Rachel Maddow interviews Alex Wagner in the spin room before the crucial presidential debate

in the spin room near the debate site in Philadelphia tonight Alex as I just mentioned you have both an excellent and terrible job tonight can you tell us uh what it's like what you're expecting tonight and what the physical environment has been like thus far um well I am personally so over cated that I can hear a light ringing in my ears Rachel I think it's like you know maybe going to be useful tonight it's a massive spin room it's like one of the biggest spin rooms I've ever been in I don't know how that's going to play when it comes time for both campaigns to tell the press that they won they both won I was talking with some senior members of the Harris campaign and maybe this will reassure Jen but uh vice president Harris did not do any debate prep today she spent the day relaxing her husband is in the in in the area we can assume that they are just chilling uh for lack of a better term they feel confident uh they did admit that they believe that she needs this a big win tonight maybe more than Trump does and then they also acknowledge that you know the bar is just a lot higher for a woman and a woman of color on a stage like this at A Moment Like This so you know I think that there's kind of quiet confidence but certainly not overconfidence about what might take place tonight I I I think that you know I cosign everything that you know my my fellow colleagues at the big table in New York are saying about the bar you know the the relative difference in terms of accountability for both of these candidates I will just tell you in terms of quality of surrogate tonight the Harris campaign has three governors who are going to be out here spinning three Senators four Congress people a gold starf father and what the campaign is calling a surprise guest I don't think it's Beyonce so just get that out of your mind they you know they have they have a a solid roster the Trump campaign has Matt Gates VI ramaswami Laura Trump Michael Watley the election denier and chair of the RNC and JD Vance um so it'll be really interesting to see what um what planet both both campaigns are living on after the the debate tonight and you know the quality of the spin because listen there's going to be the debate and then there's going to be the public impression of what happens at the debate and I think both of those are going to matter probably equally