we are expecting more decisions by the supreme court, including the one that we are waiting for. this is not the week to check out this coming week. >> it is not. alicia, look at the smile on her face, she is ready. >> i am sad that symone sanders-townsend is not here because we were dressed like twins and that michael was rotating around us. now i am wondering, are you icarus? are you flying too close? >> don't do that. i will pull you back. >> it is a burn. >> have a fantastic time and we will see you back here next week. velshi starts now. good morning. to sunday, june 23. in a few days, joe biden and but donald trump will face off against each other the first showdown since the 27 election cycle. the men will be in atlanta to participate in the first of two scheduled general election debates this season. it will last 90 minutes, both campaigns have agreed for to take place in a television studio without an audience present. take place one month after donald trump was convicted on 34 felony counts on falsifying business records and two weeks before he is set to return to court for the sentencing hearing. they have not been on a nationally televised debate since last time. there taking very different approaches to prepare for the debate. biden will spend several days hunkered down at camp david developing plans and strategies with some of his closest advisers. the white house chief of staff has taken time off from his current job to get the president ready for this year's debates. he is one of the most trusted confidant and an experienced strategist who has helped nearly every presidential candidate prepare for the debates. the president's personal attorney will lend the campaign a helping hand and stand in as donald trump in the market debates that they plan to stage in the days ahead.'s role he took on to help biden prepare for in 2020. a rotating cast of about a dozen other advisers has been tapped to help the president prepare for thursday, meanwhile, this is what donald trump told nbc esther when he was asked what his strategy is for the upcoming debate. >> my strategy is very simple. make america great again. that is all. our country is going to hell. we are going to turn it around fast. >> there's no strategy, we are going to turn it around fast. trump's team has been trying to give off the impression that the former president is not worried at all about facing off against biden. they say the campaign trail has been enough of a preparation for trump and they have no plans to stage mock debates. nbc's reporting indicates there is at least some preparation happening. he has held informal policy sessions with aids, advisers, and lawmakers including the north dakota governor and the senators jd vance and marco rubio, all of whom are contenders to be vice president. there discussing how to respond to inevitable questions about trump's recent criminal conviction and his role in the january 6 insurrection of how to rein in the former president's rhetoric. the last point is particularly notable. the campaign has repeatedly and often unfairly used selectively edited clips to betray biden as old and feeble minded, but trump is prone to gaffes as well. during a speech last week, he bragged about acing a cognitive test and then repeatedly got the doctor's name wrong. he has mcduck president biden and obama multiple times before and once confused nikki haley with nancy pelosi. for those who are not familiar with his long-winded speeches, his long winded ramblings will sounds absolutely incoherent. when his teleprompter malfunctioned in nevada earlier the month he went off script and told a long and meandering story involving and m.i.t. professor, electric boats, and whether he prefers electrocution to be eaten by sharks. and another rally he praised the late great hannibal lector, a fictional character, a cannibal serial killer featured in the silence of the lambs and said that he is a, quote, wonderful man. and he said that he had proposed starting a migrant league of fighters. ufc style sports league that would pit migrants against one another. said it is not the worst idea i have ever had. it is a bizarre proposition that reminds people of his are barrack and dehumanizing position against nonwhite immigrants. might feel like he has the upper hand but that is large because he's been stuck inside his maga bubble. is incoherent and strange diatribes may play well among his diehard rally goers but perceived differently by the general public you might see him as an undisciplined candidate leading and unserious campaign. joining me now is the executive vice president at the trump organization and the author of tower of lies. what my 18 years of working with donald trump reveals about him. good to see you again. i wanted to speak with you about this, these weird rants that donald trump is going on. put aside the stuff that could be deliberate. the dictatorial authoritarian stuff he says. carrying on about being electrocuted be -- versus being eaten by sharks. did he do that when you worked for him? >> a little bit. he was a little saner then but he would make ridiculous remarks . the thing about hannibal lector, is that, it's not that he was praising him so much as he was joking about him. like it was funny that hannibal lector was eating people and reminds of a time when we had had fired a residential manager and he was bragging amongst executives about how great the guy was and he was a real gentleman and so neat and clean and then he looked at a couple of the executives who happen to be jewish, and said watch out for this guy, he remembers the ovens and then smiles. everybody was shocked. i cannot believe he said that. he was making a joke about the nazi ovens and eating people. east rockingham hannibal lecter and eating people as if it was funny. as though that was appropriate. he did that. >> he was a keynote speaker. find this interesting at the faith and freedom coalition event yesterday which is, in theory, a religious thing and made multiple comments about his allegiance to the creator and then answers to god and he talked about the 10 commandments thing in louisiana. what do you make of his embrace, seemingly, of religion and the religious right's embrace of him? how come no one is treating it as the unusual thing that it is? >> his embrace of religion is absolute nonsense. he used to hate christmas because he would have to go to church one day. he is may be an agnostic or maybe an atheist. he mocked religious people and thought that they were stupid for believing. as far as the right is concerned, the religious right. i have lived for a long time and i have always known that these people were fundamentally dishonest, that they were using god and the 10 commandments just to promote their own interests. as far as caring for others especially like and puerto rican children who are starving , and as far as doing anything beyond the limits of their own church, it didn't exist. they had a spirit of love. there was no community. there was hatred. there was always hatred. it is a hatred that runs with the support of trump. the hatred of gays and the fear with owning guns and the fear of homosexuals. that is basically why they are supporting him. nothing to do with god. if any of these people truly believed in god. fortunately or unfortunately, i had to go to catholics one know a little bit about the bible. they would see it as breaking every norm. >> let's talk about some of the things people are talking about. the discussions about joe biden's age and whether he has missteps when he talks it's a before talking with donald trump and some of the unusual things he says. tell me about the difference between the donald trump you see today on tv this week versus the donald trump you worked for. are you seeing something unusual? we are not in a position to diagnose things. it is not something one can do on tv but as someone who knew him, do you see a difference in his behavior? >> i do. i see him. here's a big difference if you read my book, you can follow what you're by year. he used to listen to people. he used to take advice. he used to think that there were others who might know a little bit more about a subject they and he does. that is gone. he listens to nobody. he truly believes he knows more than anybody about anything. in a sense, there's no control. there is no controlling him and he says will comes to his mind and whatever that is. he thinks it is brilliant. healings it is brilliant to begin with when he says it. the only time he appears to have been under any kind of control was during the trial and even then, he wasn't really very good. i wish, and i don't know, i wish they would goad him and make him go nuts, because when he goes nuts, he is really crazy. >> that is interesting as you point out going time he exercise any discipline is when he was in court where there were absolute threats about what might happen to him. something bad could happen him if he misbehaves. doesn't have a structured things coming up other than court and the debate on thursday. the debate will not have an audience not the normal thing he plays off of. he likes to play off of a audience, positive or negative. it will just be the crew and the moderators and joe biden. what does it goading him look like? in this day and age, what even gets to donald trump? some of us believe that he is absent shame. there is nothing that will embarrass him. >> i will tell you one thing real?. port frame for a long time and work for him because he never turned on me and then he finally did and that day i quit. we were in a big meeting and he was accusing me of something. he was ranting. barbara did this. i said donald, there are things you can take for that. he really got crazy. his face turned red. it was wrong for me to say that. it was terribly disrespectful but that is a kind of thing, to get under his skin to make him feel that you think he needs help. yes, donald, it's okay. if you do, take some pills for the issue and you will calm down a bit. maybe something like that. the other thing could be his support for the people that committed crimes on january 6. maybe if he goes after that, do believe it was okay just squeeze the police man's head and the doors and that kind of thing. maybe he will get a little on edge and reactive. the reaction will be great. >> from your ears to camp david with her preparing for the debate. good to see you. thank you for being with us. barbara res is a former vice president of the trump organization. author of tower of lies. an important book and more important in these days as donald trump gets prepared to try and win the next election and become president again. coming up, the latest deep dive into project 2025. not only trying to up and american democracy, they're actively working to export christian nationalism to vulnerable communities in africa and central america. and the fascist and furious. might look like two guys out for a nice evening drive but the close relationship has massive applications for the democratic world. and new nbc news reporting on president trump's vice presidential shortlist. from your pits to your- (sfx: deoderant being sprayed) secret whole body deodorant. did i read this? 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the unhinged to endorsement pipeline is unfailing, it appears. joining me now is a producer for the rachel maddow show and msnbc political contributor. he is the author of the imposters, how republicans stopped governing and seized american politics. i don't know what the question is because they all speak for themselves but the question is this, is there a world in which donald trump's choice for vice president is old-fashioned? something that will actually help him in a tight election? if you look at it strategically as opposed to who is the biggest suck up to donald trump, who is his best pick? >> i think you are on the right track. donald trump is looking at this in terms of who will help them win the general election. when you look at someone like doug burgum, he has a lot of resources. is access to a lot of wealthy donors. preps the financial advantage will tip the scales in his favor. marco rubio is latino and is in a public -- hispanic state like florida. in some like jd vance who could have good communication skills when it comes to reaching out to rural voters or suburban voters. there is a strategic thinking here. the element is who is best suited to help them win the general election and each of them has a certain benefit and perhaps if we overlooked the fact that they all use to hate him. >> let's look at marco rubio. the idea that there were three guys as finalists and a little since he's running a distant third. you wrote an article on june 4 entitled eyeing the 2024 ticket. in may 2016, amid chatter that he was in the running, he categorically ruled out the idea and said what republican voters have chosen donald trump is the present with gop nominee, my previously stated reservations about his campaign a concern about his policies remain unchanged. he said he will be best served by running mate and surrogates who fully embrace his campaign. talk to me about where he is in this. do think he is in this race or the is he out? >> i think is in the mix. at this point, he has so transformed himself from a trump critic to a trump sycophant, that it might be enough. the proper donald trump is, to see what the next several months to be a national conversation about marco rubio 's flip-flop, does he want people to costly remind voters the political world that he was a fierce opponent of trump and then consider him as the running mate for 2016? i think it is likely to hurt him in terms of those stakes but the fact he is a young candidate and wealthy candidate, he brings a lot to the table will keep him in the mix of trump can get over the fact that he was relentless in his mockery in the most recent past. >> and so was jd vance. he probably has the most mathematical advantage because trump does not really need marco rubio in florida or doug burgum. but wasn't he as much of a critic if not more of trump man marco rubio was? >> he was. >> jd vance has transformed himself from a fierce trump critic and i think trump has been impressed with that. trump has appreciative the fact that he's gone out of his way to humiliate himself to be a groveling trump supporter hitting the campaign trail over and over again in support of trump appearing on fox and other conservative media outlets singing his praises and defending him against the indefensible. trump has taken note of this and that has put him at or near the top of the shortlist. it is interesting to see how it unfolds. steve bannon is a producer of the rachel maddow show and the author of the important book the imposters. how republicans quit governing and seized american politics. you might look like the most bizarre version of carpool karaoke ever but behind this real picture of vladimir putin driving kim jong un in a car that vladimir putin gave him as a gift is a new pact which poses a real threat to the democratic world. you know what's brilliant? 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