source tonight's substance and stammered out. >> we have no reporting on the final phase of president biden's preparations as trump world is doubling down on a ridiculous accusation 48, hours away from the historic debate right here on cnn, house speaker mike johnson will join me live. >> plus the polls have just close in the most expensive house primary ever. >> a member of the so-called squad is fighting for his political life. and it's also judgment time for republican lauren boebert, bu for members switch districts when it looked like her congressional career was about to go up in smoke. and i'm brand new reporting breaking here at nine on steve bannon and a notable change and the judge for his upcoming fraud trial i'm kaitlin collins, and this is the source the polls are in a dead heat and the insults or flying expectations are being gamed. and the accusations about getting juiced up on drugs are frankly ridiculous and getting out of hand. that all means that one of the most highly anticipated, anticipated live events and modern american history is set to begin 48 hours from right now the mission for both candidates and a cnn presidential debate is a contrast. and before you start yelling at your screen, yes, these two could not be any more different from one another. >> but what happens on thursday night in both style and substance has the potential to alter the trajectory of this race president biden has spent days locked and intense preparation, surrounded by his closest advisers at camp david and our sources are telling us tonight that full mock debates are underway at the podium under the light he's even watching taped to know exactly what he's going to see when he steps up to that lecture. >> his team shot a video during a walk through of the cnn studio. and as i reported, while covering him at the white house, when biden prepares, he does so incredibly intensively the former president, on the other hand, who is not known for his attention to detail, is talking about how very hard it is to prepare while at the same time insisting. he doesn't need it i think i've been preparing for it for my whole life. if you want to know the jurors and i'm not sure you can lock yourself into a room for two weeks or one week or two days and really learn what you have to know what it will do very well. we've, we've done well in the past and i think we'll do very well. i know the subject matter, but i don't think corey, you could just luck yourself in a room like some people do and think you're going to come out, okay. it doesn't seem to work that way trump says, in his view, instead, debating is more of an attitude than anything else telling the washington examiner, i know what i know. >> it's largely based on common sense a common sense for trump's advisers lately seems to be this need to double down though, on a baseless distraction ahead of thursday night, we know that when it comes to the big events, when it comes to debates, when it comes to state of the union, things of that nature that they're going to have joe biden completely super soldiered up he's going to be ready to go. he has a certain muscle memory that kicks in for having done this for 50 years super soldiered up the biden campaign actually might welcome that comparison to captain america, but drove as co-campaign manager, however, was more to the point on this he's probably going to be filled with a role like you was at the might of the state of the union and so it's just it'll provide a great contrast there's really no more way to fact check that than we already have. >> the more that they say at the more ridiculous it sounds. i leave source tonight is the democratic congressman from maryland and also supporting president biden. no surprise there. and jamie raskin, it's great to have you, congressman, when you look at it thursday night and just how many eyes are going to be watching? joe biden and donald trump on stage. what are you believe is a must-do for president biden well, it's an epic moment obviously, and trump's team is the obviously in desperation trying to rattle the president with all of these ludicrous claims about adderall, unless they're looking for a reason pull out, we know that the 2020 debates were a disaster for donald trump. >> he refused to debate his primary opponents. he refused to take the stand in new york. he refused to come and testify when he was accused of inciting a violent insurrection and was impeached for it. any refused just to come before the january 6 committee. so i think they're extremely nervous over there and that's why they're lashing out at joe biden with all of these concoctions. i think president biden needs to do three things. you need to look to the past and demonstrate that his administration has been a tremendous success. the lowest unemployment rate in more than 50 years. we've lowered inflation more than any of the other countries in the g7. the economy is roaring in the manufacturing sector where more than 900,000 jobs have been added, more than 15 million new jobs. donald trump, of course was one of only two presidents who left office with fewer jobs than when he started him in herbert hoover, which is a pretty exact analogy in terms of what both of those guys did to our economy. but i think that president biden also needs to talk about donald trump and how he is indeed a serious peril to the the future of democracy and freedom in america trump has been running all over the country bragging about the fact that he packed the supreme court with these justices who overthrew roe versus wade. and now they plan to go further and basically make abortion of federal crime everywhere in the country the way they've done it in a heard of the country and get rid of birth control and ivf t2, that's where the mega right wants to go. and then biden needs to talk about everything we really need to be working on once we get rid of the mega threat. >> that's a lot to cover and 90 minutes, but when you mentioned the economy, that is one of the areas that is of the most important to voters. but also we're president biden polls the weakest. and so i wonder how he balances that of getting on stage in this fear that we've heard from some of his advisers that he'll spend too much time defending his record and being defensive about it and not tapping into what we're seeing that voters are feeling and the sentiments about the economy well, president biden doesn't need to defend his records he just needs to articulate his record. >> i mean, i sat there for four years under donald trump, we had infrastructure week, we had infrastructure month. we just never had an infrastructure bill and president biden sent it to us in the first couple of weeks of his administration and we pass that without much help from the republicans. but the democrats unanimously supported at one 1.2 trillion dollar investment in roads, the highways, the bridges, the ports the airport's rural broadband. we did that and look at the inflation reduction act, dramatic reductions in the cost of prescription drugs constituents who are spending five or $600 a month on insulin as diabetics that's capped at $35 a month within the medicare program. and a $2,000 a year out out-of-pocket cap. the democrats did that. the republicans are trying to overturn that. they're campaigning against inflation reduction act right now. so president biden just needs to remind people that the democrats are in the business of delivery bring the goods to the people, and that's what democracy is all about yeah, of course it's a high tech, high bar for thursday night. >> we'll see what that looks like. congressman jamie raskin. thank you for your time tonight. >> you bet. >> i want to bring in maggie haberman, senior political correspondent for the new york times, ashley allison, who is the former national coalitions director for the biden harris 2020 campaign, and also republican strategist. sure. michael singleton, great to have you all here maggie, you heard trump just in the last hour in this interview with corey lewandowski talking about how he's approaching this, how he's approaching his prep. so far has not been doing the same kind of formal prep that we've seen the biden campaign doing. what do you make of how he's approaching this now that we're two days away, he is taking it more seriously than i think he generally likes to acknowledge that he is even admitted in an interview. i think it was with the washington examiner that he had interrupted biden too much, which is something he has said to people around him privately, i was surprised here. they said it publicly about their first debate where biden was widely seen as beating him pretty handily, just by standing there and smiling i don't know what that translates to. once he gets to the debate stage, donald trump, as you said, does not prepare conventionally the way we are used to president's doing it he tends it's to think that people can't inform him of things. his term in office was actually a bit ago and they've been doing some policy refreshers. the question is going to be, i mean, a couple of things. these two men really don't like each other. biden and trump. and so to my mind that creates a huge x-factor when they get on stage because you just don't know, you can do all the preparations in the world as candidates. and then when you get into the arena, it can be very different. number one, number two, i don't you know, you saw trump at a rally the other night saying, should i be nice or should i be very mean? and i suspect he will interrupt less and i suspect he will be mean because i think that is his speed when it comes to being on the attack mean in the sense of of what like attacking hunter biden or just i think that if what i've heard conflicting things about this, i think that inevitably when the question of trump's criminal conviction comes up there is a real chance trump is then going to turn it around about hundred button hunter biden is the son of a president, but he is not running for president. and so that is just a different thing. but trump's folks believe it is a way to get under president biden's skin. and i don't think they would see it as a hands-off moment now, trump is aware that his, his own attacks on hunter biden in that first debate in 2020 humanized president biden basically gave president biden an opportunity to send my son is an addict and he had a struggle that a lot of americans have and trump came off looking incredibly mean and belittling to an issue that a lot of people struggle with. i don't know that we're there. >> now. >> this is just a very different moment until president i didn't i mean, when state of the union, these big events where he does give speeches and typically has done pretty well at them and he spent so much time preparing, i think people really underestimated if you don't actually witnessed it or hear about it and see it, but he does been an incredible amount of time trying to be ready for these big moments. >> it's not just these big moments when i worked for the vice president biden, when i worked for the candidate biden in 2020 20 when he was running for office, when i worked for him on the transition team, we would prep him because he cares about the issues he cares about the people were talking to. we will be doing a table of labor workers and he would want to know their birthday, how many kids they had, how many jobs they've had, were they originally from this town where they not because that is what you want in your leader. you want them to be committed. you wanted them to be locked in, whereas trump is so careless, so fearless. he thinks he can't though these jabs. he thinks he can be listen that it'll it'll make him look like this strong, tough man. but if he goes, if he thinks he takes that approach and goes after hunter biden, i have to tell you that. is that doesn't work in the polling. it didn't work in 2020, and it still won't work now, whether you were addict in 2020 years still at a recovering addict in 2024. and families understand that, and families have compassion that is not a winning strategy for tragedy for donald trump. and i hope joe biden does the prep that he always has done as a candidate and shows up in defenses. rucker. >> sure. michael, what do you expect this to look like? let me look. i think the former president is acutely aware of the magnitude of thursday night. i think he's aware of how electorally close the previous election was in 20 20 august, about less than 100,000 volts across four different states and i think he understands that there are a sliver of voters in the middle who may be on the fence about president biden who voted for him, thought things were going to look differently over the past four years and have made up their minds. i don't know if i want to give him another four years. i'm potentially interested in trump but can trump showcase that he's a statesman, kenny showcase tone, the proper tone that is. and i would say to the point of addiction, i don't think the former president is going to throw that out there unless he feels personally attacked. but i think the american people should also remember the foreign president lost a brother who also suffered from alcoholism in the past. so he's acutely aware of what addiction can do to an individual and also to a family? yeah. can we just have the format though, maggie, because it trump's that's something today that he often is more revealing just when he speaks about this and he seems very concerned about the fact that there's no audience and was talking about how he believes it can really essentially it's going to be a sterile dead room was his quote to the examiner. and he does seem to have concern that you won't be able to see the audience reaction to how he's handling an issue as sensitive. is that one or anything else in every interview? >> every interview, every debate that i have seen him do every live form for him that i have seen him do. he uses the audience as a second character on stage with him and he plays off of it. and so yes, i mean, i'm not surprised to hear him complaining about that. you're absolutely right. i think if he wasn't concerned about that, we wouldn't have had days and days of him and his team essentially trying to work the refs in the lead up to the debate and complaining about fairness over and over again. so yes, trump is somebody who uses an audience to great effect. i don't know what it will look like absent that, but no, it's not a it's not an additive for him by any stretch. >> i think it's a benefit that there isn't an audience to maggie's point, the former president does feed off of that. if i'm an advisor, you have to be potentially concerned about the bombastic name nature of the former president because of an audience. so absent an audience, my presumption would be he'll be a little more toned down. he doesn't have a crowd to potentially react to some of the things that he may say that some may say is a bit outrageous or outlandish is why i think that potentially benefits. >> i've dislike try i can't forget the last eight years and i've yet to see donald trump be in private settings in a public campaign at the reporting out from mar-a-lago or in an interview where he doesn't have a moment where he lashes out, where he doesn't have a moment where he is the true epitome of the nastiness that he asked his crowd whether he wants to be so i you know, perhaps perhaps one could dream that if someone's running for president, they would behave themselves on a debate stage. but the last eight years have not proven that that is who donald trump is. and i don't want to pretend like we're going to see somebody different and that we should then forget those last eight years, even if he does have a well behaved night for television for maggie go i'm sorry. i do i do agree that i think that there is an amnesia factor that we've all talked about with trump i think that the challenge for president biden is going to be to try to make tell viewers why they should care more about that. in anything that trump is saying about things that impact their lives directly trumpist. >> so difficult, correct. i mean, you saw hillary clinton talking about that today and you're yeah. >> i mean, everybody who has debated against him has said exactly that, that it's just incredibly hard that doesn't definitionally make trump a good debater. by the way, we would conventionally describe good debaters, but he is effective at just chewing up whoever is on stage with him so that he ends up winning by default, although he did not win by default in that first one in 20 hillary clinton wrote, just what on this because she said it's nearly impossible to identify what his arguments even our he starts with nonsense and then do grosses into bladder. >> this has gotten only worse than the years since she debited him in 2016. she says it's a waste to try to refute. his arguments. does biden risk? getting dragged into that, but let me know all other reported that i have seen this far, including by our network, is that the that the president plans to go after donald trump and remind the american people on january 6 or the state of democracy, et cetera. and i'm not certain how that sends a message to voters who are worried about the bottom line. >> i have not met a single american out there who have not made up their mind about donald trump, whether they liked the guy or disliked the guy. >> so this idea that you're going to go on into base age if you're biden said, well, he's a terrible person, therefore, i'm better okay with all due respect, mr. president, that's great. and all. but how about the bills and i'm struggling to pay at the end of the month. how about their crappy paycheck that i'm getting sure that jobs are doing great. i appreciate you for that, but i'm still not making enough money those are the things that the average person is dealing with every single day. caitlin and i have yet to see an argument from president biden that he can articulate to say, i deserve another four years because i have done this. >> well, i would i would just say that i don't think donald trump is also given a convincing argument why he deserves four more years either. but i think there are different segments to this audience. there are the people who are going to vote for joe biden and they need to rally them around so that they become the mouthpieces after this debate, it spreading the gospel of joe biden. then there's people who are still undecided. maybe those nikki haley voters, maybe those kaltura voters, and they end joe biden needs to make a convincing narrative then there are people like me who need to be constant, not actually, i don't need to be constantly remind but i am reminded and i get fired up when i remember how terrified and how discuss it i felt under four years of trump. and that is what i am going to do to bring people to the polls in november. >> ashley allison. sure. michael singleton, maggie haberman, we will so what happens on thursday night also right now the results are coming in at this moment for what was the most expensive house primary in american history, perry entin is here where the breakdown and maybe we'll get a few projections tonight. also, speaker house, house speaker mike johnson is going to join me live to talk about donald trump's debate strategy. that's ahead thursday, night my for midland the most anticipated moment of this election, biden your honor, on america because that should we are a nation of possibility. 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 two very different visions for america. one unprecedented night moderated by jake tapper and dana bash, the cnn presidential debate thursday 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