straight from the source tonight, we're learning new details about how biden and trump are prepping will go behind closed doors, but former white house insiders, the pod save america crew on what to expect when you're expecting a debate for the ages and it was one of the largest breaches of classified material in the united states history. >> tonight, julian assange, after five years and a high security prison in london is cutting deal to avoid any us prison time. were also digging into one of the most expensive house races that we have ever seen. it's also dividing the democratic party a member of the so-called squad and a fight for his political life. >> do all bowman's primary challenger is here with me tonight i'm kaitlin collins, and this is the source tonight. we're just three days away from a debate. unlike anything thing that we have ever seen, what you'll watch thursday night right here on cnn will be unique in american politics. right now, president biden is clustered in the cone of silence known as camp david. the new york times reports that a movie theater and an airplane hangar there have been turned into a makeshift debate stage with lights and all the president has been preparing for five days now, more than a dozen staffers and toe all too aware of the rust that often plagues incumbent presidents in their first debate. in a moment, we've got some insiders who know all about that phenomenon. just ask them what happened in denver in october 2012? meanwhile, the supreme court has just thrown a potential wrinkle in the mix for 2024. the high court is adding two more days to its calendar this thursday and this friday. in addition to the already scheduled decision day on wednesday, that means there's a real possibility that the decision on donald trump's immunity claims could come just hours before he and biden both take the stage. as for his prep, trump is also shaking up his usual usual schedule. normally, he's never in south florida this time a year when it's hot and slow and most of his friends are bedminster. but that's where he and his team find themselves tonight, a more secluded place. as he says that podcast or the best way to prepare 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 shop you saw that with all the wonderful people. >> so, but i'm preparing by dealing with you. your tougher that all or told them biden's team is preparing to encounter potentially and highlight on potentially they are a very disciplined donald trump on the debate stage of course, that would stand in stark contrast to what we saw four years ago, or even what we're seeing on the campaign trail now how should i handle him? should i be tough and nasty? or should i be should i be she said, should i be toughened? asd and just say you're the worst president in history or should i be nice and calm? and let him speak biden's team believes that trump's campaign is more restrained while trump himself is crowdsourcing his debate strategy, which is at least a shift from what he was just saying. maybe i'm better off losing the debate. i'll make sure he says, i'll lose the debate on purpose. maybe i'll do something like that now it's important to remember. >> it was just a month ago that trump was posting on social media calling biden the worst debater that he'd ever faced. and also telling his crowds this i really think he has to debate. >> he might as well get it over with. probably should do it early so that he can he's not gonna get any better. you can walk can find his way off the stage, can put two sentences together. >> okay. but now he's arguing this one. >> i'm not underestimating him. i'm not underestimating him. i assume he's going to be somebody that will be a worthy debater. i say he'll come out all jacked up if you're confused to try being one of trump's surrogates, trying to set expectations. on national television the truth of the matter is, is that joe biden is not the man he was four years ago or eight years ago. >> everybody knows this. and so what they're trying to do is lie dissemble, and cover up for the fact that joe biden cannot go on the campaign trail like donald trump is doing right now. he has to be in camp david for 78 days to prepare himself to be in a 90 minute debate with donald trump. that does not bode well for a man who says he wants four more years, we have to look at the guise run for office more than a dozen times. he's run for president four times. he's been campaigning since president nixon was in office. this guy has got the ability and we've seen it. we've seen him in debate four years ago. we've seen him in the state. of the state of the union this year, that when he needs to, he can step up my leaves sources tonight on this or former obama white house staffers and also the host of pod save america, tommy ventura, john fav row and john love it. they're also the authors of the new book democracy or else how to save america and ten easy steps we'll see how easy it is. we'll talk about that in a moment, but i mean, it's for this debate prep. we're told that tonight president biden is having lasagna and preparing. i don't know. it's an interesting real choice, but, but what, what does this look like to prep a precedent for debate well, it didn't go so well for us. >> and in 2012 with the first debate, but state, but usually what you're trying to do is like not give the president too much information and you're trying to just give him a few goals that he wants to achieve out on the debate stage. and so there's a few contrasts you want them to hit usually, there's some zingers that are written, but i think without an audience, singers aren't as effective this time around so you're trying to an end a lot of mock debates two so usually i'll have someone playing the opponent in this case, donald trump. and you'll just go a couple of rounds and have like full debate, debate prep sessions that just look like an entire debate someone plays the moderator and then for the town hall debate, you'll have different staffers in questions. and so it looks exactly like a real debate yeah. they went through a fair number of shelter dogs to find the right one to play trump were on television really i mean, it is it is a good question of how to prepare to debate donald trump because it's, it's not just, you know, when you are preparing obama to debate mitt romney, it's focusing on the policy and those details. >> trump is kind of the the zynga or person who, when hillary clinton was saying something about being president, he said well viewer, if i was president, you'd be in jail moments like that, that stand out from the debate. >> how do you counter that? >> i think i think like what kind of donald trump shows up, i think is one of the biggest questions because he's out there in front of his biggest weirdness fans and he's like, should i be nice or should i be mean and they want him to be mean and he wants to give them what they want. but you know, his campaign is hoping that that donald trump doesn't make it a show about how extreme and dangerous donald trump is. and the format which a lot of people are saying, oh, you know, it's going, they're going to shut off trump's mike hahaha. we're going to shut up trump's mike. it might be conducive to like keeping that kind of trump and check. the only i think the other side of it is five minutes into a debate. donald trump's going to forget any kind of prep and then he's gonna go all instinct and that he's going to these not gonna be able to stop himself, but he often plays to the crowd. he's in front of. i mean, he often is very different when he's in a more muted setting. if he doesn't have that audience, there the assumption is it'll hurt trump, but that so could be a benefit and i how does the biden campaign prepare for something like that? if trump is more restrained? yeah. i mean, i think you have to prepare for the worst, which is donald trump saying absolutely vicious personal things about your son, your family, your finances, right? >> like you live fire drill where you as a staffer have to say to the present united states, all the worst things you can imagine donald trump will say and then you also have to prepare for a more measured steady trump and how you sort of perry that, but also try to bring out from him all the things that people like the least, you want to bring out, donald trump, the twitter feed, and not let him pretend to be statesmen for 90 minutes. >> yeah. you mentioned that moment with obama and romney from that baden obviously it was in 2012, just to remind people, this is a moment from that first debate in denver is the program so critical, it's worth borrowing money from china to pay for it. and if not, i'll get rid of it. obamacare's on my list. i apologize, mr. president i use that term with all respect. i like good okay. good. so i'll get rid of that. >> and you see a major difference between the two of you on social security i suspect that on social security, we've got a somewhat similar position i mean, i imagine that last day. >> was that your idea is i said pause, stutter a little bit. >> yeah. now, but you don't the other reported this is incumbent presidents. they're kind of insulated there on your force. one during the oval office, they don't face a lot of one-on-one combat like when you walk in the room. yeah. this solute you, they're not used to be thank challenge, but also they are naturally defensive about their record because they've been president four years. they think they've accomplished a lot. and so when you're challenged about that you go on the defense, you start being defensive and i think that for biden, he just has to be careful, like is not about defending his record. donald trump wants to go in there and wants to make it a referendum on biden, whether he is disappointed donald trump, whether he's crazy, donald trump, he wants to make it a referendum. biden no matter which donald trump shows up, he wants to make the election a choice, and he wants to paint a picture for people about what life is going to be like under four more years of joe biden versus former years of donald trump. so there's one thing that joe biden has to do in that debate. it's to make sure people leave the debate thinking joe biden to someone who cares about the american people and donald trump is someone who cares about himself. so every answer, so it has to funnel into that larger. >> and what about age? i mean, obviously both of these candidates are up there and we're going to watch both of them on stage for 90 minutes only with 2-breaks none other teams can come and talk to them or giving them advice or pump them up halfway through yes. >> they're both quite old i don't know if you're done the mouth of the numbers are 78, 81 yes by nothing question about his age. >> i think voters are, as we've seen from polling, more concerned about joe biden's age in his readiness to be president. i personally am not concerned about his ability to do the job. i do wish he were 20 years younger so that we weren't having this conversation. so i think he's got to step up their and show the joe biden that we saw the state of union who is punchy, was giving and taking and like just seen ready to do it. >> yeah. can we talk about the book? because it's actually incredibly timely democracy or al tawam to save america and ten easy steps, i think people are wondering if it's really that easy to do that. but you talked a lot about the cynicism that so many people feel they're going to feel that when they see these two, these two candidates that a majority of americans don't actually want to be voting for. but, but obviously we'll be dealing with. >> so one of the reasons we wanted to write the book is in part because we know that people are really cynical about politics. and i have a lot of very good reasons to be cynical about politics. but one of the things that we've learned in eight years of doing this show is how rewarding it can be when you step outside of your phone, you've stopped just seeing what's going on on your screen and you gotta get out there and talk to people, meet people, knock on doors. volunteer may calls because you remember that campaigns ultimately, it's not really about joe biden and donald trump yes, they are they they are what the narratives are about there, what the tv coverage is about there, who we vote for, but ultimately, the stakes are about what happens to us. and we have a lot of set, we have a lot of say in what happens in this system. and reminding people of their agency when there's so much media and noise and cynicism to get people to feel otherwise is a valuable project and it is especially important when people maybe wish the candidates couldn't remember the bay of pigs were alive for it and what does that look like when, you know, when you talk to to voters though, i mean, this is kind of what you all do. you're on the road a lot, you're interacting with people who i imagined come to you with a lot of questions of how do i get involved? what does this really look like? it is there even any chance to make a difference if you're just a regular person? yeah. i mean, there's gonna be a lot of nervous democrats watching the debate on thursday. so you ever certain rating, right? yeah. >> republicans two and thing is like we can't control how joe biden doesn't the debate. we can control the outcome of the election because the last election was only one by 40,000 votes across three states. and the electoral college. so it was really close and the upside of a closely divided electorate is that everything you do has a bigger impact. so what we always tell people whether you are volunteering for presidential election, a state election, a local election in your community, like the impact you have as one person can make all the difference because when winning elections are decided by a couple of hundred votes, couple of thousand votes, like every door you knock matters, every text you send matters and not only is it is it impactful, but it gives you the sense of agency that you're actually, you can control what other people do by persuading them to get out and vote because elections matter and they have a big impact on people's lives. >> yeah. and you'll talk to a lot of notable figures for this book is stacey abrams, alexandria ocasio-cortez, just a few on advice and what to look for. i mean, if someone they're looking at these candidates and a lot of people i think urine for younger candidates, different kind of candidates were watching this primary race in new york right now, that's one of those too expensive ever. i mean, what kind of candidates do, do people often ask you about? >> i mean, i think great candidates are people who are authentic to themselves and have a story that informs who they are our and their values and what they're fighting for, and to have a policy proposal that that that goes along with it, right. like someone like aoc, someone like stacey abrams, they just bleed authenticity like you believe them when they talk, they seem like real people. aoc was bartending not long ago before she was a member of congress. i think people that seem connected to the community he's a represent, those are the strongest candidates. >> yeah. what's your last piece of advice for anyone who's, who's watching this and interested in. maybe it's going to be thinking about this on thursday night i would say by the book, that'd be the first thing. and then also like don't give me a hard time about the shelter dog thing. like i didn't really mean it. i like shelter dogs. that was sort of antagonistic towards shelter dogs and i don't wanna go down for that there are so many more important things. >> shelter dogs on this book, pitch, love it but it is. >> here's, here's all say about the book is that where do i look? >> very funny. it's actually surprisingly funny. we worked really hard on it and all the prof, proceeds from the book, the province on the book go to vote save america, which is an organization that is helping to do everything we can to protect democracy on the ground and other groups that are doing good work. so we're not even, we're not even this isn't even a profit motive for us for the love of the game. >> maybe i'm for the dogs, for the dog. yeah. like i'll just get off my about it. i'll do donation to the shelter dogs, some things that adoption center or something, i hope biden wins. oh, i just hope you when jail. that note. thank you all for being here. dot during john fabra geld. love it great to have you coming up. donald jones says his vice presidential pick is likely going to be at thursday's debate. it might be one of these guys there was no we're going to allow a con artist to take over the conservative movement and donald trump is a con artists, just think that it's important that you're judged by the company you keep i wouldn't do business with him. >> no, i wouldn't i'm never trump guy. >> i never liked him all former critics of trump, all now vying to be his vice president. >> and also after a five-year stint in a high high-security prison in london for his alleged role. one of the largest us government breaches of classified material, dueling assigned just now i'll set to walk free. we have the details ahead thursday night. >> my from midland. the most anticipated moment of this election. fight is on america because that's where we are a nation of possibility, trump. >> we had the best economy, we had the best border, we had the best of everything, and now we get to do it all over again. >> we're gonna do but even better, 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 compared with other choose one roberto tube protects from fleas and ticks for 12 weeks, nearly three times longer. >> use with caution in dogs with a history of seizures or neurological disorders, protection that last longer bravo, revenge bravo shop etsy for thoughtful pieces made by real people to bring a little something extra to the ordinary. >> find items that add, wow, two walls and make you hold on love with your family room again when you want one of a kind pieces to refresh your home that's he has let me introduce you to class 500 the intuitive and easy to use trading app that gives you a glimpse into the future a futures trading, see a trading opportunity. you'll be able to trade. it needs two clicks once your account is open no matter what kind of trader you are plus 500 has you covered with a tailored solution? 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