Once again, im stephanie ruhle. We are now 239 days away from the election and we could be just one day away from donald trump and President Joe Biden locking up in a delegate to win their partys nomination for president. Though is up for grabs for both parties tomorrow in georgia, mississippi, and washington state, republicans will also caucus in hawaii. Over the weekend, donald trump rented about his increasingly apocalyptic vision of our country, attacking migrants and mocking President Joe Bidens stutter. My colleague, garrett haig has a closer look at both candidates on the campaign trail. President Biden Ramping up his Reelection Campaign tonight. Talking donald trump in underground New Hampshire. Donald trump said cut Social Security and medicare are on the table again. I will never allow that to happen. Reporter in the former president after he responded to a reporter who suggested something needed to be done about entitlements. Please there is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of putting and in terms of also the theft and the management of entitlements. I dont necessarily agree with the statement. The Trump Campaign say he was not talking about cutting benefits and cutting waste. Mr. Trump, just last week, posting, republicans have no plans to cut Social Security. The president today laying out his budget in a show of second term priorities. The largely symbolic plan would boost spending to 7. 3 trillion , while raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations. The president calls for restoring the full Child Tax Credit and proposes National Paid lead. What is this about basic fairness . Its basic decency. Meanwhile, esther trump blasting President Biden for saying he regretted using the word illegal to describe the alleged killer of georgia nursing student, lake and riley. Was a venezuelan migrant who crossed the border illegally two years ago. Clear lake and riley, and in a sense young woman who was killed. He was undocumented. Met with family before his georgia rally. When i say he was an illegal alien, he shouldnt have been in our country and he never would have been under the trump policy on friday, trump hosted Hungarian Prime Minister viktor orban at maralago. If trump was elected, he would not give ukraine a penny in its war against russia, which would end the war. Orban also called trump a man of peace. Donald trump talked about that meeting on cnbc earlier. I just had viktor orban, the man from hungary, he was at my place in florida. Very friendly, but i have respect for him. He made a statement. I thought it was a wonderful statement. He said, we will solve the problems of the world of donald trump comes back. He said russia was afraid of him, taught china was afraid of him, we had no problems whatsoever under trump. Remember, viktor orban is a far right european leader who has kept very close ties with russia throughout its war against ukraine. With that, lets get some smarter with the help of our panel tonight. Susan glasser is here, staff writer for the new yorker, she coauthored the book the divider, trump and the white house, 2017 to 2021. Sam snyder joins us, a veteran journalist and white house editor for politico and senior political analyst matthew dowd, a former george w. Bush strategist and founder of country over party. Susan your first thought, we are shifting into General Election mode. This is Donald Trumps chance to expand his base, bring in the moderates, but his rhetoric is only getting darker. Doesnt it seem like the exact wrong thing to be doing . Look, trumps playbook is his playbook, he is not going to be changing it now and he believes that it was running with regard to his face and his base alone and somehow got him elected in 2016. He is, he governed for four years, he governed this country as the president of red america and saw himself not as the president of the whole country but very much as the president only for those who supported him and i think that is the campaign that we are seeing right now. There are so many echoes on the very first days that trump was entering national politics, the ranting and the demagoguery about immigrants, for example. The very dark apocalyptic vision , remember, american carnage, that was all the way back in 2017. So to me, it was old is new again with donald trump in this campaign. Can raise, hate, and promises of Vengeance Win him this General Election . It was five days ago we were talking about nikki haley voters and how donald trump or joe biden can go for them. Im thinking about all of those haley donors that i know here in new york, they are running from every single thing he has said in the last five days. But can he win . Yeah, donald trump can win this election and i put the odds today at 5050 whether he wins or not. And the country, pretty much all the voters know kind of who he is and what he says and the type of person he is and the type of leader he is and i think it is joe bidens, it is incumbent upon joe biden to sort of set the frame of what a Trump Presidency would look like. And he has already given us, he has told us this by Praising Orban or autocross in the country, what is going to look like in the course of this. But donald trump can win it, and i would say that all of this sort of haley, these anti trump republicans, it is a myth that they represent what the Republican Party has become today. Donald trump, in every single pole right now gets 90 plus of republican identified voters. 90 plus. He got 94 of Republican Voters in 2000 but donald trump does better on republicans than mitt romney did, than john mccain did, then george w. Bush did in the course of this. So he is going to have his base, which is probably 40, 42 of the country. Right now, and i think that is why joe biden has figured out right now, this early that he has to run a campaign that basically says this is who donald trump is and this is how your life will be affected in a second donald trump term. But matthew, even donald trump this weekend, going after joe bidens stutter, maybe you would have made that argument a week and a half ago but he nailed the state of the Union Address and his stutter is something he has overcome. How is that a win for trump . Donald trump doesnt ever change his direction, as susan says, he is who he is. That is donald trump, he won in 2016 making fun of people with disabilities, saying all kinds of harsh, cruel, and ridiculous things in the course of this. This is who donald trump is. Anybody that thinks they are going to be able to manage donald trump in this process, to say or do anything other than who he is. He is an Airplane Pilot that doesnt change his flight path no matter if there is a storm or if it is clear skies or there is a blizzard headed his way. He does what he is going to do regardless of what anybody else will tell him the outcome is. Yes, and the election in 2016, it has been a lose is on for republicans ever since. Donald trump on social media said that one of his first acts in office will be the releasing of the january 6 defendants. Heres another. He had the chance to pardon all of these people when he was president and he chose not to. How does it serve him now . To echo nobody elses point, i dont know if he is operating i think he is guttural and doing what he is doing in front of his eyes and republicans put out the Report On January 6th and the congressional inquiry into it and i am guessing trump saw that and was inclined to send out this post on truth social. Same thing with going after biden for his stutter. Theres nothing about it. Ultimately, it served him well, the authenticity in it. Frankly, i would say it hinders him in the long run because i think most normal voters are going to say, well, is it right for someone to pick on someone stutter. He couldnt stand his coalition , clearly, beyond the 44 or whatever matt talked about. He will maybe spend a lot more, just choose not to do it. Please susan, viktor orban is one of Vladimir Putins only european allies donald trump welcome to attend into his home this weekend. He then went on cnbc and kind of bragged about it. Those people who are listening to that interview, i know they dont like to hear that joe biden wants to tax the rich but are they aok with one of putins homeboys laughing it up with trump all weekend . They feel good about that . Look, one of the most striking things, i think, that makes donald trump different from any president of the United States, democrat or republican, is his striking affinity with the worlds dictators, strongmen, and sort of bad guys and orban has become sort of a celebrated figure of the american far right, as well as the european far right over the last few years. Trump praised him the other day in remarkable terms for an aspiring president of the United States. He said basically what he is a noncontroversial figure in hungary because he basically doesnt brook, any disagreement with his views. And to donald trump, that is high praise. Donald trump has a love affair with kim jongun, he had this admiration for vladimir putin, he has admiration for erdogan in turkey. For xi jinping and china. It is one of the most, i think striking and notable differences between trump and any other president we have ever had in american history. So it is not a surprise that he would be making common cause with orban, the same way he made common cause with brazils leader, both in aro during his 2020 election campaign. This is who fundamentally donald trump is it is what he wants to take america to is a different place. He has all the instincts of a natural authoritarian. Claes samp, pointed out earlier today that because of trumps let russia win policy, that is slowly becoming the republican policy, what does it say that our countrys stance on the russiaukraine war seems to be on the ballot in november . Well, it is not just that. Remember, republicans are negotiating up and told donald trump said dont do it because i want the issue and suddenly that was no longer the policy. Even right now, they built a band, to make the company that owns tiktok divest from the chinese government, is suddenly up in the air because trump did a 180 on it. So this is what happens often when a republican or democratic nominee becomes a factor nominee of the party. But in trumps case, it is remarkable simply because of how much he pulls the party in his direction. Today, for instance, you had this back and forth on Social Security. Trump is a typical in a sense. He has always been, or at least try to present himself as most republicans, years ago, said we were for these but trump shoots the party to his image and it certainly has a huge impact on the geopolitical stage. Matthew, in a new book, cnns jim writes several of trumps senior advisers, former advisers say he has a wired dictators. Susan just laid it out for us and he even said that hitler quote. And joe read about the former white house Chief Of Staff reacted to trump saying that, watch this. Had to, in effect, correct trumps imagined history here because trump, in saying that hitler did some good things, he said well, he rebuilt his economy and kelly would say to him, yeah, he rebuilt his economy to go to war with the rest of europe, including your very own country. And then he said, well, but his generals were loyal to him unlike my generals, as he liked to say, you, general kelly and others. And kelly had to correct him, too. Actually, in fact, mr. President , hitlers generals tried to assassinate him. Matthew, how is this not another red flag for the Republican Party . Right, were not going to get any more money to ukraine. You know it will happen . Russia is not going to stop. They will be knocking on poland door next. We will be in another world war, why are so many people, even beyond Donald Trumps base seemingly okay with this . It was just a few days ago that Mitch Mcconnell gave him his endorsement . Unfortunately, there is a large percentage of population of the United States of america who believes in the end justified the means. And if they have a strongman or a strong woman on doing what their bidding was and really attacking who they dont like, then they are fine throwing democracy away and supporting the strongman. That is, i think, i think that movement in our country is more concerning than donald trump himself. Because that is a movement that exists in our country with or without donald trump that they are willing to accept that when the course of this. And i just say, for any americans listening that have questions about this who think that our democracy is guaranteed for the existence, no matter how long the United States exists, they fooled themselves. We had the first time in post world war ii, in the post world war ii history, a retraction in the number of democracies in the world instead of an expansion of the democracies of the world. We have never had that. We have less democracies today in the world than we did 10 years ago with this. And this reminds folks, democracy is a gift, it is not a given, it has to be worked out. And maybe one of the benefits of donald trump in the very few that there are, i think, is that it is a reminder that we have to do things that preserve the institution of democracies, the institution of democracy and our freedoms in order to preserve this constitutional democracy that we have there are countries in all of our lifetimes that were democracies , germany being one of them, that became dictatorships, chile being another one that democracies functional, healthy democracies that because people supported a strongman because they wanted him to do certain things, through their democracies away. That is what my biggest fear, and i hope other americans fears are is that we have to work at this and we have to work at it today and i think we have gotten lazy at working at our democracy. In donald trump has taken advantage of that laziness. Democracy is a gift, not a guarantee. Susan, had 11 more questions for you but with a sentiment like that, we got to let matthew ended the segment thank you all so so much, great to see you all. When we come back, the sleepy giant case in the Supreme Court that could have a big impact on jack smith prosecution of trump you dont want to miss this. Former lawyer of donald trump, ty cobb is here. Later, the 2024 General Election matchup is on. President bidens message to voters today, selling his 7 trillion budget. We are going to break down what is in it and why it is matters. Just getting underway on an important night in new york city. Business. Its not a ninetofive proposition. Its all day and into the night. Its all the things that keep this world turning. The gotos that keep us going. The places we cheer. And check in. They all choose the advanced Network Solutions and round the Clock Partnership from Comcast Business. See why Comcast Business powers more Small Businesses than anyone else. Get started for 49. 99 a month plus ask how to get up to an 800 prepaid card. Dont wait call today. The Supreme Court, a case that could have a major impact in the case against donald trump. In jack smiths case, of course, im not talking about the president ial immunity case. This is a different one. That technically does not involve donald trump. One Law Professor recently called it the sleeping giant, threatening jack smiths prosecution of the former president. The court will decide if prosecutors stretch the law too far by calling the right, quote, obstruction of an official proceeding. The law has been used to charge more than 300 people involved in the capital attack, including donald trump joining me now for the first time, former Trump White House counsel for the russian investigation, ty cobb. He has asked the Supreme Court to keep all charges in place. Ty, im glad youre here tonight. We need an explanation, specifically on this one. What risk does this case post to jack smith prosecution of donald trump . Isnt certifying an election and official proceeding . I dont think theres any question about whether or not the official proceeding piece of the statute has been met. What is really at issue here, stephanie, is the question of under title 18, usc, section 12 c two, is that statute independent prohibition against corruptly obstructing, influence, or proceeding or is it tied somehow to the clause that precedes it see one. The petitioner who has some sympathetic facts on his side to make this a case that got the attention of District Court judge. He was only in the building for a short time, he was a lawenforcement official. He apologized and left and the government collared some of that conduct with him, while he was in there. But this is really nothing quite actionable in the way that many of the other cases are actionable in terms of census. You have said in the past that the facts are terrible for donald trump so is delay the only tactic he has at this point . And by the way, is it working . It is currently working. I will say, i think at the end of the day, in this case, even if the Supreme Court reverses and finds a more difficult standard and that which we are advocating, as long as the statute is not invalidated in toto, i dont think the violence of this case is as significant as other scenes will s