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arimelber.com. have a great weekend. "the reidout" starts now. tonight on "the reidout" -- >> donald trump isn't just a convicted felon. donald trump is a one-man crime wave. he's got more trials. he's got more trials coming up. [ crowd chanting lock him up ] >> a much different fired up joe biden showed up today in north carolina following last night's poor debate performance. also, the abomination of today's supreme court rulings on the insurrectionists and government regulation. as trump's justices wait until the last possible moment to reveal their decision on presidential immunity. and we begin tonight one evening after the first presidential debate with president biden coming out swinging, admitting to some performance fumbles but declaring himself as the defender of democracy and the man for the job in a fiery speech in raleigh, north carolina, today. >> i know how to tell the truth. i know -- i know right from wrong. and i know how to do this job. i know how to get things done. and i know like millions of americans know, when you get knocked down, you get back up. >> okay, why didn't the biden campaign send that guy to the debate last night? it wasn't just the president and those north carolina crowds. biden's surrogates like california governor gavin newsom and transportation secretary pete buttigieg and even former president barack obama have been out in full force, rallying around the president and trying to refocus nervous democrats and the social media universe that whatever you thought of biden's debate performance last night, a couple things are just true. thing one, joe biden is going to be the nominee, replacing him as the nominee while it is a topic of heated conversation in many a group chat and many of our phones, is not happening. and thing two is that in all of the uproar over biden's performance, what has gotten lost admittedly including by those of us in the media is the other guy who was on that debate stage last night, the convicted criminal who with zero fact checking or journalistic pushback from the moderators said stuff unimpeded like this. >> i just won two club championships, not even senior, two regular club championships. to do that, you have to be quite smart, and you have to be able to hit the ball a long way. and i do it. he doesn't do it. he can't hit a ball 50 yards. >> how many billions of dollars do you owe in civil penalties for molesting a woman in public, for doing a whole range of things, of having sex with a porn star on the night while your wife was pregnant. i mean, what are you talking about? you have the morals of an alley cat. >> i didn't have sex with a porn star. >> okay, so out of all the accusations that biden laid out right there, i probably would have protested the one and say that i did not molest a woman in public. but you know, that's just me. instead, we have a former u.s. president saying on live tv with millions of people watching, as the fate of our country looms, that he did not have sex with a porn star. not the rape stuff, he didn't deny that, just the porn star. welcome to american politics, everybody. trump also refused on several occasions to address policy even when directly asked about it. and he avoided answering any questions, but most of all, trump lied. >> we had the greatest economy in the history of our country. >> they will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month, and even after birth. and nancy pelosi, if you watched the news from two days ago, on tape to her daughter, who is a documentary filmmaker, like they say, she's saying oh, no, it's my responsibility. i was responsible for this, because i offered her 10,000 soldiers or national guard and she turned them down. he wants to raise your taxes by four times. they're taking black jobs and hispanic jobs. on january 6th, we were respected all over the world. all over the world we were respected. >> you know, no, we were not respected on january 6th, nor during the trump presidency. and the attack on the capitol was the deadliest assault on the seat of american power in over 200 years. this isn't about shades of gray or lies versus untruths versus falsehoods. everything you just heard from donald trump is an egregious lie. the pandemic triggered a massive recession. the government borrowed $3.1 trillion in 2020 to stabilize the economy, no states allow people to execute babies after birth. it is illegal in every state to do so and it's called infanticide. speaker pelosi did not direct the national guard. during the coup, she and mitch mcconnell called for military assistance, including from the national guard. trump did nothing. biden will quadruple taxes in total -- biden quadrupling taxes is total fiction, he's going to let the tax cut for superrich people to expire. he won't raise taxes on anyone who makes under $400,000. there is no evidence undocumented immigrants are taking jobs away from black americans. there's no such thing as black jobs. trump lied dozens and dozens of times and those lies went unchecked by cnn moderators and at times unfortunately by president biden. yes, it is widely believed president biden didn't do well. he didn't do well, but trump didn't do well either. he didn't gain any new voters last night. he did nothing to gain new voters. he did nothing but offer what non-maga americans already know, he's a morally bankrupt convicted felon who turned the word palestinian into a slur on the national stage, in terms of the hand wringing and the fallout, it is easy to just listen to the professionals, the pundits, the op-ed writers, the screaming headlines and those of us on the tv, but it's also important to listen to what regular people say and what they want. >> feeling inside was, trump, hell no. he lied through the whole thing. and biden is like, oh, no. he is really in a bad shape. i mean, trump is an absolute no. he's a liar and a thief and a rapist and all those other things. it's just not acceptable. you don't lie and you take accountability for yourself. at least biden is that way. he seems like an honorable and honest guy, but i don't think he's got the stamina. >> i thought he stumbled. you know, it happens. i thought trump was unhinged for 90 straight minutes. so i think comparing that little stumble from biden to like, you know, racist rantings for 90 minutes, it's like there's no comparison. >> joining me now is david plouffe, msnbc political analyst and former obama campaign manager and michael steele, former chair of the republican national committee, cohost of the weekend on msnbc, and host of the michael steele podcast. thank you both for being here. david, you're the person -- you guys, this is actually the panel, my dream panel for today. i feel like you guys can both talk me down and give me real reality. we talked last night. you were on our super show last night and you were very honest about how president biden did. but isn't it important for us to step back just a tiny bit? because regular people don't view it the way we view it. they're not in the business you are. they're not in the media business. they're regular people, and it did seem when you listen to the focus group people that they weren't as freaked out as professional democrats are. is that valid? >> we'll find out. within five to six days or so, we'll have a lot of research, public, but also private. so to talk you down a little bit, i mean, i do think trump did not gain anything last night. he was horrific. there's a trag edin that because he didn't pay the full price for being so horrific. i think he's kind of close to his vote ceiling. there's not much more for him to gain. this is a race joe biden can win. i think he's going to be the nominee, unless he decides a week from now that it just doesn't look winnable, i don't think that will be the case. we have reached the place where there's likely another candidate, probably would be the stronger candidate, younger, different. but joe biden can win this race. and i think what voters are going to process is he's now on probation. but he doesn't have many opportunities to get off probation, as it relates to his fitness for office. speeches help, but not many people see these speeches. today was great, but the voters we need probably didn't see it. the convention doesn't reach many voters outside of the party, and we would have another debate. trump may not debate again. i think biden should do as many interviews as he can, youtube influencers, tiktok influencers. what he said today, what barack obama said today, what bill clinton said today is, hey, people have bad debates but let's look at the contrast, the values, the records. i think this is not just about having a bad debate. the biggest question about biden this entire campaign have been voters, not maga voters, swing voters, base voters saying we're concerned about his fitness. he exacerbated things last night, but he has time to overcome them. bill clinton famously said this as one point i think in the '90s, a lot of times voters will choose strong and wrong over weak and right. that's what voters got last night. there's a lot to do with trump's debate performance in ads, in surrogate work to really pound in, not just the line, he wouldn't answer questions about child care, about the opioid crisis, because it was all about himself. that narcissism, so the race is kind of different than it was pre-debate, and i think biden was trailing narrowly. we may see polls that show him down more, but i don't think it's because trump is going to go from 48 to 54. my guess is biden will go down and he has an opportunity to get the voters back. >> trump does feel like there's a lid to this. people aren't going to listen to him, what i was thinking last night as i'm watching it is the biden thing was uncomfortable to watch him sometimes, but every time trump spoke, i thought that's a lie, that's a lie. it was so frustrating watching the journalists, the two moderators say nothing, as he literally said things like, aborting a baby after birth. that's like physically impossible. that's like saying i'm going to jump in the pool and once i'm in the water i'm going to abort my jump in the pool. i'm already in the pool. you can't abort something that's already done. he just said it, and so anyway. you're kind of moving forward, there have been people who have come out swinging. barack obama came out today, bad debate nights happen, trust me, i know. this is still a choice between someone who fought for ordinary folks his entire life, between someone who tells the truth and right and wraungs, and someone who lies through his teeth for his own benefit. that's why so much is at stake in november. gavin newsom gave his lord of there rings speech last night. we don't have 49 seconds to play it, but it was like lord of the rings. he came in hot. is that what it takes? is it surrogates, is it something else? kamala harris, too, vp harris came out strong as well. >> you know, david may disagree with me a little bit on this, but i think it's more than that. i think it's biden. i think it has to be him. i think it has to be him in a big way. i thought today was a good day. that translates to about 49 million people last night. so there's a lot of room here. there are well over 100 plus million voters he can go after. here's the thing, i think in many respects, that has to happen. folks need to calm down. democrats need to check themselves. all this talk about replacing him is not going to happen. joe biden is not going to make that move. the first lady is not going to encourage him to make that move. at least that's my assessment at this point. then the question becomes, what do you do? you turn to guys like david, turn to guys like carvel, you turn to seasoned veterans who understand what this moment is like and what it is about. but most importantly, what it is not. right? this is not a capitulation to the right. this is not a fall down by the president that absolutely breaks his chances. the president says today, i'm back up. and he looked the country in the eye and said, okay, that was really messed up last night. i don't walk as well as i used to, and my words sometimes slur. but i'm never going to lie to you. i'm never going to put you in harm's way. i'm not going to turn the flag on my home upside down. i'm not going to run roughshod against your values, your culture and your lived experience in this great nation. i think that's a powerful message for him. but the party has to rally around that message and let him do it. damnit, get out of the man's way. let him make the little mistakes. free him up. he was free today. last night, he was prepped to hell with data and information that he was sitting there, you could see him processing, okay, was it 40% or was it three doughnuts? it's crazy. it's crazy. so let the man just do his thing. because the country needs him to do it. >> you know -- >> the country needs him to do it. let him do it. >> you know what, he is overstaffed. the thing, if you think about it, even with vice president harris, they gave us ten minutes with her. she could do 30 easily. she has it in her. and even with president biden, it seems like the sort of way that the white house has responded, not the white house, really the campaign, has responded to the age issue is to kind of hide him a little bit and have him not do -- shouldn't he go out more? if people saw him all the time, then each time you saw him, it wouldn't be so jarring. we all have aging relatives. if you see them all the time, you see it as a gradual process. if you only see them once every few months, it's shocking. so maybe the answer is that he needs to do more so that people can kind of just get used to his gait and how he is. >> by the way, the part about the speech, i don't walk as well as i used to, the words don't come as easy. that would have made an amazing closing statement. >> and he should have picked going last. >> they have to flood had zone now. first, it's not like it will be worse than last night. michael makes an important point. about 100 million people who are going to vote didn't watch the debate. that means they're going to experience the memes can clips. it's important to understand, do they view it differently than those who watch. it's an opportunity to get on tiktok, get on youtube, get on local news. whether it's harris, the other surrogates, we have democratic governors in just about every battleground state. but i think the president should be out there, and yes, he's going to make mistakes. just embrace it. as he did today y think that's really smart. but listen, when you're down today, and that was the most powerful part of his speech when he said you get back up. which he's often talked about. >> that's one of my favorite gospel songs. >> he said his father taught him back in scranton. at the end of the day, that feistiness, not hiding from what happened and making it about people. they led into the debate clearly trying to telegraph this is about joe biden fighting for people, that did not get executed last night. but that doesn't mean it can't get executed today and tomorrow and in the coming weeks. so that i think is the mission, but yes, i think that, you know, whatever it is, by 5 or 7 or 8x, they have to be out there and take some risks. i think that it normalizes it in a way, but it also shows him fighting. and i think that's one of the things that came through in the event today. he was fighting. you know, but he was also honest. so we'll see. listen, i think the important thing is in michigan and wisconsin and pennsylvania and arizona and nevada, has the race fundamentally changed again? my suspicion is trump's number can't go up much more than it is, but you may see biden's number go down and may see people flake to rfk and third party candidates. that doesn't mean it can't come back. biden still has to find a way to gain another couple points. that's doable. we're not talking about 20 points, but that's where the race stands. >> we're going to keep michael and david. for more on last night's debate and looking ahead to november's election. 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[ chanting yes you can ] >> donald trump, donald trump is a genuine threat to this nation. he's a threat to our freedom. he's a threat to our democracy. he's literally a threat to everything america stands for. >> back with me are david plouffe and michael steele. michael steele, how does president biden get this back to a referendum on trump? which seems like the right place for it to be for him. >> since donald trump is very familiar with indictments, load up some indictments. indict him on everything he's done during his presidency and since. lay it out there, plain and simple. you don't have to sugar coat it because it is what it is. it tells the story of the man who wants to be a dictator. it tells the story of a man who does not value the very sanctity of what this country stands for. so much so that they want to deconstruct the administrative state. they have a supreme court that is freely doing that. so okay, you know when donald trump wins, probably two supreme court justices will step down. >> probably? they will. >> thomas and alito. when they do, the 40 something-year-old replacement is sitting, sitting there waiting. god knows what else happens after that. so democrats need to start thinking strategically about this. put their politics and their strategy together to