saying, quote, it's despicable, simply despicable. biden also referred to trump's comments on fox earlier this week, when the former president was asked whether he wants to become an american dictator. here is what trump told fox. >> under no circumstances, you are promising america tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody. >> except for day one. >> except for? >> he's going crazy. except for day one. >> meaning? >> i want to close the border, and i want to drill, drill, drill. >> that's -- that's not -- >> now, if there was any doubt about what trump meant, the host, sean hannity, gave him a few chances to step back from those extreme words, but trump did not. >> we love this guy. he saysays, you're not going to a dictator, are you, i said, no, no, no. except day one. we're closing the border, and we're drilling, drilling, drilling. >> trump has repeatedly promised to seek vengeance against his political enemies, promising to vastly expand presidential powers. the atlantic writing that trump isn't bluffing and will follow through on his threats, including investigating the press for treason, mass roundups and detention centers for illegal immigrants. the president is in the midst of a weekend fund-raising trip in california. the the president's words must is really gotten people's attention, kevin. >> reporter: certainly, the words are very stark. nothing less than the future of american democracy is at stake, according to president biden. when it comes to that remark that trump made about being a dictator, president biden deployed some rueful -- for another trump presidency is no laughing matter, telling these democratic donors, literally, i believe the future of american democracy is at stake. the greatest threat trump poses is to our democracy, because if we lost that, we lose everything. and you really are starting to see president biden really honing his attacks on trump, but at these off-camera fund-raisers, giving him a chance to sort of test some material, what will be a central argument of his re-election campaign next year. and certainly, there are some democrats who want president biden to be more forceful about president trump, to make this argument publicly, and when you talk to campaign aides, they do say that that moment is coming, that president biden will begin to sharpen his rhetoric, but they want to wait until they're sure that americans are paying attention. they don't want this falling on deaf ears. and you can imagine that these arguments will make their way into television ads, digital ads, of course, that will cost a lot of money, and that is why president biden is out here in los angeles this weekend, raising money at two important fund-raisers, one last night with some hollywood heavyweights. i was talking to jeffrey katzen berg, he said this 36 hours will be the most successful when it comes to campaign fund-raising for president biden since he launched his campaign in the spring, jim. >> yeah, kevin, what do the biden folks think about trump's comments not really having much of an impact on the polls? there's a new poll out today that shows the president has a bit of a climb to get re-elected right now. >> reporter: yeah, it underscores the headwinds that president biden is facing. this "wall street journal" poll releggive of nationwide polls that show trump and biden either neck and neck or trump with a slight edge. this one showing 47% of americans support trump, 43% support biden. so, certainly the president facing some serious challenges when it comes to his re-election, not helped by the fact that his son hunter is in these legal predicament, the charges on tax crimes being unveiled last week. when you talk to president biden's aides, they don't necessarily think that voters will make their decision next year based on what hunter biden is doing, but certainly, this is a political headache for president biden, it's a personal weight that is dragging on him, and certainly, when you talk to white house officials, they do say that this will be an ongoing matter for the president to deal with over the coming year, as he prepares for this re-election fight, jim. >> all right, kevin liptak reporting from l.a. for us. kevin, thank you very much. it will' let's continue the conversation. the niece of former president trump, mary trump. mary, really appreciate your time. you heard what the president was saying last night at this fund-raiser in california, seizing on what donald trump has been talking about recently, and i just wanted to get your reaction to what trump was saying on fox the other night, a dictator, but only on day one, what was your reaction when you heard that? >> well, first of all, thank you so much for having me, it's great to be back. we need to take donald at his word to a certain point. we can ignore the second half of that ictators don't stop being dic dictators. and he has every intention of destroying american democracy, and we need to be clear why. it's entirely for his own benefit. nothing about this is ideological. so, in that context, it was really heartening to hear president biden be so direct about what's facing this country. i agree that it is too early to assume that people are paying attention, and we don't want that argument to get normalized, which is part of the problem the last seven years, almost everything donald does seems to be normalized, but we've seen what he's done in the past, and i think what he's starting to do now is push the envelope and get people familiar with the concept of his tendencies so they just write it off the way they've written off all of his other egregious anti-democratic behaviors. >> yeah, i mean, that leads me to this question, mary, and that is, do you think trump would stop on day one, to say he would onto be a dictator on the first day, i suppose if you are on the first day, i will be on day two. what do you think? does he stop on day one? >> every day from then on will be day one. let's put it that way. he has no intention of stopping. he knows why he needs to get back into the white house. those reasons won't disappear on a day two or day 100. sol, we have to take this threat incredibly seriously and part of that threat isn't just donald's rhetoric, it's the reception that rhetoric receives. we heard the laughing and the cheering in that audience. we hear what his sick fants and enables like sean hannity and like practically every single elected member in congress who is a republican is willing to put up with, is willing to a allow, and is willing to support. >> and mary, i mean, i'm sure you've been paying attention to all of this, too, trump and his aides have been giving us a sneak preview of what he's planning if he's put back into the white house, including mass deportations, muslim ban, mass firings in the federal government, going after the press, and so on. what do you think a second trump term would look like? >> quite simply, and not at all hyperbolically, it would be the end of american democracy. america would become a leading autocratic nation in the world, and we would be, therefore, emboldening countries like some of those you mentioned earlier, north korea, china, but also, the pro-autocratic tendencies of countries that haven't entirely lost their way, but are well on their way to, like hungary and turkey. so, it would be absolutely disastrous, not just for the future of american democracy, but the future of the western alliance, and global liberal democracies, so, i don't think we can overstate just how incredibly dangerous a second trump administration would be, and we need to start preparing the ground for making those arguments now. >> and mary, i know that you have spent some time trying to think about what's going on inside your uncle's head, as difficult as that might be, but when he uses language like vermin to talk about his political opponents, i was wondering what you thought of that. >> well, it's all a piece with how he's always behaved. the difference now, of course, is that he -- his target audience is just getting bigger and bigger. and the amount of power he has is increasing. jim, if you had told me in december of 2020 that things would be worse now than they were then, or that donald would have more power now than he had then, i wouldn't have believed you, because it was just utterly unthinkable. so, look where we are. he uses that kind of rhetoric, because he knows it plays with his base, but he also uses it because he doesn't care about other human beings. and we cannot afford to continue to place people like that in power, because the stakes are just too high, and the consequences would just be too devastating. >> and i'm sure you saw this, axios was reporting earlier this week that trump is likely to elevate some of his key loyalists, put them back in the administration, people like steve miller, steve bannon, kash patel, putting some of those folks in cabinet positions. and they're parroting trump's an anti-democratic rhetoric. i want to play a little bit of this for you, get you to respond. >> we will go out and find the conspirators not just in government, but in the media, yes, we're going to come after the people in the media who lied about american citizens who helped joe biden rig presidential elections, we're going to come after you. >> mary, do you think these are empty threats? kash patel talking about, we're going to go after the media? >> no, not at all. donald's been promising to do that for years, if not decades. any time anybody in the media slightly criticizes him or isn't willing to tow his life, he's threatened him. the difference is that it would come with power to enact those threats. and as, they've learned a lot. and we can't forget that. these people made a dry run for an insurrection. it didn't quite succeed on january 6th, but it's still unfolding. we don't yet know if the attempted insurrection that started on january 6th or, i should say, a few months leading up to january 6th. we don't yet know if it's been successful. so, we can't pretend that this is -- these are empty words and empty threats. we cannot put anything past these people. donald trump and everybody he surrounding himself with, fascists like stephen miller and steve bannon, are willing to do anything they have to do or feel they have to do, in order to stay in power, no matter how ill will egitamalely seize that power. >> dand how did you reaction to that poll showing donald trump up. the staying power of your uncle in all of this, after everything that he said, talking about being a dictator, and so on, on day one, does that surprise you? >> it doesn't surprise me, and i think sort of one of the tag lines of donald's ascendance in american politics is, it doesn't surprise me, that doesn't mean it isn't shocking. it's shocking, it's demoralizing and it's a pretty devastating commentary on a significant portion of the american elector rate, and i think part of what we need to do, and part of the reason, i think, that president biden's statements about donald's attacks on democracy are so important, is because we need to start educating people about what it would mean if we lost democracy. and i think right now, not enough people understand what is at risk here, and, you know, i try to comfort myself by repeating that it's many, many months out, but it is a little bit hard to square the fact that people seem more concerned about hunter biden's indictments than donald's much more serious indictments and charges. >> yeah, mary, do you want to take a break in just a moment, but did you think trump would still be on the political scene at this point? like, when he left office in 2021, did you think, okay, that's it, he's done, no more of this? did you expect him to be on the political scene the way he is right now, running to get back in the white house and having a very decent shot at it? >> i think for maybe two weeks after the 2020 election was called i sort of let my guard down, but as soon as the big lie started gaining steam and other people, including pretty much the entirety of the republican party started perpetuating it and then, of course, january 6th, i knew we would come to a place like this, because donald has too much at stake in terms of whether he goes to prison or becomes bankrupt and he has too many people helping him, so, why wouldn't he try to get into the white house again? >> right. all right. mary, if you don't mind, stay with us. we do need to sneak in a quick break, we'll talk to you about it on the other side, some of his legal problems that he's been going through. stay with us. we'll be right back. the documents that this horrendous attorney general put forth, and he found absolutely no fraud, accounting fraud of any kind. this is a highly respected man, i don't know him, but he's an expert witness, and he found no fraud whatsoever. he found no accounting fraud whatsoever. and like everyone else, he said, what are we doing here? what are we doing here? this is a political witch hunt. >> and we're back with mary trump to talk about her uncle's legal problems that he's in the middle of right now. mary, i did want to bump in from our commercial break with that audio, because you hear your uncle there talking about this civil fraud trial that's under way in new york, he's expected to testify on monday. he's been sort of repeating the same excuses over and over again, saying that the banks wher weren't cheated, the banks were happy, his businesses are great. but he and his company are accused of inflating the assets in his empire. i'm just curious what you think about this, mary? how important is all of this to him? and what do you think about the very real possibility that, you know, his businesses could just go up, you know, in smoke, depending on what this judge decides to do? >> well, first of all, what donald does not seem to understand, his expert witness not withstanding, i'm not a lawyer, but as far as i'm aware, the matter of whether or not fraud was committed has already been adjudicated by the judge. >> right. >> and he's the only one whose opinion matters here. but because this is so important to donald, he's going to keep pushing that narrative, in fact, i think we can say safely that there is literally nothing more important to him, certainly in terms of his -- his legal woes, than this civil trial in new york, because it gets at the heart of everything he's pretended he was for his entire life. a loss here, despite the serious financial implications, which are, of course, extraordinarily important to him, but a loss would also mean that it has finally been proven, if not to him, at least to many other people, that he is not now and never has been anything he's claimed to be. he's not a business savant, he's not a brilliant entrepreneur or phenomenally successful real estate developer, he's a fraud who was enabled by my grandfather for his entire adult life, who essentially will be known as the one person most responsible for squandering his father's very real empire, which donald has absolutely nothing to do with building. >> and mary, i'm sure you've been following this, as we have, as well, but all through these trials and the process of these court cases that are on the horizon for trump when it comes to january 6th, whether it's the federal case, the one down in geo georgia, the documents case, one of the through-lines is all of this is how trump has been going after judges and prosecutors and the special counsel and he's even talked about the clerk in the new york civil fraud trial. what is going on there? what -- i mean, what are your thoughts on all of that? this is just who he is, this is what he does? >> it's who he is and it's what he does, but we also need to be very clear. the reason he gets away with it and continues to do it is because he's allowed to. nobody else -- nobody else in his position would be allowed to continue attacking people, endangering lives of people, and he has actual power. if an average person on the street was in this kind of legal jeopardy and started attacking court officers, they don't have millions of people hanging on their every word. we have court officers and prosecutors and families getting very serious death threats because of donald's rhetoric. at this point, we need to be very concerned about it. and yet, nobody is willing to rein him in, and i believe part of that must be because they want to preserve the case -- sorry, protect the case from his inevitable appeal. but it's still incredibly galling that he is allowed to behave this way, because it is so dangerous, and it just shows you what a double standard there is when it comes to justice in this country. >> at the end of the day, mary, what do you think happens? what -- i know it's hard to predict things this far out and your uncle, despite what folks might want to say about him, he's defied predictions over and over again. how does -- how does this country weather this storm, does it weather this storm? or does trump get back into the white house and win and make these cases go away? what do you think happens? >> well, i -- i think it is almost certainly inevitable that he will be the republican nominee, barring unforeseen circumstances, so, you know, it will be a contest, again, between president biden and donald trump. so, given that, i think it's going to depend in part on the legal calendar. you know, when he has to show up, when -- which trials are going forward. but i think at the end of the day, unfortunately, too much time was allowed to pass, too much has been allowed to get normalized, too many lies have been injected into the bloodstream of the american voter, so way too many people think that joe biden didn't win legitimately, way too many people don't take january 6th seriously anymore, so, we have a lot of work to do. one, educating people, and two, just kind of getting to the basic work of protecting democracy, and helping people understand just how unbelievable it is that we're even at this place. the idea that somebody like donald trump got elected once is bad enough, but we need to make the case that this would be bad for all americans, except for all americans that donald chooses to enrich and empower with a second administration. i think also, though, we need to be very honest about one of the biggest reasons we're here. this is -- this has been decades in the making, between gerrymandering and voter suppression and voter subversion, you know, democrats have to outperform republicans in very significant ways, and that cannot continue. it is unsustainable that every election in our lifetime be the most important election in our lifetime. it is unsustainable that every election is a choice between saving american democracy or falling into an autocracy. so, hopefully we can get that message out, because donald is good at very few things. one of them, though, is finding weaknesses in the system, and weaknesses in people, and he will exploit those to the fullest extend that he can. >> all right. mary trump, it was great to talk to you. thank you for giving us a little extra time in your day today. we'd love to have you back soon, but in the meantime, thank you very much. we appreciate it. >> thank you, jim. all right, coming up, a developing story out of texas, where the state's highest court is now blocking a woman's fight to receive an emergency abortion. we'll discuss that next. and we're following breaking news. the national weather sfrs confirm as tornado has been spotted in western tennessee. we'll bring you the latest on that just ahead. the power goes out, and we still have wifi to do our homework. and that's a good thing? 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