Great again. Join us as i grant john im not sure you know this a full pardon. Our entire economy and dairy farming are once again roaring back. Theres a housing boom. Theres an auto boom, a manufacturing boom, a Consumer Spending boom. We simply cannot endure a bideninduced recession. Hell be controlled by the environmental extremists. Biden is too weak, too scared, and too sleepy to stand up to the radical left. Democrats tried to make faith organizations pay for abortioninducing drugs. He has done more for the unborn than any other president. We must all embrace our First Amendment rights and not hide in fear of the media. Stand up and fight the socialists poisoning our schools and burning our cities. We all know about joes son, hunter biden, yet he was paid millions to do nothing. My father does not turn away from challenges, even in the face of outright hatred. Let us join our president in his vow that america will never be a socialist country. Congratulations. Youre now citizens of the United States of america. [ applause ] this president has led bold initiatives in nearly every corner of the world. Peace in the middle east. Never any wars were finally ended. Promises made and promises for the first time were kept. If you tell him it cannot be done, he just works harder. Donald [ applause ] i believe that we need my husbands leadership now more than ever in order to bring us back once again to the greatest economy and the strongest country ever known. Tonights televised session started with a prayer that mentioned jacob blake, the 29yearold man who was repeatedly shot in the back seven times in fact, pointblank range by police in kenosha, wisconsin, this past sunday. Protests broke out there for a Third Straight night. The governor has increased the National Guard presence on the streets. Those barricades were just put up this afternoon. Blakes family now says hes paralyzed from the waist down, remains hospitalized. Today his parents spoke out for the first time to address the shooting and the protests. He shot my son seven times, seven times, like he didnt matter. But my son matters. Lets use our hearts, our love, and our intelligence to Work Together to show the rest of the world how humans are supposed to treat each other. His mother was extraordinary today. A state investigation into the shooting is under way today. The u. S. Justice department announced it plans to assist in that inquiry. Its a lot to take on, but here with us for our leadoff discussion, two Pulitzer Prize recipients from the washington post. Phil rucker, White House Bureau chief for the post, coauthor with his colleague Carol Leonnig of the bestseller a very stable genius. And mary jordan, National Political correspondent at the post and author of the art of her deal the untold story of Melania Trump published in june. Importantly shes also coauthor of trump on trial the investigation, impeachment, acquittal, and aftermath, which came out just today. Plus for good measure, our friend john heilemann, author, journalist, National Affairs analyst, cohost of the circus on showtime. Executive editor at the recount. Thanks for staying up with us and welcome to the three of you. Mr. Rucker, id like to begin with your beat specifically. Again this was supposed to be, after criticizing the darkness as he saw it of the democrats gathering, this was supposed to be positive stories. Are you reporting, are you hearing even a hint of remorse over the use of the levers, the symbolism, the real estate that comes with our presidency for this Television Presentation tonight . Brian, im hearing zero remorse. You know, this was a controversy in the weeks leading up to the convention when the president made it known that he intended to use the south lawn of the white house on thursday night for his formal acceptance speech. And, you know, he almost invites the controversy. Hes almost daring the authorities that exist to try to challenge him on the law here and on the ethics here. Theres no question in my mind and based on my reporting that all of the uses of the white house buildings, secretary pompeos trip to israel, all the other uses of federal resources behind this convention, that the people making those decisions knew what they were doing and did so anyways. You know, theyre trying to show the power of incumbency here. Theyre trying to put the president in the job to show him, you know, walking down the colin aid today, to show the pardoning smoirceremony to try d to the grandeur of the convention and impress upon voters that these are the people really in charge leading the country. But it is an absolute break with precedent in this country. It is alarming to most ethics scholars and others who keep an eye on these things, and it is yet another norm that this president has busted through. Mary, its great to have you. Lets talk about the first ladys speech. This afternoon her press secretary said, in effect, unlike 2016, this speech was all hers, as it was put, all her words, no input this time from michelle obama. I know to write about someone, you have to kind of occupy their headspace and live with your lead character. Having just come off that process, im wondering what went through your mind watching tonight. No, it was almost like well, first of all, it was the biggest speech of her life, and if they dont win in november, i think she was thinking, you know, i need to tell people who i am. Time and time again she was saying things that her husband would never say. Social media was her big and he uses social media to bully people, and of course she brought that up again and talked about being civil. She talked about compassion. She talked about pretty much everything he didnt. You know, the victims of hurricanes, and of course, you know, the anxiety and all the problems, including suicide which she mentioned, that have sc come off of coronavirus. Completely discordant, and she was basically in by far the longest speech that shes ever given, this is who i am. And very notable, her people were saying that they didnt run it by the west wing. Ive never heard of that. I mean normally the east wing, the first ladys office works with the president and theyre kind of a unit. This time this was her, and i do think it helps him, but i think it helps Melania Trump. And if she if they do win again, i think people will look at her a little differently, you know. She usually speaks one or two minutes and mights. Sometimes we dont see her for a month or two at a time. This was a big, big night for her. John heilemann, i guess were just using the presidency and the white house now as a backdrop for a political convention. Yeah. I guess we are, brian. A little different and, you know, ive been listening and watching, and i obviously share the sort of shock and chagrin of a lot of the guests who have been on since you took over at the end of this spectacle. Now weve had two nights of kind of political selfpleasuring on the part of the president , and what phil said i think is important. I want to get to the politics of this and the strategy here and what i find confounding about it just as a purely strategic matter. You know, they are using, as phil said, the office of the presidency, the grandeur of the presidency, all of these official buildings and official processes, as you said, to build donald trump up, to make him bigger, to make him occupy, apparently to build the perception that he somehow occupies the job. The last nearly three nearly four years of donald trump, the political problem for the white house has not been that donald trump is too small a figure. The problem is that donald trump is too big a figure already in some ways and too pervasive a figure. And what the public has rendered so far as a judgment on him, if you look at all of the data that weve seen, particularly since the start of covid, is that there is the president is behind the eight ball politically. He is not a popular figure in america. He has tried to launch a comeback with this convention, and the key element of that was to try to make this election not about him, not a referendum on donald trump but make it a choice between him and joe biden and then seek to disqualify joe biden. And although we have heard attacks on joe biden for the last two nights, what i think these last two nights and particularly tonight with all the trump children and Melania Trump speaking, these two nights have been all about donald trump. They have kept the focus exclusively on him and enlarged him as a presence. I think that fights their interest. They must try to make this about joe biden because if they make it about donald trump, that is what the Biden Campaign wants, and i think theres no one in politics right now who thinks that a referendum election on donald trump is an election he can win. So beyond serving his narcissism, i dont see how this is advancing their strategic interest, the kind of convention weve seen the last two nights and then it looks like were going to see the next two nig nights. And, phil, to johns point, everyone uses these hours between now and tomorrow nights session to look and see what the president tosses out on social media that may reverse some of the perceived gains of tonight. Secondly, phil, its been argued that this is a lot of this is aimed at a potentially shaky base and not looking to bring in independents at all. I think thats right. To the president s tweets, by the way, well see what he does tomorrow, but it might be in violation of the ethos that his wife laid out in her speech tonight. But looking at the base, youre absolutely right. So many of the speeches we saw last night and that we saw again tonight were aimed at bringing that base together, knitting back together the Trump Coalition from 2016, not necessarily looking to expand it but trying to give all of those base voters a reason to get further energized about donald trump. You heard a lot of talk tonight, including a speech that was particularly graphic about abortion, for example. You heard a lot of talk about the economy. Youve heard from the Catholic High School student talking about wearing his make America Great again hat and his war with the media. You even heard from the president s three Adult Children who have spoken so far, don junior on monday night, eric and tiffany tonight. Very unusual speeches. They did not talk about the president as their father or a man of compassion or sort of peel back the curtain on what growing up in the trump household was like. But you heard them deliver basically maga talking points to give fiery political, partisan speeches to rile up trumps base. And thats an indication that the Trump Campaign may not feel secure in their base right now and that they need to make an effort here to make sure that theyve got all those voters with them before they go reaching out into the middle. Mary, one of the speakers tonight has in the past advocated going back to one household vote. I guess one person one vote is overrated. One of the speakers the speaker who was pollulled tonig was pulled from the program for saying out loud throwing her weight behind an old antisemitic trope brought to you by qanon. It seems to me they got mike pence to denounce qanon over the past, what, 72 hours. Is that impossible for this president to do, who when asked about them said, they seem to like me . Yeah, i think that the message every time one of these things comes up is, oh, its the media blowing that up, or theyre canceling people for nothing. We were just talking about the base. A lot of tonight was about women. Were hearing from their own campaign how worried they are about the softening vote, particularly suburban white women. Trump won 52 of white women last time. It shocked people actually because he was running against Hillary Clinton. But theres all kinds of signs of how soft that was. So you saw the video about Kellyanne Conway and all the women that work for him at the white house. And you saw Billy Grahams granddaughter, his own daughter, tiffany, and then of course melania. A lot of this was geared towards saying that he is good for women, and well see because i know that the campaign is worried about the base. And so even though theyre focusing on the base and not kind of expanding out and trying to get some independents, they have a lot to worry about even about who voted for them the last time. John, mary invoked hrc. Democrats prone to an eye roll regard her as the gift that keeps on giving. Your show played this clip of Hillary Clinton. Well play it for our audience, discuss it on the other side. They have a couple of scenarios that theyre looking toward. One is messing up absentee balloting so that they then get maybe a narrow advantage in the Electoral College on election day. Joe biden should not concede under any circumstances because i think this is going to drag out, and eventually i do believe he will win if we dont give an inch and if we are as focused and relentless as the other side is. So, john heilemann, what do you make of her very public advice and its timing . Well, brian, i make of it something thats a perfect rorschach for the american body politic right now. The reaction to this clip has been, you had the right has seized on this clip. From this morning, you had sean hannity, the president s team put it up on his youtube page, basically saying Hillary Clinton is advising joe biden to try to steal the election. Theres been an incredible amount of invective thrown her way as there always is when shes a something krofl from the right. But on the left in the democratic party, theyve all been saying damn right. Shes telling the truth right here, and shes giving him very good advice. I guess i would say, you know, donald trump has made it very clear over the last months that any result other than a clearcut victory for him, which is to say any result by which joe biden might win, hes going to challenge. Hes going to say that the race is illegitimate. Hes going to blame mailin voting. Hes going to say the system is rigged and hes going to litigate like crazy. Hillary clinton seems to be essentially saying, this is what donald trump is going to do, joe biden. You better get ready to do the same thing, that were going to be likely in an overtime situation, that this is going to be not a clearcut outcome on election night, and that you better lawyer up and get ready for the fight that might play out not just in one florida situation like in 2000 but in multiple floridas, so to speak, from november all the way through potentially to january. And to me, that may be polarizing to partisans, but that seems to me to be a pretty cleareyed assessment of where were headed. It being 17 minutes into wednesday here in the east, special thanks are in order for phil rucker, mary jordan, john heilemann. Greatly appreciate the three of you coming on with us. Coming up, the days coronavirus headlines including something of a mea culpa walkback from a government official. Our special coverage of the Republican NationalConvention Continues. 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Any further questions . Uh uh one up the power of liquid with tide power pods. Where you can find games, news and highlights. All in one place, right on your tv. The xfinity sports zone. Use your voice to search every stat and score. Follow the teams you love. And, even get notifications with breaking news alerts and more. With the xfinity sports zone everybody wins. Now thats simple, easy, awesome. Say xfinity sports zone into your voice remote today. I personally could have done a better job and should have done a better job at that press conference explaining what the data show regarding convalescent plasma. And i can assure the American People that this decision was made based upon sound science and data. So that apology from the head of the fda, dr. Hahn, who now says he overstated the benefits of convalescent plasma as a coronavirus treatment. He was referring to the comments made during the president s sunday News Conference announcing the emergency use authorization for the plasma or plausema, despite lingering questions about the effectiveness of the treatment. With us tonight, dr. Kavita patel, former senior aide to Valerie Jarrett during the obama years and among our political contributors. So, doc, after this fda correction, do you still fear, because theyre involved as well, an unproven vaccine rushed to market for political reasons . It sure is possible. Yeah, absolutely, brian. And i think you said it. Its really the political reasons that are the caution here. And by the way, this convalescent plasma is just one in a series of events starting with hydroxychloroquine also getting one of those emergency ru use approvals, through claims and misstatements made by scientific advisers to the president about the virus, testing, treatment. So its no surprise, brian, that people are very much calling into question, legislators, doctors, scientists alik