we know the president is happy with how she has been his emissary on that. it is a weak spot for j.d. vance. national public opinion and reproductive choice. the fact they are putting the vice president out at this moment on this issue as her opponent is making his grand debut. >> her with republicanwomen. >> including olivia who will be familiar to nbc viewers because they think they could make inros there. >> very interesting programming. the republican national convenon continues to thursday night in milwaukee and happening unr unusual circumstances in the wake of the shooting, attempted assassination, the nonominee donald trump on saturday night. the democratic campaign has taken down all its ads an stopped it'scampaigning. it sounds like maybe, as of wednesday, they'll beck doing campaign style events. that is one of the unusual things that is happening in

american politics right now is our special coverage continues of the republican national convention. tonight's theme night at the republican convention was make america wealthy once again. tomorrow it is make america safe onceagai it's a different line they fill in every night. good evening once again. ag. coverage of the republican national convention. with 113 days until the election, today the rnc opened withda a historic backdrop. the h classified documents case against donald trump wassi dismissed in florida, and it has been just over 48 hours since the assassination attempt on the former president. we'll have more on that later on in the hour, but right now all eyes are on milwaukee, as the republican presidential nominee made a surprise appearance after he was injured on saturday.

earlier this evening delegates from all 50 states officially selected trump. he then took to social media to announce that j.d. vance would be his running mate. vance is the junior senator from ohio and author of hillbilly elegy. he used to trash donald trump all over town before becoming a trump super fan. in his first interview since joining the 2024 ticket he talked about that change of heart. >> i was certainly skeptical of donald trump in 2016 but donald trump was a great president and changed my mind. i think he changed the minds of a lot of americans because he deliveredns that peace and prosperity. another thing that had gone on i bought into theg media's lies d distortions. ies bought into the idea someho he was going to be so different, a terrible threat to democracy. it was a joke. joe biden is the one who's trying to throw his political oppositi in jail. joe biden is the one trying to undermine american law and

order. president trump did a l really good job. >> vice president kamala harris called senator vance to congratulate him, but the biden campaign was quickde to say tha vance would enable trump and his extreme maga agenda even if it means breaking the law. with that let's bring in our lead off panel today, nbc news correspondent vaughn hilliard who's in milwaukee on the floor of theo' convention this evenin. john allen a with us, senior national politics reporter for nbc. all right, vaughn, you were on the nvention floor all day and tonight. d tale us what we need to know. >> i think the headline here number one, stephanie, seeing donald trump walk off those stairsal throwith the bandage o his ear, with the video board here in the convention hall first showed him, the room immediately stood up and began to upcheer.to there were chants of "fight, fight,s fight." of course when he was lifted off the stage after being just over 48 hours and that is what you

could see him saying, fight, fight, fight. these arefi the party activists they are the elected officials the backbone of today's republican party under donald trump. and to listen to this place lead greenwood performed bless the usa, whichd is the song he performs to at every single rally when donald trump takes the stage. and allowing the crowd to applause told the story and this is a republican party that questioned what it's future was goingt to be after 2021, and t republican base of ansupport, t elected officials, these t delegates, these party activists were thety ones that got solidarity behind him a year ago despite gernor desantis, nikki haley getting into the fray. donald trump is here on convention night, number one

standing with his party yet again,h stephanie. >> after the presidential debate i spoke to all sorts of business guys in new york who said donald trump is now going to go for independents, they're up for grabs, he's going to pivot to the middle, he's going to focus on his legacy, and then he chooses j.d. vance. okay? mit romney once famously said i don't know i can disrespect someone more than j.d. vance. you covered his senate campaign. this notion that donald trump is ever going to pivot to the middle and look something like a traditional republican, that flew right out the window when he picked j.d. tonight, huh? >> i think j.d. vance is to the maga side of donald trump if that's possible, right? we heard donald trump basically try tod find his position on ukraine over time, struggle around for it. j.d. vance is somebody who h been against continued u.s. support for a ukraine and its w against russia and its defensive

war against russia. vance has basically voted the maga line and sometimes fled the u.s. senate. this is not a pick the middle. ere are a lot of boxes j.d. vance checks for donald trump. nuer one, comes from the rust belt and try to win not ohio because trump is in a good position to win that already, butlr pennsylvania, michigan. that's part of what he's looki at.t part of it is j.d. vance is half of trump' age. kamala harris is a generation younger than biden and trump, you know, 59 years old. and then j.d. vancet 39 is a generation younger than she is. he is making the aeal to turn the page to a much younger generation. but,yeah, you're absolutely right, stephanie, j.d. vance is nobody's moderate. >> all right, gentlemen, i want to bring susan glasser, staff

writer for "the new yorker" into our conversation. she joins us from milwaukee tonight. susan, president biden called j.d. vance a clone of trump. whether it's a clone of him or not, what voters does j.d. vance bring in to possibly vote for trump that trump didn't already have? >> well, i don't think trump looks about it in that way, steph. donald trump believes the entire appeal ofie the republican tick is based on himself in many ways, and i think that's an important thing to remember. he can certainly signal to constituencies, and the signal here loud and clear is that this is an all-maga ticket. i think that is part of the messagepa to the trump faithful. the other part as john pointed out to a the extent battlegroun states are still in play, he sees vancen as someone who can appeal to those core voters. it's certainly not a message about expanding the electoral

base from donald trum you can say it's a confident cision that this is from a candidate who thinks he's in pretty good sha right now. it's hard to see suburban women voters are going to be drawn in by j.d. vance. you're giving me a big smile with that one, but, you know, look, it's all about the maga, and he sees this as somebody put it best, a mega-maga cket. >> a mega-maga ticket. vaughn, i'mga gssing mega-maga is exactly what that convention floor was looking for tonight.ok >> reporter: it absolutely is. susan and john hit it on the head where i think also even after donald trump, after let's say ten years from now j.d. vance willow be 49 years old, wn you look at some others in the republican party j.d. vance, marjorie taylor greene, josh hawley. there's a younger generation

that goesun behind elected officials. you're watching delegates here that make up the backbone of the republican party. theseerize the going to be the leaders of the partyo of the future. of course, parties have their movements within themselves, and in no way is necessarily maga is something resigned to existing in the republican party for decades to come, but at least in the immediate years to come, this is that. tucker carlson you saw him in the front row next to byron donalds. in a lot of ways speaker johnson, who i think is more of the old traditional conservative evangelical route, is not much of a celebrity around these parts. whenri tucker carlson walked in that front row with donald trum everyone started hooting and holling and a trying to get pictures with thim. th speaker johnson it was a little different, and same thing with glenn youngkin when he took the stage. someone effectively able to win the state of virginia, yet the

base of support within this republican party is stillsu cle, and it's still clear who the heroes and superstars of this party are. it's those who have become the maga allies of donald trump in these past years. >> john, there were two people that we didn't see in the room tonight, but they were there in a veryut big way. tech ceo peter keel, who basically created j.d. vance's political career. he'spo responsible for j.d. van, but the bigger name is bigger headline tonight, elon musk. elon musk made it official. he says he's committing over $45 million a month to a new pro-trump super pac. that is a huge amount of mon. john, let's talk about this because this isn't just elon musk is excited about donald trump. this is absoluteealth now seeking absolute power a week ago i spoke to a ceo in the a.i. space who says elon

musk if he goes full throat behind donald trump he could be like a shadow president because the next president, whoever it is, is going to control the fate of artificial intelligence, and a.i. i going to change the way that we live. do people realize when you get a backing this significant from elon musk, it could mean something major? >> yeah, i'm not sure people do realize that. i think there are a lot of sort of discordant things going on here. you've got to your point peter keel, elon musk basically bankrolling candidates who are at least in name and sometimes in their policies populists. at the same time you've got the president of the teamsters whose organization got a $90 million bailout. and to your point a lot of those workers are likely to be s. replaced intike the technology movement.

we've seen that over thete cour of decades or the course of generations o really. so you've got on the one hand these very populist themes. you've got shawn o'brien, the teamsters president talking about how he wants the republican party to be more for workers and advancing on the other hand, you've got these billionaires, these tech billionaires, you know, basically giving all of the money to get donald trump into office. or in the case of j.d. vance in ohio,j. peter keel. vance had his own celebrity. he'd written the book hillbilly elegy and talking about the struggles of people in kentucky and southern ohio where he grew up, madetu into a major motion picture. he had that for him going on his own. interestingly he's won behind republicans in ohio. w he's done more poorly than republicans on the ticket. that's a state with a lot of populist voters, and that backing for peter keel didn't do

as much as other republicans in that state. >>li susan, let's talk about moo because that was actually the theme of the first night. make america wealthy again. and the rnc hit all the greatest hits people do care about, right? inflation, they said we've got struggling americans outsa ther we're going to lower the price of l everything. we're going to wipeout inflation. we're going to get fiscal spending under control, and people cheered for that. but here's the issue, susan. what donald trump has actually offered thus far on a policy base like 10% tariffs will spike inflation, like masske deportatn of immigrants is going to hurt already the labor shortage we already have, and it's going to shrink our economy. and the corporate taxes that he wantsor to extend or make permanent are going to balloon our deficit because he hasn't articulated how we're going to pay for it. do the american people realize when they talk about making wealthy again, they have yet to articulate a plan that will do that? >> you know, steph, it's very

interesting you point that out. i think you're going topo hear lot more about this as democrats as the campaign season goes on. theyse released a whole array o nobele laureate in economics making exactly your point in inflationary possibilities of the trump policy platform. ia saw the former treasury secretary, bob run, making an op-ed piece that the trump campaign is not annal populist but very likely to be far more inflationary than the democrat policies that president biden haspo pursued and is likely to pursue in a second term. second of all to this point about populism and the sort of libertarian right that has funded j.d. vance, when you look at the extraornarily restrictive policies for women that he has supported and using the long arm of the state to support some of the most

restrictive abortion policies in the country, the comments he's made about divorce and the role that women should play, it's hard to see this as a forward looking policy platform for the future or something that is from a party that claims it wants less government, when it's much more restrictive in many respects towards women looking ahead. it's really remarkable actually. >> vaughn, last night you were on tv together, yeah and i, shortly after donald trump did that interview of the washington examiner where he said he's tearing up his speech for thursday. he's writing a new one with a unifying message, bringing people together. and we talked about could this actually be the first time we see him ever turn that page, and then the rnc started tonight, and i just want to share a bit of the comments from some of the featured speakers. watch this. >> they promise peace and

brought war. they promised normalcy and gave us transgender visibility day od easter sunday. >> today's democrat party is not the party of our parents and grandparents. that party cared about workers and people struggling to get by. now the other party have opened borders, reckless spending, weaponized government, and weakened us on the world stage. >> we don't have open borders. joe biden is currently deporting more people than donald trump did. and as far asan giving transgenr visibility day on easter sunday, the day has been in existence over 15 years, it just happened to end up on easter sunday because that's how the calender works. vaughn, what do you make of what we heard, this whole unifying message that was supposed to come our way? >> i think it's a big expectationing of what does unifying mean, and i think that will become clear over the next three days before donald trump

gives s speech. before you and i talked last night i was talking with a close ally helping with the convention here in milwaukee, a close ally with donald trump, who told me partd of unifying america woul be the atopping of political targeting, and that was a clear and directt reference to the prosecutions that donald trump is going through. and that's why it turned my head this morning when the florida judge, the federal judge, judge cannon, dropped the classified documents indictment, t social media post donald trump put out directly referencedon unifying e country. saying in part as we move forward in unifying the nation after the horrificvents on saturday thisve horrific and lawless indictment should be just the first step followed quickly by the dismissal of all the witch hun. for donald trump clearly the idea of ifying america is to stop the political persecution in his words or to stop the investigations and the indictments and impending criminal trials against him as a means to get to that unified

america. >> all right, vaughn hilliard, john alan, thank you for being here. susan ngglasser, you are such a important addion to this program. i'm not letting you leave just yet. when we come bk next trump appointed judge aileen cannon tosses out the classified documents case, but he is not giving up. we're going to break down our nextt moves when our special coverage continues. when our sp coverage continues

as donald trump's rnc got underway in milwaukee, today we also saw major legal moves for the republican nominee. federal judge aileen cannon who was nominated by trump dismissed the classified documents case against the former president. judge cannon said the appotment and funding for special counsel jack smi was illegal. here's my colleague laura

jarrett with those details. >> reporter: it was already indefinitely onhold, but tonight case closed. a federal judge in florida day handing donald trump a sweeping unexpected legal wifall, dismissing the charges he'd faced for hoarding classified documents at his mar-a-lago estate after leaving the white house and then allegedly obstructing the government's effos to get them back. >> violations of those laws put our country at risk. >> reporter: judge aileen cannon finding the aointment of that prosecutor, special counsel jack myth, improper. concluding in a 93-pag decision smith's appointment violated the constitution as smith wasn't nominated by the president or confirmed bthe senate. thatanying a dramatic departure from every other court who's looked at t issue. today mr. trump described as very happy with the court victory, according to a source who spoke with him, as he called

for the dismissal of his three other pending cases. lester asking president biden to weigh in on the ruling. >> judge cannon dismissed the documents case as you may have heard in mar-a-lago. can i first get your reaction to that? >> i'm not surprised. >> with us now, hugo lowell, former u.s. attorney joyce vance, who spent 25 years as a prosecutor, and neil katyal, former acting solitor-general during the obama administratio he has argued 51 cases before the u.s. supreme court. neil, what in the hell happened today? >> well, these are very serious criminal charges against donald trump for stealing documents, national security documents, then lying about it when the government officials asked him about it. and, you know, my first job at the justice department as national security advisor, we prosecuted cases all the time when it happened and those

people ended up in jail. doing this i can only call it cray cray decision today that special prosecutor jack myth has been declared illegal, that is going to delay things past the election because appeals take time, and special prosecutor jack smith, they're certainly going to appeal. i think this is the easiest appeal in the world. judge cannon had 93 pages, and one page in "the new york times" just an hour ago, i think i took the analysis apart. and basically it's flawed start to finish. i mean one thing is we've had decades of special counsels in this country all pursuant to statutes passed by congress sections 515 and 5. those are the very statutes back in 1999 where irafted the special counsel that the attorney general i went and briefed the hill about those statutes that said we went and briefed and not a single voice

to the contrary. that law has been around since 1966. congress could have changed it. indeed, as you just said at the lead up to this, eight different judges, stephanie, have said these statutes, 515 and 533, authorize the special counsel. congress knew about these decisions. they never changed the statute. they never tried to defund jack smith or any other special prosecutor. the idea that the special counsel is illegal or unconstitutional is, frankly, laughable. and it's not something that should ever have been attempted in a court. >> neal says it's cray a. you? >> cray cray is good stuff. there a lot of cases in decision, even the supreme court decides 5-4. that means some exceptional

jurists don't agree on them. oftentimes as a prosecutor you would look at a decision a judge made and you wouldn't agree with it, but you would understand w they reached the result that they did. that's not what's happening here with judge cannon's decision you know, eight other judges i eight other cases looked at this same provision, the same way of appointing a special counsel and conclude it was constitutional. if you read the language of article 2 of the constitution in conjunction with the authority that the attorney general used to make this appointment, it's clear just on the face of the statute that the aorney general has the ability to appoint someone like jk smith to carry out a case that wou auorize by under the direction of the attorney general, that congress has given that ability through the provision that ne was discussing. so cannon's result here is simply beyond the pail. this is not a decision based in

good common sense or good law. what it's based in is that single justice concurrence justice thomas wrote in the immunity case, where he picked up the immunity issue, which had not been briefed or argued in the course of the immunity case. but he really gave her a road map and a bit of a permission slip to do this, and he took advantage of it. >> and it might not be in good faith, either. hugo, you have been covering this since the very beginning. what was your reaction today when you heard about the dismissal? >> it was probably surprise but it was also i think this was kind of expected. we all expected at some point that judge cannon would take an opening to try and dismiss this case. look, i think part of the upside here is that she didn't dismiss this after a jury had already en impanelled on a directed verdict. i think that was a big fear inside the special counsel's office, and that was certainly something a lot of reporters had talked about might be a possibility. because i she had dismissed it

and a jury had already been impanelled and sworn in, then double jeopardy would have attached, and special counsel would not have been able to bring this case again. on the other hand, in this instance she's dismissed it before we've gone to a trial, so it gives the special counsel opportunity at least to take it to the 11th circuit. the special counsel told me today they had an authorization from the justice department to sue on appeal, and it's my expectations neal said that they will, and they have an opportunity to reassess and see if they can get this case in front of a dferent judge in the southern district of flida. >> neal, what would that appeal look like? you had had said, yes, it would take us past elections, and so if donald trump were to win, he's going to toss the whole thing, but say he doesn't, it's december of this year, what is the appeal, how does the time line work? >> i expect jack smith, the prosecutor, to file a fast appeal and get it briefed and argued very quickly. this is an appeal that basically

writes itself, and going to have three parts, stephanie. part one, those statutes i gave you before that authorized special counsels. part two, the fact the supreme court unanimously in the nixon tapes case said special prosecutors are authorized pointing to the very two same statutes i mentioned earlier. and step three, a logical policy argument, that if you're going to get rid of the special counselhere, it means getting rid of it for hunter biden. it means calling intouestion prosecution after prosecution that's come into this country. and all for what? what the results of cannon's opinion would mean is that merric garland is the one that wod have to bring the investigations and prosecutions. garland is biden's own appointee. and the whole point of the special counsel regulations is to give naerns comfort that some potical actor isn't the one behind the investigation and the decions whether a friend of the president or a foe of the

present. that's why you wanted to have some independents. that's who thole point. so i think those three things together make it inextrbl it will b upheld. and justice thomas wrote an opinion just by him suft not joined by a single other justice that raised some concerns, but he didn't go nearly as far as judge cannon did today. he didn't conclude the special counsel was unconstitutional. he raised some questions. he had a problem obviously because of the nixon tapes case. the supreme court can reconsider their presidents, but some lower courts in florida sure can't do at. >> well, he opened the door and gave her the opportunity to cartwheel through it. joyce, how could thismpact some of trump's other cases? >> it's an interesting question, steph, because judge cannon

states the obvious in her opinion, saying it doesn't determine any rights or issues beyond this case. buthat won't matter to donald trump. he'll undoubtedly try t get a setting of any proceedings in the district of columbia, that case because of the immunity appeal has been on hold while it's been on appeal to the supreme court, but jurisdiction is about to retur to judge chutkan. look to trump to tryo get a stay, which she's very likely to deny. she's not obligated to give one, and so i think we'll see trump go bac up on appeal trying to get either the court of appeals or the supreme court to enter a stay so he won't face proceedings in that case while this whole issue simmers through the appellate courts. >> cray cray is darn right tonight. hugo, joyce, neal, thank you all for being here. great to see you. when we return, it's just been two days after the attempted assassination on a former president. we're learning more about the gunman and exactly what happened

on saturday evening. when our special coverage continues. stick around. our special cover continues. stick around

the moment i met him i knew he was my soulmate. "soulmates." soulmate! [giggles] why do you need me? [laughs sarcastically] but then we switched to t-mobile 5g home internet. and now his attention is spent elsewhere. but i'm thinking of her the whole time. that's so much worse. why is that thing in bed with you? this is where it gets the best signal from the cell tower! i've tried everywhere else in the house! there's always a new excuse. well if we got xfinity you wouldn't have to mess around with the connection. therapy's tough, huh? -mmm. it's like a lot about me. [laughs] a home router should never be a home wrecker. oo this is a good book title. authorities are searching for answers after the assassination attempt on donald trump, but the shooter's motive is still unclear. our own stephanie gosk has the latest on what we know. >> reporter: grainy video shows the shooter, thomas crooks, moments beforee fired an ar-16 style rifle on the roof.

he ds not go unnoticed. according to senior officials local police officers saw crooks on the rooftop but couldn't stop him before he opened fired, injuring former predent trump. 50ear-old corey shielding his family from the gunfire was killed. david dutch and james coppenhamer critically wounded bere a team shot and killed crooks. among the questions tonight how the did the 20-year-old get on that rooftop and why wasn't it better secured? he had a vantage point just 148 yards from the podium where trump was speaking. snipers took up positions nearby, but the secret service says the rooftop was outside of their security perimeter. crooks father who according to the fbi has been cooperating with the investigation legally purchased the rif his son used, and nbc news has learned crooks purchased ammunition at this storeear his home just hours beforthe rally. senior offials say more than a dozen firearms were found while searching the family'some.

after the shooting, they say, his father called police worried their son and an ar-style rifle were missing. crooks graduated from community college and worked as a dietary aid at a nursing home. he was also a member at a shooting club and a firing range. >> he was just a normal kid to me walking around the neighborhood. i mean, he was just a bit odd, that's all. >> reporter: but authorities still have not identified a motive, even after analyzing crook's cellphone according to a senior law enforcement official. while the small rural town of butler struggles with what happened here. >> ken dilanian, nbc news correspondent and justice joins us now. good to see you but obviously horrible news. tell us more about the shooter because his phone as stephanie gosk just laid out, wasn't helpful. but we learned he purchased a ladder that day, that week. what do you know? >> good to see you, stephanie. that's right. our colleagues tom winter and jonathan dean learned just this

evening that the fbi found a receipt for a ladder purchased from home depot in the possession of the shooter and obviously authorities are investigating whether he brought that ladder to the scene and used it to access the roof. the big picture here as you heard from stephanie gosk, two days before the incident and accessing both his laptop and cellphone the fbi is no closer to determining a motive here. this is peculiar situation here where you have this 20-year-old man who has very little social media profile, which is unusual in itself, and now looking at his private messages and don't see any kind of motive here. and obviously reporters are interviewing friends and neighbors and nobody is really coming up with anything is perplexing, steph. >> our friend carroll lenning at "the washington post" has pointed out there have been investigations into secret service failures over the last ten years and very clear recommendations laid out, but they haven't been implemented. how does that factor into what

happens next, and why wouldn't they be implemented? you would think this kind of advice is super important. >> well, i think accountability is coming for the secret service. you know, as little as we seem to know abouthe motive of the shooter, we're learning a lot about the scope o the security failure. you know, nbc news is reporting exclusively tonht that rally goers warned local police about this shooter whe he was acting suspiciously by the magnetometers and then police flagged that to the secret service. th was some time before he got on the roof, so the secret service was aware there was a suspicious person. then you have these videos that surfaced today that show a significant del between the time that people in the crowd we warning, hey, there's a guy with a gun and the time that authities did anything about it. and in fact, "the washington post" analyzed some of that video and found there was an 85-second gap bween the time people first flagged him on the roof and the time h began firing the shot.

so this was a catastrophic failure. and what experts have told me stepping back, it's unconscionable that that rooftop wasn't secured, wasn't covered, allowing a sniper to getn advantageous position 148 yards and a clear shot at the former president. you know, the secret rvice director gave an interview to abc news tonight and she appeared to be sort of passing the blame to local police saying it was their job to secure that building. but what experts have told me ultimately it's the secret service's job to protect the president, the former president. the buck stops with her. she acknowledges there was a security failure but there are going to be multiple investigations to find out what happened here. >> it may have been the local police's job, but it's the secret service ultimate responsibility. she also said they conducted a security review of the rnc and made changes to donald trump's security detail. what does that tell you? >> it tells me that they are

doubling down and making sure something like this doesn't happen again, which is good. also, you know, the rnc is a special security event, so it's about as secure a thing as you can have. the secret service, it's the fbi, everybody's brought to bear there, so the likelihood of something happening there and inside is pretty low. the event at the rally and attempted assassination shows is that there are significant gaps in the secret service protocols. if they're relying on local police and then not making sure local police are doing the basic things that need to be done, that's a big problem. >> ken, sure is. thank you for being here. you be been working nonstop since saturday. i appreciate your reporting. >> thanks, stef. when we return we're breaking down president biden's exclusive interview with nbc's lester holt. their conversation about how the assassination attempt has shaken the presidential race at least for now. for now our special coverage

continues. for now our special coverage continues.

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mr. president, you've been in politics for a very long time, so let's speak frankly. we're all adults here. has this shooting changed the trajectory of this race? >> i don't know. i'm sure you don't know either. >> i don't know. have you given thought to it? >> i've thought about the trajectory of the case in two things. one, what is his health is and that was secure, number one. and number two, what happens

from here on in terms of the kind of coure that the president and vice president and former president and the new vice president get. >> before saturday's assassination attempt the focus was on president biden and calls for some in his party to step aside. our own lester holt sat down with the president today to discuss his thoughts on the race. watch this. >> do you feel like you weathered the storm on this issue of whether you should be on the ticket or not? >> look, 14 million people voted for me to be the nominee of the democratic party, okay? i lisn to them. >> in your last tv interview you were asked if you had watched the debate. and your answer was, i don't think so, no. have you since seen it? >> i've seen pieces of it. i've not watch the whole debate. >> shortly before you sat down

former president donald trump named his vice presidential pick, j.d. vance. what does that tell you about former president trump's values in terms of who he will surround himself with in a next administration should he win? >> well, it's not unusual for him to surround himself with people who agree completely with him. even though if you go back and listen to the things j.d. vance said about trump. >> here to discuss reporter for notos. it was a long interview, we showed just a piece. what did you think? >> i will tell you when i was coming here i was texting as we do now all the democrats to get what their take was on this interview. i thought it was pretty feisty. the president was interested in fighting a lot of narratives in this particular interview. but i texted a lot of democrats, and you might not be surpriseer surprised to find out that those who already thought he should drop out, it didn't really change their minds.

but there was one person who texted me we're grading this guy on such a curve now it's hard to know what to call a good performance or not. i watch this interview and i think the biggest question going away from it is how does it affect his candidacy. i don't think it's very good for biden. but i think if you actually watch it is the biggest question is whatre republicans going to do, which i think is a much better story for biden in the long run. >> tt's where i want to go because we're grading him on a curve based on debate performance, but what about grading him actually against his opponent? >> that's what i actually want to bring up. because the thing that happened was all weekend i was texting with people, talking to people as we were all were. obviously the tragic events on saturday changed adlot of peoples perceptions but when we knew trump was going to be okay and the investigation was beginning, democrats were texting me trump is going to win

this election, it'sover, we can't do anything. >> but hold on. no, no, no, because i'm conscious what we're doing on our air and just because one rando democrat who you're not even telling us their ne says trump is going to run away with it, don't we need to be a lot more responsible with how we're reporting and what's actually happening out there? >> well, the president said in interview he is concerned with the reporting is going. the story we wrote out of that reporting involves some named people, james carville, dona, very strong democratic messaging gurus, right? and the question we were asking them was what can democrats say now? what can't they do because republicans obviously and come out and said you can't campaign against us, can't say anything against us anymore because that is divisive and the kind of language that led to this incident, which they said without any sort of evidence they've been saying this over

and over. they've noticed democrats shouldn't take the feet off the gas with the things they're saying and campaigning against the biden -- against the now trump/vance campaign. the i utthathe most fan fascinating interview that aired the president did not do that at all, he did not change a thing he's been saying. in fact when he was confronted with the idea his rhetoric was responsible for this -- again, there's no evidence to suggest it was. when he's confronted with it he said what about all the rhetoric i've h to put up and deal with on the campaign trail from trump and his allies and j.d. vance -- >> and appearing tonight at the rnc. >> it was i thought a remarkable answer to that question we've been reporting on all weekend, which is that democrats, what can they do now? the republicans are going to put them in a box, what can they do? i feel like the president said there is no box, i'm going to go forward call out the extreme

things trump has said, j.d. vance has said, call out the extreme things his allies have said. i think to me the story of the interview is not actually the health of biden's candidacy but actually the signal it will send to all the democrats saying there's still a campaign to be run and we can still do it, and our message is still our message. i tught that was a very big al the president did tonight. >> and the pause in their advertising or messaging since sunday, is that resuming? >> we don't know when that will end? one of the folks i talked for this story said, you know, there's been a lot of upheaval in our lives the past few weeks. we're going to wait and see what happens with the republican convention before we do this. if you look at the other side of it the republicans are doing their rnc convention, they're doing a lot of negative campaigning against biden from the stage, videos they ran, it's over and over they're doing this entire time they've been on tv tonight. so the democrats will go back

up. right now it's how valuable is it i guess in this convention week. they're definitely going to go back up, it's all going to turn back on. the question i had what the what's it goi to look like and i think we're getting a sense it's going to look le before the weekend. there was a call with senior biden campaign officials today i was on, and they were bringing up project 2025 over and over again and they were calling it dangerous, they were calling it harmful for americans. thesehings that repuicans try to take off the field, those kinds of words the democrats are still going to use them. and i think it's interesting. >> you think republins are taking those words off the field. did you see what marjorie tayl greene had to say at the podium tonight? >> i'm saying they're trying to. >> give men example. >> i'm saying they tried to take the democrats take those off the field. j.d. vance himself texting on

saturday night that thing that happened without evidence, this horrible tragedy and attempted assassination is because of the way democrats have been talking about us. the democrats there was some conversation what they were trying to say and i think the president today said i'm still going to call out 2025 and the violent rhetoric that'some before me and all this other stuff, and i think that is a big signal to democrats. >> he's an amtrak guy, not getting off the train. we'll be right back. guy, not getting off the train. we'll be right back.

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