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we're talking about cashbackin. not a game! we're talking about cashbacking. we're talking about... we're not talking about practice? no... cashbacking. word. we're talking about cashbacking. cashbacking. cashbacking. cashback like a pro with chase freedom unlimited. how do you cashback? >> american democracy after the hardest of things. it to believe that you are part of something bigger than yourself. >> we have never had a significant anniversary of d- day where democracy and western democracy felt as under threat and as fraught as it does this year. both in europe and at home. >> what do you make of donald trump's threats to jail his political opponents? >> i will talk you in about three years from now. >> you have to take donald trump at his word. i think there is nothing that will stop him from doing such things. >> the jury in hunter biden's trial was just dismissed for the weekend after emotional testimony from hunter's daughter. >> will wait to see whether hunter biden will testify in his own defense on monday. >> will you accept the jury outcome, their verdict, no matter what it is? >> yes. >> and have you ruled out a pardon for your son? >> yes. >> i just went to a riggs trial in new york. >>'s first public campaign stops and says guilty convictions. >> if we don't win this country is finished. i really believe that, i think it is finished. >> i simply refuse to believe that america's greatness is a thing of the past. >> good evening once again, i am stephanie ruhle. we are now 151 days away from the election, and the contrast between the two presidential candidates could not be any clearer. this week president biden took action to close the border, and then traveled to france for the 80th anniversary of d-day where he stressed u.s. support for our allies. at donald trump, on the other hand, rallied against his guilty verdict, the judicial system, and then threatened to seek revenge with any possible person who has slighted him. let's bring in our nightcap and discuss all this. my friend, steve liesman is here. lizz winstead, cocreator of the daily show. she is also the cocreator. pablo torre, host of the public toray podcast. and to ray, host on thegrio. we look at this week you have president biden talking about freedom and the fight against tyranny, both 80 years ago and today, and then you have donald trump talking about how revenge is justified. liz, talk to us about where these two campaigns are and where they appear to be headed? >> tyranny of the past and tyranny of the present is basically what we are talking about. where are they heading? sometimes i honestly look at these two things and i think will the selection simply come down to will trump have more disillusioned people that won't show up or will biden have more dissolution people that won't show up? and that scares me. because i feel like for those of us doing the work, in the streets every day defending people's freedoms, if trump wins again, what we are facing is no dissent. and with no dissent we cannot challenge any of it. >> but, if he wins again there is no surprises about who donald trump is. in 2016 you can make the argument. people don't realize who he is. remember, he had all these people like no, no, you don't realize what you are in for. america knows exactly what they're in for. you say no. >> you know, there seems to be a lot of delusion. we hear a lot about the trump era was great, the trump administration was great. as if coven just did not happen. as if there was some reason why those last two years just don't count against his record. >> i don't remember covid but i definitely remember infrastructure week. >> infrastructure week was every week. i feel like trump is the most selfish person in the world, and everything revolves around me personally. every political issue comes back to me, myself. this woman asked him, this reporter asked him, katie from alabama wants to know what is your relationship with god? and he said i do very well with the evangelicals. that is not the question you were asked! and biden, to me, seems very outward. he is thinking about others. how can i help other people? think about the key moment of his life, losing a major chunk of his family in one horrific moment, as a relatively young man. who learned empathy, and to think about others and the importance of family. and this other person, who every bad characteristic we don't want our children to have, he has. >> i think what you said, you know, what is the question being asked and what are we trying to answer as instructed to what the biden campaign, i believe, should be trying to do? framing this even beyond needing to pay attention to the newsday today. more choice between extremism and not. i just wonder why we are not generally describing trump more as an extremist. forget about, again, let's not forget about the issues, people on the ground doing good work. when it comes to what are we expecting out of this, do you want someone who feels like they are attacking every institution, who is, again, do we need to recite the litany of felons and felonies? let's just talk about not being that. >> okay, but here is possibly why i think this is playing out. because, though they shouldn't be, president biden is focusing voters on democracy and on freedom. and these are fundamentally important things, but somehow they get viewed as kind of lofty ideals, and trump goes straight to the gut and grievance. >> because people don't know what it is like not to have it. i lived in russia for six years. they didn't understand democracy. they didn't know what it was like to not be, sort of the possibility of randomly being arrested and otherwise having appeal. but can i just go back to the beginning of the show? did all that stuff in this montage happened just this week? and there is 151 days, which means 21 weeks if my math is right. i'm wondering if i have the stamina to make it through this, if this is just one week's worth of stuff. i really think this is going to be rather a dramatic, caustic, and i think biden is going to have to really bring home what is the absence of democracy, which is a very tough thing, whereas trump has only to say look, we can do all these things, everything can be great, and full of wall is not a sinitic and thing people think about. >> trump is a great salesman for his diseased ideas. biden has not yet shown himself to be a great salesman of his ideals, of what he has done. and there is a very significant and real and honest critique of biden from the left. that he has not done enough on what is going on in gaza. and there are a lot of people who would be democrats otherwise who will not support him because of that. >> i hear you. what's the conversation to have with that voter about what former president trump will do with the situation in gaza? was it not nikki haley a few weeks ago, when she went over there and said it is the job? >> you know, what lizz said about the margins is important. don't think about the potential, the imaginary hypothetical biden trump voter. i don't think that person really exist. there are a couple, but not many. >> there is a lot. >> know, the election is going to be about can trump get people who will say it is either trump or stay home? and can biden get people who say it is either biden or i stay home? the election is going to be won on those margins. and biden does have this significant issue, that a lot of people. there is agoing around on it tiktok . i don't know if using it. >> tiktok, home of misinformation central. >> we can talk about tiktok later. but they asked with man, gun to your head, would you vote for biden or trump? and he said the gun would go off . it is a meme that has been shared by people who are saying i will not go with any of them. >> this is my point about extremism or not. biden should also be as popular as the field broadly. do you want trump or anybody else? we are at a point where trump is not just specifically dystopian in the ways that we may remember or not, based on our experience during the pandemic. he is also just clearly against the will of all is the concept. so i think the question of democracy is how do you make this a tangible, scarier thing? because currently i think talking about democracy as a concept is a little pie-in-the- sky. the thing about democracy dying in darkness did not really work as a slogan for the washington post. >> it this week, with the remembrance of d-day, it was not just the stark contrast between president biden and donald trump. it was also between donald trump and ronald reagan. ronald reagan gave one of the most important speeches of his presidency in normandy. he stood against russian aggression, he stood with his nato allies. so isn't there question to ask of all republican voters, where has your party gone? because the current gop and what donald trump represents bears almost no resemblance to ronald reagan. >> correct. >> it is why you saw joe biden looking almost like reagan and referencing him while he was in france this week. >> i mean, i am just not going to go down that path, because i am somebody who doesn't have friends who are alive because of ronald reagan. so when i think about waxing back to the people who laid the foundations for this evolution, trump did not come to us in a vacuum. trump came to us because people laid foundations for hatred and bigotry and sexism. and i feel like i don't want to go back to the party that i could recognize of ronald reagan. but what i do want to say is people that we are leaving out of this conversation are the voters. i am constantly saying to people the election is not the end game. it is the starting game. you get the democracy you want and you get the democracy you participate in. and who do you want to fight? that is my whole thing. who do you want to fight? do you want to fight a madman? or do you want to fight somebody who might listen to you where you can get the needle move? because these other people. >> i do not think the election is going to be won by biden if he is taking democracy his issue. i think it has to be the economy. all of our polling shows people are most concerned about inflation, most concerned about jobs, most concerned about the economy. democracy should be like the sprinkles you get with the ice cream cone, if the ice cancun is the economy. >> but without a functioning democracy you can throw your economy out the window. >> that the economy is always the number one issue. >> finish your thought. >> i was just going to say that if he does not win it on the record that he is running on -- >> which is a strong one. >> which is a pretty strong one , and a vision of the future, i don't think he wins it by saying i am the democracy guy and that guy isn't. >> we are talking two different languages as far as the folks who may vote for biden and the folks who may vote for trump. i mean, this is not about issues at all. this is about personality. this is about who you believe. and the people on the right, like joy reed talks about earth one and earth two. the people on the right live on earth two. and we can sit here and believe the nothing that you believe is factual. we can go on and on. january 6, climate change, the election, the trial. but they are affirmed in their miss belief constantly, and they think we don't know what is reality. >> this is why i feel like the whole felonies thing should and hopefully does cut through to a silent majority, not to evoke reaganism's, but a silent majority of people who are like i am in earth one resident that i am just not that proud of it. it is, for me, a bridge too far, when we have a convicted felon surrounded by felons being again in the white house. i feel like i just want to simplify it down to do you want the felony guy or anyone else? >> that is a great question. >> donald trump wanted more than his face, wouldn't he be doing everything possible to court the nikki haley voter? he disrespected nikki haley in every possible way and still she endorsed him. if she actually wanted to win, it wouldn't he say she is my running mate, let's go for the gold? he hasn't, instead it is president biden who is putting together a coalition to try to go to for those voters and risking losing progressive voters in the mix. >> i wonder when we say nikki haley voter, i would wonder if they were not so psyched about nikki haley, or if they were just like i don't want trump. i am not like everything about nikki haley is just awesome. people weren't saying that. i feel like him going for that voter after he saw emma we saw the numbers after iowa. was it 28% of those people who said if nikki haley is not the nominee i could possibly vote for biden? i think when trump doesn't go out and try to expand his base -- >> he never has. >> but let me finish. why is even doing that? that should be the sign to everybody, he is not trying to expand past due. he is not looking at a world for you. >> can i do some reporting here with lizz ? i might be messing up the order of your show here. but when roe was first overturned we saw abortion rise up to the top of issues. since then we have seen it fall down. and i know the democrats are making a big deal of the abortion issue. do you think it is something that motivates voters? i don't think it is going to be democracy, and i am wondering if it is going to be abortion as something that trumps the economy, for lack of a better term, and becomes a real motivating issue. >> well, i am the right person to ask. no, no, only because you might not know this, i am on the ground all the time talking to people. and this is where democrats are actually making a mistake. i do think abortion, abortion polls better than politicians. in these ballot initiatives we are seeing in over a dozen states were initiated by the people, not by politicians. by the people. people who held their abortion stories to themselves for years, saw this as a time, and this isn't a couple people. you have to get 200, 500 in florida, 900,000 validated signatures to get it on the ballot. the question is will people vote for biden and the initiative, what we saw in kansas, the very first one, that people voted overwhelmingly for their abortion initiative and still voted for some of the people who created the laws in the first place. what? so, what we should carefully be looking at is these initiatives, i think, are going to greatly help down ballot. they are going to help senate races and places that will be surprising. congressional races. and will people say i am going to vote for everybody but biden? that is the question somebody needs to answer. >> we can do that in the next poll. we can ask about that. >> please do. >> the president took pretty aggressive action on immigration this week. it has been a vulnerability for him. republicans are going to say it is too little too late. how do you think it is going to play out? and just to be clear, republicans have done nothing on immigration, and thanks to donald trump, blotch doing anything legislative. >> this is how the republican party has shifted the overton window in their direction. we talked about the border, and about immigration. immigration is not a central issue in american life. it is not the source of crime, it is not changing the economy. republicans have made it this central issue. >> and people believe it. whether it actually is an issue in daily life are not is somewhat irrelevant, because republicans have been successful in convincing the american people. >> that's what i'm saying, they have made us think about it when it is not as important as they wanted to be. >> i think this is the frustration for anybody who is not trump, joe biden specifically. your running election campaign, and administration based on it, i think, a practical execution of hopefully reasonable and increasingly moderated policies, and donald trump is running on vibes. it is a vibes based campaign. and the question, fundamentally, returns to turnout. >> vibes is too polite award for a period >> anger, resentment, ancient nightmares awake into the bloodstream of people who feel like they're being threatened by non-threats. >> i'm sorry, i have a different view on this. i want to see the person advising biden on the politics of immigration fired. i think he has been behind the curve on this. he has let the republicans take this to a place where it shouldn't go. >> from a narrative perspective, but not a policy perspective. what have they done on the policy front? >> from a narrative perspective, if he is doing what he is doing now, why couldn't he have done that months ago? >> okay, fine. but hold on. you can argue with when he did it, but now he is doing it. now he is doing it. what have republicans done? >> nothing. they have objected to a deal that was apparently done that was agreed to, but the second thing i wanted say -- >> they want to continue to set this up as a problem. >> the second thing i want to say is there are some issues where you want to take on the lack of facts and the misdirection had on. this issue of immigration, i think, should be one that should be approached with much more sympathy for the people who are afraid and scared, and i think rather than head on -- >> white, which people? the immigrants? >> the people in montana who are worried about people crossing the border in xcode. >> you don't make it to montana. >> never make it to montana. >> so we should worry about what people in montana and west virginia should think about it? we already do. >> this is what is motivating them. and i think there is a way to address this in a way that is more understanding and less in- your-face. >> more understanding of what white people in montana think? >> exactly. >> here's why, because they vote. i don't think steve is saying because they are white. hold on a second. i don't think it steve is saying that person in montana is right. i think what he is saying is they vote. at the very least you have to acknowledge who that person is, where they are, and speak to them. >> the issue has already coddled them immensely by wrapping them in this notion of the demonization, i mean, so many americans would think of immigration and think of somebody getting murdered by an immigrant. but that is not the core of our relationship with immigrants in this country. and the right has made it that. >> yes, but the most important word that you said right there is made. because they made it that. because they solidified this falsehood, you have to at least address it and try to start solving for them. >> and you understand how people are scared? >> but who is scared? white people? >> white people. >> but we are continuing to be asks to be sensitive to the fears of white people? that are not real fears. >> it does not matter if they are real fears. they vote. >> i guess it is my question. >> genuine human empathy is being considered anybody's peers. >> i think we are trying to do empathy but also cold calculus about getting their votes. we are trying to disabuse them of the lies and ways that damages them in terms of their sense of security and sense of self. but before we get back in, i just want to ask what does it take to coddle the abstract montana and that is afraid that someone in mexico is coming over to take their job? >> there is a community i know in wyoming. they had no people from south america. all of a sudden they had 12 people. this was a huge change for them, and everybody, all of a sudden they had to teach esl. >> great, and guess what? that town in montana or wyoming had jobs for those people. >> they absolutely did, and those people added to the jobs and there were not people to do the jobs they were doing. all that is good stuff. i am just saying the change, the challenge makes people uncomfortable. i am wondering before we take them head-on if there is a w