0:00

Head to netsuite.com/briefing now for

0:02

their one-of-a-kind flexible financing program.

0:08

Okay, coming up on 8 45

0:11

p.m. 15 minutes until

0:13

this debate and

0:16

we are taking a moment of reflection

0:19

before this all gets going and

0:23

it strikes me that

0:26

up until just a few weeks ago It

0:29

seemed like President Biden

0:31

and former President Trump were not going to

0:33

debate at all in

0:36

the run-up to the November election and now

0:41

We are sitting in a college

0:43

basketball arena on the campus of Georgia

0:45

Tech that CNN has turned

0:47

into a spin room and

0:50

it looks like any other

0:52

debate I've attended before but Of

0:55

course this one is nothing like anything we've

0:57

ever seen before so I Don't

1:00

know what's gonna happen the dozens

1:03

of journalists in this room don't know what's

1:05

gonna happen and In

1:08

15 minutes, we're gonna find out This

1:17

is the CNN Presidential

1:19

debate and boy did

1:21

we ever find out by the end

1:23

of the night after 90 minutes of debate Some

1:26

top Democrats were wondering whether

1:28

President Biden should step aside

1:30

after a lackluster performance So

1:32

right after the debate wrapped up I raced

1:35

across the spin room to catch up with

1:37

CNN's Kristen Holmes to figure out what went

1:39

wrong for President Biden and Whether

1:42

former President Trump can capitalize

1:45

From CNN, this is a special edition

1:47

of one thing. I'm David Ryan

1:56

I don't have to riff. I can just you'll ask me stuff. I

1:58

will ask you stuff. Okay, cool Kristen,

2:01

debate's over. And I think

2:03

the general consensus was that this was

2:05

a horrible night for President Biden. Is

2:07

that fair to say? I

2:10

think that anyone that I've spoken to would

2:12

agree with you on both the Democratic and

2:14

Republican side of the House. Like we're

2:16

hearing terms like panic, we're

2:19

effed. Like that's some of the reporting our CNN

2:21

colleagues are getting. So just

2:23

from a, you know, a

2:26

vibes perspective, for someone who

2:28

didn't watch, can you describe what was

2:30

going on with President Biden tonight? One

2:32

of the main goals that President Biden and

2:34

his team had was to have him appear

2:37

strong. Like he could be a formidable opponent.

2:39

There has been so much speculation and talk

2:41

about his age, that he is too weak.

2:43

There's talk about the fact that he trips

2:46

often or stumbles in his speech. That

2:48

was not disproved tonight. Let's

2:51

fix the tax system. For example, we

2:53

have a thousand billionaires in America. I

2:55

mean, billionaires in America. And what's

2:57

happening? A number of moments in which Biden seemed

2:59

to lose his train of thought. Making

3:01

sure that we're able to make every single

3:04

solitary person eligible

3:06

for what I've been able to do with the

3:08

COVID. Excuse

3:11

me. In which he didn't

3:13

seem to have a coherent response to

3:15

Donald Trump. Dealing with everything

3:18

we have to do with, look,

3:22

if we finally

3:25

beat Medicare. Thank you, President

3:27

Biden. President Trump? Well,

3:29

he's right. He did beat Medicare. He beat it

3:31

to death and he's destroying Medicare. There

3:34

was a number of times that Donald Trump

3:36

said flat out lies that Biden didn't really

3:38

contradict him on or take him on. And

3:40

if I'm elected, I'm gonna restore Roe v.

3:42

Wade. So that means he

3:44

can take the life of the baby

3:46

in the ninth month and even

3:48

after birth because some states, Democrats. There

3:50

was a lot of, you know, almost

3:52

staring at Donald Trump while he

3:55

was speaking. And I say that as

3:57

somebody who has spent a lot of time

3:59

with the Trump campaign. I know that they spent a

4:01

lot of time focused on visuals and optics.

4:03

Right. The visuals and optics for Joe Biden

4:05

were not good tonight. And it

4:07

was even his voice, too, was just very raspy.

4:09

And it seemed like he had a cold from

4:11

what our reporting says. Right. And then the advisors

4:14

were quick to say Biden advisors were quick to say

4:16

that Biden had a cold. He was recovering. But

4:18

then you have the flip side of that,

4:20

which is he has been preparing for this

4:23

debate hold up in at

4:25

Camp David with some of his chief

4:27

strategists going over policy, doing mock debates,

4:29

relentlessly talking about at least his advisors

4:31

were what they were doing to get

4:33

ready for tonight. I got to take

4:35

a look at what I was left

4:37

when I became president and what

4:39

Mr. Trump left me. And then he

4:42

shows up and he seems at one point, even at

4:44

the beginning, like he was going to have a hard time

4:46

making it through because of his voice. It

4:49

just all together, paired together, was

4:51

not a good outcome. Did

4:54

the format and the rules of

4:56

this debate benefit Trump? Like the fact that

4:58

the mics were turned off, it seemed

5:01

like Trump was fairly restrained, at least in

5:03

the back and forth. Well,

5:05

one of the things that Donald Trump set out to

5:07

do was to look like he could be hinged and

5:09

on message and that he did end up doing that.

5:11

We'll talk about the format. What I think is really

5:13

interesting here. These were some of the rules that the

5:15

Biden campaign really wanted. Yeah, they wanted this. They

5:18

wanted no audience. They wanted to mute the

5:20

mics. I mean, I'll remind you back in

5:22

2020, this kind of badgering that Trump did

5:24

of Joe Biden, where he just constantly interrupted

5:26

him and constantly stopped. Actually, Trump's team thought

5:29

that was really bad for Donald Trump at

5:31

the time. Even Donald Trump has said that.

5:33

But that's kind of his style. They wanted

5:35

muted mics, less of a distraction, no live

5:37

audience, less of a distraction. This is the

5:39

Biden team. And the Trump team

5:42

thought at first that that would be a

5:44

problem for the former president, particularly they pointed

5:46

to the fact that his style is this

5:48

kind of aggressive attacking that the muted

5:50

mics might impact that. We didn't actually

5:52

see that from him tonight. It's not

5:54

as though the muted mics were constantly

5:56

stopping him. He we could see his

5:58

face next to Biden. He wasn't reality.

6:00

overreacting. But in terms of the live

6:02

audience, one of the things that I

6:04

had heard from these Trump advisors

6:07

had been that this lack of a live audience was

6:09

going to hurt Donald Trump because one of the things

6:11

he really benefits from is this kind of energy he

6:13

feeds off of the crowd. Yeah, the applause. Exactly. And

6:15

that's when he goes into his big riffs and rants.

6:17

They actually started to say towards the end and towards

6:19

the days leading up to the debate that this could

6:22

be helpful for him because they don't want him to

6:24

do any riffs and rants. I mean, I'll remind you

6:26

of that Nevada rally where he went off about sharks

6:28

and getting electrocuted. Right. We did get a gulf

6:30

discursion. Look, I'd be happy to have

6:32

a driving contest with him. I got

6:34

my handicap, which when I was vice

6:36

president, down to a six. Right.

6:40

And that was the back and forth. And then you

6:42

had Trump, of all people, saying let's not act like

6:44

children, which was a real, you know, kind of Twilight

6:47

Zone moment. Pinch yourself. Exactly. I've

6:49

seen you swing. I know you swing. Let's

6:51

not act like children. President

6:53

Trump, we're going to do

6:56

a specific concern that

6:58

voters have about you. Will

7:00

you pledge tonight? But the muted

7:02

mics and the lack of a

7:04

live audience didn't seem to hurt Donald Trump the way

7:06

that they thought it might. And in fact, at least

7:09

when it comes to the audience, it might have helped

7:11

him stay on message. We'll

7:16

be right back. Angie

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N G i.com. I'm

7:58

John King, Chief National Correspondent. for CNN.

8:00

I've been covering presidential elections for nearly

8:02

four decades and this one feels really

8:05

different. It's the rematch nobody wants and

8:07

it's the voters who are the most

8:09

frustrated, the least happy with their choices,

8:11

who are going to decide this thing.

8:14

That's why I've been traveling the country talking to them. Join

8:17

me for All Over the Map where we visit the

8:19

biggest battlegrounds of the 2024 race

8:21

and we hear from voters who are working through

8:23

their choices in real time. Listen

8:25

to All Over the Map, part of the

8:28

assignment with Audie Cornish. Wherever you get your

8:30

podcasts. I

8:36

mean a lot of this is like it's a TV,

8:39

you know, event in some cases but I think

8:41

the important thing is is this going to demonstrably

8:44

change the way voters think and

8:47

vote or just kind of reinforce what

8:49

what people already thought. What's your read on that?

8:52

It's really unclear and we're not going to know until

8:54

we start seeing the polling in the next couple of

8:56

days or even the next couple of weeks. Some of

8:58

this stuff takes time to sink in. I mean do

9:01

I think that this helped gain voters

9:04

for Biden? Likely not. But whether or

9:06

not this actually helped gain voters for

9:08

Trump, that could also not be the

9:10

case. I will say Donald Trump lied

9:12

a lot of his way through this

9:14

debate. One of the blessings for the

9:17

Trump campaign is the fact that Biden

9:19

did not hit back on a lot

9:21

of those lies. He actually missed

9:23

several opportunities to dig in on

9:25

some of these lies that Trump

9:28

was saying. Will you pledge

9:30

tonight that once all

9:32

legal challenges have been exhausted that

9:34

you will accept the results

9:36

of this election regardless of who wins and

9:40

you will say right now that political

9:42

violence in any form is unacceptable?

9:45

Well I shouldn't have to say that but

9:47

of course I believe that it's totally unacceptable.

9:50

Feels worth noting that Trump also did not

9:52

just flat-out say he would accept the results

9:54

of the election which is something we've seen

9:56

time and time again. On the

9:58

substance though did voters learn anything new

10:00

here? Well, what I thought was actually one

10:02

of the more fascinating parts of

10:04

this debate was that neither one of the

10:07

candidates seemed to really be answering the questions.

10:09

Right. President Trump, as I come back to

10:11

you for a follow up, the

10:14

question was, will you accept the

10:16

results of this election, regardless of

10:18

who wins? Just to finish

10:20

what he said, if I might. They

10:23

both kept pivoting to other topics, which we

10:25

expected a little bit from Donald Trump, because

10:27

that's how he always is. And also because

10:29

there's a lot of stuff he doesn't want

10:32

to talk about. But both of

10:34

them seem to, they'd ask questions about

10:36

one thing, and we'd end up in

10:38

a completely different place to where the

10:40

moderators would go back and say, but

10:42

what about the actual question? So you

10:44

still have 82 seconds left. Are there any other

10:46

measures that you think that would be able to

10:49

help keep Social Security solvent? Or is just, is

10:51

that one enough? Well, that one enough will keep

10:53

it solvent. But the biggest thing I'll do, I'm

10:56

not sure what people took away

10:58

from this, which is why so

11:00

much of this is important on

11:02

the performance aspect, because substance

11:04

wise, I'm not quite sure what people

11:06

may be put together out of this.

11:09

Because I think a lot of times we hear

11:11

criticism of debates in general, that it's just

11:13

a performance, it's just theater. But you're saying like,

11:16

that does matter when you have candidates

11:19

this old that have these kind of

11:21

superficial things that people observe

11:23

and think about. Right. Well, we know

11:25

that at least one of President Joe

11:27

Biden's goals was to come off strong

11:29

and to come off to really negate

11:32

these kind of insults or criticisms that

11:34

he has had towards him for being

11:36

too old or not being capable of

11:38

being president or not having stamina. That

11:41

is a performance issue. How many billions

11:43

of dollars do you owe in civil penalties

11:47

for molesting a woman in public, for doing

11:49

a whole range of things, of

11:51

having sex with a porn star on the

11:53

night while your wife was pregnant?

11:55

I mean, what are you

11:58

talking about? You have the more... the

12:00

world's an alley cat. Gigga,

12:02

not sir. I didn't have sex with a porn

12:04

star. Number one. Number two. He

12:06

knew that going into it. And yet,

12:08

again, we saw that in that department,

12:10

he did not fare well. What's

12:13

next for these campaigns then

12:15

as this selection pivots into

12:17

convention season? Well, so both of

12:19

them have rallies tomorrow in what they're calling

12:21

battleground states. One is North Carolina for Biden. The other

12:23

one is Virginia, which is not really a battleground state.

12:25

It's a Democratic state. But Donald Trump has said that

12:27

he thinks he could win. They'll

12:30

be traveling a lot. We obviously don't have

12:32

a vice presidential nominee or pick from Donald

12:34

Trump. So that's probably going to be the

12:36

next thing before the convention. We talk about

12:39

long term what's next for them. It's really

12:41

unclear what this does. One, as

12:43

we talked about for the voters, or two, how

12:45

it impacts the campaign. And

12:47

if we're going to see more calls

12:49

for Biden to actually step aside, which

12:51

seemed unfathomable, you know, before tonight.

12:54

Well, we saw Andrew Yang, who actually ran

12:56

for president with the Democratic Party, say that

12:58

he should be replaced tonight. I mean, it's

13:00

not a good reaction from some of the

13:02

people who we expected to have

13:04

at least somewhat of Biden's back. Yeah,

13:06

it's like spin is one thing. But

13:08

when you hear stuff like that talking

13:10

about replacement, that's worth it. Well,

13:13

I think that's going to be very scary for a

13:15

lot of Democrats. But I also would note that's probably

13:17

going to be really scary for a lot of Republicans.

13:19

They don't want a new candidate.

13:21

They don't want someone else to

13:23

run into that seat. And then you have that

13:25

different contrast to deal with. Well,

13:27

we'll see what happens next. Kristen Holmes, thank you. Thank

13:30

you. After

13:36

the debate down on the spin

13:38

room floor, top Biden surrogates tried

13:40

to project a message of call.

13:42

And California Governor Gavin Newsom said

13:44

he would not step in to

13:46

replace Biden. I

13:48

would never turn my back on President Biden. Never

13:51

turn my back on President Biden. I don't know a

13:53

Democrat in my party that would do

13:55

so. Biden's own Vice

13:57

President Kamala Harris went on CNN

13:59

with Anderson. and Cooper, but

14:01

even she seemed to struggle to defend

14:03

Biden's night. Meanwhile,

14:28

the Trump campaign in a statement

14:30

declared victory before the debate was

14:32

even over. One

14:40

Thing is a production of CNN

14:43

Audio. This episode was produced by

14:45

Grace Walker, Paolo Ortiz, and me,

14:47

David Rine. Our senior producer is

14:49

Fes D'Amel. Our supervising producer is

14:52

Greg Peppers. Matt Dempsey is our

14:54

production manager. Dan DeZula is our

14:56

technical director, and Steve Lichtai is

14:59

the executive producer of CNN Audio.

15:01

We get support from Haley Thomas,

15:03

Alex Manisari, Robert Mathers, John Deonora,

15:06

Laini Steinhardt, James Andres, Nicole Pesseru,

15:08

and Lisa Namaro. Special thanks

15:10

to Alejandra Jaramillo and Katie Hinman. If

15:13

you're looking for more politics coverage, check

15:15

out the CNN Political Briefing Podcast, or

15:17

The Assignment, with Adi Kornish. They

15:20

have a lot of great shows coming up the next

15:22

few days, and we'll be back here on Sunday with

15:24

another episode. I'll talk to you then. I'm

15:33

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, host of the

15:35

Chasing Life Podcast. She's a

15:37

Stanford University lecturer and a health psychologist, and

15:40

she's also author of the book The Joy

15:42

of Movement. Kelly McGonigal.

15:45

I always say that exercise is like an

15:47

intravenous dose of hope. I

15:49

know that getting my heart rate up actually

15:51

changes my brain chemistry in a way that

15:54

helps me deal with anxiety. Listen

15:56

to Chasing Life, streaming now, wherever you

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