the source tonight, a fiery president biden says he's not going anywhere. as the new york times editorial board is calling on him to drop out of the race for the good of the country and the fallout tonight from donald trump's avalanche of lies last night firehose of false. so it's really aimed directly at. now, we've learned more than 50 million viewers. i'm kaitlin collins, and this is the source even at this. late hour tonight, president biden and his campaign are still scrambling, like they never have before. pull off what could be a mission impossible on ringing the alarm bells that are sounding within his own party. this after the president and the presumptive nominees disastrous performance in front of 50 million viewers last night, right here on cnn. if you're still processing what happened and what you saw, trust me so are we and president biden today was out on the campaign trail attempting to tamp down the panic among democrats i know i'm not a young man. >> i don't walk as easy as i used to. i don't speak as smoothly that i used to i don't do bad debate is well, as i used to what i know what i do know. i know how to tell the truth i know millions of americans know when you get knocked down, you get back i gave him my words, the biden i would not be running again if i didn't believe with all my heart and soul, i can do this job okay. >> well, that was held 10,000 decibels louder and clearer than what we all watched in heard for 90 minutes on stage, last night. >> but at that rally in north carolina today, i should note the president had a teleprompter. he was energized by that adoring crowd of supporters that you could hear in the background. it took place in the middle of the afternoon one. point during that speech by did basically acknowledged that he blew the debate last night, which i should note. but those ratings could be one of the most-watched events of this entire 2024 campaign. now, biden is promising voters. he has four more years in him to do this job but it is still an open question tonight of whether those assurances that we are hearing from him are going to be enough for those in his own party who floating the idea of whether or not he should be replaced on the ticket. that includes tonight, the new york times editorial board with this headline just publishing a short time ago to serve his country president biden should leave the race we're gonna talk more about that editorial board and what they're writing. they're what their argument is in a moment. but i should note on the other side of all of this, president biden does have quite a powerful ally who is coming to his defense. does former running mate on the presidential ticket, former president obama, who i should note as we talked about on the show last week his face, his own crisis of confidence on the debate stage. and he said today, quote, bad debate nights happen. trust me, i know. but this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life in someone who only cares about himself of course, the man that president obama is referencing there is the one who is sharing the stage with president biden last night, former president donald trump, who had this to say out on the campaign trail today. >> did anybody last night watch? i thing called the debate that was a big one. joe biden's problem is not as age, it's not as anything really. it's got no problem. other than it's his competence he is grossly incompetent. they keep saying i know people that are much older than him that are doing unbelievable things my source tonight knows the conversations that are happening inside biden's inner circle. >> mitch landrieu is the national co-chair of president biden's reelection campaign and mitch, it's great to have you here tonight. just first on this new york times editorial board, the argument yeah let's thank you for being here. they're calling for president biden to step aside and their basis for this is they're saying the last night he struggled to explain what you'd accomplished in a second term, he struggled to respond to mr. trump's provocations. he struggled to hold him accountable for his lies, his failures, his chilling plans more than once he struggled to make it to the end of a sentence mitch, i just it's a question everyone had. i think what happened last night? >> well first of all, the president and politely declines in new york times offer to stand down. he's going to stay in this race and he's going to win president biden today. you just showed a great clip of him that's the joe biden that i know. that's the joe biden then i'll worked with for two years in the white house as we rebuilt the country and build 15 million jobs and created the lowest unemployment rate. i think president obama says it well doors kearns goodwin said it before. people have bad night's. that's the closest you're going to get to joe biden admitting that he had a bad night these things happened in campaigns. and i think everybody who watched that debate last night kinda wandered li, you why, did he show up that way? but it has happened before and it will happen again. the most disappointing thing to me though last night was not joe biden's performance. it was a fact that nobody fact check donald trump. and now that we've had a couple of hours to think about what he did. we now know factually, and this is from your network that almost everything he said was a lie, literally everything was a lie except when he told the truth about doubling down on all the awful things he did when he was president the united states. and that he promised to do again. and so you saw chaos you, saw the real donald trump. he's going to double down on it and the country has got to have a choice. i would take joe biden's bad debate day against four years of another donald trump presidency. any day, anytime any place. >> we did in fact check donald trump last night we had daniel dale lawn. i talked about it as soon as we get out of the debate, of course, he was lying about january 6, many other things. and we're going to talk about that more in a moment. but biden is the candidate that you're working for. and today you're defending him. i mean, he was reading off a teleprompter during that rally today, he'd go off prompter for a bit of that, but he was reading off a teleprompter and last like 50 million people were watching, 50 million people were not watching that speech in north carolina lineup today. and so i just the question is, can president biden recover from that? we'll first of all, i think i think you're going to hear today and i don't think that you can really kind of put lipstick on this pig the president had a tough time last night, he admitted that today, bad bad debates happen from time to time. >> the president has a record to stand on its own good thing that they're doing while in the debate is not the same thing as governing a country. and we actually have two records and the receipts of two presidents that have served for years. donald trump was cataclysmic for this country after the pandemic, donald trump did an awful job, donald jump participated in an insurrection. donald trump lost 2.5 million jobs jobs we have 40 of 44 people that worked for donald trump that a begging us not to put him back in the oval office again, he has now, as you know, been convicted of 34 felonies. and of course he's got all these other legal troubles. so i'm not what i meant to say about not checking, doing. it was during the debate, after the debate. and now that we've had time to look at it, i think people have now begun to say wow. if you compare these two guys records and joe biden, success, i'd rather have joe biden then have donald trump and the president is going to have to go out there and prove it like he did today. and i think you will agree with me his presentation today was energetic, it was strong, it was forceful, it was at times humble, and it was at times leaning forward and biden than i know. and the one that i've worked with was it 15 minutes speech to be fair? also, the teleprompter compared to 90 minutes with no notes and no prompter last night. and i think i'm mentioned just on the overall and the point you're talking about the style of that, but that is something that people remember in debates president nixon would, would like to point that out, right? that that was an, obviously an issue for him that cost him dearly. but on the argument that you just made, why could it president biden or why didn't he articulate that last night in his closing argument? he didn't mention abortion. he did it mention donald trump's fiction. he didn't mention the indictments against him. he didn't mention january 6. why didn't he mentioned that in his closing arguments, right? he he he was because he wants the ball last night. that's the only answer that you can have. but well, whether you do well on a debate has nothing to do with how well you govern the country. that's when you look at the receipts. and there are receives that both of these presidents have one guy as the president said, is like a walking crime syndicate. the other guy gets up everyday work i can offer the american people and is delivered more than most presidents in the history of the country. and the question is which one of these men is going to take america into the future because one of them wants to go forward. that's joe biden and the other one wants to go backwards. that's donald trump. >> you talk a lot about what's at stake in this election. we hear it from democrats all the time. we hear from president biden saying he believes he's the only person best equipped to be donald trump because he's the only one who's ever done it before. but if all of that is really it stake based on what you saw last time, based on what voters more importantly saw last night, do you still think that president biden can beat former president trump and erase absolutely. >> because because whether you do well in a bait does not have anything to do with how well you govern the country how well you govern the country has judged by how well you have done. we have not had a president in the last 40 years. yes, i just created 15.5 million jobs and created an economy the way that we have, has built 57,000 projects, rebuilding the infrastructure. the ballot would go and vote. they're gonna be also thinking of what they saw on that debate. i mean, you have to make the argument you're making, but you also have to think of how voters are perceiving this i don't know how many times i can say to you that the president did a poor job, but this race has, for months from being over and there's another bag to come and there are a whole bunch of rallies and there are a whole bunch of water still to go under this bridge. >> you asked me if i had confidence in joe biden and i have 100% confidence in joe biden. and by the way, it'll be his decision in his decision alone, whether he's going to tell you and i think he answered that question for the public today in north carolina is there any conversation about him not continuing? no. >> it's a you're 100% confident he will be the democratic nominee on that ticket come november, as far as i know today. >> and based on everything that i have seen and heard and people i talk to you, i don't have any reason to believe that he will not be if. he did decide to drop out, who whose counsels he is he taking on that obviously is a very close inner circle. is that the first lady is his sister. what does that look like for voters? >> well, first of all, president biden, as you know, has been an office for a very, very long time. and he's got a close set of family friends. they're the ones that he counsels with, but at the end of the day, he's the one that makes the decision because the buck stops with him. he said last night, i may not be a good debate, but i know the difference between right and wrong. i know how to get things done, and i know what the future of the country has no, by the way, he made the point that donald trump's spent a good portion of his time last night just dogging out america and making people think america was on her back leg. she's not the best is yet to come and we have a great future in a great opportunity as the president said, as he ended his speech today, he's never been more optimistic about the future of this country. >> don't worry, we're going to talk about donald trump's performance in that debate is, oh, mitch landrieu. thank you for coming and joining us tonight. thank you for your time. thanks. katelyn, can't wait to hear it. thanks so much. bye bye. >> and i've got an all-star political sources here tonight, we will be talking about everything, but i want to start with two democrats who have worked with and for president biden and david rohde, when you see you here, what so endrew, saying and response that he is politely declining the nadh, the push from the new york times editorial board that he should step aside they're saying for the sake of the country that he's been a good president, they're not arguing that he hasn't, but they're saying that for the sake of the country, it's time for him to step aside. >> yeah. but there's a difference between being an editorial suite and being in the real-world of politics. there's a lot of complicated steps between here and there. and what democrats have to consider is what is a greater risk? there's no doubt i think the president is behind in this race. and it's going to be a struggle for them to win but the question is can you nominate a candidate without a primary in a diverse party between now and august by some sort of consensual process. and then can you take someone who's never been involved in a national campaign at that level and put all the pressure of the world on them. there's risk in that too. and i think that has to be considered. yeah, i think lbj would note that bit, but i can you were very blunt and your assessment and i you worked for president biden when i was covering president biden, you were the communications director. >> obviously, you know him very well. you would have very blunt assessment of his performance last night. and when we're talking about the first lady, obviously, she's deeply influential on president biden. they're a fundraiser, truly a block away from where we are right now. and she just told the crowd there and i'm quoting the first lady now. and you know, after last night's debate, he said, you know, jill, i don't know what happened. i didn't feel that great and jill says that she responded, look, joe, we are not going to let 90 minutes define the four years that you've been president. but it's not necessarily about them defining it. it's about voters and how they define it. yeah, and i think they're going to see him out on the campaign trail. they saw him today. they're going to see him over the next four months. this race, it was last night was a significant moment. it was an important moment. it was not a defining moment in the sense that that is all voters are going to take in about joe biden for the next four months. it's also not all they're gonna take in about donald trump for the next four months, who was also out today. don't doubling down on some of the things he said yesterday about you're not disavowing january 6 and a lot of things that we know were really off putting to swing voters. and were problems for him in the debate yesterday. so there is a lot of campaign left. i would also say just to the new york times endorsement, i cannot think of anything that would make joe biden less inclined to drop out of this race than the new york times editorial billboard telling him he should, if you go back to 2019 they were dismissive. they were jati they said there was no way that he could be the nominee they in a stroke of very interesting political wisdom jointly endorsed amy klobuchar and elizabeth warren for president they are divorced from the reality of politics. they don't understand joe biden and there's nothing that would that's fair. i don't think a lot of voters are checking to see what it says, but it did come a lot of op-eds today. tom friedman, who adores president by, knew it was saying he was weeping at that performance last night, scott, what did you make of what mr. landrieu had to say about about their defensive biden. >> well, he's peace plan, a bad hand today. and he did about the best he could given their performance that we saw last night. but the problem is, it's not just about the 90 minutes what the american people saw and what they're going to extrapolate is that's basically how it is every day. but that's what they're going to take away from it. they're not going to remember much about the policy exchanges they're just going to think, does this guy look like somebody who could go in and out of the office every day for the next four years, maybe for the next seven months. that's it. that's the bottom line. and a comparison of records, a comparison of who told more lives it's just it's not going to fly. can i just say one thing first of all, i really i love mitch landrieu. i think he's a great guy. he was a great mayor, is great politician and he do, he did an admirable job there. but what he said and what the first lady said it goes to something that bothered me about the debate last night elections are not about the evaluation of what you did the last four years there, about what you're gonna do the next four years and what the other guy is going to do in the next four years. and so that people can get some sense of what's in it for them. in this decision and that's what that's another thing that the president didn't do last night. we were told that he was going to do that and he didn't really bring that to the debate. he became a lot more defensive than i think he should. >> and you are warning about that. but when you're looking at this just from a historical perspective, i mean watching that last night we heard a lot of people saying today we'll ever incumbent president as a bad first debate. i mean, this takes the cake for modern history, probably, i mean obama saying, yeah, i know what it, how it feels. it wasn't quite this level. prison obama was finishing his sentences and the debate he was, but we also have a presidential candidate who had alzheimer's and had dementia and was on a debate stage in 1980 at four. and we're his age was a constant, right? a constant reiteration of is he fit can he be president, right? and that's ronald reagan. so the person that trump like to bring up a lot last night, in fact, had the same age questions that i thank biden is running up against the difference. however, is that the age problem in the past has been one that i think both the candidates have addressed head-on. reagan. does this and immediately and says, you know, it's my it's my experience. and it's your age, your young age that differentiates me from mondale we have it with somebody like lbj president lbj who takes himself out of the running because of his health and consideration. the differences though it were it's always been a back-burner issue. it is now front and center in a way that we cannot ignore. and in a way that i think obscure actually real damage in obscuring what is going on with donald trump in the message that donald the very alarming message that donald trump put out less light and reagan's first debate was a disaster, something that nancy reagan acknowledged after that, i want to talk a lot more about this and just what the implications of this are, what you're hearing from democrats as well? okay because of course what matters most here's what the voters think, especially swing-state voters. well, we went and talk to some of them today, today, including its grand joe's hometown crowd and whether we're not there still behind him in pennsylvania, hear from them yourself and also not