Joining us now, Jen Palmieri, former communications director for Hillary
for America,
former White House communications director and then MSNBC political analyst.
NBC senior business correspondent Christine Romans is at the big
board.
And here with me in Atlanta,
former Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill and MSNBC political analyst and
Co host of
MSNBC's How to Win 2024 podcast and NBC correspondent Vaughn
Hilliard.
OK, Christine, let's start with the economy because that is
going to be key tonight.
Poll after poll shows it's the number one issue for
voters.
What are some of the big things you'll be watching
for tonight?
Well, you have this unique experience here where you have
two men who each have a record that they can
try to celebrate here tonight.
And you'll be hearing from President Trump.
I'm sure that inflation was lower when he was president.
When he ended office, it was
1.4%. But as you know,
the unemployment rate jumped to
6.7% at the end of his term.
And overall jobs added was a jobs loss because of
the COVID.
The stock market, meantime, jumped
6069%. When Trump was in office,
you'll hear him probably talk about how he thinks things
were better in his administration.
But compare that with Joe Biden
after you saw a spike up to 9%
in inflation is back down to
3.3%. The jobless rate has remained very low for a
historic amount of time.
Jobs added 15,000,000 out of the COVID crash into this
booming economy that we're in now.
And under him, the stock market is up 43%.
In fact, I really wanted to 0 in on this
because you were remember in a previous debate that Donald
Trump said if,
if America elected Joe Biden,
you would see a stock market crash.
Here is the stock market under Trump.
Here is the stock market under Biden right here.
This is Kovid right here.
This is that spike in inflation which has since begun
to ease.
So those are where we stand there now when you
talk about their records,
tariffs, big corporate individual tax cuts and lots of deregulation
for Trump under Biden.
He's really focused on kitchen table issues,
Chris, like junk fees, like antitrust,
keeping companies from getting too big and taking advantage of
consumers.
Big legislative achievements here under infrastructure,
bipartisan there, the CHIPS Act,
the big investments in the in the environment and student
loan forgiveness.
I think another issue we're really going to be zeroing
in on tonight is taxes.
The coming tax fight here is what Donald Trump wants
to do.
The corporate tax further wants to extend 2017 tax cuts
that could cost up to $5 trillion
added to the deficit depending on who you ask,
and ending taxes on tips that helps low wage workers.
Joe Biden really, really zeroing in on what he calls
tax fairness,
keeping tax cuts for people who make less than
$400,000 a year, but raising them on the Super wealthy
and corporations and really trying to plug away at what
they're trying to do in this administration to help people
with the cost of housing.
So I think you're going to have a lot of
fodder here for for voters really
assuming things are there's good decorum tonight.
Voters can get a lot of information tonight.
Chris,
good decorum. OK, we'll come back to you tomorrow on
that Christine Romans and see if that if that turned
out to be Jim Palmeri,
let me go to you because you're plugged into Biden
world.
We just saw him getting off Marine One and
heading to Air Force One to make his way here.
How's Team Biden feeling about tonight?
What's their number one goal,
do you think tonight?
I think it's to make Donald Trump own the record
that he has.
You know, this is there's Trump amnesia.
There is people have forgotten
how bad the economy was,
as Christine showed at the end,
at the end of the Trump term and what what
Biden inherited.
But also there's confusion about who owns the Trump abortion
bans that,
you know, whether because that a lot of those bans
passed while Biden was in office,
people aren't sure if he's responsible or if Trump is
responsible.
And then, of course, to have him own his inability
to accept basic democratic outcomes like the result of the
2020 election and
a, the outcome of a very fair trial in which
he was convicted of a felony.
And so I, I think that,
you know, you also want to
you want to get in
what Biden has accomplished, particularly because there are some questions
in the Democratic base about what he's done.
But I would lose my the most thing I the
thing that I think is most important is nailing the
Trump record.
And on the Trump side,
look what I just got
almost two full pages of notes from Vaughn Hilliard about
what he's hearing from Trump world.
Give us the headlines because what we keep hearing is
he was born to debate.
He doesn't have to prepare to debate.
He lives his life and that's his preparation.
I think that we will all be going back to
the quote of the week that he's been preparing this
his whole life and he doesn't need to go away
into a room for two days or a week.
That is the line that we're going to be coming
back tonight after we see how Donald Trump comes out
over these 90 minutes.
Look, Donald Trump has now a record that Joe Biden
is going to be able to use not only from
the four years 2017 to
2021, but also what came after.
That includes the overturning of Roe V Wade.
And it was in that September
2020 debate when Joe Biden said that abortion rights,
reproductive rights were on the ballot.
And it was just four days before that debate that
Amy Coney Barrett was nominated by Donald Trump to be
on the bench.
And I think we have a bite from that debate
four years ago about abortion rights,
cyclism.
The president also is opposed to Roe V Wade.
That's on the ballot as well,
and the court in the court.
And so that's also at stake right now.
And so the election is all you don't know it's
on the ballot.
Why is it in the ballot?
Because because it's on the ballot,
it's on the ballot in the court.
Donald Trump went on to say that he didn't know
how Amy Coney Barrett was going to rule on a
Roe V Wade,
right? Ultimately, she did help overturn Dobbs.
And this is where for Donald Trump,
ever since, he has said,
you know, look, I support having exceptions in states.
But ultimately, this is where you seen Democrats say
at this point in time,
you don't get to control this.
Every ban in every state,
regardless of how far it goes,
you, Donald Trump, own it.
And when you're talking about Donald Trump,
he has struggled to answer other questions like his position
on abortion medication.
And you know, US in the press,
we don't get many opportunities to actually get questions to
Donald Trump.
Back in April, he close to 0,
pretty close to 0. Back in April,
he had told us that he would be releasing in
one week of position on abortion medication.
That was back in April.
He hasn't answered that. He hasn't answered whether his Department
of Justice would go and prosecute under the Comstock Act,
which goes would potentially allow them to prosecute individuals for
having abortion medication mailed to them.
So those are a lot of the questions that Joe
Biden could potentially bring that Donald Trump has not had
to answer over the course of these four years.
What the voters bring, Claire,
is a sense of unease,
right? And I have to say,
I think that number is really telling,
16% of those obviously soft supporters.
That's not the Donald Trump base.
That's not the die hard Democrat.
But there are 16% of voters who say they could
watch tonight and change their minds.
What does that tell us about the stakes?
Well, the stakes are huge because it's so close.
So you know what happens when elections are close,
Little stuff matters. Every little thing matters.
We we know that. Frankly,
the fact that 82% say they won't change their mind,
that's a function of having two incumbents running.
I mean, Trump's not an incumbent,
although he'd tell you he is.
But we've got two people who have been president.
So everybody in the country knows who these people are.
Now it's a matter of Joe Biden reminding people what
Donald Trump failed to do.
I mean, frankly, one of the most effective things he
could do is go through the list of things where
Trump says,
I'm going to have that plan in two weeks.
As you know, Vaughn, this is a classic tactic of
his.
He's done it on health care.
He's done it on abortion policy.
He says, well, I'm going to have something really good
and wonderful in two weeks and it never shows up.
And that's the kind of thing that Trump is good
at,
not getting things done. So,
you know, Biden's got a lot of territory where he
can say something positive after he's attacked,
but immediately pivot and put Donald Trump on defense.
That's the secret to this debate.
Get Donald Trump on defense and he's going to behave
badly.
The issues are incredibly important.
And Vaughn knows that's better than anybody.
You go out and you talk to voters,
they will tell you what's most important to them,
but they will also talk about their discomfort with Donald
Trump that has been there,
frankly, from the beginning, that they think he's over the
top.
And that's probably the nicest thing.
And the age thing, Jen,
with the president, you can't change how old you are.
You can't affect how you present that.
What can Joe Biden do tonight to suggest to people
who are worried about it?
I am not too old for this job.
I am the person for this job.
So yeah, this is every couple of months he needs
to reaffirm to the American public that he's more than
up for the job.
You know, the State of the Union was a good
moment for that back in March.
And tonight will be another good moment to see that.
You know, the the age,
every candidate has a vulnerability that never quite goes away,
right? You just have to you're constantly pushing against it.
You're constantly addressing it. And I think that's the age
issue for Biden.
Could be worse. You know,
people don't say Donald Trump doesn't run around talking,
saying necessarily saying that Joe Biden's doing a bad job
right there.
The big concern that people have about him is his
age.
And if you're able to demonstrate that tonight that
he's more than up for the job,
lean into his experience and wisdom.
I mean, I really think that,
you know, every moment of his life has been preparing
him to be the right president at this time.
All of the foreign policy experience he has,
all the experience he has in Congress,
a great record of accomplishment in Congress,
including bipartisan wins. He's the right,
you know, that his age gives him the experience and
wisdom to be the right president now And then just
show that he has the,
you know, the, the energy to do it.
And tonight will probably be a good night for doing
that.
And then they'll have to be other moments along the
campaign trail where he continues to show that.