with manu raju starts right now. thank you digging in. >> when you get knocked down, you get back out president faces calls to drop out. i know i'm not a young man his democrats, he's tough questions. if you think there should be a new candidate while trump masks in the fall lot did anybody last night watch a thing called the debate in repeats falsehoods to pollsters help us break down the aftermath plus supreme suspense of major decision looms you have to have a guaranteed immunity for president. otherwise have president is not going to they able to function while each trump ally reddy's for prison inside politics. best reporting from inside the corridors of power starts now good morning. >> welcome to inside politics sunday, i'm manu raju, president joe biden and his team spent the weekend in a full-blown efforts to contain the damage to his candidacy from thursday's cnn debate, performance. many in his own party called disastrous as they fear could lead to a donald trump victory in november. but despite the growing calls for the 81-year-old incumbent to drop out of the race to give the parties some time to find a new candidate, had a democratic convention in august. biden and his team signaled he was not going anywhere. as they aggressively tried to tamp down the push for a replacement this morning, the present is with his family at camp david, and yesterday he told big donors in new jersey, quote, it wasn't my best debate. i understand the concern. i get it, but i'm going to be fighting harder. and in the hamptons, he also said at a fundraiser, quote voters had a different reaction to the debate. and quote, i didn't have a great debate and great night, but either did trump. now, democrats are assessing the fallout, even as the drumbeat for biden dropout is getting louder, including from editorial board's the new york times, the atlanta journal constitution, chicago tribune, and big name commentators like maureen dowd, tom friedman, and david redneck. but so far publicly elected democrats are still standing by him the best candidate for you guys. >> i think so. >> i think dumbo is weighted 90 minutes. can barely answer some questions. well, he started off very slowly, but he picked up this pace joe biden beat donald trump before, and joe biden can beat donald trump again there's no possibility of removing him. now why we move forward, he's are nominee. i support president. you don't think you'd be better off for with a better candidate? absolutely not. i'm terrified, but the fact that this man can lie for 90 minutes and show that he does not have a moral compass at all. >> that is what is terrifying me this morning, but that's all i have to say. >> in carson balance at the end there i was speaking about former president trump. now, a lot to break down this morning with my grade panel. cnn's jeff zeleny, leah, and caldwell, the washington post, bowls also with a post and npr's michel martin. good morning to you all voted morning. it has been a weekend for the precedence to say the least now, we know the president is with his family at camp david, and we know this drumbeat of public pressure is growing from the outside. geoff, you talked to the biden campaign pretty regularly. is this having any impact on the present these calls for him to drop out from the likes of big name column is from the new york times editorial board is that affecting his calculus at all in any way? well, this morning sunday, you said he's meeting with his family at camp david. >> that is a pre-planned meeting. they're actually doing a photo shoot this afternoon. we're told with any liebowitz, so it's not an emergency family meeting, but of course this will come up. how could it not? but based on all of our reporting, all of our conversation patients over the weekend, we do not know how it's affecting the president's mindset obviously, this is not helpful, but in terms of what he's planning to do, he is all in and that does not appear to have changed, but the waves of panic that we're really still are coursing through the party. have now given way to a couple of questions. and democratic pollsters are working this weekend for the campaign to try and find them out. a, is he going to be a drag on the ticket in house races, in senate races, b is our his troubles going to expand the battleground map is donald trump suddenly in a more of a strong position in a state like minnesota or virginia, could those be battlegrounds? but the biggest question of all, if not him at the top of the ticket, then who yeah, one top democrat told me yesterday a true succession plan does not exist that's what makes all of this not just heartbreaking, but very problematic. and that was it succinctly. absolutely. again, what about this? the postdoc yesterday, just about trying to how they wouldn't you compare this to back what happened after lyndon johnson stepped down and then they scrambled. what happened there. the republicans and of winning the white house. but what's interesting is that as this is how the biden campaign is messaging that talk about a replacement write down as they try to tamp down all the talk that perhaps someone could step in. this is an email that went out to some porters last night, robert flaherty, the biden deputy campaign manager, said, joe biden is going to be the democratic nominee period, end of story. if you were to drop out, it would lead to weeks of chaos internal food by adding in a bunch i'm tim candidates who limp into a brutal floor fight at the convention. >> that's exactly the message that they're trying to drive home publicly and privately but in addition to that public effort that they're doing they have been doing an enormous amount of outreach and hand-holding. and if you will, temperature taking among people who might be potential successors. if the democrats decide they want to do it. the reality is the process would be very, very difficult. i mean, i think if he were to voluntarily step aside, my guess is that he would say vice president harris should be the nominee then the question is, do others go after that? do others try to take her down? there right in the sense that this would be a very messy situation. and i think that the other reality is that all of the people who we've talked about as potentials and mostly it's some prominent governors, governor newsom or governor whitmer or governor pritzker or shapiro these are not people who are well-known nationally. they've not been vetted nationally, they're not prepared to suddenly run a big presidential campaigns. so there would be enormous risks beyond the whole obstacles of the process. is there would be enormous risks of swapping him out. but the other thing that i've picked up in the last 36 hours is while people recognize the campaign's argument, there is a tremendous amount of anger about the situation that the party is now a lot because biden decided to run at this age you mentioned about the fact that there are these other candidates who could run in, who quran, but they're not well known. and that is something that the biden campaign is actually trying to hammer home. and it pretty extraordinary email that same message that went out to supporters last night. they talked about the democratic bench. the other people could potentially replace him. they shared some democratic polling data showing that people even the vice president of the united states, they contend would not do better than joe biden. is that a ria, is that the reality of the situation? one of the things that's really struck me about this campaign all along is how they're really two campaigns. or there should be, i mean, there's the campaign to people who pay attention. there's the campaign directed that the people who don't we're all aware of the people who pay close attention. i mean, we know that the polling shows there's an enthusiasm gap that trump's supporters are really behind him and biden supporters are sort of behind him. but what's really shocking to me when you go out on the trail and you talk to people is how many people don't really see a difference. they really don't they say things like, well, i mean, i'm talking to say a muslim person who i know very well who said, oh, it's a difference between a person who wants to kill us and a person who will lead us die. and speaking about gaza with african-americans. so like what's the difference? he didn't really fight for us in certain key issues. and i just think that it's i think that we're instead of having trouble sort of locking in on how many people really, it's not that they haven't locked in yet, is that they really don't see the difference two old white guys who don't really represent them, we see this particularly with younger voters, younger voters who say they're not excited about either one. i just think that this campaign has to figure out how to deal with both of those campaigns that the insiders who were really upset and angry and panic and this big population of people who don't, who aren't into him at all. this is a good point because the apathy, in some ways has to be a bigger concern for the biden team because the trump base is energized because they're behind him. the democratic base is not voter apathy as michelle was talking about, is a real issue. it's absolutely an issue that's been an issue this entire campaign even before thursday night's debate. and it's not just voter apathy that they have to be worried about, but it's also a third party candidates that they have to be worried about in some states to rfk is still trying to get on some ballots, but the biden campaign has of late been more worried about jill jill stein lately because she is on more state. it's not just voter apathy, it's now people who are now seriously perhaps looking at a third-party candidate more seriously than they were before the third before thursday's debate obviously, we saw biden over the weekend. >> we see if he was behind closed doors talking to donors, trying to those are the people that do matter a lot. will they keep giving him money? this is a real urgent moment for biden, not just for the own party, but ensuring that he doesn't fall further behind on money as we've seen, the biden campaign has been behind him recently as trump has surged in money in terms of cash on hand in the aftermath of his conviction, trump, using that to rally his base and his donor base but behind closed doors, there's an interesting tweet from one former the trump aide and three square munshi, who is talking to who was at this long island fundraiser. he said president biden needs to appear unscripted settings and handle fair but tough questioning. further demonstrations of his ability to read from a teleprompter will not assuage my concerns. scaramucci reports, biden now, he was at that fundraiser. you heard by the biden is trying to show that he this is a problem with the debate. i get it, but i can do this. i can handle it, but what scaramucci saying here is that you can do it in an unscripted setting. and we have not seen that from the president. yeah, we certainly haven't. and i, mean the, question of all of this is it's really takes it back to this conversation, back several months, the biden campaign, i think the president himself largely had cleared the hurdle from the state of the union onward. they can i guess maybe he can do this. he gave a long speech then some back-and-forth. it was not unscripted. i mean, it was scripted, but he's had a few scripted moments, but the reality is the biden we saw thursday night is largely closer to the biden. we see every day at the white house so that is the challenge that they have something else. and this is again, all this criticism is coming from people who generally like president biden, from the inside, but someone pulled me when they made the decision to run in november 2022 in nantucket that weekend, the bidens got together after the midterm. he's diminished considerably since then his or his age since then, and perhaps even since the state of the union so that the big unknown here and the risk, i mean, basically going in one direction. so it's it's hard breaking in the words of a biden adviser but he said he deserves our respect and space to reach a decision, but that's the bottom line. there. you biden and president biden, the only to people who could make do we think that jill biden is? kinda percent with this game at this moment in continuing on, there's no evidence to the contrary. i mean, everything that she has done since the debate, i think reinforces the idea that the ci and he believed that they're going, they're going forward they are not going to get pushed out of this. they're not going to listen to people who say they should that he should step down. she's totally behind him. i think she always has been, but i think he two is dugin. or the idea that he's still best able to carry this campaign forward. yeah. but the debate was a huge gamble, right? he wanted an early debate because they wanted to change the trajectory of the campaign. and i think the campaign believed that had he performed the way they hoped he would, they might be able to break this campaign open, not wide open. we know this is going to be a close election, but move it in his direction. in a demonstrable way instead, they've, they've dug that hole deeper and they now got to come out of that and try to move forward where we shall see we're going to assess that. of course, in the days i hadn't today as well. all right. coming up, some democrats are running from questions about biden quite literally willie drag them down in november. >> he can win assignments are going on and the tornado here i'm thinking, i'm going to die and i thought that was it. >> violent earth with liev schreiber tonight at nine on cnn. >> my name is karen and i'm from brooklyn. i worked for the city of new york as a police administrator. i oversaw see approximately 20 people and my memory just has to be shocked and i realized my memory was just changing. it did my own research and i decided to give provision a try. my memory became much sharper. i remember get more, i've been taken for epogen for four years. now. it's a life changer provision at stores everywhere without a prescription how many for abu dhabi? 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fml. i don't need to spell that out. then there's the reaction from home one told you for everyone has been loud and unanimous. now, we go home and hear it in person on july 4th, can't imagine he lasts. i mean, the real fear is that he's going to sink. the party. and yeah, if there are concerns that he can break address the ticket that's on the calls for them to drop out. we'll intensified absolutely. >> and we also have to watch polling to those could really intensify calls for him to drop out too. but there's multiple concerns here these democrats obviously do not want donald trump to be the nominee. they think he's next existential threat to our democracy but they're worried about their own races as well. i had heard from after the debate thursday night still into friday that there could be a group of democrats that would actually come forward and publicly and call for biden to drop out. i'm not sure where that stands now with as the biden campaign has been working adamantly to keep people on their side, but these democrats that's our absolutely worried. they, before this debate, they were already thinking that they were going to be the ones who are going to lift biden at the top of the ticket, usually the top of the ticket helps down ballot democrats had been believing that they were going to help biden at the top of the ticket. and so now they are absolutely nervous about their own races and maintaining control of congress. >> i think that's still could be true. i mean, you look at maryland, obviously maryland is a very sort of democratic state, but if maryland had an electoral college, electoral college for governor, they'd never have a democratic governor because because the outer counties, the more rural counties are very republican oriented. so quiet as it's kept, no. okay. in the democratic primary, you have a self-funded white guy candidate, david trone, whose argument was, i may not be who you want, but i am who you need, right? 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