against, but they were just potted plants. >> i mean, it's not like they actually participated in the debate. no disrespect to the cpd maturity. >> and ultimately your audiences to television audience exactly. >> it's really the only one that matters when you're in the hall, your perception of actually how it plays it's really muted. all right, thank you very much to our panel. thanks to all of you for joining us on this incredibly consequential day. i'm kasie hunt. don't go anywhere. cnn news central starts right now say the words. >> debate de in america, this is special coverage of cnns to store it presidential debates. so special, we are in atlanta so special, even we have to sit down. the first ever debate between a current president and a former president. the earliest general election debate ever which also means this is the first time a general election debate is being held with neither candidate officially nominated yet by their parties. but i digress stakes, even the campaigns are admitting they are sky high and there's new reporting this morning on the last-minute preps for both candidates and last-minute details on how they plan to take each other on we are standing by for president biden and donald trump to arrive in atlanta when they do look at a walk-through of the stage before the big show, which is exactly where are sara sidner is right now? >> that is right. i am standing on the debate stage where who resident biden and former president trump will face off in the historic debate. now, we got to tell you, we're going to give you a behind the scenes look at how the candidates will see the debate and how you will see the debate and all the new rules they'll have to wrangle with a new our cnn news central starts right now as we repair for this historic debate all right i am standing here on the debate. this is a historic moment on several levels. first of all, we've never seen a president and vice president debate each other to become the president again. second of all, this is a very different stage. they have a lot of different rules. and so i want to give you a look at exactly what they will be experiencing and what you will be experiencing. so here we are the candidates will be standing here on the stage. president biden will becoming from your screen left president trump will be becoming for further brighton become for your screen, right. president trump will becoming from your screen luck, each of the candidates will have two minutes to answer. the moderators questions they will have one minute for rebuttal after that. and then if the moderators decide that need to clarify something that we'll get another minute, but i want to give you an idea of what they are going to see. my part of her, tony is going to come around here to show you their view of this large room. we will see there is where the moderator will sit. are dana bash and jake tapper will sit in those two chairs and be speaking directly to the president of former president asking the questions. we also are giving you a look at what they have. they are not allowed to have notes during this debate, but they are allowed to have a notepad and a pen already set up here for both of them let me give you some sense of just how close they will be, because this is unusual as well they're basically within reach of one another about eight feet apart. and then they're going to see exactly when they are actually on camera and actually speaking in, the audience can hear them. and when they're not, because they're gonna be looking at life on cameras far over there. and they will see when it is flashing yellow, they have 15 seconds to finish up their answer when it is flashing red five seconds left. and when it is still and it's just read the mic, will be turned off. and how were they know if they're not looking up at that moment? there are two little lights here that will be green when they are speaking to let them know that their microphone is on and it will be turned off when the mics are muted. you know that that is one of the things that is a bit different now. but the really big difference that could have an impact on these candidates is that if you look around the room here and i'll give you a 360 view. what do you notice no chairs no audience will see who that affects more king john. yeah, it really is remarkable how close they are on the stage there i was standing there last night. >> and you can touch both of electrons. these are two guys who haven't been in the same room. yeah, since 2020. and before that, it's not like they spent a lot of time together all of a sudden, the most important 90 minutes may of their political lives, they can make in fear. hear. each other breathe me frantically, feel it there within touching distance. and i'm not sure they like each other very much so you can imagine how uncomfortable look can check no handshake. that's like the least of the worries, but that's always a question when they walk on stage and other going to be, you know, reach out and touch someone there definitely be able to do that tonight. >> all right. we will get back to the debate room very shortly. in the meantime, how are the candidates? spending the day? cnn's alayna treene, who covers the trump campaign. she is in the spin room. that's a good luck in room behind you there, alayna, let's talk about donald trump. what's he doing right now? >> well luck. i mean donald trump and his team have been preparing over the last several days behind closed doors at mar-a-lago and a lot of the conversation has been trying to steer donald trump towards staying on message. that is something that has been very hard for the former president to do in the past. we see him austin on the campaign trail, go on long grants and talking about his personal grievances. that is something donald trump's campaign does not want him to do. another thing i'm told that his team are really advising him on as he has him to today is to stay away from personal attacks on joe biden. remember, in 2020, donald trump level the series of personal attacks on biden, including bringing up his son, hunter biden. there are questions today over whether he will go into the recent conviction for hunter biden and his gun case. all of that are things that donald trump's team does not want him to talk about. they want him to stay focused on three key issues, including the economy, the border crime all areas where he is pulling better than joe biden. now, i'm also told behind the scenes just to get into a little bit of what sarah was walking you all through with this debate setup it's been really interesting in my conversations. there's been a bit of a change in how trump's team views the debate rules. one with the microphones being shut off. initially, they didn't like that. they wanted him to be able to continue speaking to interrupt if he needed to however, i'm told in recent days, they've really changed their thought on that. they actually think, you know what this might be better to keep him from coming off as aggressive as she did back in 2020 in that first debate with biden. the other thing about the audience, they also are starting to believe that's more of a positive as well. donald trump likes to feed off a crowd. he often gets his energy and takes cues from people in the audience with their no being, there, being no audience tonight on that debate stage. and in that room donald trump, they think will be able to more easily stay on message. >> so let, uh, you are in the spin room, which is a remarkable magical place because it is a room where after the debate, people will come and tell you that both candidates, one, you will hear from both campaigns no matter what happens on that stage, that their candidate won what, what do you think it's gonna be like? at roughly 10:33 p.m. tonight i mean, well, first of all, you can see that it's quite empty behind me. >> it's very early in the morning here in about 12 hours. that'll be an entirely different case. there's going to be roughly 1,000 journalists here. we're told from 35 different countries 321073, 321073173, excuse me, different networks. this room is going to be packed. it's going to be standing room only if you see this a stage area behind me that's where the spinning will actually be happening. you're going to have surrogates from the trump campaign, from the biden campaign, all of them touting their candidates performance, like you said, john, regardless of what happens claiming that their candidate one. and so we're going to see a lot of that spin. it's why it's called the spin room here tonight, shortly after that debate embargoed until delivery. this is from both campaigns. we want to train great to see you this morning. thanks so much. >> saclay. >> we won we won. and let me think about that again. i think we want president biden has been at camp david for days in prep sessions for tonight's debate. cnn has learned, among the things he's preparing for is to defend not only his politics, but also his family, specifically his son hunter, from trump's insults and attack, cnn's kayla tausche is with us here in atlanta. get great to see you. >> good to see you so biden will be arriving later this afternoon. it'll be heading to georgia a little later this morning. what are you hearing about last minute today? preps what where are they setting expectations for president biden by his nature, is a night owl and i spoke to some sources late last night. they had long working days at camp david, and when i asked about whether they had finished mock debates, is that the schedule is still fluid and there was room in the schedule for potential last mock date today, even if they if the president woke up and felt like that was something he wanted to do to get some last last-minute preparation. and so they'll they'll head down to atlanta midday today and they've been refining all sorts of attack it's counter attacks on both foreign and domestic policy as well as things have a personal nature. landon just reported that president trump's team does not want him to level those personal attacks, but they came before and the president's team has wanted to prepare him for them one adviser that i spoke to use the mike tyson quote to describe the nature of these preparations, saying everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face and i wanted president biden to be able to absorb those first punches to really real from the potential for very, very personal attacks in private so that he could compose himself and then craft a come back from there. as far as the opening protocol goes, this has been an area of fascination for a lot of people. will they shake hands? will there be yeah, two of them given how close their podiums are? and while i'm told that the biden camp doesn't expect president to extend a hand 4 handshake. they can't possibly anticipate what donald trump will do. and so they don't want to premeditate what could potentially happen on stage, but they do expect him to call the former president donald as he did in 2020, except in instances where there might be some utility in tying him to the presidency, specifically, where january 6 is concerned to say that he was the president, then he had the keys to the castle. he could have done something about it and he didn't to put him in that role and show in the biden camps view how he failed in that role. so that's something to watch for tonight as far as what eating your radius looks like if you're president biden, he loves pasta with red sauce. he loves coke zero in orange gatorade. i asked an advisor what he would be eating before the debate. they said, we don't know it will be eating before or after. we'll just have to see how the schedule plays out. all so many unknowns, but so many unknown to talk about setting an expectation, uh, mike tyson quote on how you're approaching this it's the best mic and i knew that was coming the video. and i have to say yes, both candidates will say we won, but i hate to inform you that you will have to suffer through at least 1,000 rapid response press releases in your inbox before we will get to that, we'll take we'll take it for this huge moment in presidential history. it's good to see you. goodbye. great detail there. this is the first time, as we said, the donald trump and president blind will be in the same room since 2020 they're gonna be like this close to each other three, this is three, almost this close, just as awkward as it is for us right now, it will be for them later on. we've got some new reporting on an ad campaign that the biden campaign has on the way. and then a draft opinion, one of the most critical supreme court cases of the term was accidentally leaked to online. what it can mean for abortion access around the country. and cnn gets access to the boeing production floor. see what has changed as the company tries to recover from major safety lapses the most anticipated moment of this election and the stakes couldn't be higher. >> the president, and though former president, one stage, moderated by jake tapper and dana bash the cnn presidential debate tonight at nine live on cnn and streaming on max can the, riva support your brain health? 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-five years. introducing the comcast business 5-year price lock guarantee. powering 5 years of savings. powering possibilities. favorite pair of jeans today. i'm taylor available on the apple app store or android come at me sharks. let's do this. it's theta versus shark in the ultimate strike past shark week, just gotta hundred percent more, john c. sharp reposted by me, johnson it's sunday, july 7 and discovery it stream on max just ahead of the most important one of the most important moments of the presidential election so far, the biden campaign is looking to capitalize launching a media blitz of sorts across digital and print outlets targeting voters of all demographics, really trying to push their message. >> the dangers they see of a second donald trump presidency. it's a multi-million-dollar rollout which highlights also the fact that the biden campaign is well aware of what is on the line tonight when the president and donald trump take the stage, joining us right now as the communications director for the biden campaign, michael tyler, it's good to see you this morning. very early morning for a very long night. you guys are all well, we will all be watching together. what is the president? doing today? what's the ritual? what's the plan for today? yeah. well, thank you so much for having me happy to beit day listen, the president is just making final preparations to present his clear vision for where he wants to take the country over the course of the next four years in making sure that the american people understand the fundamental choice in this flexion. he's going to talk about the work that he wants to continue to do to build an economy that grows and middle out in the bottom-up that he wants to do to protect americans fundamental rights and freedoms in fundamentally protect our democracy. and he's going to contrast that against his opponent in donald trump, who is now running a campaign as a convicted felon based upon revenge, based upon retribution in service of him self. and so he's making the final preparations to present that fundamental choice to the american people. >> the way that donald trump and allies have described are set expectations if you will, has evolved in recent weeks in terms of what they think they're coming up against in joe biden trump saying that thinking he's one of the worst debaters of saying biden's one of the the worst debaters of all time that he can't put two sentences together, two now more recently saying, hearing people say that no, joe biden is an experience of beta are formidable opponent. where are you willing to set expectations for? >> listened, i think that the trump team is playing games that we've always seen them. do. they like to use debates? is entertainment process. they like to complain about debates sometimes they skip out on debates. the president will be there tonight. we still assume that donald trump will be there as well. but listen, the fact of the matter is they play these games because they know on the issues that matter, mostly the american people, donald trump is a loser, right? when you talk about the things that the president said he wants to talk to donald trump about the role that donald trump played and overturning roe v. wade, the american people mentally disagree with that. donald trump still thinks that the extreme state-level abortion bans that he's responsible for are playing out brilliantly when you talk about the type of economy that donald trump wants to return us to where he's out on the stump talking about more tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy, more give out giveaways for