cnn presidential debate, ac30 60 starts now tonight on 360 with the cnn press presidential debate, just two nights from now, we have breaking news and the biden campaign aimed to paint donald trump has quote, too dangerous and reckless, unquote to be president. >> that and what the former president acknowledges he did too much of the last time they debated. also tonight polls closing shortly in new york, congressmen jamaal bowman attempt to keep his seat and a contest hitting the democratic party left and center over israel and gaza. and from gaza, tonight's cnn's jeremy diamond with an up-close look at the pier, which american forces built to bring in humanitarian applause. but as in play with troubles good evening, thanks for joining us. it is crunch time times two ahead of thursday's cnn presidential debate, we begin tonight with new reporting for the second night running of a tougher tack, the biden campaign appears to be preparing their candidate to follow when the two men meet also new word and how differently they're practicing or not for the big night. and a hint from the former president that he wants to dial back one aspect, at least of his demeanor from 2020, reporting on that and more tonight from cnn's mj lee at the white house, kristen holmes at the trump campaign, and cnn political director david chelyan at the debates site in atlanta, mj lee starts us off so what have you learned about this contrast? the biden team is hoping to make against the former president will anderson, even though domestic policies are really top of mind for the biden team, i am told by a source, the foreign policy has come up in these debate prep sessions at camp david, led by the president's national security adviser, jake sullivan, and the president of course, is preparing for the possibility of foreign policy coming up on thursday night. >> and as one campaign official put it to me, they said that when it comes to foreign policy, the contrast at the president is it's going to try to draw on thursday night, really could not be more stark. they said, president biden stands up to dictators and defense freedom. trump is a loser who is too dangerous and reckless to ever be anywhere close to the oval office again one famous line from donald trump that is source had said is likely to come up thursday night this is recent claim that he would be a dictator on day one, but i do think it's worth noting a challenge for the biden team potentially as they're preparing for these foreign policy issues, is that some of donald trump's up positions on foreign policy issues are really murky and ambiguous on gaza. he actually hadn't said much publicly on ukraine brain. he has said that he would have resolved the conflict in one day, but he's never elaborated on how exactly he would have done that. and for the other side of that coin is the president is going to try to make an affirmative case for his leadership on the world stage as well. >> and i know you've learned more about the level of detail the biden team is incorporating into the preparations for the debate yeah. >> i mean, this is really the stage where they are trying to find tune every single detail and make sure that the president can be as prepared as you can be and i'm told by a senior adviser that that includes knowing exactly what he is going to see once he is behind that podium, that he watched the president of video that a staff or had taken during a walk-through of the cnn studio in atlanta, so that he could get a sense of exactly what he'll see once he is standing behind the podium. now, you'll recall that the biden team did win that coin flip. and what they chose was the right podium position. that means that he is going to be on the right side of the state of the tv screen for the audience that is watching, president trump is going to be on the left side. and you might say, you know, these are really superficial details, but perhaps not because i think for any team and particularly clearly for the biden team no detail is too small and i do think we're getting a sense of how seriously they are taking all of the debate preparation and they've been doing, i mean, is it true they've been doing mock debates and if so, how are they structuring the practice debates? >> yeah, we reported that the mock debates started in earnest yesterday. we know that the president has been using a podium adds up and that there are different advisors that are standing in for donald trump, for colleagues, jake tapper and dana the vast though no word yet on exactly who is playing those roles. but this is really anderson about replicating the experience of the president will have on thursday night as much as that is even possible. and that includes a force just going over all of the substantive issues that could come up, going over the different ways in which donald trump might behave it also includes just a test for his stamina. he's going to be standing there for 90 plus minutes and they want him to be as focused and as sharp as possible. and folks that we have talked to who have been involved in the past said the person that is playing donald trump in these mock debates, they have a balancing act. they want to give him bad experience, but they want to make sure that they're there isn't too much theatrical involved because back could end up being really distracting. >> mj lee, thanks very much. want to go to cnn's kristen holmes, not far from mar-a-lago, how is the former president preparing for this debate? and what topics are his allies advising him to focus on? do we know? >> interested? it's been far less consistent and traditional than what we seen from president joe biden. a lot of that because team is trying to fit what donald trump does, doesn't really like this. sit down and focus instead, it has been shorter conversations, policies, sessions, n as donald trump often does calls with allies, advisers see speaking their advice. now when it comes to what exactly they want him to focus on, they want him to focus on three things in particular, the economy, specially inflation. they wanted to focus on immigration as well as crime. these are things that they have seen the data on. they believe that voters think that donald trump is better on these issues jews, then president joe biden, they also are trying to talk to him about how to pivot away from questions on democracy or abortion? yes, they are coming up with answers, but how to get back to those three topics that they believe are key that will help presence of former president trump, quote, unquote, win. that debate on thursday and donald trump himself actually not rather candid in an interview with the washington examiner talking about his debate prep two things of note here. one is what he said about how it's difficult. he said it's very hard to prepare for the debate. you've got to know this stuff from years of doing it. and i know all the leaders and i know what i know. i think debating is an attitude more for than anything else, but not just attitude. donald trump clearly also reflecting on his previous attitude, particularly in those 2020 debates with joe biden, he specifically mentioned how he interrupted joe biden too many times during that debate clearly going back through those debates and trying to hone one his strategy heading into thursday. again, his team believes he can do well if he stays on message, particularly focused on those three issues, anderson and how to perform, present those random talk about the debate format. do they think it will help or hurt him? >> what's been really interesting to see an evolution among his closest allies and advisers who won. they are publicly bashing the format which they of course agreed to, but they have said that it doesn't benefit donald trump. that having an audience doesn't work for him. having muted mics but it's really been a shift behind closed doors and in private conversations, i've had with these allies and advisers, one, they originally said that they thought the lack of audience would hurt donald trump, that they thought he couldn't be energized without it that he really bills and feeds off of that audience. now, there has been a shift in this mentality that, that might actually be good, that we've seen donald trump on these rants when he's in a big rally with a lot of his supporters, where he's off topic and completely unfocused, perhaps. and this is the hope again of his allies and advisers that without an audience, he can actually stay on message. the other part of this is those muted mics. you heard donald trump himself saying that he interrupted joe biden too many times and that first debate in 2020, this really takes that element out of it. he's not going to have the capability to continue to go after biden while biden is speaking and some of his closest advisers actually believe that that could help them. but obviously anderson we are in uncharted territory here, particularly because it is former president donald trump and who knows how these elements are good layout until thursday when they're on that stage. >> yeah. kristen holmes, thanks so much. want to go to atlanta or cnn political director david challenge that has more on the format as kristen holmes just mentioned, the set of rules, the two sides agreed to, and how different this debate night we'll look because of it. so talked it was about the rules well, anderson, one of the biggest changes i think the view word see is no audience will be a part of this debate. >> there'll be the two candidates and the two moderators in the room. there kristen, you heard mentioned that the microphones will be turned on for the designated speaker. at the time they are designated to speak in the debate. his opponents microphone will be turned off at that time. timing lights are visible to the candidates throughout the debate. so they'll know when their time is running out and the two candidate podiums are eight feet apart from each other. obviously, that's lot closer than these two candidates were to each other on the debate stage compared to four years ago when we were in the height of covid. >> what are the rules regarding how each candidate is supposed to respond to questions? >> so the way that the debate is set up and these are cnn's format that both campaigns agreed to in order to participate in the debate. was that there would be a big macro topic and candidate a will get a question on that topic. they will have two minutes to answer that question. then there will be one minute response from candidate b, if you will and another one-minute response from candidate a. and then it flips the other way, staying within the broad topic areas a different slice of a question related to that topic candidate b will get two minutes at that starter question. candidate gets a minute to respond. candidate b gets two minute to respond. of course, jake and dana at moderator discretion can ask a one-minute followup, anderson, i would note also though these candidates, once they hit the debate stage, there is no staff know aids. they can't communicate with their team until after the debate has concluded. so the viewer will be seeing on at-home the sitting president and the former president unprecedented debate and they will not during the course of the debate, be consulting with any aids. >> all right. david julian, thanks so much. johnny showers, biden biographer evan asna's for pumpkin strategy. scott jennings and former trump white house communications director alyssa farah griffin evan, you've reported and spent a lot of time in prison. biden over the years, how does he prepare mentally, emotionally? 4 big moments like this? >> he does a lot of preparation. he can write down to the last minute. he'll be marking up a speech in this case, of course, there's no speech, really this is not about stuffing your head full of facts and figures. this part of the process is about poise, getting enough command and comfort with what's about to happen that when you get up on stage, you are comfortable well lasing those facts into your comments and let's face it also preparing for whatever it is donald trump's going to try to do to get under your skin. and we know for a fact as mj mentioned earlier, that they have got to helping him try to visualize the space that's very important. even all the way back in 1960, richard nixon didn't really have a good sense of the room and a debate. he spent too much time looking at the clock. people thought he didn't look enough into the camera and it hurt him. so that's kind of thing they're thinking about. >> alyssa based on mj lee is reporting, what do you think of the way prison biden seems to be preparing for this versus the former president. well, he's certainly leaning into hunkering down. i'm actually surprised by the level of specificity in detail we're getting from whitehouse source a lot now he's preparing and the kind of topics he's focusing on i assume that's meant to telegraph that he sees this as highly important. but i also think it raises the stakes and expectations of how he's going to perform, what he's going to run into as this biden loves to defend his record, he feels like he's not gotten enough credit for it. but what happens is you're looking backward. he also needs to be able to defend him his record, but look forward and present a forward-looking vision and all the while being up there against somebody who is known to try to throw him off of his balance is going to try to throw in jobs when it says time to speak. and i think it's always a little bit harder for the incumbent and these debates, yeah, i mean, it's got legendarily, can come when residents have a really hard time on first base, they haven't been confronted the way they do on a campaign. they they were used to people's sort of kowtow into them if you're joe biden, you can't believe you've got 38% approval rating. you can't believe these polls that say that people remember the trump presidency more finally, you just need to explain it which is why you just listen to me talk about how smart i am. you will also know when i think about these two, i think about them being like musicians and biden is going to be like a technical, he's reading off the sheet of music and trump is sort of like the guy with the cow bell exploring the studio. >> one technical, one vibe driven and in this thing, are people really listening for specific policy or are they looking to see, are you posible? >> do you seem like you could be plausible for four years, this is hurting biden because people think he's too old to serve another four years. i think this is i mean, i haven't this one. >> i think it's just gonna be so fascinating. i call moderated the second debate in 2016. hillary clinton evade, write out the access hollywood tape, and that was where trump was sort of wandering around on the stage and the tension was so extraordinary. this is that tension times. i don't know what to scott's point of sort of biden is about policy and trump is about kind of riffing and this weird political jazz but it's also in the end the thing that americans are really looking for is somebody who is in command, in command of the moment and commanded themselves. somebody who's able to convey a sense that they understand the gravity of the job. a lot of this in the end comes down to who can convey the sense that they will be more normal president. bruce read, one of the senior policy advisors who are spending a lot of time with biden and debate prep said to me earlier this year, look, america is a normal country and americans are normal people. what he means by that is fundamentally there is a level of exhaustion out there. we all see it when we talked to voters, when we talk to our friends and family, people want to have politics take up less space in their minds. and part of the goal is the person who can get up on that stage and say to you, look i've got this and it's not clear and a lot of people's minds that donald trump has the capacity for self-control. or let's face it, the joe biden can convey the kind of vigor that he needs to on that. >> i'm going to listen. the advantage biden had the last time was he was not the incumbent and trump was and there was a lot of animosity and a lot of no angst and he was more of a blend. biden was more of a blank slate. he's now in the position where he's not a blank slate and trump is our memories were shortened. >> one, i came for each are very short. >> i painfully rewatch the first debate and you very much see that donald trump is more on his heels. he's defending the covid response. joe biden's able hello, to work in jobs at him yes. the onus is more on the incumbent, but let's think for a second, how much has happened since trump left office roe v. wade comes down january 6 happens. you have 88 felony indictments. you've got the criminal felony charges. you have both candidates investigated for mishandling classified documents. there's actually a wealth of things for donald trump tower after defend as well. so what i'm curious to see as how much or his advisors able to break through to him to say don't get caught up, re-litigating january 6 or talking about the stolen election and go back to the economy, to the border issues that he's actually strong. >> he's got the chances him re-litigating the 20 is thoughts on the election. i mean, it seems almost inevitable. >> the smart answer is look everybody here has different opinion than me. you know what my opinion is. i know what yours is, what we need to talk about is inflated and immigration, if he did that every time it was brought up, that would be a huge win. i mean, there's a lot of things for him to do here. i hope he actually speaks to the moment we're having on anti semitism in this country. remember, joe biden launched his campaign. he said, because of charlottesville, we've got this issue in los angeles this week. we have these anti-semitic events all over the country. i know it's not one of the top issues everybody is talking about, but to me, it is fundamental to how biden got into this race and why he said he was running. and i think trump could cause some habakkuk on that stage if he used it at the debate, it did sit down to dinner with neo-nazis. i mean, so he has weaknesses on that front as well. does he not? >> oh, he's certainly does. and that is a conversation that by the way, should be had and i suspect our moderators will be prepared to fact check if anyone white washes either their records. but i think scott's right the he can call into question. will you were supposed to bring about healing you're supposed to get us past this moment, but that's where biden the onus is so much on him to remind people of the worst things donald trump has done and said, the other thing is does the former president just attack biden on the former president has been saying awful things on the campaign trail. real battle. he's on drugs, he's not, not all there. does he just do that directly to him 4 the bulk of this debate throughout this debate, i mean, when i heard that david john was saying that there's eight feet between them i mean, one of my thoughts was, does he honore that eight-foot distance? i mean, does he i think that this podium arrangement will confine him to his side of the ring. frankly, it'll be pretty weird if he begins wandering over there. but i have no doubt he's going to bring up this notion, this kind of idea that they're pumping up biden with something to make them perform. look, the fact is, i don't expect and to shy away from this if he's going to if he's going to be attacked on a personal basis, one of the words you begin to hear from the campaign and i've heard it from joe biden himself talking about donald trump is the word loser. i would not be surprised to hear joe biden use that word on stage to see what the reaction is from his