Its all so new and exciting. Its all so exciting. Scramble the circuits. Youll have msnbc punched up but youll be seeing abc. A nice thing. A nice way to let everybody see it. Yeah, im only lightly joking, but youre doing a Public Service announcement, reminding everyone while yes, there are all these companies and competitors this is one night where all of the usual competitors agree to simulcast the same thing because its for civics. In service of our democracy and i think a nod to how important this election is. Amen. Well put. Thank you. Have a great show. See you soon. Our thanks to Nicolle Wallace for the handoff. Welcome to The Beat. Our top story is the Harris Campaign on offense with this new ad Hammering Trump for project 2025. Well show you some of that ad in a moment. It reenforced the attack the Campaign Hit nightly at the convention which is trying to take what is now politically seen as widely a very toxic project 2025 and tie it to trump. Brand him with it. Link him to it. You can even say the Harris Campaign wants to Yoke 2025 and the Trump Vance Tick frt the remaining days. And to show voters the Trump Camp has extremist views on everything from Points Harris is explicitly hitting on the trail this week. He plans to give billionaires massive Tax Cuts and to cat corporate taxes by over a trillion dollars, even as they pull in record profits. His plans will add more than 5 Trillion to the national debt. He also wants to impose what in effect is a national sales tax. And that is on top of the 2 Trillion tax cut. We know how to count. We know how to count. And if youre counting, harris has had a pretty busy schedule as compared to trump lately. While Jd Vance is doing a rally in phoenix, arizona, at this hour, as you see here, some of the preparations, while harris running Mate Walz will be doing his rally in pennsylvania. Preparations under way, people gathered. If youre counting, were just five days out from the debate in pennsylvania. Harris headed there for prep today. She arrived in pittsburgh and was greeted by Senator Fetterman and his wife. Harris is practicing with a democratic Operative Playing Trump in debate prep, All The Way back to 2016. He is known for getting into character. He wears a red tie. He does the trump lungeins. He did this for hillary clinton. As for the 2025 attack, many democrats want harris to advance that attack about project 2025 on that highly watched Debate Stage. I mention that new Harris Ad which is running on tv and the internet. Heres a clip. Trumps project 2025 agenda will give him unchecked political power with no guardrails and would take black america backwards. Project 2025 would strip away our Voting Rights Protections and eliminates the department of education. It would also require states to monitor womens pregnancies. It bans abortion and would rip away Health Coverage for millions. Trump officials insist they do not back the 2025 policies. Several of them have told us that right here on The Beat. Why do so many parts of the republican Platform Overlap with 25, and we can put examples on the screen, including as i think you know, abortion . Its very simple. President trump said he has nothing to do with 2025. There are groups on the right and left who come up with policy initiatives. What do you say to people who read these two things and say trump and the platform are basically 25 on abortion . Look, i know nothing about project 2025. Project 2025 has absolutely nothing to do with the past, present, or future. President trump and President Trump alone will make his own policies. Heritage does such an incredible job. Theyre going to lay the Groundwork And Detail plans for exactly what our movement will do. And thats the history. Trump has gone from touting heritage, which wrote the thing and saying they would do the blueprints to distancing himself from it, and his aides say the same. Hes been campaigning on economic issues in New York today, and trying to energize the base with this Town Hall on Fox News with Sean Hannity that aired last night. I can tell you it drew a strong 3. 2 million viewers live, but it was actually not even the most watched hour on fox last night. Trump used the appearance to hit his campaign themes. He talked immigration, foreign policy, he did kind of a preattack on Abcs Fairness for next weeks debate, something i was touching on with Nicolle Wallace a moment ago. Then, Donald Trump brought up his concern and his objection to these atactions that his Running Mate is weird. Jd is not weird. Hes a solid rock. I happen to be a very solid rock. Were not weird. Were other things perhaps but were not weird. Were not weird guys. Were very solid people. Were not weird guys. Were not weird. Were not weird. Its interesting to see Donald Trump for whatever Reason And Everyone can draw their own conclusions, but kind of break one of the first rules of communications and pr, which is if youre being accused of something that youre not, you dont repeat that thing, weird or whatever it may be, three times over. But this is Donald Trump, maybe he is off a step, maybe he is tired. He certainly has fewer events. Or maybe hes just feeling an instinct to say over and over hes not weird, not weird, not weird. If people in the Harris Campaign celebrate the idea that calling them weird has them saying the word weird, so be it, its politics. This debate matters a ton. You dont even really need to be convinced of that. We just had a single president ial debate in this cycle, and it upended everything and changed the nominee and led to the latest exit of a president ial candidate who was in the White House ever in american history. People are going to come back for the next debate and its fall, more people are following politics than in sleepy august. So harris approach will matter, and Donald Trump, make no mistake, has done effective work in many debates previously, and hes done more national debates than her, and its not unlike any other difficult thing. Practice is relevant. Harris has her own practice, not against trump, not on the national stage in the same way, but on the democrat stage. So take a look at how she has previewed some of what she wants to do now that she has the ball. This was back in the 2020 president ial Campaign Cycle at a 2019 debate. First i have a few words for Donald Trump. You have used hate, intimidation, fear, and over 12,000 lies as a way to distract from your failed policies and your broken promises. I plan on focusing on our common issues, our common hopes and desires, and in that way unifying our country. President trump, you can go back to watching Fox News. Tadow, that was an abc debate in the primary. Shell be bringing some of that energy to the debate for the general election next week. What a difference five years makes. Theres also concrete measures of harris momentum. You can look at these national polls if you want. We dont cover them on The Beat because there is no national election. Theres an electoral college. You have to look at the states and other pieces of evidence. Fundraising in modern American Politics matters and its also a clue about enthusiasm among the base, which matters for volunteering and for turnout. Harris, we can tell you, is raising over 300 Million in august alone, according to what shes told nbc through her campaign. It doubles trumps expected haul. New reporting shows the momentum also has forced the Trump Campaign to find different and new more conservative or more safe approaches to the electoral map because, quote, the Trump Path to victory is narrowing, axios reporting his campaign now pulling back from new hampshire, minnesota, virginia. And instead refocusing on north carolina, arizona, nevada, where he had significant polling leads before harris made them competitive. End quote. Let me give you the very clear translation. Numbers had shown Donald Trump could be winning those states over biden handily. Now, those same states, according to this nonpartisan reporting, are quote, competitive, to the degree that harris might take some of them. A competitive close race is the marker for the intensity of this debate. And thats a tougher environment for trump than the last debate where he and his aides seemed very confident about his chances against biden and were literally putting resources and energy into those other thats that now, an indication of strategy, theyre pulling back from. That doesnt mean harris is going to win. I dont want you to run out and say, hey, i saw on the news, they say trump is pulling back, shes winning. It means the strategy is changing, that his map is narrowing, but democrats also know they have a narrow map. You hear a lot about the blue wall because they see some paths here and there, but they dont see ten different ways to win. This is a tight race. Tighter than it was when biden was the nominee. Thats bad for trump. But still very, very tight, which is a challenge for harris. As she thinks about what she wants to do, there are all the echoes of 2020. Its taken for granted sometimes that Kamala Harris is part of the winning biden harris coalition. She met the coalition in 2020 that way, she ran on the national stage and did fight the Maga Message against then incumbent Vice President pence. Im prolife, i dont apologize for it. I will always fight for a womans right to make a decision about her own body. I couldnt be more proud to serve as Vice President to a president who stands without apology for the sanctity of american life. It should be her decision and not that of the president and the Vice President. Kamala harris then before she assumed the vice presidency, taking on the Vice President , and she was effective, and pence for his part, Like Trump, had a lot of experience in at that point doing these debates and such, but she got where she needed to go. And another point as we look to what she might do in next weeks debate, there has been many articles written and the convention showed she does not talk up her own identity a lot. She does not say vote for me because im a member of this or that group. At the same token as a former prosecutor, she does not shy away from hard conversations. It has nothing to do with Kamala Harris identity that Donald Trump appeals to White Supremacists in general. Hes been doing that long before she was a nominee, and she does not mince words when it comes to the fact that Donald Trump through proud boys, through White Supremacists, through his well recorded document of statements that that is fact, that that has to be confronted when youre at a debate. We are talking about an election in 27 days where last week the president of the United States took a Debate Stage in front of 70 Million americans and refused to condemn White Supremacists. And it wasnt like he didnt have a chance. He didnt do it, and then he doubled down. And then he said, when pressed, stand back. Stand by. They did stand by, All The Way to january 6th. We are welcoming Michael Steele, former Rnc Chair and our colleague. I end on Thas Clip in this segment, in this script here, michael, because that was Kamala Harris in one debate on the national stage. Confronting and singling out what Donald Trump said and admitted on another stage, and he went on to lose that campaign, which is a reminder of how the words at Debates Matter even if people are accustomed to trump getting away with it. Your thoughts. Yeah, i think shes going to be in a very unique position in this debate coming up. But i think we also have to keep in mind that there are some aspects of this that could be problematic. The country wants a president , not a prosecutor. So shes going to have to show herself to be president ial in her prosecution of Donald Trump. Ill let you finish but youre saying there are more important credentials than being a lawyer. You might be right. As a lawyer, yeah, i think so. You have to remind people youre a human being, not just a lawyer. Exactly. Exactly. But, and i think thats going to be a very interesting narrative around this debate. It is also different that she is sitting in the chair as a Vice President ial nominee, not as a president ial nominee. So in many respects, she has to Parrot And Level up the words and the policies and the ideas of her Running Mate. Shes now in that prime chair where shes going to be dictating the conversation around how the Country Moves forward. And shes going to be able to juxtapose that against Donald Trump who clearly is mired in something other than sound policy, gravitas, narratives that explain how this term will be different tromhis last term. And so i think shes going to be uniquely positioned to bring the hammer, but shes going to have to bring the hammer with a president ial deftness that people lean into her thinking, yeah, she gets it. I can follow her. I trust her to be president. Yeah, and using the hammer to illicit something from trump, which then they can campaign on. That certainly was what they were able to do, sometimes effectively, in 2020. Michael, stay with me. I also have an Obama Veteran about to join us after our shortest break, 90 seconds. Onds youll love this Centrum Silver is clinically proven to support memory in older adults. So you can keep saying. You mastered it you fixed it you nailed it you did it with Centrum Silver. Clinically proven to support memory in older adults. New projects means new project managers. You need to hire. I need indeed. Indeed you do. When you sponsor a job, you immediately get your shortlist of quality candidates, whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria. Visit indeed. Com hire and get started today. My names trevor. Ive tried other whodiets in the pasteed match your job criteria. Never lasted before too long my cravings came back especially my Sugar Cravings and i fell off the wagon. Release worked fast. My Sweet Tooth is gone. Im so happy with my progress and now i love myself. Were back with Michael Steele and blake zef, a veteran of the obama campaign, the Clinton Campaign which we were mentioning in the trump debates i bet you remember, and documentarian who has worked with msnbc. Blake, all Debates Matter. It seems like this one could matter more. What do you think . Yeah, i think you guys hit on some really key pound. Look, debates are not necessarily the most effective way of measuring how someone will be as president , but its the system we have. And why do i say that . Donald trump is not a good president. He doesnt know much about being a good president , but hes a tv performer. Thats what these are, Entertainment Events and spectacles. The chairman was quite right to say this is something that the Harris Team needs to take very seriously and will take very seriously. In terms of how to counter that, i think the good news is they have done an amazing job, really take a step back and think about what an amazing job both the candidates Kamala Harris and tim walz, but also their teams have done in terms of managing the debate of this entire campaign for the last month or two. Right . Im old enough to remember when there were some democrats constantly playing catchup to republicans and im sure the chairman remembers that from The Other Side where you have republicans talk about Tax Cuts or being tough on crime and the democratic candidate would try to copy them. Look whats happening this cycle so far. The democrats talking about reproductive health. Talking about ivf, roe v. Wade, and like you showed, trump is kind of back off his position on this and saying im changing my position on ivf. Same thing with this weird comment. It might sound like a small and insignificant thing, but the democrats are calling trump and his team weird and its gotten in his head and hes saying im not weird. To the extent the Vice President in this debate can continue to lead and direct and dictate the terms of the debate, and that means yes, youre going to have to fight back against some of the crazy Things Trump says about immigration and inflation and whatever else comes out of his head, right, but then come back with your three or four key points and continue to hit them and manage the terms of this debate. Its a little like when you play tennis. If your opponent has a bad backhand, you keep hitting it to the backhand. And thats what the Vice President needs to do in this debate. We love a Tennis Analogy during the final week of the u. S. Open in New York. To all those points, michael, take a listen to Carville Right here last night. Oh, im going to read it. He said, what amazed him most is they they were utterly cut off guard and they cant get their sea legs, they cant settle on an attack, and the trump allies still seem off balance. Look, on the one hand, democrats are going to make attacks. On the other hand, as blake mentioned, and we have discussed, michael, Donald Trump, the Pr Magician running around saying were not weird, were not weird, does seem off balance by his standards. Oh, my goodness, i would like to put his finger on so many important points, and i had some flashbacks to the 2010 cycle, because what hes just described is exactly the strategy, and it is working. I remember, i knew i had won the debate on Obama Care