Just eight days to go until the former President faces off against the current one in CNN's first of the campaign, presidential debate. There are new details about how Donald Trump is preparing. They suggest, as the New York Times Maggie Haberman will explain in a moment, that behind closed doors, the former President is taking it seriously. At the same time, very publicly, he's also laying the groundwork in case he doesn't do so well in the debate stage by making completely wild claims that a good Biden performance will be drug enhanced.

He's going to be so pumped up. He's going to be pumped up. You know all that stuff that was missing about a month ago from the White House? What happened? Who left it? Somebody left it there. I wonder, let's see, somebody left a laptop in an office of a gentleman who was supposed to fix the laptop from hell. He never picked it up, and somebody didn't pick up hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cocaine. I wonder who that could have been.

So just as a point of fact, the bag found in a White House visitor's storage cubby last summer contained less than a gram of cocaine, according to a staunchly conservative Republican congressman who was briefed by the Secret Service on it. Hundreds of thousands of dollars of cocaine would weigh dozens of pounds. Also picking up the idea that President Biden will be medicated for the debate, congressman Roni Jackson. Roni Jackson was the former White House physician who was allegedly so free and easy prescribing drugs without a prescription, he became known as the Candy Man, which the congressman denies. Jackson also administered a cognitive test to the former President, which the former President claimed he aced, though he He couldn't remember congressman Jackson's last name. He kept calling him Johnson the other day. Joining us now with the new debate prep reporting, New York Times Senior Political Correspondent Maggie Haperman. So what have you heard about how Trump has taken this?

As you know, there are ample opportunities for Trump to make flubs as much as he tries to point out what Biden does. Trump is taking this more seriously than people allow publicly, right? I mean, in public, his aides often downplay the prep that he does. He's been doing not standard debate prep. He doesn't have stand-ins as of now for Biden in these debates. So he's not doing mock debates? He's not doing mock debates. That could certainly change. But he's been doing what they've been describing as policy time, where they bring in different people to brief him. A bunch of senators have come in. Last week, Senator Marco Rubio and Senator Eric Schmidt both briefed him at the RNC headquarters after his meetings with lawmakers around Capitol Hill, which was his first major meeting with party members since he became the presumptive nominee. They are focusing on various issues that could come up: abortion, health care, energy energy, COVID, and then very specifically, and this was one thing that came up last Thursday, what Trump will say when asked January sixth related questions, particularly his statements about pardoning some of the people who were arrested in connection with the violence that day.

So do you know will he try to be vague and not be pinned down on whether he'll pardon them all?

On that one, what they are hoping he is going to say, and again, who knows what he'll actually say, but what they're hoping he's going to say is some version of it depends on the case. He has left it much broader in the past and said he'll likely pardon people, again, across the board. I think that they're going to try to have him point to specifics, including people who were arrested where they were not that close to the building.

Do you know in past debates, did he do mock debates?

Did he have somebody playing somebody else?

Well, Chris Christie played a version of Hillary Clinton, and he played a version of Biden in 2020 and then in 2016 before that. So, yeah, I mean, those were... Look, Trump doesn't like prep. I mean, he considers it school. So the fact that they've gotten him to do it this way is actually pretty revealing and also speaks to the fact that I think he knows that this has to go well for him. He has said to people multiple times that he knows that he interrupted too much in the first debate with Biden in 2020. And having just rewatched that debate recently, it's really striking. We all talked about it at the time, but Biden could barely get a word in edgewise, and Biden was smiling throughout as this was happening.

Maggie, stay with us. I want to bring in from Biden's White House Communication Director, Kate Beddingfield. Also, Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bullwork, longtime Republican strategist, a critic of the former President. Kate, what is your reaction to Maggie's reporting that Trump is apparently doing more of these policy sessions while Biden is sticking to more traditional debate prep with your old boss, former White House Chief of Staff, Ron Klane?

I'm actually not surprised to hear this from Maggie because I think Donald Trump recognizes, as she said, that the first debate in 2020, which was essentially a free for all, where his worst His characteristics were on display, his most chaotic energy was on display. I think he knows and his team knew that wasn't good for him. I think there's every reason to expect that a more disciplined version of Donald Trump may show up at this debate. I mean, think about it. The format is actually, I would argue, probably to Trump's benefit. No audience, the mic's being cut off. It means he's not going to have the rambling, we're not going to have the rambling rally Donald Trump that we get at his rallies. It will potentially be an opportunity for him to be a lot more disciplined in. So I think that it certainly makes sense if you're somebody who's strategizing on behalf of Donald Trump to try to convince him to show up and be that version of himself. And I think it's reasonable to expect that we'll see that version of him.

Kate, you think not having an audience helps Donald Trump?

I do, because I think the thing that will be the most problematic for him is the angry energy, the chaotic energy, the interrupting. He feeds off crowds. He gets whipped up into a frenzy. And I think part of what Biden should do in this debate, and what I think he wants to do, is try to put the worst of Donald Trump on display, put that chaotic energy on display. I actually think a more sedate room that will bring Trump's energy level down is probably actually a good thing for Donald Trump.

Sarah, I know you do focus groups of GOP voters. Do you think many of those voters will be impacted by this debate or opinions already baked in?

Yeah, well, look, for the base voters, opinions are baked in. For a lot of those people, they think that Joe Biden has dementia, right? Because that's what they hear all the time from the right-wing media ecosystem. But what Biden needs to focus on are these swing voters, these independents, even right-leaning independents. For them, what I hear in the focus groups, we talk a lot about double haters. Voters, them being the persuadable group this election cycle. The good news for Joe Biden is they don't actually hate Joe Biden, those voters. They're worried he's too old. When he has performances like he had at the State of the Union, and if he has a good performance this debate, he shows up, he shows command of the policy material, he goes on some offense against Donald Trump around the conviction around January sixth. They just want to see that he still got it, that he can do the job. I think if he clears that bar, he can do a lot to take these voters who are pretty unhappy about this choice and move them into his column because while they don't hate Joe Biden, they do many of them hate Donald Trump.

I think the more that these voters see of Donald Trump, The more he comes back into their frame, the more they think, Oh, yeah, I really don't like that guy, and I don't feel comfortable putting him in charge of the country. Biden's just got to hold the line, keep that anti-Trump coalition together.

Maggie, I understand, according to your reporting, Trump's been working with Senator Hagerty.

He's one of the senators who has been in. They've had this rotating cast of characters who have come in to talk about different policy. What's interesting about Hagerty is that his name has come up in the context of the vice presidential stakes in the last couple of weeks. As I mentioned, Marco Rubio is one of the people who was with Trump last week. He is one of the top tier candidates. I don't think Hagerty is, but it just speaks to the degree to which, number one, the Republican establishment is coalesced around Donald Trump and trying to help him in this election. Number two, that they see advantage in having direct time with him this way.

It is interesting that he's having all these people come in and talk policy because policy is obviously not something that's front and center when you think of Donald Trump or even in his long rambling rallies.

He has a series of agenda items that he can point to from when he was President, and that's what they're trying to focus his mind on, to your point. A lot of what he has talked about over the last two years has been grievances, his court cases. I think he has been so singular and was during the Manhattan trial, so singularly focused on what was taking place there, that they're trying to get his mind back to what he can talk about, about what he did. There are things that I think he can speak to about policy, but there's also a lot of stuff that is going to be a problem for him. The January sixth related questions, I think, are going to be a problem. The pardon's question is going to be a problem. His promises of retribution are going to be a problem when those come up, and I anticipate President Biden will reference his criminal conviction. Now, I'm quite confident, based on my reporting, that Donald Trump will then point to Hunter Biden's criminal conviction. And this could be an uglier debate than we have seen in a very long time.

Maggie had referenced the 2020 debate between Trump and Biden.

Let's just play some of that.Vote.

Now.you're going to pack the court? Make sure you, in fact, let people know you're a senator. I'm not going to answer the question because the question is-Why would you answer that question? Because the question is-You want to put a lot of the news Supreme Court just says radical left.

Will you shut up, man? Listen, who is on your list, Joe?

This is so-All right, gentlemen, I think-This is so unpresidential. He's going to pack the court.

Kate Beddingfield. I mean, it was very unpresidential. It is interesting for Maggie's reporting that he has said to people he thinks that was a mistake, or not that moment necessarily, but that he was too negative.

Yeah, too negative and also just the constant interrupting. I mean, remember, the audience that matters here is the television audience, and watching that on television was unbearable. It was unbearable to watch him just continue to interrupt, continue to berate the moderator. And I think, again, he really helped Joe Biden do the work Biden was trying to do there and really showcase, this This is not the guy that you want in the oval office. His temperament isn't right. He's disrespectful. We saw in the data on the Biden campaign after that debate, it was really a turn off for swing voters, for moderate voters, for suburban voters. I think to Sarah's point earlier in this conversation, I think this is Joe Biden's task for the debate to connect with those people. You saw him in that clip there, looking directly to camera. I expect that's something he'll do a lot of during this debate as well, to really connect with those particularly moderate suburban voters who just can't stomach Donald Trump.