that is that is our show for tonight. now it's time for the last word with lawrence o'donnell. >> good evening, alex. you know it is friday night when i have not remembered to turn off my phone. >> weight, my phone rang during the show. >> that has happened to me but it won't happen tonight because it's fixed. >> it's been a long week. >> it has, and we are going to talk about the supreme court decisions and i need this because i don't know the difference between nitrous oxide and whatever the other thing is and so, which chris hayes and you both explained beautifully but neil is going to take me through it again. >> he is the guy to ■çhave. it's a very big day at the high court. i will be watching. okay, 24 hours later, if you are ready for some calm analysis about what we also last night, this is the place to be for the next hour. the very first thing you need to know about what we also last night is that most voters did not see it. it was the lowest rated presidential debate in a very long time. it had the smallest audience of any first presidential debate in the 21st century and only about one third of the people who voted in the last presidential election actually watched the debate. only 51 million viewers out of %-@last time, so, two thirds of the voters did not see a second of what happened last night, and that is an important number to have in mind when you consider the impact of presidential debates because everyone who thinks that thing last night was some kind of big problem for joe biden believes, without evidence, that the debate changed the minds of undecided voters even though undecided voters are the most likely kind of people to not watch debates, like last night. in 1980, when we had about half the voting population we have now, half the voting population we have now, the presidential debate got 80 million viewers. almost every voter■ç watched th debate. in 1980, 85 million votes were cast in the presidential election, and 80 million people watched that debate. that is a big difference. faithful audiences of this program will know that i have in every presidential campaign season, insisted repeatedly that these so-called debates that were invented by and for television, do not test anything that is actually part of the daily job of the presidency. no one ever runs into the oval office and says mr. president, you have two minutes to explain your position on some subjects. presidents discuss one subject at the time of the oval office. they do it in detail for as long as they want or as short they read briefing papers, if the name is not trump, about that subject, before each of those discussions. most presidencies never have an emergency, a run in the room emergency. there is never a moment when someone rushes in, giving the president an immediate emergency problem that the president has to solve. that did happen to one of those candidates on the stage last night, and when he faced that emergency, his choice was to do absolutely nothing for 187 minutes. he froze for hundred 87 minutes on january 6 while his supporters were attacking the capital and trying to overturn the presidential election through violence. ■ç last night, and donald trump's first debate appearance since january 6th, the debate moderators did not ask him what the january 6 committee very much wanted to ask him. what were you doing for those 187 minutes. instead of that hugely important question, the very first question written by a committee, as these questions always are in these kinds of debates, the very first question about trump was do you want to impose a 10% tariff on all goods coming into the u.s. how will you ensure that that doesn't drive prices even higher ? trump. it's not going to drive them higher. that's it. ■ç that was the answer. it tariff, by definition, is an increase in the price. that is the very point of tariffs, to increase the consumer price of imported goods, everything from clothes to cars. in trump's case, a 10% increase on the price of every single thing imported into the united states, so a new $4000 tax you would pay on a $40,000 car. that $40,000 car becomes a $44,000 car because of donald trump's tariffs. this debate that was not a real debate pretended the tariffs are not tariffs. they let that happen. the better question to donald trump would have been, what is a tariffs, because he proved last night that he doesn't knowç . he proved that his true believers do not know what a tariff is. donald trump said that his tariffs were going to force china quote, to pay us a lot of money. that was the very first of donald trump's long list of lies , over 50 of them, in that so- called debate. american tariffs can only be paid by american consumers of those goods, a 10% tariff on chinese goods will not cost anyone in china one penny. it will not cost the government of china a penny. no business in china will be cost a penny by a truck tariff. this is the kind of lie that the presidential debater would ever have attempted to tell prior to donald trump and it was the least of his lies. ■ç >> i didn't have sex with a porn star. >> you now live in a country where most of the world has declared a liar and convict the winner of the debate. he struggled with his voice and that has nothing to do with the job of the president, a format that does not test the job of the president. most of the coverage of the event actively encourages voters to look at that as superficially as possible, and focus only on what the commentators call the performance, and deliver the policy.■ç the word panic started showing up on banners on your television screens and then of course, came the unrealistic notions that there is a match of the candidate who can emerge to pick up the banner as the democratic presidential nominee . not one person who makes that suggestion has said who that magical candidate is, and how went through what process the nomination could be delivered to that magical candidate. the new york times editorial encouraging joe biden to leave the race published tonight at least admits, perhaps inadvertently, at the end, that the new york times does not have any idea how this should happen, because the editorial says the democrats must quote, create a process to select someone more capable■ç to stand in his place to defeat mr. trump in november. create a process because the process does not exist, and there is no polling data to even begin to suggest that that candidate exists. there is no polling data. the other democrat, the only other democrat to this day who has ever pulled well against donald trump, the only democrat is joe biden. the second best polling candidate among democrats against president trump is actually vice president kamala harris. the magical dream candidates are completely unknown to most people in the country, and not one governor■ç polls anywhere close to kamala harris or joe biden and not any one of those governors has ever raised one dollar of campaign funding that can be used in a federal presidential campaign. they don't have one penny to run with, and that is not a minor technical point. campaign money is not some minor technicality. i heard this talk once before on the democratic side in 1992 at exactly this point on the calendar in june when bill clinton was running third, at a tiny 25% of the vote against ross perot's leading 39%,■ç and president george hw bush is 31%, and there was panic in the halls of congress about that where i was working at the time. there was much talk of trying to replace bill clinton as the nominee even though he had the nomination locked up through the primaries. there was talk of somehow getting mario cuomo, the governor of new york, who already refused to run for president of that year to take the nomination somehow away from bill clinton or george mitchell, then majority leader of the united states senator and i knew and worked with george mitchell in those days and i knew that talk was preposterous. george mitchell knew it was preposterous and it was being pushed by other members of congress, including senators, who knew absolutely nothing about the complexity of running a presidential campaign■ç. they were all dreaming about something none of them knew how to do, and in the end, all that panic was for nothing. bill clinton won. they won with 43% of the vote. the next time we saw this kind of panic was on the republican side in 2016 when the access hollywood video came out and prominent republican started removing their endorsements from donald trump that very day. and, talking about finding a way to replace him as their nominee. republican congressman jason chaffetz made his one and only appearance on this program that might on the access hollywood tape and he said this. i can't, you know, my wife and i, we have a 15-year-old daughter.■ç how in the world can i lick my 15-year-old daughter in the eye and say honey, you know what? your dad endorses donald trump for president. i can't do that. and i won't do that, and that is why i am withdrawing my endorsement. >> he was not the only one. a bunch of endorsements were withdrawn that day. no endorsements, none have been withdrawn from joe biden, none. jason chaffetz daughter is now 23 years old, and she has watched her father fully endorsed donald trump for president three times now, three times in a row because only 19 days after jason chaffetz said that on this■ç program, he reversed himself and announced that he was fully for donald trump for president and did not explain to anyone how he explained that to his daughter. and, we know who won that election. in fact, the party has ever abandoned the nominee. the last time we saw something close to it, a presumptive nominee, drop out of the race was in march of 1968 when president lyndon johnson announced he would not run for re-election. his vice president, hubert humphreys, who did not run in a single primary, won the nomination at the convention in chicago because back in those days, most of the delegates went to the convention free to vote for anyone. that is never happened again because the rules change beginning in 1972 that created the current system of voters choosing the nominate ■çthrough primaries, and it is worth noting in 1968, which you can read all about in my book about that presidential campaign called "playing with fire," hubert humphrey lost that election to richard nixon by less than 1% of the vote, and the humphrey campaign quite reasonably blame their loss on not being able to raise enough money in so short a time, and not having enough time to build the presidential campaign around the candidate who was forced to enter the race so late, and not run in a single primary. we will get our first major clues about the effect of last night's debate, which was not seen by most voters until polls begin to■ç emerge sometime next week. focus groups last night indicated no real shifts among voters. there was an overnight poll indicated -- indicating no shifts among voters. one of the striking things about focus group responses is that they knew donald trump was lying most of the time even without donald trump informal effect checked at the event. with the debate behind them, both candidates got back on the campaign trail today. >> we win here, we win the election. and this is how we are going to do it. were going to stand up for the women of america. we are going to restore roe v. wade as the law of the land. we're going to stand up for the right to vote. we're going to stand up for ■ç medicare and social security. we are going to fight for child care, paid leave, and eldercare. we are going to keep lowering the cost of prescription drugs for every single american. we are going to keep protecting the affordable care act. that is why more than 40 million americans have health insurance today. we are going to protect our children and get the weapons of war off our streets. we are going to provide clean drinking water, affordable high- speed internet, quality education for every child in america.■ç we are going to secure our border and protect legal immigration. and unlike the other guy, we are going to stand up to dictators like putin. america bows to no one, no one, no one, ever. folks, we are going to keep dealing with the climate crisis. >> level warming is fine. >> how about the fact that 40 out of 44 top advisers including his vice president not supporting him this time around, the people who know him best, 40 of them so that i will not support the man i worked for this time around. it tells you a lot.■ç he lied about how great he was on crime. had to remind him that he oversaw a record increase of murder rates in 2020. on my watch, violent crime is at a 50 year low. then i pointed out that the only convicted criminal on the stage last night was donald trump. when i thought about his 34 felony convictions, his sexual assault on a woman in a public place, his being fined $400 million for business fraud, i thought to myself, donald trump is not just a convicted felon. donald trump is a one-man crime wave. >> bidens department of justice has wrongly prosecuted hundreds of americans for peacefully proásting on january 6. >> and then, his biggest lie. he lied about how he had nothing to do with the insurrection on january 6. we also with our own eyes. we watched it on television. we saw thousands at his direction attacked the capital. we saw police being attacked, the capital being ransacked, a mob hunting for pickers -- speaker pelosi, gallows literally being set up for mike pence then he told them as he sat in■ç a private dining room, he sat there for three hours watching tv. he did not a single thing to stop it. nothing, nothing at all. i know we have more to do to get prices down. we have to take on corporate greed. they are making twice the profit they were before the pandemic. we've got to make housing more affordable, provide childcare, make the tax code fair. 16 nobel winners of the economic nobel prize have looked at my economic plan this weekend issued a report, and it trumps plan. here's what they concluded. they said my plan would continue to grow the economy and bring down inflation. 16 nobel laureates, and that trumps planets in the nation into recession and inflation soaring through the roof. >> all they know is electric. they want electric army tanks. they want electric planes. what happens if the sun is shining while you are up ■çin t air? you know, i told you there would be problems there. now they want electric everything. i don't -- folks, i don't walk as easy as i used to. i don't speak as smoothly as i used to. i don't debate as well as i used to, but i know what i do know. i know how to tell the truth. i know right from wrong. and i know how to do this job. i know how to get things done.■ i know, like millions of americans know, when you get knocked down, you get back up. >> coming up after the spray, we will be joined by stuart stevens, who ran the last sane republican presidential campaign and sir leah maxwell will be with us. zirlina actually talk to voters today. that is next. ♪ i wanna hold you forever ♪ hey little bear bear. ♪ ♪ ♪ i'm gonna love you forever ♪ ♪ ♪ c'mon, bear. ♪ ♪ ♪ you don't...you don't have to worry... ♪ ♪ be by your side... i'll be there... ♪ ♪ with my arms wrapped around... ♪ can neuriva support your brain health? mary, janet, hey!! 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[ speaking minionese ] i'm gonna smoke this guy. you've gotta be kidding? better? >> all right, >> all right, so, last night, president joe biden and donald trump had their first debate in earlier today, the president said himself, it was not his best performance, but there are three things that were true yesterday before the debate that are still true today. let's level set on this, all right? first, the stakes of this race could not be higher. second, the contrast in the selection could not be more stark. and third, ■çwe believe in our president, joe biden, and we believe and what he stands for. and, to that point, and, to that point, we all know, let's not forget, he beat donald trump points, and in nevada, with your help, we are going to do it again. and, we are going to win. >> leading off our discussion tonight, chief political, list for puck, and msnbc affairs■ç analyst. zerlina maxwell is with us, author of "the end of white politics, how to heal our liberal divide," and stuart stevens as joining us, veteran of five republican presidential campaigns and senior adviser at the lincoln project . he is the author of "it was all a lie, how the republican party became donald trump." stuart, i would like to begin with you. i referred to you on the other side of this commercial break is the person who ran the last sane republican presidential campaign, which was, of course, 2012 with mitt romney. you have been around that panic by before. i mean, you remember 1992 with what we saw when the access hollywood video broke. people were pulling endorsements from donald trump that day, within minutes. we are not anywhere near that in terms of public officials, public endorsements with joe biden, but you have seen all this before. what do you make of it? >> look, you know, you have to ask yourself would you rather be my guy or the other guy. would you rather be joe biden in this race? i don't think any of the structure of the race changed last night and i think you are seeing that in the polls. using joe biden go up one. after the first debate with kerry, bush dropped i think five. president obama dropped about the same when he debated mitt romney, so i mean■ç, i think somehow or another we sort of went crazy thinking that donald trump won one election with 46.2% of the vote and that everything we know about politics changed. i don't think it did. you had a guy up there was a convicted felon, who has been found liable of sexual assault by a jury has been bragging about overturning roe v wade, which has a bizarre rationalization or argument that everyone wanted roe v. wade to be overturned, a guy talking about tax cuts for billionaires and by the way, he thinks america is a third world country. the is not going to be elected i rqráh%ust not. >> zerlina, you cheated. you did the thing that pundits are not supposed to do. you talk to voters. we are all supposed to just guess what voters are thinking or pontificate as if we know, but you had them on the phone on your radio show early this morning. what did yo