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♪ ♪ welcome to "prime: weekend." i'm nicole wallace and let's get right to the week estop story. >> i'm in on is a special edition of alex wagner tonight. in the last hour we heard from the president of the united states. in his first extended on air interview since last week's debate. 22 uninterrupted minutes. president joe biden standing firm despite concerns in and among those in his party that he's staying in this race. that he is the man who can defeat donald trump in november. in an exclusive interview with abc news anchor george stephanopoulos. president biden was asked about his fitness to serve. >> elections are about the future. not the past. they're about tomorrow, not yesterday. and the question on so many people's minds right now is, can you serve effectively for

the next four years? >> george, i'm the guy that put nato together. the future -- no one thought i could expand it. i'm the guy that shut putin down. i'm the guy that put together a south pacific initiative with all -- i'm the guy that got 50 nations not only -- outside of europe as well. to help ukraine. i'm the guy that got japanese to expand their budget and i'm the guy -- so i mean, these -- and for example, when i decided we used to have 40% of the computer chips here and we invented the chip. the little computer chip in everything from cell phone to weapons and we used to have 40% and down to virtually nothing. i go against the advice of everyone and i fly to south korea and i convince them to invest in the united states billions of dollars and now we have tens of billions of dollars being invested in the united states. making us back in a position we're going to own that

industry again. >> addressing his poor performance at the debate, biden said he had a cold and that it was just a bad night. >> i guess the question, the problem is, here for a lot of americans watching is you have said going back to 2020, watch me. to people who are considered about your age and you know 50 million americans watched that debate and it seemed to confirm fears they already had. >> well, look, after that debate, i did ten major events in a row including till 2:00 in the morning after that debate. i did events in north carolina, i did events in -- in georgia, did events like this today. and large crowds overwhelming response and no -- no slipping. and so i just had a bad night. i don't know why. >> biden reiterated that nothing will convince him to step down from the race unless in his words, the lord almighty comes down. and at one point, george george stephanopoulos asked him to reflect. >> are you sure you are being

honest with yourself? when you say you have the mental and physical capacity to serve another four years. >> yes, because, george, last thing i want to do is not be able to meet that. and i think as -- some of -- senior economists and senior foreign policy specialists say, if i stop now, i go down in history as the pretty successful president. no one thought i could get done what we got done. >> are you being honest with yourself as well about your ability to defeat donald trump right now? >> yes. yes, yes, yes. >> i will hear more from president biden as he continues to campaign next week when he's expected to hold a solo news conference during the nato conference in washington. plus nbc white house correspondent mike memoli who was with the president in wisconsin ahead of the interview and white house

reporter for the "washington post" is here. basil schmeichel also remains with me and thank you to all of you for joining. mike. i want to start with you because you have literally known joe biden the longest. you have traveled with him for a long time. there's no question regardless of how he answers george stephanopoulos, we're all older than we were seven years ago. ten years ago, 15 years ago. what's your sense of how he responded and what's the -- what's sort of the biden world sense of how he performed tonight? >> well, ali, the view of the campaign tonight is that when you take tonight's interview in which they believe he took every tough questions that george could muster and you combine that with the rally that i was covering here in wisconsin this afternoon, you see a president who continues to energize and motivate the core group of supporters who are in that room. but also still has the values that got him into this office

in the first place. and is focused on the right things, the voters and can still beat donald trump. now as i have been looking at my phone every minute since this interview was over, it's not clear to me that the audience he needed today reach and convince tonight was satisfied and a lot of democrats who i have been talking to throughout the past week feel like it's been maybe two steps forward but three steps back that maybe this interview would have been -- more effective had he done it in combination with that rally last week in north carolina. the day after the debate. rather than something that built over time and took on a sort of a super bowl-type level of importance by the buildup to this tonight. and so watching president biden there i just see the person i have been covering now for over 16 years now, somebody who is very proud and very proud of his record and he thinks he has donemore in four years as president than any president before him and he thinks he still can and will beat donald trump. the audience that needs to be convinced though is in his

party and i think everyone watching tonight is going to take away maybe they thought he held his own but the debate performance last thursday, we can't overstate what a seismic moment that was in shaking the confidence of democrats. and it's going to take a lot more than one rally and one interview to reassure democrats and the stakes for everyone appearance going forward are so high that i think democrats are going to continue to be walking on egg shells until this is resolved. potentially. >> jasmine, you had an interesting article in which you interviewed a whole lot of people about joe biden and sort of the things to him and you make an interesting point and this is why i was asking mike about this. those who do not interact with biden regularly, such as democratic donors, and foreign leaders, are often the ones who notice the change most acutely. senior aides who interact with biden regularly said they have not noticed stark changes. and that's pretty logical right? i think we can probably all

think about that in our hone lives. if you don't see somebody for a year or two, you will notice they've gained weight or lost weight and the people who are around biden who are encouraging him to stick with this are family and friends and people who work with him every day. >> i think that's exactly right. my colleagues today had a story about how senator mark warner who is the head of the senate intelligence committee or chairs it is working to convene a group of senators to try to convince president biden to exit the race and i think this was really important because senator warner is viewed as a very serious senator and he has a good relationship with the president and he has been critical at times of the administration. but people have said his -- family and close aides are not likely to tell him to exit the race and if anyone is going to ultimately prevail upon him it doesn't mean they will, it would be senators. given that he served in the senate for 36 years. and i think in this article we did about the president's aging

seeming to accelerate in the last few months according to people who have interacted with him. they mostly pointed to physical traits and different gait which the president himself has acknowledged in rerent days that he just moves around slower. but they also mentioned, you know, more frequent lapses like briefly losing his train of thought before getting back on track or just seeming a little bit less lucid. one of i think the most striking anecdotes in the story was that leaders at the g-7 who typically only see the president a few times a year were especially struck and came away with the impression of wondering that he seemed able to do the job now but they couldn't fathom how he would be able to do it four years from now. and i think that's probably the quota a lot of voters are grappling with. he gives speeches and was energetic today at the rally in wisconsin but i think the physical appearance in many ways bears on voters' impressions of whether he can continue to do this job for

another term. >> cy hill. you reported that joe biden was pretty clear and george must have asked him a version of this a dozen times ability will you consider stepping out and will you step out and of course he said not unless the lord almighty comes down himself. your reporting is otherwise. that -- that he is torn between the idea of staying in and what happens if the wave of people calling for him to step aside gets substantially larger. >> yeah, that's right. ali ali, a big part of the goal here was to convince and the debate performance last week was an aberration and not the norm. there are a lot of democrats who were skeptical and over the last 30, 40 minutes talking to a bunch of democratic lawmakers and officials who watched that debate, i don't think he is convinced them. now this was not the disastrous performance that they witnessed last thursday.

it's very clear however you know, that he was not quite as incoherent last time. he was able to put his thoughts together. he did the thing that bidden often does and he catch himself and says anyway and then tries to pivot back. i think people who follow biden are familiar with that but there are several things that stuck out to the democratic sources that i have talked to. the first is one democratic lawmaker texted me saying biden still looks shaky even under controlled conditions. that last response is the one that has gotten democrats most nervous where he was asked, you know, what happens if you lose to donald trump? and biden said something along the lines of you know, i believe i'm the best person to do this and if i give it my all. that's really what it's about. one democratic official texted they were sick hearing that and this is not youth sports that biden himself said this is about the survival of democracy and the fate of the republicans on the line and here he is sayingall i can do here is do my best and there's an element of denial here also sticking

with some democrats about the polls about the state of the race. we know is that joe biden consistently feels underestimated and he's got beef in that regard but general election polls the 2020 polls showed him crushing donald trump and he narrowly beat donald trump. this time the polls show him losing. so i think the question democrats are going to ask themselves is, is he taking a clear eyed view of where he is in the race and is he going give them something to try to right the ship and turn things around because at this moment i don't think democratic officials heard what they wanted to hear. a lot of them at least which is a president who knows that he needs to do something big to turn this around. >> basil, cy talked about jittery democrats and there are sort of a bunch of people for whom this discussion seems very important. some of them are the chattering class and some of them are the punditry and some of the joe

biden talked about in one of his responses when george steam today try and ask him do you understand sort of where the pressure is coming from and he said the media. i want to understand this from your perspective. how should this conversation be going on and where? i don't buy the argument that it shouldn't be happening at all. >> i agree. >> but what's the way to do this? because your concern is that democrats have a tendency to eat their own. >> that's true at every level. some of it is campaign craft right? ifyour party is in power and you are going through a moment like this where your president needs you, what do you do in that moment? so you can say something liking well, you come on -- you come on tv or wherever and say you know what? been a great president last four years and he's entitled to make his own decision which he'll make that decision now. behind the scenes, you recognize that you have some real issues you have to deal

with. there's a time crunch. you don't have that much time at the convention or to the general election. and any party that replaces him is going to have to raise money and go out there and introduce themselves to voters. all of that stuff needs to happen. so there's a whole lot that needs to happen behind the scenes that -- i think one would be concerned is being brought to the public and that in and of itself does not necessarily sew confidence in the apparatus. so the campaign craft is really important here. but from a media standpoint, i do think it's important to acknowledge what voters are thinking and how they're feeling. but also be able to -- to not create an equivalency between what joe biden -- what we're talking about with respect to joe biden and everything that donald trump has said that's been a lie. every time he's opened his mouth. ♪ music ♪ ♪ unnecessary action hero! ♪ ♪ unnecessary. ♪

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one might argue that it isn't plausibly legal to order s.e.a.l. team 6 and i don't want to slander s.e.a.l. team six because you know, seriously they're honorable. they're honorable officers. and they are bound by the uniform code of military justice not to obey unlawful orders. but -- i think one could say that it's not plausible that is legal, that that action would be legal. and i'm sure you've thought. i've thought of lots of hypotheticals where a president could say i'm using an official power and yet the president uses it in an absolutely outrageous manner. >> it was raised as an extreme trivial and silly and absurd argument during oral arguments before the supreme court few months ago by conservative justice samuel alito no less to show what could come of the ex-

president's demands of absolute immunesy. so unthinkable and so unimaginable it reportedly drew laughter in the very solemn place. the supreme court. cut to the political and legal earthquake that was ushered in by the court's decision on monday. that same court essentially giving permission to that worse case scenario. a president using his office to order the assassination of a political rival. without the backstop of the threat or promise of criminal law and prosecution. experts are now warning about what that absolute immunity looks like on every level of government especially national security. the court's opinion as politico reports didn't attempt to directly carve out such extreme examples and that immediately raised alarm among national security experts. the majority instead accuse the dissenting justices of quote, fear mongering on the basis of extreme hypotheticals. the liberal justices and their dissents painted a grim portrait of what we could be

looking at in six months' time. justice sotomayor wrote this. if presidents quote order the navy s.e.a.l. team six to assassinate, immune. in every use of official power, the president is now a king, above the law. justice sotomayor wrote that. justice ketanji brown jackson acknowledged the president may have the authority to remove the attorney general, for example, but quote, the question here is whether the president has the option to remove the attorney general by say, poisoning him to death. more from politico's reporting quote the biggest challenge for president ordering an assassination would be finding the military personnel willing to carry out the order legal experts explained. while the president himself would have the protection of immunity, others involved would remain vulnerable to prosecution because the supreme court's decision doesn't make the underlying act illegal. if they are given an illegal

order by the president or by someone who is directly answering to the president, they may be in a position that they are subject to court- martial in either direction. that's according to claire a professor of national security law at the university of pennsylvania. a lawless president, however, could get around that problem by promising to pardon anyone who carried out his orders. not unlikely scenario for ex- president donald trump who already promised pardons for carrying out illegal orders when it came to border security. whose alarming suggestions are even rhetorical questions about shooting protesters in the legs could play out entirely differently now. that already happened too. this also happened. it was former joint chiefs of staff chairman general mark milli who told the atlantic this. if trump quote ordered us to do x, y or z and it was legal. we would do it. if not legal it's my job to say why it's illegal. all that at best murky now.

former assistant director for counterintelligence at the fbi frank glozy is here and now john brennan is here and former national security at the justice department msnbc legal analyst mary mccord is here. mary, start out by just explaining your old job. i mean, national security is in pop culture more closely associated with the cia. right? but it's how it really is at the department of justice. explain why and explain how monday's decision makes that even more the case. >> so you know, the department of justice, the attorney general, deputy attorney general you know, they are part of the president's national security team along with people like john brennan when he was the director of the cia. the director of our intelligence community. agencies and all of the national security agencies. and they sit together at the white house in the situation room in a -- you know, a skip,

a sensitive compartmented information facility and talk about national security issues of all sorts of flavors on a daily basis. the president seeks the advice not only of the legal advisor within the national security council, but also the advice ofall of, you know, the principals who are part of that national security community. and then the department of justice also through its office of legal counsel is a really -- important part of ensuring that the proposals that are brought to the presidenting and the policy proposals the actions, are consistent with law. that's domestic law and international law. and i will tell you, in my experience, the -- the premise that undergirds the majority opinion here that in order for presidents to act fearlessly and boldly, in our national security and other matters, they cannot be chilled or cowed by the prospect of criminal prosecution.

that's just not what is driving these discussions about how to respond to national security issues, whether they're defense related issues, intelligence related issues, terrorism issues. or so many other things that come before the national security council and the president on a daily basis. so this notion that you need to provide the broad criminal immunity to ensure that presidents can do their job, i think that's just a fiction. i think that was an excuse to write an -- such a capacious ruling that expands presidential functions, what are called in the decision, core executive functions that derive allegedly from the constitution. this capacious expansive ruling really doesn't have any grounding in our constitutional text or our history. and it's not warranted by any kind of practical necessities. one other thing i would say is this opinion also seems to

assume that we have other functioning remedies where a president who does something that is so, you know, meets the criteria that justice alito talked about but those other methods things like impeachment have failed us in recent years. the notion now there's no backstop. that's why you have meme so concerned about this opinion. >> so director brennan, tell me how this happens operationally and functionally if the president of the united states as trump did last time he was president of the united states, wants to do something illegal. and his lawyers and i think donmcgahn said no, that's illegal. he would actually write it down and have his note taker write it down and write him a memo saying you can't because it's illegal. we know a little bit less about what he wanted to do at the

intelligence agencies and we know more about what he wanted the military to do at some points jail, migrants and other points. invoke the insurrection act and if he's not stopped by the fear of the consequences of criminality, what happens? >> well, a lot happens and it's not good. it's hard to be shocked by these abnormal times but i was truly shocked by the breadth of the supreme court ruling. as mary said there are legions of lawyers in the government to ensure that all the actions the government officials take are going to be legal. when a president is going to authorize some type of action whether it be a covert action or some type of military action,there's rigorous legal review that's done at white house by the legal counsel but also by the interagency lawyers group to ensure that every order that a president gives is going to be solidly anchored in the law.

and as this is not -- to protect a president's, you know, eventual criminal light. it's because at least for the six presidents that i served all of them wanted to make sure that everything that they did and everything their administrations engaged in, was going to be lawful. and so the president of the united states is the chief executive of the executive branch. and so as mary mentioning the breadth of this ruling is really quite astounding and i don't think the justices really understand the implications here. because the president heads up all the departments of the agencies and in terms of military personnel and law enforcement, and intelligence and homeland security. there are so many different opportunities for there to be some type of nefarious action that a president would authorize and as was pointed out in your lead in, it's possible that a president could, in fact, issue preemptive pardons to those individuals who would carry out this unlawful act that a president alone is immunized against some type of liability.

but they are not, unless they actually are giving a presidential pardon. so again, the scope of this, the implications of this especially if a lawless, corrupt president is going to be in the white house, it is really quite chilling in terms of what could happen. >> you know, frank, we also cover trump like he's a question mark. he's an answer. he's answered it. he wanted to break the laws. he wanted to have evidence manufactured and he wanted don mcgahn to make up things that didn't exist to get out of criminal exposure with mueller. he wanted border patrol agents to do illegal things and he dangled pardons in front of them. we also know what he already did at his department of justice when it came to wiretaps. we found out at the end of his presidency, he was listening to all manner of journalists and he was listening to lawmakers. what does this absence of any semblance of fear of criminality -- how do you

assess what trump would do in a second term with all the awesome powers of the fbi? >> yeah, as you said, he told us what he's going to do and he's already done some of it. as it's engraved in the -- over the national archives in washington, the past is prologue. exactly. the past will tell us where we're going in the future with him. and i often think, you know, as i contemplating where the impact is on the national security community, with this ruling, at first, my reaction was boy, we're going to have a lot of people in the intelligence community doing unlawful things but then i stopped myself and i reread the opinion. and it's worse than that. because we've redefined what lawful means. in this ruling. soy urn, it's going to be unlawful and we'll have unlawful. no, if the president says it's lawful, it's in the scope of his official duties and his core duties and he's consulted with his attorney general, or his department of defense secretary, then it could be

deemed lawful. so it's not the unlawful acts that i'm worried about. it's the so-called lawful acts that he's going to go forward with. with regards to sam alito's concept that oh the dissenters are just talking about extreme hypotheticals. none of this is hypothetical. we need only go back in history to the mid 1970s and the discovery in america that the fbi and the cia were spying unlawfully on our citizens, domestically. and then the senate had to convene something called the church committee named after senator frank church and what did that committee which said for over a year, what did they discover? there was systematic spying outside of all judicial rulings and there were black bag jobs by the fbi. there was wiretapping unlawful wiretapping of anybody deemed a threat by j. edgar hoover including martin luther king

jr. and including trying to convince king to kill himself and including the fbi by most historians now' findings. that coordinating with an intel unit at chicago pd to actually murder a black panthers' leader. all of this extrajudicial, there were no rules so when anybody says oh don't worry about. no, we have been there, we've been there and now we have rules that came out of that church committee that actually are the operating guidelines for the fbi. for the cia. but things had to get very ugly literally murdering somebody deemed a threat because the fbi director thought the guy was a threat. that's where we're headed here. "prime: weekend" continues. ahead with my colleague rachel maddow. family no one wants to be known for cancer, but a treatment can be. keytruda is known to treat cancer. fda-approved for 17 types of cancer,

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stormy, thank you. for having me. >> you not have to do this. i was very surprised that you agreed to do it. but i've really been looking forward the talking to you for a long time. i guess mostly just want to know how the last few weeks have been. this has been a many year saga for you. but this is a calltively different time since the conviction it's been a few weeks. >> it's been a lot. it's been intense. and i think that -- part of that comes from my mistake of in my mind, thinking that this would be an ending. that this would be the light at the end of the tunnel.

this was the -- what i was working towards. it would be like a movie when the judge hits the gavel and the credits roll and it would be tied up in a nice little gift bow and it would be done. but that's not how real life works. and my friends are, you know, celebrating and sending me messages and texts. not just friends like everybody. people who were happy that, you know, the verdict came down and it was over. but meanwhile, i knew that for me, it was just getting started because for every person that was excited and thrilled and congratulating me, there was -- somebody else that was very upset. >> yeah. >> and it just poured gasoline on some of that stuff that i had been going through the entire time. and -- you know, it's kind of common knowledge now that i a -- a lot of the people were doxxed and i know that cohen was doxxed and trying to dox

jurors and i know that it's directly related because it happened while i was literally still on the stand. >> what's the consequence for you of having your address out there. >> my mailbox was destroyed. my animals have been injured. my daughter can't go outside. there's press and looky-loos out there. i'm afraid to go outside. i'm afraid to go out and mow the lawn. to -- you know, i can't go anywhere. i'm afraid of being followed. the death threats are so much more graphic and detailed and brazen like people don't care. and it's -- it's scary. you know? and leading up to the trial was hard enough. like -- flying. here repeatedly and zitting in the rooms and going through things and reliving all the terrifying moments. the only thing that kept me going i goes was thinking there was end in sight. and there's not.

>> is there any sense of i mean -- vindication? i mean, this obviously -- trump being convicted, this is not a case that you brought. this was a case that prosecutors brought. you were brought here as a witness to testify. >> i was subpoenaed. >> you were subpoenaed to testify. you had no choice about it. again not your case. that said, the way the case was presented to the jury, i mean, the -- the prosecutor described to the jury in his closing arguments stormy daniels is the motive. saying how crucial your testimony was. your testimony was not only riveting, absolutely integral to the case. is -- does the verdict sort of feel like a vindication to you at least in the sense that the story is right now that a jury has agreed that he was wrong when he called you a liar? >> yes. but no. i mean, i don't understand -- life is not fair. and i am getting constantly attacked and it was called stormy daniels hush money trial and that was not what it was.

it was about falsification of business records and i was just one thing but i was the most exciting part and i was the one that took the stand. i was the one that i think's testimony made such an impact. they didn't call karen mcdougal. for that brief moment it was worth me testifying because at first i was not going to and i had to shut down my life and my choice sequestered. and i didn't work and i didn't tweet if you know m that's a big deal. like i didn't tweet. because i didn't want anything to be misconstrued or entered into evidence and create more work for the prosecution. or get the dais thrown out. or just disallow me from testifying. did i want to testify? no. do you know how scary that is? if i'd known beforehand hows insy susan was going to be to me, i might not have. but i also knew if i didn't

testify that would look like they didn't want me to and there was a reason that they didn't want me to testify. as soon as he was found guilty, that i -- knew that i had done the right thing. in one aspect. the other side of that is like you said, i didn't bring these charges. i didn't ask for it and i wassubpoenaed. some of the hate mail that i get is drop charges. i'm like -- i didn't sue him. i'm getting nothing. it caused me so much to come up here and testify and i was not paid. i'm a registered republican. sorry. >> it's fine. >> just get it out. >> when you say u paid to come up here, you paid your own expenses to come up here and testify. >> obviously multiple times. i was not compensated or written a check. i got nothing and this has cost me so much money and i was not paid by anybody. my testimony that i was subpoenaed. that i -- everybody considers me to have done this great duty

and be a hero which i am not. i just told the truth. i was just a human being. i didn't go into a burning building and i just -- said the truth. and i have never changed my story. despite with other people said. go back and look at interviews online from 2019. 2020. '21. my story hasn't changed at all. it's the only one that has been consistent. (mou seen my ph- ahhh! (woman) oh no! (man) woah, woah, woah! (woman) no, no, no, no, no! (woman) great. (man) ughhh. (man) dude. (vo) you break it. we take it. trade in any phone, in any condition. guaranteed. and get a new iphone 15 with tons of storage, on us. (woman) oh yeah. only on verizon.

project 2025. wants you to know that donald trump will be responsible for what they are calling their second american revolution. >> no credit. we want the american people, the president trump is elected again, president trump and his administration to take credit for that. >> the backlash to the radical maga agenda is growing in ways we could not have predicted. wild developments today on just that. stick around.

♪ music ♪ ♪ unnecessary action hero! ♪ ♪ unnecessary. ♪ was that necessary? no. neither is missing your daughter's competition to do payroll. with paycom, employees do their own payroll so you don't have to miss your daughter's big day. time to shine. get paycom and make the unnecessary unnecessary.

as we've been covering on the program project 2025 is a maga world manifesto and a vision of implementing a startlingly authoritarian form of the u.s. government. it's 900 pages long and you can google it right now and read it. it's chock full of wildly unpopular policy proposals and you have everything from using a 19th century obscenity law to shut down all medication abortion and also making the -- mailing of all birth control.

to outright outlawing pornography and throwing people in prison over it. to weaponizing the department of justice to be used explicitly as a kind of tool of venn yanks for donald trump. which is why today donald trump is desperate to try to separate himself from it all. trump does not want people to know about the entire vanguard of extremist we're does around him and what their little plans are for when he governs. the project 2025 plans in plain light they are panicking. donald trump posting today -- i like this. he knows nothing about project 2025 and has no idea who is behind it. you can goth website it's got them all listed there. the group behind it all is the heritage foundation and you see their logo on the screen behind him? we all know trump spoke to them while he was president and paul danes a former senior aide in

the trump administration is the director of project 2025 and ken cuccinelli the cooch wheat a chapter in the manifesto. john trump's one-time white house personal director a guy very close to him all the time is a senior advisor, been doing some vetting of the personnel database. trump had no idea who's behind it. he is far too senile to be allowed to continue the campaign. amanda mar cot is a senior writer today and she writes today -- stewart stephens was a political strategist is now senior advisor to lincoln project. and they join me now. amanda, why do you think it may be backfiring? >> well, i think that fill, they gave it like a weird sinister name right? project 2025. i think the original goal was to sort of put it out there and

hope the shock troops could hear it and progressives could hear it and they can laugh how they're triggering the liberals but i don't think they thought that ordinary people that might be swing voters in the election would hear of it but i don't think that's true anymore. we're seeing some evidence that it's kind of breaking the blood brain barrier in like getting on the radar of people that don't pay super close attention to politics. >> i had a conversation with to a guy the other day on the street actually who said i have been checked out of politics for four, five years. what's been going on? which is a great question. i like ooh, where do i start? and also said his only question, stewart, his only question, was what's this project 2025 i keep hearing about which suggests to me that it has to amanda's point, it has taken on a kind of viralty out past the sort of circle of people that are avid news consumers. >> yeah, look, this is -- [ laughter ] the day after july 4th. if people don't know about

project 2025 now they're going to know come november when people start voting. you know, part of what's happening here is there's a complete void of policy on the republican side. >> yes. yeah. >> what is it -- so of course this is filling that. you know, here's a serious question. is there any republican running for re-election who is running an ad or talking about a bill that they actually voted for? i'm not aware of any. they're out there -- talking about stuff like jd vance about you know, the benefits of the infrastructure act. that he voted against. what did the republicans accomplish that they're now saying trust us and put us back, you know, put us in mower and give us more power and we'll deliver this? i don't know what this bargain is that they get. so you have -- project 2025. which is basically an attack on the future. this is some sort of effort to turn the clock back. which is what the trump candidacy is about. let's not forget.

donald trump is against -- mandatory school -- not for covid but for everything. so you know, i mean there may be a bunch of people out there that miss polio and whooping cough and measles but i don't think there's many of them. >> this point about the sort of absence of a platform or policy agenda is so -- so key. and i think amanda, there's a few things in operation here. one is the sort of authoritarian callture on trump whatever he wants and famously in 2020 they just said we're not doing a platform. but there's also some -- there's also some sort of feral intelligence to this i think from president trump's perspective. which is if you don't write anything down, you don't have a position. what is donald trump's position on gaza?

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