the economy. one of these sources when i asked how the campaign received that feedback, said simply claim gets it a reference to run playing biden's longtime aid and his debate coach at camp david right now and clean himself in recent months has made comments that biden talks too much about all the bridges he's building around the country and doesn't spend enough time empathizing with the average voter to be clear. biden's approval rating on the economy remains quite low. the campaign for its part at points to a recent an ad that the president role out talking in to voters in battleground states about these struggles they faced to make ends meet. but he's going to have a delicate balancing act on thursday to prove some of that progress will also acknowledging that voters don't necessarily feel it, aaron. >> alright, kayla, thank you very much. and outfront now, tim pawlenty, no stranger. you're to debate stages as of course, the former republican governor of minnesota, 2012 presidential candidate, also with me here, david urban and van jones. and since you're here, let me start with you than kayla's reporting on the economy. i was with president biden a few weeks ago and wisconsin when we were we began talking about the economy and i expected him to have more of that empathy and he didn't he got defensive. he started listing the positives even when you would list all the things that people see, he didn't want to hear it i believe that prior to that interview, people had counseled him to change his message on the economy. he didn't want to do it. do you think he will and do you think he can successfully? >> like i think he is going to do the right thing is great strength is empathy he deeply cares about ordinary people and he's a proud man and he's proud because it's hard to land the academy where you where it is right now. they'll get you do have inflation coming down, unemployment going up, that's called all the soft landing. he wants his credit. but trying to get credit yourself as wrong way to go. i think what you're going from joe biden is a proud defensive his record. he's going to go after to donald trump is also going to show you where he's going forward where he's gonna go on the economy going forward. and that will be winning company. >> that's crucial. and maybe this is the question, is trump, who we know is pairing in a non-normal way additional non-traditional, but on something like this, traditional can matter because you want to be able to stand up there and know that the five points biden's going to make an economy and you want to come back with every single one by the way anybody should be able to do that. the question is, will trump be able to do that because he's not preparing in that way? >> preparing listen, we kind of gloss over and forget the fact there was a second debate in 2020 right? donald trump didn't do so great in the first debate. that's what was referenced here earlier in the second debate, donald trump had commanded the facts. he did incredibly well and he won that debate by all accounts he wants to debate, but people weren't tuning in that donald trump i expect to show up on thursday night and that donald trump will robot point by point by point to van. van x is point all the time. if if joe biden doesn't empathize with people who can't. 57, 56% of americans can't put their hands on 11000 bucks. and when the check engine light comes on to your card van talked about this before. it's a crisis of those people. if joe biden can't empathize they make those people out there feel like he understands their pain. >> but if you can, that's gonna be a challenge. so tim governor pawlenty, what do you think joe biden needs to do? >> i mean, especially on this issue of the economy where he does tend to get defensive as opposed to empathetic. recently how can you change that? >> please, been talking about the economy for a long time and i think one of the problems is while the rate of inflation, if increase in inflation is slowing down it's coming off a much larger base after raging inflation for the last two years, i've prices are still going off. >> what you're also saying? yeah well, there's still going up, but they're also an absolute terms up dramatically compared to a couple of years ago. so when you buy bread, milk, gas again, other thing in your life that's sort of core to you. it's a lot more expensive and people aren't stupid. they feel that so you could say the rates come down from 7% to 3%, but they still feel so they're paying a lot more and that's why he's losing that argument on the another issue though, aaron, the ante for him is he has to show in this debate that he has the requisite physical and mental energy and strength to be president for four more years. and if you look at the polling on, in swing states amongst independent and persuadable hello voters. that's still a big issue. so if he goes in there and does not repeat a performance like the state of the state those questions are going to linger and it's going to matter. >> i mean, then that is the thing everybody is going to be watching him. watching him. they're gonna be watching his blinking. they're going to be watching that, but they are right to our called jamal made that on sunday arresting old man face but they're going to be staring at that. here's a good thing about that donald trump is a force of nature. donald trump is a runaway train. donald trump is a grizzly bear. if you can go in there and hold your own with him for an hour-and-a-half? >> you couldn't i couldn't if if your job by new pull that off, then you are fit to be president. >> is this goes both ways toward us in an hair it goes both ways. >> trump is making a big mistake here. he is setting expectations so high for himself but don't forget, you're taking away a lot of stuff from don trump. he's used to he loves to have the oxygen of that crowd. he won't have it. he loves to be able to run over people. they're going to mute him. this is the first time you get to see donald trump without the crowd and without his ability to bully people in donald trump's got some challenges. two, now, we left out about joe biden. don't trump that symptom you about that because he had a self-awareness that he does not often display about this issue. >> he gave an interview to byron hark at the washington examiner. he said about this exact issue of not having an audience. he said you have no audience to read to me. the audience is easier because it's telling you so what is going on in directly with applause or not applause knows this is so at the rally, that you guys didn't watch, i watched on saturday night trump would out to the crowd, said, how should i taught, how should i interact with joe biden? >> should i be nice to be mean to them? yeah. >> right. so if he gets it he understands politics at a visceral level. and so by not having that crowd, you're exactly right. he's not going to get a sense of donald ours punches landing, are they not? >> he doesn't he doesn't he doesn't read books. he reads people. that's donald trump and so that's why the night preparing doesn't matter in his mind because you're just reading a crowd. there'll be no crowd governor, let me ask you about that because he was asked in a podcast how he's preparing and he answered in what seems to be pretty honest way at least. >> and what everyone around him and who knows him seems to say, let me play it for you, governor people say, how are you preparing and preparing by taking questions from you and others if you think about it, we had a great meeting just now and philadelphia with the at the at the shop you saw that with all the wonderful people. >> we just left, faith and freedom in dc. and that was incredible. we had an incredible crowd i'll governor actually telling their that while he's talking about how he prepares, which is to sort of have conversations with people and do interviews. he brings up the crowd and the incredible uses the word incredible. talk about crowds twice. he's gonna be feeling it in that room what do you think about his style of preparations such that he's always done it in this environment where the mics get cut and he has no audience, you might get very bored in that room. there's only three people well, keep in mind era and the most important thing for this race, for these candidates is not all the people that are already commenting are made up their minds. >> it's just those people in the swing states who are independent or persuadable and if donald trump, because of the reasons you just mentioned, has to dial back his tone 10% are 15% or 20% for those people, the people who are wondering is jill biden too old? is he wrong on immigration as he wrong and wokeness as he wrong on crime or is trump too crazy to be president again, when it faced see a more subdued donald trump for that sub-segment of the electorate, it might actually be helpfult? >> if he doesn't. now all the memes going around him about talking about sharks and whatever it is that he does on his verbal cul-de-sac sit rallies basically, if he avoids that book, is that his hurdle sure. >> but just don't forget his base expects him to go out there for an whip some, but and the expectations for trump are so hired by talked about the loads, but you he's got to somehow balance trump. now be this entertainer that's wrestler type of a guy for his bass. he's also got to be calm and measured to deal with the fact, ready and be prepared to do 50 different things. so everybody is going to be expecting it the problem to all be on biden side all biden has to do is be joe biden. we already know that he's old. we already know the man i won't say anything without email and i know is deficits. but what we haven't seen from him is that big heart, that big empathy, and its ability to see it across the table from donald trump as you people can or ever have and deliver. >> not sound that's probably my money still on trump despite all the hurdles, van late in front of him, my money is still unknown. but some people have shown up with the w on thursday night. >> some people watch and say, you know what, maybe i'm just not going to cry about the two choices i have it so people walk away hailing positive in some way, i guess we should all take that as a loan for the country. >> i got my money on biden. all right. thank you. all and next, breaking news on wikileaks, founder julian assange, just striking a deal with the biden administration. so what does it mean was tempers fly and trump's classified documents case judge aileen cannon hearing after hearing today, appearing get to goal of placing a gag order on the man who appointed her and made her a judge in the first place and it is the most expensive democratic primary ever with aoc and bernie sanders putting everything on the line to save one of their own. >> but are the progressives turning off voters thursday night, my from midland, the most anticipated moment of this election, biden's not running mate america sure. that we are a nation of possibilities. >> trump. we had the best economy, we had the best border, we had the best of everything. >> and now we got to do it all over again. we're going to do it even that are two very different visions for america. one unprecedented night moderated by jake tapper and dana bash, the cnn presidential debate thursday night at nine live on cnn and streaming and backs you know, priceline helps families say but 60% on family-friendly hotels, so many great trips, we might just leave here with another vacation baby i'll take it easy. paris and u2 for modal. >> lisa wasn't toledo 30 are happy play. priceline good job. >> we dietary supplements from volterra for healthy joints smile, you found it the feeling of findings, psoriasis can't filter out the real you. so go ahead, live unfiltered with the one and only. so take to a once-daily pill for moderate this is severe plaques, psoriasis, and the chance that clear or almost clear skin, it's like the feeling of finding yourself ready for your close-up are finding you don't have to hide your skin. just your background once-daily subject to was proven better, getting more people clear skin than the leading pill. don't take if you're allergic to so take too serious reactions can so ticked, you can lower your ability to fight infections including tb serious infections, cancers including lymphoma, muscle problems, and changes in certain labs have occurred. tell your doctor if you have an infection, liver or kidney problems, high triglycerides or had a vaccine or plan to so tick two is a tick to inhibitor, tick two as part of the jack emily, it's not known as a tiktok has the same risks as jak inhibitors fine what plaque psoriasis has been hiding. there's only one so tick two, so ask for it by name so clearly you, so take two selling your home realtor.com, real choice selling lets you choose from multiple agent proposals because when agents competing u win, don't all have to do that not really. trust the number one app realistic? 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