John Heilemann gives a dose of reality to counter the optimism of Mika Brzezinski on Morning Joe

and instead he put them front and center of this campaign again and look Donald Trump let's be clear did not have a great night he lied throughout um but you know that was all overshadowed by uh Biden's halting performance so what does he need to do now President Biden to try to keep Democrats in line to kind of Tamp down the calls from to step aside to try to reassure voters how do you this is a very very important week ahead for him what are your thoughts so many things to say um to your point uh the reason that the de Biden campaign wanted to have a debate this early was because they are uh the competitive race before this debate but no one thinks they're winning right now there it's a margin of error race where they've had small but consistent deficits in the Battleground States they wanted to go into this debate they know in their polling and everything else that the questions about the Pres age in Fitness are in the foremost not in minds of of M or rev or other people but of the very small sver of people who are still out there who are persuadable voters are going to decide the election Democratic partisans are are going to be with Joe Biden people who are anti-trump and not even Democratic partisans but are just think that anyone that that uh that that that that Bernie from weekend in Bernie would be better than than than Donald Trump they're going to vote for him too there's still a bunch of people out there this kind of 6% maybe in the six or seven states who have seen all of Donald Trump's bandity have seen Joe Biden's performance and are still undecided those are people that's the that's the ball game right they wanted to go to this debate and put Che Point J they want they want to put to rest the notion of Biden's age and fitness and as you said they did exactly the opposite they and in the structural sense every unpopular incumbent and that's what Joe Biden is he's a guy with a 38% approval rating he's an unpopular incumbent you have to try to make the race into a choice not a referendum and what is what happened was that Joe Biden put the spotlight on himself his performance that's just the reality going forward he's going to be under the microscope now on this question for as long as he stays in the race whether that's all the way to November or sometimes shy of that that is a fundamental strategic failure of that debate that's the cost of this right they didn't get to litigate all the things of all the lies of trump all the things he did Joe Biden wasn't able to do that that night successfully and the race is now even more than before a referendum on Joe Biden and these questions of how he's going to proceed going forward I I got to defend just not because I have any dog in the fight with the New York Times just the thing about with the editorial page I mean the idea that the New York Times editorial page and others have not been outspoken in attacking Donald Trump for years is I mean M to just to your point it's not like anybody thinks that the problem here is that the times editorial board has not attacked Donald Trump enough they should take a look at the record I think I think they've done plenty of that I think that that the times at t board also I think is focused on beating Donald Trump and the concern that they have along with in private for now a ton of donors and a ton of Democratic elected officials who say very different things in private than they do in public which is they are worried that Joe Biden can't beat Donald Trump it's not it's not personal this is not like they don't think Joe Biden's been a great president they think not that he's been a successful president they're worried now that maybe he doesn't have what it takes to to fight this race in the fall and I'm not advocating this position but it's what the weekend was was electeds lobbyists uh donors importantly because they're fund this campaign if it goes forward saying does the does our guy who we've loved and who we would love to see win does he have what it takes to win and does he have what it takes to govern for four years all the way to the age of 86 which is what the president's asking for is another term that will give him four more years in office where whatever degree of of of of slippage that he has suffered is going to not get better he's going to he's going to he's going to age further so there are people who are on Joe Biden's side who are worried about this and that's the the thing that the campaign is trying that the campaign is trying to manage now is how to reassure people who are not fundamentally hostile to Joe Biden or anical to his interest but are just concerned about the stakes in the election that the Biden C talks about all the time his existential Stakes that's really what's going on here it's why this discuss is so difficult yeah there's no