john heilemann, that moment sort of captures where we are right now. this was not just the 2012 debate. president obama, yes, he was bad that night, but he went into the debate ahead. joe biden was not ahead last night. he wasn't down by much. it was a close race, margin of error race, but he had to answer some questions, and he didn't. he didn't show up last night. now, where do we go from here? it's a two-part question. how does the biden campaign try to right the ship to say, look, he's our guy? or how do democrats make the push to him to say, no, you're not. we need to go another direction? >> well, i'll start by saying that, without having an opinion -- opinionizing about this, covering presidential debates since 1992, having seen a fair number of bad nights for candidates on first debates, bad nights for incumbents, bad nights for challengers, in terms of measuring the degree of alarm of a presidential candidate's party about their performance, i have never seen anything like this by an order of magnitude. >> yes. >> this is a reporting matter. s

we have nbc news national affairs analyst and a partner and chief political columnist at puck john heilemann post" and msnbc political analyst eugene robinson. chief white house correspondent for "the new york times" peter baker and the co-host of msnbc's "the weekend" also doing "way too early," symone sanders-townsend. thanks for all of you being here early on monday morning. >> so, john heilemann, i'm thinking this politics thing, i'm guessing if you are going to make fun of your opponent for being cognitively disconnected from facts and figures, it's probably good for you to not be disconnected cognitively from facts and figures as donald trump was this weekend. >> well, jim, it's good to see you this morning here on monday. or is it chuck? chuck scarborough? jim scarborough? no, joe. joe scarborough. >> yeah. >> glass houses, man, you don't want to be throwing stones. >> yeah. >> people live in glass houses shouldn't be throwing stones, that's all i will say about that. >> you know, and the thing is, too, it's getting really more obvious, mika, that they have -- the trump campaign has -

also with us, nbc news john heilemann.s a columnist at "puck," and also author of the book "how the right lost its mind," charlie sykes. oh my god. >> president joe biden and former president donald trump are going to go face-to-face tonight in atlanta. sources familiar with biden's plans tell nbc news the president's going to travel directly from camp david to georgia later today after a week of intense preparation at his maryland retreat. that prep will reportedly include both dress rehearsal-style mock debates and informal huddles with advisers. he's been doing that today. though, mika, most likely he's going to rest and watch "morning joe" on a loop. >> contrary to biden's team, the trump team says he has maintained his schedule. for the former president, the biden campaign believes trump is preparing more for tonight's debate than he has been letting on publicly. they are bracing for trump to arrive in atlanta, quote, more disciplined than on past occasions. >> oh yeah. this guy's going to be great. >> but has been st

von hilliard and john heilemann, thank you so much for spending time with us.he conversation you started about the debate. we'll keep it up. >>> there is another split screen moment to tell you about in america today. while trump and his allies are mired in legal issues almost daily of their own making. president joe biden today is out presidenting, running on his record and continuing to paint his rival for what he is, a convicted felon. white house press secretary joins us next. don't go anywhere. my mental health was better. but uncontrollable movements called td, tardive dyskinesia, started disrupting my day. td felt embarrassing. i felt like disconnecting. i asked my doctor about treating my td, and learned about ingrezza. ♪ ingrezza ♪ ingrezza is clinically proven for reducing td. most people saw results in just two weeks. people taking ingrezza can stay on most mental health meds. only number-one prescribed ingrezza has simple dosing for td: always one pill, once daily. ingrezza can cause depression, suicidal thoughts, or actions in patients with hunting

nbc news national affairs analyst john heilemann. he is a partner and chief political columnist at puck. good to have you here. >> great to have everybody. what a lineup! >> wow. happy monday. >> like a red sox lineup right now. john heilemann, you can read until the papers this weekend and this morning that the trump people have belatedly figured out that lying about joe biden's incoherence and during tapes to suggest he is not -- was a bad idea. now they are trying to, like, reverse track and say, oh, no. he is a debater and maybe he is going to take drugs and he should be drug tested because he is going to end up doing so well. i'm not going to do that here. donald trump when you look at any of his speeches front-to-back looks like he is off his rocker. it's crazy things he says. it's crazy what people stand there and applaud for. here, they just look thoroughly confused and fox news had to cut away because they are like i got nothing here, i got nothing. >> what do you do with that? >> when fox news thinks there is too much lathe

joining us here live in atlanta, nbc news national affairs analyst john heilemann.olitical columnist at puck. john, that's what president biden had to say after the debate last night. that's not what democrats were saying. i saw you here at the site in the hours after the debate. it was a full-on panic from democrats, including some discussion about whether it'd be possible to replace joe biden atop the ticket. how real is this? >> well, look, good morning, jonathan. good to see you. >> good morning. >> i've seen my share of panics around presidential candidates. it was funny last night, someone raised the barack obama's performance, the debate in denver against mitt romney in 2012. the degree of panic right now in the democratic party, donors, officials, mayors, governors, senators, congress people, privately for the most, in some cases publicly, is off the charts. much higher than it was around barack obama in denver. they thought, oh, barack obama, he recovers in the second debate, it'll be fine. that's not the state of things right now. the reality is that joe b

john heilemann, thank you so much. the house floor. we'll show you the moment that is going viral. t that is goingir val eyes on me" performed by gi-yan ♪ all eyes on me brand new drip is what they see ♪ ♪ these diamonds, diamonds on my teeth ♪ ♪ brand new whip is what they see, yeah ♪ ♪ in my bag like a bunch of groceries ♪ ♪ all this cheese and greens just come to me ♪ ♪ look at me on the go. always hustling. eyes on me ♪ ♪ all eyes on me, brand new drip is what they see ♪ ♪ these diamonds, diamonds on my teeth ♪ ♪ brand new whip is what they see, yeah ♪ freedom you can't take your eyes off. the new 2024 jeep wrangler and gladiator. jeep. there's only one. while i am a paid actor, and this is not a real company, there is no way to fake how upwork can help your business. upwork is half the cost of our old recruiter and they have top-tier talent and everything from pr to project management because this is how we work now. with absorbine pro, pain won't hold you back from from your passions.ement it's the only solution w

. >> john heilemann is here, and misincreases national security contributor mike schmidt is back withat the table. mike schmidt, i remember one of the first time i read about how much trump was trying to do this as president, you wrote a story about efforts of don mcgahn to prosecutor i think hillary clinton, jim comey and maybe others. he was restrained in those years from doing that somewhat. durham unnecessarily investigated a number of people, but this is based on today's times' reporting. this has been turbocharged business his conviction. >> i think if falls into a category of things that he sort of has figured out. he figured out in the last weeks of the presidency, he could do more without the guardrails around, and he would plow directly into if he came back. he's really wanted this to be done -- there's an adeck dote in the mueller report, where he essentially held sessions' job over his head, saying i'm going to get rid of you unless you prosecutor hillary clinton, but there were these guardrails. don mcgahn writing a lengthy memo, this is why you cannot do this. this is wh

also with us, nbc news national affairs analyst john heilemann, barely, barely.ate. i'm sorry. late. >> i've never done that. i'm always right on time. mika will tell you a lot of times i'll be sitting out 30 minutes ahead of time. [ laughter ] >> when the camera came on, was i here? >> yeah, man. >> i will give you that. that's true. >> you didn't hear any complaints from me. i respect it. >> thank you, joe. >> i guess i might stand a little bit corrected, because many times the camera comes on and someone else is just not here. >> that's true. >> if you see one shot at 6:00 a.m. and one shot at 6:04, there's a reason, man. there is a reason. you know, hey, willie, a couple of hours ago -- i don't know, this show goes on, like, weeks at a time. a couple of hours ago on our sort of meandering little journey -- >> great tag line for the show, by the way. >> like the canterbury tales. just keep marching. we were talking about disinformation and how crazy it was that donald trump goes out, says the craziest things, and the media yawns. and then while donald trump is

only with chewy. >>> we are back with john, paul, and charlie. heilemannofane people i know. and nice charlie sykes from wisconsin that it was charlie sykes who would say, use that, brought that profanity on the air. i'm stunned by that, number one. number two, charlie, you know, the prediction of this being the dumbest, idiotic, i think you forgot the debate in 2016 with donald trump and marco rubio talking about the size of their genitalia. what charlie said on the sub -- fine. maybe. the third thing, i have a lot of respect and a lot of time for the argument that by doing this debate at all, that joe biden is normalizing donald trump and there was a case for them to say we will not stand on stage with donald trump. i think the case morally, the case ethically you could make that argument. i do think politically if joe biden had decided not to debate donald trump and given the frame of the election trump has, which is me, strong, you, weak, and the fact that you know, at least in some of the, we have a very tight race here. i'll say it over and over agai

>> john heilemann, what you do you think of that?ays is the witted soul of wisdom. >> is that a conversation that starts tonight? >> look, i said before that i think the stakes could be higher, and i think -- the think i want to really say is that you and i have been deliberating on in a scattered way the last few weeks. i think -- we focused on the role of the moderators and what this would look like up on the stage. i think there's an absolutely essential function that we all have in the press, in terms of interpreting what this debate means, and that the way we have done it in conventional elections is just not good enough for the stakes of this election. i think what i mean by that is -- i've said before on the show, the tendency to grade these things like boxing matches -- who god in a good job, a good cross, who scored there or there? it's not probably to the kind of emergency circumstance that the country is in. i further think that there's going to be an extraordinary temptation, because the election is so close, not look at

i was also listening to john heilemann's podcast yesterday. he had the former campaign chair, the former campaign manager, and she was saying that they found among moderates, independents, low information voters that these were voters who were all very much aware of the criminal conviction for trump and that they didn't feel like it was a rigged process, they thought it was relevant. and so i think that might be an area if biden brings up the criminal conviction, he's going to use it as a way to appeal those so-called double haters who have been turned off by that in particular. >> certainly we should expect to hear the words "convicted felon" from the stage thursday night. really great insight this morning from ken thomas, white house reporter for "the wall street journal." ken, thank you again. we'll talk to you very soon. a reminder nbc and msnbc will have full coverage of the dabait, which is hosted by cnn this thursday night. and i will be live in atlanta both thursday and friday mornings for "way too early" and "morning joe" to bring you

and to some degree, as john heilemann was saying in the previous hour with nicolle, i think the general standards and the way we judge debates and sort of do the postgame analysis is different now not just because the stakes are so high, but because this could be the only debate that we have. this could be the onlymoment the american public watch these men on stage talk about the essential issues ahead of us. >> rev? >> i think that it is very true that this is the first time in history we have two presidents debate a former president and president. it's also the first time in history we have one of them as a 34 -- is a 34 convicted fell be. i don't care what preparation they have given trump. if president biden is able to interject that i am talking to a man whose parole officer had to be informed he was going to atlanta, i think these are the kinds of things that will provoke trump to get off his game plan. everyone is saying he may be cool. he may be cool unless he is jabbed with the right things that he is sensitive about. in two weeks, he is going to be sentenced. if i was joe bide

that said, i know everyone who has gone says it changes their lives. >> wow. >> john heilemann, yourmpaign has been clear, they don't think the courtroom is where donald trump's going to be defeated t. has to be done at the election. tell what little more you learned from the campaign. >> i think they have leaned in, as you know. this ad this week and the labeling him a felon, talking about his sexual -- his being liable for sexual assault, the business fraud, they think in the core of their message, which is joe biden's all about you. donald trump's all about himself, that that feeds into that message, that the criminal thing is not like going to tip the election, although they have, again, seen a small uptick with the voters they care about in the polling on that question, but it's part of the larger message frame which is kind of like donald trump is in this for himself. abuses his power, doesn't care about the law, doesn't care about anything except himself. i think they're not relying on the court but it's an important factor. there is no target demographic for taylor swift. >>

i'm john heilemann in for nicolle wallace.re t minus 72 hours and change away from the spectacle of sitting american presidents debating a former american president, the latter of whom just to spice things up, also happened to be a 43 four time criminal, a scoff law, with 34 scarlet f's across his wrap sheet. if donald trump gets his way, the first and maybe only presidential debate of 2024 this thursday in atlanta will be less lincoln douglas or even krend nixon than randy savage versus ricky the dragon steamboat. those are wrestlers for the record. the chain of events that led president biden to face off against a felon ran through the mush had been case brought against donald trump by alvin bragg. who has received a litany of heinous threats. threats that the manhattan d.a. office say are connected to trump's dangerous rhetoric. yet where he's facing grave legal peril, the wheels of justice appear to be grinding and spinning very slowly and possibly in reverse, where judge ilene cannon is at this moment hearing arguments in