Live covered on msnbc of tonights president ial debate between joe biden and donald trump. We said it would be a debate unlike any other. Is certainly was. In the first ever tv debate between a sitting president and former president. The sitting president came out of the gate with an unexpectedly weak voice that at times made what he was saying hard to discern. The camp and said it was the result of a cold, but he did seem to falter several times early on in terms of trying to speak in a way that could be heard and in terms of trying to speak to time as the flashing red lights and solid red lights came on to stop him as the rules of the debate indicated. One and two minute segments. This is actually a live shot. President biden and first Lady Joe Biden walking out on stage. Stage. This is it a watch party in atlanta. You may have noticed at the very end of the debate as soon as the moderators said good night with lost the shot, so we did not get to see President Bidens wife or anybody walking on stage. They have now left the venue and have gone to this watch party event. Four more years. I cannot thank you all enough for staying and for being here, and for all your support. Joe, you did such a great job. You answered every question. You knew all the facts. And let me ask the crowd. What did trump do . Lied. Yes. So im going to handed over to you because we have such a great group of supporters here, so thank you all for coming. Thank you. Youve been here the whole time. I see that. Look, folks. I should not say this, but my brother always uses lines from movies. A famous movie. John wayne, and he is working for the northern military trying to get the apaches back on the reservation. They are all sitting on a bluff, and john wayne was sitting with two apaches. One of them looked at him and said these guys are nothing but lying dogface pony soldiers. The, folks. What is going to happen over the next couple of days. They are going to be out there Fact Checking all of the things that he said. I cannot think of one thing he said that was true. I am not being facetious. We are going to beat this guy. We needed to beat this guy. And i need you in order to beat him. You are the people i am running for. He says he is going to be the retribution for his supporters. You are the reason why america is as good as we are. The finest nation in the whole world. And lets keep going. We will see you at the next one. God love you all. Heading to North Carolina. All right. Thank you. I want to go home with you. Thank you. This is a live shot in atlanta tonight at a watch party. Handing the microphone back to the dj. And beyonci kicks in. You heard his voice and his energy and his cadence. A world away from what you just heard on the debate stage. That joe biden would have killed in the debate, but the joe biden that we saw on the debate stage was about 90 more softspoken than that. And monotone when you couldnt discern him. I will say that in my opinion he very much seemed to warm up through the 90 minutes of the debate, and clearly beyond where we saw him right there. Vintage joe biden. His opponent. You signed criticizing as having light in every answer. I think i would describe former president Donald Trumps performance as having been very confident in sort of coherent. Meeting that he was speaking in sentences and saying things that could be understood whether or not you agree with them. Over the course of the debate he became much more aggressive. Much less coherent, and repeatedly failed to answer questions posed by the moderators, which people debating always do, but it became embarrassing when they would radiate the question, and he would go back to in many cases points from earlier in the debate where he had come off very badly or on points that he had lost my calling members of the military who have given their lives in service to the country suckers and losers. It was donald trump who brought that up over and over again over the course of the debate that was not only smart but confusing. The on the question that matters is how it affected the voters who tuned in and are still trying to make a decision. I just wanted to jump off what you said about the trump line. David makes a good point. We all know what he sounds like. As the evening went on he was relatively modulated and concise and then got way more like trump. It is the thing to remember because there is a war around his mystical political appeal. He is likable and repelling to voters. The stick is the kind of sledgehammer petulant itself obsessed. You asked me about fentanyl. Let me tell you something about me. You asked me about childcare let me tell you something about me. Voters do not like that. There is a reason he lost the popular vote the first time that he ran against Hillary Clinton in the second time by a larger margin. It was very much a reminder of that. I think that reminder grew more and more acute over the course of the evening at the more he kept crawling up into his own previous references as the night went on. It is so easy to be mired in the biden of it, because my phone is, but you cannot leave out of this. I thought the egregious lack of Fact Checking. I know it is not the moderators job to debate him, but he was allowed to say series of lies that i know we are going to be playing a lot of it with a slew of fact checks. He literally denied the words that he said on camera and charlottesville. We heard him say it. We did not hallucinate that. He said nancy pelosi took full responsibility for everything that happened on january 6 and that there is a documentary video. He pointed to where we can get the fact check by saying her daughter made a documentary. That is where she said it was her fault. Youre just going to pull the documentary. We have seen the footage. She is desperately trying to get somebody to come defend the capital because trump wont. He put his mob of supporters on the capital with weapons and zip ties. She and Chuck Schumer and others were trying to get forces to come to the capital to defend it despite the fact he wasnt bringing them in. When he had the morals of an alley cat. That was an older guy move that i could actually respect. He did get one good line in, so i will give him credit for that. We will move to what happens now because not a single one of us knows how the voters experienced this. It was like covering the trial. Nobody had any idea. We could live or die by the description, but we had no idea what a single juror thought of it until the verdict. We have no idea what the voters think. We will start to see the polls, but an unpopular income based on the chart has a Single Mission when running for reelection to make it a choice or referendum. If the Biden Campaign can launch a brutal and true and deserving attack on donald trump by the time the sun comes up this washes out more quickly. It does not erase the fact there are conversations going on at the highest levels of democratic supporters and people close to the president who did not just like him but love him. Who think that they should seriously explore him getting out of the race and putting someone up at the convention. The campaign can do itself a lot of good by making a salient and powerful endorsement. Someone that saw him up close. That would go a long way toward washing this out of the cycle. This is the way the voters are going into the fourth of july we can with whatever they have defined with this. Most voters were completely unaffected by this because their minds were made up and unchangeable by this debate in any way. When we come back from the fourth of july weekend the next thing on the Campaign Calendar is one of those candidates who is out there tonight is going to be sentenced by a judge on july 11 for 34 felonies. We do not know how big of a day that is going to be in the campaign in terms of the polls a week after that. There are events coming up that are uncontrollable. Like the sentencing of donald trump. It is not going to be a good day. You might get a fundraising bump out of it in a perverse way that they do, but that is not going to help him with any of the voters he needs to get to win. The issue that you are talking about in terms of whether or not President Bidens position on the ticket is safe. David saying that is not going to happen. That is a fantasy. You either need to write the ship or do the thing that is not going to happen, which is to replace him on the ticket. I do not think that is an option. The fact people are talking about it if its not an option only seeks to further weaken the standing of President Biden. The question is whether you are hearing that it is an option. It is legal. I spoke to an election lawyer. It is legal in the way it happens. He releases his delegates at of the convention. You cannot do it on the first vote, but on the second they can go somewhere else. It is legal and possible, and people say it wont happen because he would never do it for the reason that they already articulated. Is the only person who beat trump and he believes and has reason to believe he is the only one who can. To amplify that somebody actually send me the rules. The rules are circulating. This is not a saying that this is going to happen. It is very unlikely. Just to note the Republican Convention has 110 delegates for the Democratic Party has 771. That does not mean they will do anything. There are 3000 delegates that happen on the first ballot. It takes 1951 delegates to win. It is all a numbers game. Doing the math only matters if it is going to happen. The question is whether it is going to happen. I think that joe biden take on that is probably correct. We are standing right now with gavin newsom. I cannot wait for this conversation. Neither can i pick you cannot see it, but all of trumps shortlist Vice President nominees are walking around. Nobody wants to talk to them. It was like human piranhas do something on the governor after the end of this debate. Let me just. What was your reaction . He won the debate. I am oldfashioned. That is what matters to me. I was taking notes about all of the lies and i ran out of paper. Zero accountability. Talking down the American Economy and our democracy. That was alarming. This is a world we are living in now donald trump created with 13yearolds. Having to deliver the child of the person that impregnated them. This is a world that donald trump has created. For me it was daylight and darkness. I am very proud of the president s record and pride for his vision of the future. Was talk about the substance to because on the signature issue they have the president s response was garbled and undirected at best. Do you think he did what he needed to . I think is significantly insignificant. The American People have made up their minds. They do not support the policies of donald trump and certainly not his assertion somehow the American People always wanted this to be state rights, which is laughable and absurd. I do not think that will matter. You saw it in all of the elections where they are over performing. We keep winning and have to keep our mind. For all of us worry less and do more. An opportunity to turn the page and put our heads down and universally have the back of this president who has had our backs. You go home with the one that brought you to the dance. I was very proud he was able to articulate the work he has done and lay a foundation of understanding of the lies and deceit that continue to come out of his mouth. You are getting questions about whether he should step down. Is a panic that has set in among people who have watched the debate. Some even inside democratic campaigns. Do you think it is unfounded . I think it is unhelpful. I think its unnecessary. We have to go in and keep our heads high and have the back of this president. You do not turn your back because of one performance. What kind of party does that . It has been a master class. This president has delivered. We need to deliver for him at this moment. The more time we start having these conversations and go down these rabbit holes its unhelpful to our fate and future of the country in the world. They need us right now to step up, and that is what i intend to do. This was a Biden Campaign strategy. This was their idea to do this. I wonder what you think they got out of it. What was the strongest moment from this debate . He had more stamina over the debate. Was there a moment you think sticks . It is difficult to assess. I need more time away from this and objectivity in the context of trying to pick those moments. The bottom line is this was an opportunity to steal the essence of what this campaign is about. Getting the messaging from the campaign. Turned the page and go to North Carolina tomorrow. We will get out on the road. Surrogates need to step up. We have to raise money and understand what is at stake if we dont. We have to understand what is at stake if we turn our back at this critical time. There is too much. If they were remembered for any particular line it seemed like it would be the line i did not have sex. When you do that you are not winning. You are losing and that. I know our friends have questions for you. We can go back to new york city, rachel. Thank you so much for taking the time. When you said to worry less and do more. Do what . What do you think that people who support President Biden in Democratic Politics and those planning on voting for him were worried that he seemed older than the expected in and that he didnt seem to reassure people on stamina issues. What should people do . Talk about what he has done and what he has done recently. What he has delivered. Unprecedented legislation. Infrastructure bill. The work that he has done across the spectrum of issues to deliver for the American People in the vision he has laid out for the future. Not just lifting up those issues but drive that contrast of the dystopian vision that donald trump has to the future. It is a binary choice at the end of the day. We have to drive that contrast even harder. And trump did not make that better tonight because he continued to the lies and grievances and retribution and the language that they dont want to see moving forward. Is all about the past. He wants to bring us back to pre1960s world. Voting rights. Civil rights. Access to abortion. That is what we need to talk about the that is what is on the ballot. Democracy. The future of this country. We need to focus on what is at stake and not look back. You look forward. It is always about tomorrow. Everything is about tomorrow. In terms of moving forward. If you were to advise the campaign how to turbocharge and kick up into another level i do think they will have to make up ground they didnt previously have to make up because of this performance. What can they do that they are not doing . Should they do the second debate in september . Should they change course and some of the ways theyre trying to communicate . I hear you making a strong case for President Bidens record, but i do not know what they should do to make them more strongly than they have been. I think you just double down on what we are doing. I am just doing my small part. There are hundreds and hundreds of us that will be going out with a clear message and a contrast with donald trump and his performance tonight doubling down on lies and deceit. We have the opportunity to build a grassroots to get people to recognize what is at stake if we do not unify as a Democratic Party. This is a choice election. All i know what to do is wake up tomorrow and to do more and do better in to worry less. It is the action and passion and purpose and having the back of a president that is at our back. You have talked a lot about President Biden and his performance and accomplishments. If the voters out there could see one answer from donald trump tonight or one moment that stuck out to you where you thought people cannot elect this man what would that be . What should they be pushing that was damaging and terrible from donald trump tonight the most . The way he talks about immigrants offends me. I live in the most diverse estate. 27 of my state is foreign born. We celebrate it. Its a point of pride. The way he talks about immigrants. The way he talks down to the American People in terms of what makes this nation so great. That is our capacity to live together across our differences. These are fundamental. It is not about one quick clip. It is about all of the things stacked together that represent what he has said over his entire career. He does not have your back. We must have the back of the president of the United States at this critical moment and focus on tomorrow and the future in the vision and what will unite this country moving forward and talk about the stakes falling short. I am sensing her frustration with the format of the debate. The reductive nature of the debate. The carnivallike atmosphere and desire to get back to the essence of the issues in choice and for the American Public. There is another to be scheduled having said that. Do you think that joe biden should participate . Absolutely. We have all had those nights. All of us. Not one person watching hasnt had those nights. It is not about debates. You have good and bad moments. You wake up the next day and dusted off and move forward. It is all about resiliency. That is what the American Economy is about. That is what joe biden has been about his entire life. I have seen this all before. He has no chance after iowa. He never gives up. Fighting for democracy and our future. Our grandkids. We have to have his back in this respect. I hope he is back on the stage in another debate absolutely. If he is i am sure we will want to talk to you about that too. Thank you for your time tonight. Back to you, rachel. Many things to you both. What was her reaction to the debate and what are you hearing from people you have been talking to over the night . I do not think we should sugarcoat this. It was not the debate performance that they wanted or needed from this debate. In part because they wanted to do this as early as they did to change this up. To bring the joe biden at the state of the union to the debate stage. That is not the joe biden who showed up. You could see inklings of that or wrinkles of it or whatever you want to say at the postdebate event. And the very last answer. Like he has warmed up. s been a he did improve as the night went on. s answers improved. He had a couple of moments. I thought his answer calling out trumps criminality was pretty good. A little darkly on abortion. You have to push out the best moments on social media. It is not the debate they wanted. The biggest challenge. We have set in similar chairs. How distracting all of the chatter is going to be, which i am getting the we are all getting on text and email about whether he should be replaced. That chatter is happening. People are asking questions. Not from the American Public at large, and we do not know how they feel and wont for some time. If you look at history this minute impact them at all. The chatter is very distracting and will be very consuming for the campaign should he be replaced. They will be answering that question instead of breaking through on attacking trump. Is the chatter from the peanut gallery or from the deciders . It depends on who the deciders are. Because they are really the public. I have not heard that from Campaign Operatives, but i have from members of congress and people who have worked many democratic campaigns and people along those lines. What do we do now . Can he still be replaced . Is that the same chatter in two weeks when he is sentenced and have joe biden has a strong couple of weeks . It may not be, but its incumbent upon the campaign to dig out of this whole. That is not where you want to be coming out of a debate. I work for president obama in 2012 as his traveling press secretary when he absolutely bombed the first debate. If he is watching im sorry to say that, but it is a fact. That prompted him. Anybody is competitive. Joe biden is competitive. Barack obama is competitive. When their back is against the wall maybe he will bring his best self forward. We saw that in the post event. That is what they need to do. The distraction and the chatter is a headache for them. If you were on the campaign now and have all of this chatter and are hearing what we are hearing in our text what you think in the next 24 48 hours you would do . You have seen Governor Newsom do this a tiny bit at the end. He said at the beginning that he won the debate. He is an excellent surrogate, by the way. But he said at the end that people have bad nights. It was not a good night for joe biden. You acknowledge that and let people take the air out of the balloon. You are not living in lala land. It was not a great debate. You have to have them out there and active and being very visible. The best thing you can do as a communicator if you are advising him is to change the subject. Is there an announcement you can make or a republican who is a surprise . If Chris Christie is waiting in the wings. I do not know what they have up their sleeves. I do not know the answer to this. I do not know when the Vice President agreed to come on msnbc. I do not know if it was long before the debate. If it wasnt you do not send the Vice President of the United States out if you won the debate typically. I do think you will see her out there more. On the Vice President question though. The most Important Role is to be the understudy, so speaking with her. We have i spoke with her yet. She is due to be joining us in. It also makes people think about her replacing joe biden. That is are interesting because i think when people chatter about replacing and they do not always mention Vice President harris, and they should. She is first in line, but people think about a brokered convention and what it might look like. I also think it is important for the campaign and biden team to show that she is absolutely with him and has his back and believes he has what it takes to be president. Inside the campaign who says what to the candidate about this debate . That is such a good question. I know because you have done these meetings. You never want to be the person. I remember in 2012 when president obama bombed the debate. That he wasnt aware that he bombed it. They never are. They are in the moment. He did not know . He did not know he bombed out. Two of the closest advisors were the one who went and told him that he bombed the debate. He did not watch it for a couple of days. And then he knew i did not do well in the debate. I was traveling with him all the time piggy gave one of the best performances at a rally the next day in colorado that he gave the entire year because they are competitive people. I would say in this moment it is probably a combination of them conveying directly to him how that debate performance went and where it goes from here. Doing it this early. Was it his idea . I think likely a Campaign Idea that he would have to have had to sign off on. I am not convinced. I know you will disagree. I do not think it was a bad idea to do it this early. A part of the calculus is lets not look like we are afraid to debate end of it really early so that if it goes badly and a lot more water will be under the bridge. Having this debate in june is way better than having it in october. I agree with you. I thought it was a good idea from the standpoint of the biggest question that biden faced from his own supporters. People who were with him but want to feel confident is the stamina question. Doing it in the summer. It has a prefourth of july timing vibe. It made logical sense. The problem is they did not deliver. I think had he delivered. Even a decent performance. I think this would have been a very smart idea. I think some of the decisions around it. I think putting him on the right was the wrong decision. You should have put him on the left. Or told him to look the other direction. They knew where the cameras were supposed to be. He is a television performer. He is not a president. He did not eight when he was president because he was on the golf course the whole time. He knows tv. He knows where the camera is and how to perform. Going against him you need a better optics. Lets bring and some very important new voices to this conversation. The people we have been talking about in the abstract on my. The voters be joining us from phoenix where he watched it with four voters. Fascinating stuff at the top of the hour because this is my panel right now. We are in the backyard in Maricopa County in arizona. After we were done watching the debate the tvs are over here. They do not have these. As you were talking about the possibility of somebody else other than biden running on the democratic ticket or possibly an open convention they were talking about the same thing and are completely removed from everything that is happening over there in atlanta right now be really interesting to hear you talk about that at the same time, so first off. Want to get your perspective and whether or not it changed. We were talking about people that do not like either candidate. How would you describe both candidates after tonight . Starting with you. So trump did not really answer questions. He just kept rebutting what biden said or bringing up something that has nothing to do with the question. Biden was trying to answer the questions but was also trying to rebut trump as well coming at him with things that has nothing to do with the question or golfing or things like that. I say get pretty heated when they talked about golf. This is a political debate about presidency and how youre going to be in office. And you are talking about golfing right now and who has the better swing . That is like wow. You are not a democrat, and yet you are talking about who else the democrats could run right now. I think what we just witnessed the feeling i had inside was trump, no. Evite through the whole thing. Biden it is like oh no. He is in a bad place. Can he even run the rest of the election or take the white house again . I just do not see how that would work. May be an open convention. Could you vote for somebody else that runs on the democratic ticket . If they are not liars and cheats then the out. Is a tough choice, and i think you said it best. Trump is an absolute no. He is a liar and a thief and all of those other things. You do not lie and you take accountability for yourself. At least biden seems like an honest guy, but i do not think he has the stamina. You just made an observation when he popped up your can you share your observation . It was interesting before this started we talked about who is going to show up today. I feel like when trump was speaking he has that orange skin and the silly smile and moves his hands like this. I want to put a set of tambourines in between because he pats himself on the back so much. Here is biden unfortunately who he would talk and it was like the puppet master was like here i am. Im going to do this and then i am over. His head was down. s eyes were glazed. It was like he was on and he was off. I think both parties should think about an open convention. How do you categorize this choice . I do not want to make either choice because i was not surprised by their performance at all. Trump acted like trump in biden acted like biden did that is why i am frustrated with where we are today. I do not think any of you are democrats. There are thirdparty candidates. How do you feel about rfk . Anybody . I do not think he has the mental acuity needed for that either. I have no comment. I have not really looked over his plan or what he plans to do. I saw there was a petition to get him on the ballot, but that was about it. I do not think he is fit for the job of president. I think you did a fine job on the state level. Is just not good enough for president. I look at who we have right now, and there is back in leadership. For me to consider somebody else that is what i am looking at is leadership characteristics. I have been reluctant on bringing it up because i do not want you to get hate from people, but it is the idea of i do not like any of these candidates, so i may not vote, but i am scared of people saying you have to vote. That seems to be a real concern. Are you comfortable chatting about that . Starting with you. Is there a possibility that you do not vote . Right now absolutely. In 2016 it was all that chatter of your american right and due diligence. If you do not vote you are voting for the other person. All of this that had my husband and i considering who we vote for. With the two choices we have now we do not vote for them. I can feel more confident not voting for either of them then i can. I did the lesser of two evils last time in january 6th happened. I cannot and will not do it again. When we were watching the debate i saw you all the and forward. When they started talking about january 6th. What went through your minds . Stop saying that it is Nancy Pelosis fault. Start taking accountability for his party as well. I just cannot even i do not want to go there because it riles me so much that our country and public buildings were so defiled and that because he keeps saying the election was stolen from him. It was not stolen. He was ousted from office. His job as contractor for the American People. He was fired and needed to go. And he did not go quietly. I was watching you very intently as you were watching the debates. I saw a lot of you lean forward. The question was about childcare. You in particular. You kept leaning forward and sitting back when youre the questions. The main then that was bothering the most is when biden was speaking about it he was saying it is only affecting blacks and hispanics, but it is affecting everybody because its expensive in general. It is not for him to answer the question for he did not even answer it at all. He just started to talk about Something Else that had nothing to do with the question. Even the moderator had to bring it up. I do not like how they are not giving us any solutions. I thought it was for solutions. Did you see or hear any solutions . I do not know that he has any policies in mind. How is he going to execute those policies if he returns to office . It is just open convention. A lot of times when people are watching politics everybody in the world is watching politics. How many would have made it past three questions in this debates before turning the tv off . You said no. If you werent watching and hanging out with us and supplying you with all the guacamole at what point would you turn it off . You did this or you did thats. I came to try to watch it two relatively sane people talk about what they are going to do for the country. We got two second graders. With that i will ask you who did you vote for the last election . I will say that i voted for everyone who ran for office except president because i did not choose either candidate. I wrote myself in. The write in candidate. With that, i will send it back to you. That would make for a very interesting brokered convention. The only declared candidate that would run a campaign. That would give her a leg up. I am really glad that we did that because it shows what you in particular were saying, but a lot of this discussion. The first voter who spoke with them. Saying that it was insane they were talking about golfing. He was not answering any questions. Biden was always trying to answer. The second set his answer was trump, no. Absolutely no. He is a republican. He is a thief. And then his answer on biden was oh no. He seems like he is in bad shape. Is an honorable person but seems like he is in bad shape. The third person said trump just lied constantly. She wanted to put symbols between his hands so it was like a monkey doing the windup monkey thing. But for biden she said poor thing. Essentially inanimate. Under the circumstances that was as positive a joe Biden Focus Group as you could have with those voters. Probably because the ballot is going to be trump versus biden. There is probably three biden voters if they go to the polls and make that choice and what we just saw. There is one who might not vote , which is fine. That happens. There you can see it. That republican guy. Who is old enough to have it many times in his life voted on enthusiastically. Vote for what we used to call the lesser of two evils. Before we knew how evil it could be. And so if that is his choice he is going to go with a joe biden no matter what joe bidens the stamina level is in november, and he is just going to hope. In the meantime one of the Educational Programs of the campaign. It might be for him in particular. Look at how much joe biden has achieved with a weak voice in his 80s. He can still do that. May be there is a campaign here to stress the importance of staff to actually admit he does not do it alone for a voter like that. To understand that this is a vote can cast. There was no one there saying that is the absolute end of biden for me. It does highlight the importance of Kamala Harris. There is a reason they put her on the ticket. I think this is a reason to use her more. I think that is true. I have been talking to a couple of friends who have been seeing focus groups. It is all anecdotal and interesting to hear. I am hearing that trump is a liar. Pretty powerful stuff. Not that there saying he had an amazing debate, but that trump is a liar. And that it is split a little bit in these focus groups. This is just a couple. There are many happening across the country. Still a reminder that we do not actually know how the debate will settle in with people. And that trump did not help himself. We have had this concern about no Fact Checking at the debate, but theyre sitting there telling us that he was lying. They have enough experience to not need to the Fact Checking. They know when he is lying. I do not think anybody needs to have it explained to them. I think the other thing we are going to learn in the coming days is just how smart the voters are. It is anecdotal but it is the threat. They know a lot about both of these men already. If debates were the only thing that determined outcomes neither would have won. George bush. I think you might lose all three. He definitely lost the first two, and he had no idea that he had lost. There is anything that the incumbent president s. I do nothing joe biden is like this, but there is something in them. I have to debate this guy. Especially with trump. Incited an insurrection. I think the questions for the Biden Campaign are how quickly you can get yourself back tomorrow morning. How quickly can you change the topic and reassure the Democratic Base and donors and how quickly can you grow your coalition, which has a lot of heat this week. You have them delivering a message straight to the republicans. How quickly can you get your sub back to the structure of your own election . I would add two things to the to do list. One is if they rewatch the debate and the president watches it its very clear that his strength is when he was not listing data in numbers and trying to remember numbers and then correcting himself and losing the thread. It was when he was passionately responding on veterans and talk about january 6th and when he was responding as a human and not as a statistician. Or a recordkeeper as he was in the first half. The other thing that i think will be a challenge for them is the inside outside game. The voters. Talking about them and also the democratic operatives in the circle. Down ballot candidates because they watch that debate and they worry about him being at the top of the ticket. Their political operation will have to do a lot of Conference Calls and handling tonight and tomorrow to reassure them as well. We have much more to come tonight. In a few minutes we are going to be speaking with Kamala Harris. We have a lot of questions for her. Stay with us. Some days, you can feel like a spectator in your own life with chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month each lasting 4 hours or more. Botox® prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine before they start. And treatment is 4 times a year. In a survey, 91 of users wish theyd started sooner. So why wait . Talk to your doctor. Effects of botox® may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a lifethreatening condition. 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The crimes were charged with and all the Civil Penalties you have, how many for molesting a woman in public, doing a whole range of things, having sex with up porn star. I didnt have sex with a porn star. Indelible line from tonights rebate and the only one hes rebutting is sex with a porn star. Thats the only one of which we have an extensive factual record spoken under oath very recently and the transcripts are available so that denial is not a very credible denial and hes not denying any of the other things for which she has criminal and civil liability. What we just other that is so important as we saw how long it takes to show that. That is what local tv news needs from a president ial debate. They need little clips like that. That will probably be the clip that is played in more local thievery tv coverage tonight than anything else. Joining us now, im honored to say, is the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris. Thank you so much for being with us. Good to be with you, rachel, and everyone. Thank you. You have been hearing some of the response to the debate, the same response we have been both issuing and also hearing ourselves. A lot of people who are fans and supporters of President Biden or who are democrats or who are just worried about the prospect of donald trump returning to the presidency feel like this was not a Strong Performance tonight from President Biden. I want to hear your assessment and how you respond to those critics. Well, it was a slow start. Theres no question about that but i thought it was a strong finish and in particular, because what we know is that when you look at the two sides of the ledger, what we had in joe biden is someone who wanted to have a debate based on facts, based on truth and in donald trump we have what we have come to expect, which is someone who will push lies and distract from the reality of the damage he has created and continues to create in our country. When i think about the significance of the substance of what is before us in november, in 130 days, we are looking at a president in joe biden who has done historic work, whether it be on addressing the infrastructure issue in america. Donald trump remember kept talking every week was going to be infrastructure week. It never happened. It was joe biden that made it happen so that over 1 trillion is hitting the streets of america. If you look at what joe biden has been able to accomplish in terms of delivering for the American People whether it be the creation of 15 million new jobs, over 800,000 manufacturing jobs, bringing manufacturing back to the United States, what we have done to cap the cost of insulin, finally taking on big pharma and allowing medicare to negotiate drug prices, these are the substantive issues the American People care about, and what we saw tonight is more of the same. Joe biden fighting for the American People, donald trump fighting for himself, not to mention on the issue of choice. There was a very clear contrast. Joe biden is very clear when the bill comes before him to put back into law the protections of roe v. Wade, he will sign it. What we know about donald trump, no matter how much he was trying to distract us from this, is when he was president he had selected three members of the United States Supreme Court with the intention that they would undermine the protections of rope. That is exactly what they did and now we see in case after case, laws designed to punish Healthcare Providers, and texas, prison for life for doctors, women who are having miscarriages and breeding bleeding out, excuse my language , but im going to have to be explicit about the facts, because of laws denying them Emergency Care because hospitals are afraid they will be criminalized in all of these bands are trump abortion bans. Hes talking about how he wants to send this decision back to the states, and we know what those arguments are about. Joe biden has been very clear about where he stands and he is clear with the American People. His clear in purpose and i think that came across tonight in this debate. You know, the issue of former President Trump lying coming to the fore on this issue of choice, on this issue of abortion rights in a very pointed way. He kept asserting over and over again that if you are pro abortion rights or if you want to codify roe or if youre a critic of the decision to overturn roe and have these abortion bans then you are a murderer and you want to kill infants, the people who are pro choice are people who want to kill babies after they are born. I sometimes say this is surf two. This is not a factually based thing at all. He repeatedly reiterates that. It is not the moderators job, though, to fact check that. It is essentially the other candidates job to fact check that. I wonder what you thought, strategically, is in terms of countering a narrative and lie about abortion rights that is so obscene and yet so consistently repeated by their side and by the candidate. Well, the facts are exactly what are on our side to your point, rachel. First of all, what they are talking about is attempting, as they are want to do, especially donald trump, to create fear based on fiction for the sake of hitting political points. What we know and what he is acutely aware of is what he has done and intended to do is not politically popular with a lot of people in both socalled red states and blue states and so now, you see him wavering. Lets not forget when he was president of the United States, he said that if a National Abortion ban was sent to his desk, he would sign it. He said that. As my angela told us a long time ago, when people tell you who they are, take them at the word. Believe them. We know that when donald trump comes in if he has a congress that passes the National Abortion ban, he will sign it into law. One of the most fundamental issues of our time, fundamental , the idea that the government would take the ability of an individual to make decisions about their own body and replace their judgment with that of the government, that is what has happened in our country. Three days ago we just commemorated the twoyear anniversary of the dobbs decision. Woman after woman who i have met, who i have traveled with, have faced extraordinary experiences of miscarriage, of losing their ability to have children in the future because they did not receive the care they needed. Because hospitals and Healthcare Providers were afraid they would be put in jail for doing the job of caring for these women, so i think that what donald trump is doing is grasping for straws and look, of the two people on that debate stage, only one of them has the endorsement of his Vice President , and lets not forget that. Lets not forget that. Very awkward and very true. Vice president , harris, its a privilege to have this time with you tonight. Thank you very much for your time. Good to be with you guys. Take care, everybody. I have a lot more questions to ask her. I would like to do a much longer interview with her. She just became much more important to this campaign than she was yesterday. What we just heard in her First Response to was more powerful, clearer, stronger than anything we heard from her running mate tonight. And her second response, and so that was the kind of thing people were hoping for from President Biden on the stage tonight. She just delivered it and the question becomes for the Campaign Starting tomorrow, obviously joe biden needs this kind of support. He needs others to be out there, more than any other president ial maybe ever has, he needs others to be out there doing this campaign work. Shes the one who can get the most attention. How do you weave the Vice President s skills, including her communication skills which we just saw on blast right there, how do you weave those with the president s in a way that does not upstage him and that does not make people want to replace him with her . You cannot anymore worry about that old idea of upstaging the president. Historically, the most active use of Vice President ial candidates has been as attackers is of the other side. Harry truman in 1944 was brought in literally for energy, literally to go out there. He was kind of an attacker, but he was also this Energy Source that fdr just could not over deliver as a campaigner. This is a situation where youre just going to have to give her the ball, let her do more of that but let me just add one more thing. If we had said to her, when i ask you a question you have two minutes to respond and im going to cut your mic at the end of the two minutes, that would be a lot stiffer. It would not be as confident, there would be a lot more pressure. That debate stage changes everything about human [ inaudible ] quietly, the Biden Campaign has been using her that way. Its not covered as much but Vice President harris has been all over this country. She is the primary voice they use on college campuses. She has been the voice they have been using really heavily in the black community. She is the one they have been sending out because she is a voice that is younger, that is more approachable for a younger audience so they are using her that way anyway. One of the big criticisms of the Biden White House is that the kind of hit her for two years, really did not use her that much and did not allow her because of the issue of upstaging President Biden but i think the reality is her role, as lawrence just said, it just went up so much higher. It is really important that they allow her to be herself because she is personable, she is a great communicator and at this point, shes the vigor on the campaign and she is the person that can reassure folks that look, President Biden is a great decision maker. He may not be the most energetic dude in the world but hes got this lady who is also making decisions. Theyre making decisions together. She is a partner in that administration as she he was to barack obama. I think it is also about her choice on what she goes out there and does anything it took her sometime in the first year or two to figure out what her space and roll was, what it was going to be, and the best president ial and Vice President ial partnerships, publicly, i mean, its where they have different strengths. Joe biden is clearly not super comfortable talking about abortion rights beyond his Strong Defense of roe. Chris is nodding here. Understatement of the century. She is very comfortable. He is very catholic. She is very comfortable. Shes passionate. She almost got a tear to her eye, which is how millions of women are feeling across the country. They should have her out on every morning show. I know its midnight so im sorry, but they should have her out on every morning show tomorrow, and i think early on, not because it wasnt warranted, she was not confident in her own ability to do an interview like the one she just did or to go do a round of morning shows. She clearly can do it. She is a very strong communicator and her message on abortion rights is exactly what she has been doing around the country. It just hasnt been covered nationally. Can i just say her office shouldve let us go 20 minutes with her . Its emblematic, though. I have to say it is emblematic that they will give you 10 minutes with her when they should give you 30. They really need to start trusting Vice President harris to cut her own path because she does very, very well and the more you get of her, the better it is. I think one of the things we have seen around the roe anniversary is her as the point person on abortion and doing more events, as well. The other thing that happened early on, and i think this is key, as we have seen her favorability rating come up and part of that has to do with a certain cliche about the Vice President gets the worst assignments and i remember thinking about this with covid where trump was like dont worry, mike pence is on this. I can see the wheels turning in his head. Like if he screws it up, its on pence me know. In the beginning she was the person who was the border person , basically this genuinely unsolvable problem that is so complicated, so difficult one person cant solve it. Having her on abortion means you are associating her with the issue that is the most 65 35 issue the democrats have. You have her talking about a hat thing that have people nodding their head because americans agree on it and we have seen it in her favorability ratings. There is a virtuous sort of cycle happening here. She is talking about issues that are popular. She is getting out there more, its having a positive effect. Also the traditional role is to take it to the opposition. The democrats two best issues right now are what is wrong with donald trump, and abortion rights and she is an expert at both of those things and very well placed as Vice President to do them but may i just say to those of you who may be watching us from the white house right now, we would like to have more opportunity to speak with Vice President harris and not have it be a two question interview. Joining us now from the debates made room in atlanta is u. S. Senator Claire Mccaskill of missouri, also known as nbc political analyst. Dying to know what you think about how things went tonight. Well, first, the easy part. Donald trump is a liar, a flawed character, mean, a jerk, very unlikable and that was obvious tonight. Now, the hard and heartbreaking part. I have been a surrogate for some president ial candidates in my time. I know what the job is after a debate, of a surrogate. I have never wanted to be a surrogate more than i do right now, because when you are a surrogate, you have to focus on the positives. But, i have said very clearly and very plainly on this network and my job now is to be really honest. Joe biden had one thing he had to do tonight and he didnt do it. He had one thing he had to accomplish, and that was reassure america that he was up to the job at his age, and he failed at that tonight. Now, does that mean that my phone blowing up with senators and Campaign Operatives and donors, big donors from all over the country, does that mean that joe biden is not the candidate . I dont know that. I think we will know a lot more in a few weeks, how this plays out, how the polling plays out, but i think a couple of things are going on right now. I think im not the only one whose heart is breaking right now. There are a lot of people who watch this tonight and felt terrible for joe biden and you know, you have to ask, how did we get here . How did we get to the point that we are spending a whole lot of time talking about the Vice President tonight instead of talking about the president , and i dont know how the rest of the story is written. I dont know if things can be done to fix this. They might, and trump is so terrible that this might heal itself, but based on what im hearing from a lot of people, and some of them are people that are in high elected offices in this country and you might guess where they serve, there is a lot more than handwringing tonight. I do think people feel that we are confronting a crisis. Clear, i want to talk to you about this and very nuts and bolts terms. Given what you are describing, the kind of reaction you are describing among people in the kinds of positions you are alluding to, what can be done . What do you personally think should be done . Well, i think listen. This could be a situation where everyone talks it out over the next few days. I do think that this is a time that ted kaufman and machete and donlon and ron klain are going to have to have a heart toheart with the president about his ability to exude strength and listen, nobody is a a fan of Kamala Harris than i am and you know, she did a remarkable job tonight as a surrogate and stuff i disagree with anything theyre saying, but those two people are signaling to a whole lot of americans that are paying attention, how come theyre not running . How come the Democratic Party doesnt have them at the top of the ticket instead of using them to shore up what had become after tonight some glaring weaknesses in our president. Given that we are 130 days out on the Democratic Convention is very late, and President Biden has been confronted with these kinds of questions from the beginning of this campaign, actually from before the beginning of this campaign, as soon as he was sworn and people started talking to him about say now you wont run again, and he has been from that he is the guy, and hes not going to jump, nobodys going to push him. The type of crisis in your words you are describing has to have a resolution and if the resolution is not going to be that President Biden is going to leave the ticket, what else can be done . What else can be changed about the campaign . Are you saying the only solution is to take him off the ticket . No. I dont know, honestly, what the solution is tonight. I know how this felt tonight. It felt like a gut punch to most people in this country who are paying close attention, and know how dangerous donald trump is to all the values that we hold dear, and so i think it will take a couple of days as people recover from the gut punch but there will be leaders who have the ability to talk to the president. I think the president s family would get involved if it actually got to that point. It may be that you can repair this damage. Maybe he can come out and show more vigor and show the ability to really stay on track but you know, there were some moments tonight that all of us were holding our breath, and that is not the kind of thing you want to happen hundred and 30 days out from an election when youve got donald trump on the other side of the equation. Right. Senator Claire Mccaskill, very good to have you with us tonight. Keep talking to people, keep letting us know what you are hearing from inside Democratic Politics and those people in high elected offices that we will never ask you the name of. Our friend Stephanie Ruhle is back. Ive been talking to current democratic lawmakers, former lawmakers but more than anything, donors and their really frustrated tonight. They are upset and not frustrated going out, joe biden didnt do a great job, maybe im going with donald trump. Absolutely not. Theyre frustrated because they said donald trump gave us exactly what donald trump does. He showed up and shows facts checkable lie after lie and we all ready knew cnn was not going to fact check them so theyre especially angry with joe bidens team. Theyre very happy with all the policies joe biden has put forth and meet happen over the last 3 1 2 years but that he and his team made a decision to put him in that position where donald trump got up there, told those lies, but it was about performance and he came across vibrant and strong and President Biden, at times, was inaudible, at times was an articulate, did not land a punch, did not counterpunch and sort of gave donald trump a free show, and so what we are hearing tonight out loud is what has been whispered in democratic circles over the last year. Is he up for the job . Yesterday, i interviewed wes moore. At aspen ideas, he was asked over and over, is joe biden dropping out and would you step in and he said he is not stepping out, i am not stepping in but westmore said what the president needs to do in the debate is show people the future. Inspire them for the next four years. He said he doesnt need to spar with donald trump at the fact of the matter is he did not win sparring with trump and he did not inspire anyone for a vision for the future and that is what has gotten the donors i spoke to tonight very frustrated. He is the oldest president in american history, and polling has shown age is a concern, so we all know that. Partly because of those objectives facts and the neurotic, handwringing nature of the Democratic Coalition, all of these conversations have waxed and waned depending on the moment. There are two ways for joe biden not to be the democratic nominee. One, he couldve not run to begin with. Two, someone couldve challenged and bested him in the primary. No one did that, so you are down to one last way and that is joe biden has to decide that hes not going to be the nominee. Unless you have a theory for how that comes to be, we are just talking like fantasy football. There is one way, so it is a little like the old joke about the economist on the Desert Island who needs to open a can and says assume i can opener. Everyone is assuming a can opener. If you can convince joe biden whatever, i dont know but independent of that, there is no other mechanism. But, that is the question is whether or not his persuadable on this. And it is okay for people who just wrote him, the guy who just asked all these donors for bigtime checks, its okay for them tonight to say joe, are you sure youre up for this . No, im not saying anyone is wrong to do it. Im just saying when people talk about the process by which it would happen, that is the one question that must be answered. There is no other mechanism in real earth one, other than that. Therefore, that makes him the decider but i do think it is worth talking about the inputs that go into that decision, and who are the people who are close to him so not the case is he makes just to the American People but what the case is he makes in private to his closest advisers who are going to be making potentially the opposite argument to him tonight. Not only that but there is one way, he would have to withdraw on his own, but the democrats are already looking at a convention in chicago that they would very much not like to be in 1968 style convention. They are potentially facing significant protest over gaza. Lets just be honest, that is a likely thing because joe bidens policy policies are not likely to change that much between now and then and the death toll is likely to skyrocket between now and then. They are also facing these doubts and there are already more than 700 uncommitted delegates going into that convention. They have not committed to joe biden. That is seven times more uncommitted delegates that donald trump had an donald trump was not able to completely defeat nikki haley so theyre going to go into that convention with yes, joe biden is at this point, the nominee, but there are all of these xfactors that they need to start thinking about to the point that stephanie is making because, one of the tasks i got tonight was from a delegate who said this is the substance of their text. We delegates may have to take matters into her own hands. There has to be an alternate candidate. There has to be a person who embodies the other option. Is in the obvious other person is a Vice President but there was a lot of question and doubt in peoples minds about whether this country would ever elect a black woman president or a woman president after the Hillary Clinton thing. It is an emotional thing, but it is real. This is a live shot right now of President Biden at a waffle house in atlanta. Thats the right place to be after midnight. I was just going to say. By the way, he doesnt have to do what trump does, which is to clear the space, rented out and then bring in ben carson and other black republicans from other states to come and hang out with him. They can actually just walk into a waffle house like president obama used to. That is the difference between being joe biden who people understand its not super hostile to black people in normal people and regular people and being donnell. Do we have any audio here . I think we did well. [ inaudible ] any concerns about your performance . He lied 26 times. Great job. [ inaudible ] the waffle house is crowded already when he got there, but the camera is not giving us a nice shot of the fluorescent lights. That was live. He was asked if he had any about his performance at the debate tonight and he said its hard to debate a liar. I will cite an audible. I can hear because of the crowd. It is hard to debate a liar but he went into it knowing thats exactly what he was doing. I want to note that donald trump also did an event in atlanta when he phoned in to a barbershop. So, the imported black surrogates came from michigan and florida, Byron Donalds and friends. They rented out a barbershop. There were like six of them sitting in barber chairs and rather than just respect those voters enough to show up, he just phoned in. So he did something also. It was nice to see the waffle house. I think a lot of people could use some latenight waffles right now. Look, joe biden lost the debate in the larger question is whether he lost the room, and he may not have lost the room. People have lost debates before and come back and in the days and weeks ahead, if the party has its reaction and moves forward, so be it. If, however, he lost the room and we were talking about this before and why debates matter and this is an example why debates matter, if you lost the room and those people who are part of the Democratic Coalition and part of the socalled base were soft to begin with, this was their main concern, is he up to it, and then i dont think he is, if you lost that part of the room and some of the general election room, then tonight maybe one of the most pivotal moments in this campaign. We also know that the people closest to joe biden see him the most. They see him more than all of us in the various ways that we see him, so they had some idea that on his worst day, and maybe it was bad luck, but on his worst day, you might come across more like this then on his best day like state of the union. Knowing that, these people who have been around politics for a long time rolled forward with this plan, which means they either thought the trajectory was bad enough that they were too close for comfort or losing or they thought the age issue, they thought the can you do the job issue, whatever you want to call it both are elderly candidates. Donald trump has a ton of other problems but they thought that she was Holding Joe Biden back so it seems we dont know what the future brings, but it seems measurably bad for the Biden Campaign and that those people knew that, knew the risks, went in and they got one of the more negative case outcomes of this and now everyone is going to live through it. The last thing i will say about the delegate piece is someone in the Democratic Party put it this way to me tonight. The only way joe biden whatever exit would be a decision that he makes. As you mentioned, there are inputs and pressures on that. Family, top aides, barack obama. You can muse on that then you get out more to fantasy football but there is not a mechanism under the rules or state laws that use the Democratic Partys delegate system to force that, so those people who brought him here because they thought this would help, i think it is observable that the strategy did not work tonight. There could be a future debate if they both do it. There is nothing sacrosanct about the current debate schedule. Biden could argue they should have even more debates and go around the country if it was an unusually bad night. [ inaudible ] we saw the Voter Focus Group that we saw tonight, Gadi Schwartz in phoenix was the most positive response the Biden Campaign has seen all night and that was from real people. Not people like us. Were going to take a break and come back as we continue to digest this first president ial debate of 2024 and think about adjusting waffle house, which we have all now been primed for. We will be right back. Ill be r. I had reached a ceiling, so i enrolled in umgc. Umgc removes every barrier. Everyone treated me like a person with individual needs and met me where i was. I would not be the person that i am today, the mother, the business owner, had it not been for the partnership with umgc. [ music ] christian nationalists are mobilizing. They want to turn america into a christian theocracy. Our secular democracy is in danger. All personal liberties are in jeopardy. Vote like your rights depend on it. And join the freedom from religion foundation, an association of atheists and agnostics working to keep religion and government separate. I used to leak urine when i coughed, laughed or exercised. I couldnt even enjoy playing with my kids. I leaked too. I just assumed it was normal. Then we learned about bulkamid an fdaapproved, nondrug solution for our condition. It really works, and it lasts for years. Its been the best thing weve done for our families. Visit findrealrelief. Com to find an expert physician near you. Ask if bulkamid is right for you and discuss potential risks. Results and experiences may vary. Move beyond the leaks. [ growl ] ready for the road trip. Everyone comfortable. Yep, theres plenty of space. Ive even got an extra seat. Wait no, no, no, no, no. [ gasps ] [ indistinct chatter ] [ sigh ] lets just wait them out. The volkswagen atlas with three rows of seating for seven. Everyone wants a ride. [ snoring ] ok, get in. [ speaking minionese ] yippee and see despicable me 4 in theaters july 3rd. Rated pg. There is no one scorecard for determining who won and who lost last night but a consensus does seem to be emerging. Ross perot, the star of the night, partly because no one knew what to expect. Bill clinton just good enough and president bush, he will have to do much better. That was october 1992. George hw bush. He was running for reelection and that the first president ial debate that year, he absolutely bombed. In fact, if that tom brokaw stand out was not enough to convince you, check out the headline of the Boston Herald the next day. A snap poll taken the next day found the percentage of voters who thought president bush had won the debate was in the teens. That first debate went very badly for bush and he went on to lose his effort to be re elected in 1992 but look at the rest of the data here. The first debate also went terribly for his son in 2004 when he was looking for a second term running against john kerry. Reviews of his first debate performance were just as brutal as they had been for his dam like this one from the atlantic quote, that was george bushs worst performance in a debate, by far, ever. My mantra had been neither bush nor kerry had ever lost a debate. That is no longer true. George w bushs Approval Rating the week before that debate was as high as 54 . After his terrible performance in that first debate, it dropped seven points just from that one debate. Of course he went on to win re election anyway in 2004 then there is what happened to president obama in 2012. Again, looking for a second term up against his opponent, mitt romney. The first debate that year, a disaster for the incumbent president. The headlines were unanimous. Obamas sneezes and loses. Mitt romney comes out on top as obama stumbles in first debate. Obama had a nine point lead in the polls in september 2012 after his terrible performance in october he ended up tied with romney in the polls but then obama won the election in november and got a second term. Regardless of the eventual electoral outcome its almost an axiom of politics that first debates are rocky for incumbent president s. Why is that . What is it about being an incumbent president that makes you suck at your first debate when youre running for re election . I dont know, but it does seem to be something that universally holds. I will also mention that donald trump was no exception, when he was in, four years ago, not that long ago, im sure you remember how that went for him but im sure this headline at the guardian sums it up well. This is after the first debate with donald trump as the incumbent and joe biden as the challenger quote, donald trump ensures first president ial debate is national humiliation. It is always the case, and tonight, joe biden was the ninth incumbent president in a televised general election debate. He and his team very much wanted to defy the debating incumbent curse. They did not defy the debating incumbent curse. That said, losing the first debate is not a fatal thing for incumbent president s. It is a historical certainty that they lose the first debate but in terms of its overall electoral impact, history says. Joining us now is a former Republican Party chairman and cohost of the week and here on msnbc, michael steele. Its great to see you. How are you doing . What a night, everybody rested and raring to go. We are hydrated. We did our weird yoga poses that make our backs hurt less when we sit here for six hours at a time. We are great. What did you think of the debate and what have you been hearing from people tonight who saw it . I have thoughts and i will start with where you left off. Everything you said about those other president ial debates were absolutely correct but what you did not have after them was the incumbent president s party openly musing about taking him off the ticket and i think that is something that is very different in this one. Tonight, you have maga gloating, and democrats outwardly worrying about the state of the race to the point that they are not hiding their discussions about how they get joe off the ticket. I think a lot of that is unfortunate. I think a lot of that is overblown at the moment, but i get the emotion. I thought claire was an exhibit of that emotion, of that got punch that she referenced that a lot of democrats are feeling, but here are a couple of things that i think need to be focused on, just kind of putting my Campaign Party hat on to rally the troops to get your ass in gear. One is, nicole said it best. Own tonight. Sit down with joe, play that tape, play it and slomo if you have to come to get him to appreciate exactly what it was we saw, and how he performed and how, in many respects, he let himself down because many of us know the president and have seen him over these many years, we know how much he regards being honest about that, so let him be honest about that and have that assessment and take him out of situations where he is seemingly lying about his performance. He will endear himself. He will move people to appreciate a lot of things about him if he owns the moment. I thought, for example, lawrence was also very clear and how this thing needs to get laid out. Again, you know, dont over think what happened. Rethink how you move forward. Reimagine what tomorrow looks like and by tomorrow, i mean morning joe tomorrow, all right . And really begin to put in place the next set of Building Blocks because right now, maga is on the run. They got this baby. You should see and hear stuff that is coming up, right . Theyre primed. They are ready. We are like, we told you this is what he was. Joe biden is old. Donald trump is the man. All of that crazy but donald trump is a serial liar. He is a petulant little boy in a mans orange suit, right, when he sits here and tells lie after lie. Joe biden to jens point, was not prepared to deal with that, and he was illprepared because he was fed numbers instead of doing what ive said from the very beginning of the day, i was on morning joe and said joe biden will be the nominee of the Democratic Party because joe biden is his best when he is joe biden, and they forgot that. His Campaign Forgot that. They put that cocoon around him as president and loaded him with all these facts and numbers and the man got lost, so there are some things that are recoverable here, but they have to first start to own the moment, and you dont do that by pushing the Vice President out there. I think the president , at some point, has to look at america now and go, im sorry i let you down. I shouldve been better prepared and you know me better than that, you know, and that is not how my parents raised me and that is not how im going to lead you and i think that moment takes what happens with donald trump because guess what then, rachel, all of a sudden the stuff we are not talking about and sought with donald trump comes back into refocus, people get a look at it. Now that i think about it, donald trump said some crazy stuff, right . I think this is democrats need to bring it down, stop the oh, let me tell you what im hearing from operatives and others, and just reset. Michael steele, tough love. We always get tough love from you, michael. Thank you so much. From atlanta at the site of the debate, from the empty spin room . Yes, very empty. The people we could see behind you were not in focus, either then or now, but it looked like the people behind you before were standing. Now, it looks like theyre all lying down. That is the debate in a nutshell right there, and there is not even pizza. I know you have pizza at 30 rock. There is no pizza here. What is here is matt gaetz and Stephen Miller. That is who i was talking to earlier. You cannot imagine. I believe that in the dictionary when you look up schadenfreude, its a picture of matt gaetz and Stephen Miller after this debate. What did they tell you . Matt gaetz offered thoughts and prayers and something of about all that is left of joe biden now is his dental records. Obviously, matt gaetz is prone to hyperbole and Stephen Miller said donald trump did no prep for tonights performance. He was just speaking from the pure id of donald trump, the wealth of experience he got as president when he brought the country along with him. You know, obviously this is a night they are very happy with. Joe bidens difficulties are there highlight reel, but i spoke to jd vance, as well, who spoke briefly about Donald Trumps, what he believes, stellar performance and i also spoke to senator marco rubio who is maybe waiting here to get the call that he will be the Vice President ial pick but otherwise had some thoughts about the performance tonight. I have it on tape. The real question is, where you better off when trump was president . Did you have more money in your pocket, was the country safer or were you better off under biden and if the election is about that, trump is going to win. I think tonight he took an enormous step in convincing people. We will see what the polls show but i think he took huge steps in convincing people that things were better off when he was president. I dont think we can ignore the president s performance. I do think it is potentially harmful to the country. Adversaries are going to watch it and confirms what they perhaps already suspected about him but i do think my core take away from tonight was i think President Trump did an excellent job of outlining why things were better and how things have gotten worse since he hasnt been. You know, i got to say, this is the line from a lot of republicans, how good of a job trump did and i did press specifically for what he thought was so good about trumps performance because i watch the same thing he did and did not see any grand policy articulation or vision for the future. I think they are largely resting on the laurels, if you can rest on the laurels of someone elses poor performance and that is what has got them feeling good but in terms of trumpian you know, eviscerating biden, im not sure you really saw that. No, i dont think there was anything memorable or positive from donald trump this evening. I think there were some memorable negative the line i did not sleep with a porn start was a memorable moment. I did ask Stephen Miller about that. I said are you winning or are you losing when you have to say you did not sleep with a porn star question mark Stephen Miller said it is the medias fault for focusing on that and i said i didnt say that. Your guy did. He then went on a tirade about the media. Perhaps we will treat you to that tape tomorrow night at 9 00 p. M. Perhaps we will save you from it. There was a litany of stuff President Biden had presented to former President Trump in terms of like youve got to pay close to 1 billion with your civil liability for molesting that lady and for the sex with the porn start and the only one he chose to rebut is the one on which we just had 7 1 2 hours of very granular detail testimony under oath in a criminal courtroom about the fact that it did happen, so that is just like just pick one of the more obscure ones, not one that was just proven before a jury, so that was hard. Rachel, we know about newspaper spanking and im sorry to bring it back up but that is the level of granular detail we know about in terms of Donald Trumps, shall we say, dalliances with Stormy Daniels. That is where we are at it as a country. It is an astute point youre making about the performance concerns about President Biden in terms of being very soft spoken, at times, and audible. Having halting speech and taking a long time to get warmed up. They want to make that the story of the debate and for many, that will be the story of the debate but if there is an indelible line, it is the Stormy Daniels line from the debate and i think the one sort of indelible moment in terms of something said by either candidate is the weird thing about donald trump criticizing joe bidens golf swing and bragging about winning golf tournaments when he was asked about childcare. We had a focus group, a Debate Focus Group in phoenix and that was the first thing the first person told us they thought was ridiculous about this debate, was talking about golf when asked about substantive things so i do think it feels like there is a tale here of a consequence of Donald Trumps performance tonight in addition to that by President Biden. Yes, and certainly there will be more parsing of that performance in the hours and days ahead, so you know, perhaps that changes the overall dynamic evident perhaps it doesnt, but it has not happened yet. Alex wagner in the debate spin room tonight. I wish you pizza and waffle house if you can get there. And we have much more ahead here tonight in our special coverage of the first president ial debate. Simone sanders has been talking with people inside Democratic Politics and will be talking about her first reaction to tonights debate. She has been a key person in the obamaharris universe with key insights for us right after this. To me, harlem is home. But home is also your body. I asked myself, why doesnt pilates exist in harlem . So i started my own studio. Getting a brick and mortar in new york is not easy. Chase ink has supported us from studio one to studio three. When you start small, you need some big help. And chase ink was that for me. Earn up to 5 cash back on business essentials with the chase ink business cash card from chase for business. Make more of whats yours. The cockroach. Resilient creatures. True miracles of evolution. Where there is one, others arent far behind. 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Into the things that keep our food fresher, our families safer, and our planet cleaner. To help us get there, americas plastic makers are investing billions of dollars to create Innovative Products and new recycling technologies for sustainable change. Because when you push for smarter solutions, big things can happen. The great Simone Sanders worked on the last Biden Campaign. Now she is cohost of the weekend here on msnbc. Ive been dying to know what you thought and what youve been hearing. I will tell you what i thoughts in my thoughts are the same as everybody on this panel. The debate did not go well for joe biden white, performance wise. Content lies it was not terrible, but there were moments where he missed the mark to come back on donald trump, on abortion, to fact check when the moderators were not there Fact Checking. They also included that is not what they were going to do and so he had to be prepared to do that part. He did progressively better throughout the rest of the night , but debates are part performance, part substance. You practice both and he fell short of that. Donald trump on the performance absolutely hit his marks on performance, and hitting marks and performances overshadowed by the craziness of the substance. He said some really crazy things. What are black jobs . Abortion after three days . I know that is something the Heritage Foundation said to us and we were he was on our show. Women are not aborting children three days after they are born. Thats called murder. Its literally impossible. Women are not just deciding it nine months well, i dont want this baby anymore. Thats not factually true but again, joe biden he did say that but because of trumps performance and tone was more like the second debate he and joe biden had in nashville in 2020 and not like that first debate. The second debate this is the donald trump we saw tonight. What democrats are saying in the first commercial break i got a number of phone calls from some members of congress and said he wanted to hear the president talk more about the future. They were disappointed by his performance. They were not hearing that. Now it is my understanding that a number of members have called meetings, you know, frontline members because they are concerned. We talk a lot about the president ial election but it is not just the president. Every Single Member of congress is up for reelection. Democrats have a real opportunity the cycle to take back the house. The map is actually in favor for Hakeem Jeffries to be the next speaker and this is a scenario where members of congress, house members especially, some members of the senate like casey in pennsylvania are running ahead of the president and some of the state polls so frontline members of the house, it is my understanding theyve had a Little Family conversation like what are we going to do . New dems have also had a conversation. It is my understanding they want to talk about how they want to position themselves going into they will be at home this summer in the districts and again what they do this fall. Of the talking about running away from the president . Not running away but again, many of them are running points ahead of the president. Some frontline members have seen their numbers shrink in the last week or so, so some of them want to weigh in on the messaging. These House Democrats specifically have said theyve got to talk about the future. All this talk about what you did yes, did a lot, absolutely but there are four months until election day, less than that until people start voting and instead you have to make a decision about where youre going to spend your time. Do you want to convince people that what you did was right or [ inaudible ] the reaction you are hearing, when you say front line, you mean democrats running in tough districts. There is a member called frontline members. They want the response to tonight to be to shift the messaging and the focus of the Biden Campaign so that it is more forward facing. First and foremost, they wanted future looking from the beginning. They felt like they did not get enough of that. The Campaign People said the president was very future focus toward the end of the debate tonight and i was like fair enough, absolutely. He did warm up in the last point i want to make is this. There are some democrats out there who say oh, i dont know if joe biden should stay on the ticket. I have heard that, as well. I think everybody here has heard that sentiment. That is very different. I appreciated chriss point about the nuance from saying there are people in the president s orbit asking him to drop out. That has not happened. Unless we have some very credible reporting summer that says president s family or the top people of the campaign, the Vice President s like you know what, were going to have to talk to him, those are two different things. There is the reality of how people are feeling and the reality of the situation. Let me ask all of you in terms of everybody hearing from people in politics and talking to people tonight, has anyone heard someone close to the president and is in a position to influence him telling him to drop out . The opposite. If you go into the senior levels of dnc, they are very clear he will be the nominee. And there is so little time for this. The Rnc Convention is next month. Dnc is the following month and i think if you want to be a little psychological about it, people are so unhappy with the debate that what they are saying is how they feel in their saying i feel so unhappy i wish i had other choices which is not saying i feel like i wish joe biden was 20 years or younger. Thats different than saying are you going to give him a serum to take off 20 years . All ive been hearing this people wanting more focus on his golf game and that is really the message down the stretch and there wasnt enough of that. Ive been getting that from everyone. You dont use that word anymore. Thats what i was thinking. You have been watching msnbcs coverage of the first president ial debate. The headlines may say trump won, biden lost, democrats got really nervous. What happens from here, what history will say belongs to the voters. That does it for us. Thank you very much. S why at fs we start by getting to know each other. So i can learn about your family, lifestyle, goals and needs, allowing us to tailor your portfolio. wife what about commissionbased products . Fisher Investments we dont sell those. Were a fiduciary, obligated to act in your best interest. husband so how do your Management Fees work . 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