Transcripts For MSNBC MSNBC Reports 20240911 : vimarsana.com

Transcripts For MSNBC MSNBC Reports 20240911

Tonight is where the plot thickens. What will it take to give either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump that critical edge in the final 56 days . And what trump himself is telling our reporter in a Phone Call just this morning about the big showdown tonight. Plus, could the key to winning this election be as simple as getting a small slice of undecided moderate voters comfortable with your candidacy . Maybe not so simple. How do you do it . And who has got the edge . And both Harris And Trump will leave pennsylvania once the debate is done, but likely not for long. Ill talk to two mayors in cities in pennsylvania. We got a lot of experience in what it takes to win in this all important state. So, it is a very busy day, hello, im chris jansing, joined by my colleague Andrea Mitchell for our Special Coverage, msnbc reports debate day. This is the Spin Room. And we are just blocks from where the first and so far only president ial debate will be held tonight. And, chris, Donald Trump is expected to arrive here from florida later this afternoon. Kamala harris is already in philadelphia, shes gearing up for Tonights Showdown with the former president , what could be the only event left on the Campaign Calendar that could break this race wide open. Right now it is tied. A new Npr Poll showed a whopping 72 of registered voters say they will be watching tonight. Maybe the largest Tv Audience of the entire campaign. And 30 of them say It Will help them decide whom to vote for, if that really is the case, It Will swing the election. This is a huge number, huge opportunity, right . State democratic leaders are telling me that harris has to seize this opportunity to tell voters more about who she is, and in the words of one party chair, quote, show her chops. Trumps team says the former president s job is simple, tie harris to the liberal positions she held in the past, and the unpopular parts of the biden presidency. Trumps top Adviser Jason Miller also saying hes, quote, expecting some surprises. Nbcs Yamiche Alcindor is here and Garrett Haake covering former President Trump and also with us, Eugene Daniels and former missouri democratic Senator Claire Mccaskill joins us here in studio. Great to have all of you here. Garrett, you spoke to Donald Trump this morning. You told me earlier he was in a good mood. So, whats up, and what about those surprises . I wasnt able to get any information from him about those surprises. But youre right, the former president definitely seemed eager to get to philadelphia, to get on this Debate Stage. Of course, hes had more general Election President ial debates than any other candidate in history. Tonight will be one more. I asked him about the challenges he sees and he said the most difficult part about preparing for the debate, Kamala Harris, the idea, he said, of her changing Policy Positions, especially going back to 2019 or so when she was running for president. Donald trump has plenty of changing Policy Positions of his own, but i think the way that Trump Campaign has chosen to handle this issue, based on my reporting, searches involved in his Debate Prep, is to basically take what they believe is the comments that harris has made on me particular issue that they determine to be the most liberal or the most out of the political mainstream and try to make that her current policy position, regardless of what she says it might be now. And essentially force her to defend herself on the far left. And risk being painted as a far left candidate. Of course, chris, that is the campaigns goal tonight. Donald trump and how he chooses to execute and how he behaves on the stage is sort of always a question until the debate gets under way and perhaps until the debate is well under way. As you well know, Donald Trump felt when he was running against Joe Biden that he absolutely was going to win, he was banking on it. Then Kamala Harris came in, things started to shift, there was lots of reporting about how worried he was, about how unpredictable he had become. Where do you see his frame of mind right now . Well, i think it is settled a little bit, chris. Youre right, Donald Trump is a big ufc fan. If youre a Ufc Fighter and knock your opponent out in the first round, they dont get to put another fighter in against you for rounds two and three. The fight is over. I think trump was deeply frustrated by the fact he felt he won the race against Joe Biden by knocking him out of it and had to face somewhere else. We all watched as he struggled to figure out exactly how to go after Kamala Harris, what his strategy would be to face her. And my conversations with sources close to him indicated that watching the polls tighten a little bit over the weekend, one poll had him ahead again nationally, though within the margin of error, that soothed his nerves a little bit, he still sees himself as in the Drivers Seat in this race, or perhaps sees himself again in the Drivers Seat. That has calmed his nerves, which i think we all watched play out over 40 some odd days when Harris Poll numbers were surging and he was having a hard time figuring out what tactics to use against her. And we all know how much Donald Trump focuses on polls. So, yamiche, the last few hours before 9 00, when it all gets started on the Debate Stage, what does it look like for the Vice President . It is a good question. We know that the Vice President has been diligently preparing for this moment. She has been having mock debates with an aide who is dressed like Donald Trump, speaking like Donald Trump, to embody the person she is going to have to see on the Debate Stage for the first time in person. We understand tonight she also has been rehearsing with actual tv lights, so really trying to reenact and in some ways get ready for the exact Space And Setting that shes going to be in tonight. But she is someone who has a lot of work to do when it comes to introducing herself to americans. We have done a number of focus groups and what we have heard is that there are a lot of voters who want more specifics from her, when it comes to her policy stances, when it comes to sort of what a Harris Administration would look like, so you can imagine that in these last few hours, shes really getting herself ready to both introduce herself to a segment of america who maybe doesnt really understand her back story, doesnt understand her middle Class Upbringing and the fact that she is a child of immigrants, jamaican and indian immigrants, but there is this idea she also wants to really needle Donald Trump, shes focused on beating him, she looked at clipz of former debates of him and her team looked at full debates that Donald Trump did to really get a sense of how to get him to lash out, to get personal, to really get in a way sort of frustrated and angry and maybe even using derogatory language at her and her goal will be to keep calm and not get pulled into those personal attacks. But shes also going to have to, while shes doing all of that, have to figure out how to differentiate herself from President Biden. There is a lot on her plate as she tries to be loyal to President Biden, to lay out what a third what a Harris Administration would look like and how it wouldnt just be a third biden administration. So, all of that is on her plate tonight. I imagine shes sort of trying to get ready while also not overpreparing and taking in the last few hours to get her mind in a place where shes ready for this. Two great reporters to kick us off, garrett, yamiche, thank you, both. Claire, so they seem like at least publicly theyre both feeling good going in tonight. She gave the thumbs up yesterday when on a walk with her husband. So i talked to a lot of grassroots folks over the last couple of days and asked them what is keeping you up at night, about this debate, because they all think shes going to do well, shes the prosecutor, but several of them said that trump may just dominate. That he may so overwhelm the stage that It Will be tough for her to get her point across. What keeps you up . I bet your dollar that doesnt happen. Okay. By the way, first of all, i can nerd out for a minute . This is so cool. So cool, right . For me, for the political nerd in me, this is like christmas. We should tell people by the way, we said it is a Spin Room and in the middle, it is enormous. Thats where the folks who are going to say my guy won, My Girl won, are going to stand. Now it is it was empty when i first got here, it is all filling up with the reporters who are behind andrea and me. And those are the folks who are going to put their stories out there. One quick point, back in colorado, when we were there, back in 2016, it seems like forever ago, Donald Trump came into the Spin Room. And would do the rope line, melania was with him, those were different days, he was very chatty. By the way, i used to be the one theyre spinning for president ial candidates. Im glad to not be doing that tonight. Ill be able to focus on the debate. Were happy youre here. Thank you very much. Listen, there is no better Training Ground for a debate than a courtroom. Speaking from experience, you never know what is coming at you in a courtroom. When youre the prosecutor and youre handling the case, you dont know what the witness is actually going to say. You dont know how the judge is going to rule. She is very used to having to think on her feet and pivot, and. Never under this kind of pressure. But shes risen to this moment. I think most of america underestimated Kamala Harris. I think she has shown the country that she can handle this pressure, that she will be very president ial, and she knows she has to do one thing more than anything else tonight, and thats reassure america shes ready to lead the strongest nation in the world. And i think thats what shes focused on, rather than his Phony Baloney bs. Just related to that, one quick point, when i was doing some reporting with a lot of State Department and national security officials about what kind of Foreign Policy she would have, to a person, they all said, shes a former prosecutor, shes a lawyer, she reads her briefs, she reads the pdb, the president ial daily brief, so she really prepares herself. She comes to the meetings really prepared. It is her mo. If anything, she might do too much homework. I think thats we need to be more worried about that than not being prepared enough. The Policy Stuff is important. It is all on her website now, you can see all of her policies. Tonight she has to be strong, she has to be likable, and if she cant, she needs to be dismissive of him in a way that makes him smaller. I want to bring in eugene, you noted in Todays Playbook that there is plenty of gamesmanship going on both sides. Trying to rattle Each Other, which is picking up on what claire just was talking about. So, can you tell us about what is going on behind the scenes . Yeah, i mean, it started with the mics, right . The question of whether or not the microphones would be muted in between answers. And the reason that the Harris Campaign wanted that is because they remember, they think about the debates that happened not this year, but in 2020, with Donald Trump and Joe Biden and some of Joe Bidens best moments were those moments where they kind of interacted with both mics on. They remember that in 2020 when she debated then Vice President mike pence, the biggest moment and still kind of follows her to this day is mr. Vice president , im speaking. Trying to create that moment. And try to needle him into calling her a name. Lets be real, thats the kind of gamesmanship theyre working that we have moved into as we move to today, and the Trump Campaign ended up being the opposite of where they were for the debate with Joe Biden, which is they wanted to keep the mics muted because they know, we all know that, you know, him calling her a name, him getting thrown off is not going to be good for him. If you think about the Joe Biden and trump debate, trump didnt really do well, right . He wasnt talking about there were lots of mistruths in there, he was saying things that werent true, but the problem is that Joe Biden wasnt able to fact check him, he wasnt able to parry in any way, shape or form, even with the mics muted. I think Vice President harris is going to have a different opportunity, shes not going to have that issue. And the question of Preparation And Discipline on the stage for both of these candidates is going to be really important for Donald Trump, whether or not he is able to kind of stay where his campaign wants him to stay, and talk about those Policy Positions that Vice President harris may have evolved on her campaign would say over the years since she was a candidate in 2019 or even a senator and now. And Vice President harris who if you talk to aides as i have for years, overpreparation is a thing theyre always thinking about, they dont want her to, you know, think shes going into a courtroom and have to read every single brief and have every single word ready to go because theyre starting to, and shes starting to believe that her Gut Instincts on some of these things and some of these unscripted moments are, one, what The American people want to see, and, two, where she can kind of shine, right . She can react to what is happening on stage, instead of looking too scripted. All of these things are theyre working on behind the scenes and i guess well see tonight whether or not both campaigns are successful on the Discipline Aspect of this. Thats really a question of confidence, which ive seen a big change in traveling with her over the last couple of years on overseas trips. Claire, 70 of american adults say theyre going to be watching. This is a huge audience, huge opportunity, also a big risk. If you mess up, everybody is seeing that, and we saw what happened just seven weeks ago. If anybody believes that Donald Trump is going to be a new different Donald Trump, they havent been paying attention. And if he is himself, then that 70 of registered voters are going to be reminded why it was so chaotic. And why they really were not happy during the trump presidency. I think the contrast is really going to serve to her benefit and i think the bigger the audience, the better. It is 90 minutes. It is the least a citizen can do to inform their vote, i hope everybody watches and watches us on msnbc. Yesterday afternoon when i talked to four State Party chairs, contrast was a word that they talk about a lot in having heard about a lot of voters, because they have been doing outreach, Hundreds Of Thousands of doors knocked, millions of Phone Calls made, right . And people want to get a measure of her. I think there was a little bit of surprise at least among a couple of them how many people who are democrats, whose doors were knocked on, said i dont really know that much about her. They want to see can she command the stage, can she stand up to Donald Trump and what does th

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