reporting um Clinton shared some insight with vice president Harris about how Trump may attempt to bait her uh and suggested that vice president Harris should in that instance try to turn that around and turn it back on Trump himself and try to provoke him directly wanted to get your reaction to that whether you think that's that's good advice whether you think that we should expect to see that tonight and if if that's the sort of thing that voters should be looking forward to look I I've known kamla Harris nearly 20 years she is a total Pro she's tough as Nails she knows to both share her vision for the country and how to prosecute the case against Donald Trump but make no mistake Donald Trump is a tough out in a debate uh he's done this more than anybody else I mean year after year after year he's been doing it Republican primaries and of course in general elections the guy is willing to lie about anything he's literally Rachel willing to lie from one question to another so it's hard to pin the guy down it's hard to debate him but I think kamla Harris has both a strong record a great vision and a hell of a way about her that's going to allow her to prosecute the case effectively against Donald Trump make no mistake it's going to be a tough out but I know she's up to it one of the things that has happened recently in The Campaign which I mean historically speaking is a little bit of a surprise as you get deeper into the general election campaign you usually expect both candidates to sort of tack toward the center to try to alleviate any concerns about them being outside of American Norms about them being any sort of threat to the country the kinds of questions that the opponent their opponent might have made against them by this point in the campaign instead Donald Trump seems to be tacking in the opposite direction he has promised um in writing just in the past few days that he wants long-term prison sentences for all of his political opponents which he defined very broadly to include for instance donors people who donate money to political candidates he wants long-term prison sentences for those people um he's talked about it being bloody what he plans to do in terms of um deporting people by the millions from this country do you think that vice president Harris should bring those things up directly and confront him with those things we know the candidates aren't supposed to ask each other questions directly but she'll have some leeway to do that if she chooses to do you think she should confront him with that stuff I'm I'm sure she will and I'm sure she will prosecute the case to make clear that Donald Trump is an extremist and listen Rachel this isn't theoretical you know back in 2016 we sort of wondered if he was really serious about all the crazy extreme stuff he was saying then he got elected president and he did a lot of that extreme stuff before he knew what the hell he was doing before he even knew how to run the federal government now all these years later he's not only more extreme than than he was before and has a track record of dangerous positions he's literally told us what he plans to do if he's afforded a second term in that whole project 2025 thing look my Angelou said you know if someone tells you who they are believe them we need to believe Donald Trump's extremism he's got clear plans on how to rip away more freedoms from the American people how to weaponize our military how to weaponize our justice system and use it against people that he considers to be enemies this is really dangerous stuff and it's not theoretical anymore this is very very real and so yes I anticipate kamla Harris will press that case and make clear to the American people not just the stark contrast between she and Donald Trump but also the real danger that he poses to our freedoms to our democracy and to our way of life Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro really appreci appreciate you being here tonight sir it's a it's a night where a lot of people feel like a lot is on the line and it being your home state it being in Pennsylvania tonight I know that you got a lot of Demands on you thanks for spending some time with us good to be with you thanks Rachel all right uh vice president Harris and former president Trump will take the stage tonight at that stage that we've been showing you this is at the national Constitution Center in Philadelphia for perspective on the the size and potential impact of this event you should know as we mentioned earlier that president presidential debates usually rank just behind the Super Bowl in terms of the American public's viewership it means that tonight will almost certainly be the biggest audience these candidates are going to speak to before election day the rules of this debate which were set by ABC News are more or less identical to the rules of the last debate the one between Trump and President Biden the debate will be 90 minutes there will be two relatively short commercial breaks the candidates are not allowed to leave the stage during either commercial nor are they allowed to talk to anyone from their campaigns during those breaks and no before you ask no we will not be allowed to spy on them during the commercial breaks to see them awkwardly standing there talking to no one and definitely not making small talk with each other while the commercials play I asked there will be no opening statements uh the questions from the moderators will start right off the top there will be no studio audience importantly uh the only people allowed to ask questions will be the moderators candidates will not be allowed to ask each other direct questions although you know they always do each candidate will get two minutes to answer a question two minutes for a rebuttal and then one more extra minute for any follow-ups the candidates will not be allowed to bring any pre-written notes with them on stage or any props they will each be provided a pad of paper and a pen and a bottle of water and that's it and they can't have anything else with them Donald Trump won a coin flip that took place before tonight's proceedings winning that coin flip allowed him to choose either which side of the stage he wanted to be on or the order of the closing statements he decided to let kamla Harris choose which Podium she wanted she'll be on the right and he decided to go second in the closing statements which means effectively that tonight he will have the last word and then there's perhaps the most contentious rule when a candidate is not speaking that candidate's microphone will be muted now that rule wasn't place during the last debate between President Biden and Donald Trump now that kamla Harris is at the top of the democratic ticket her campaign actually tried to change that her campaign sent a letter to ABC arguing that she would be disadvantaged by this format the campaign argued that it would quote Shield Donald Trump from direct exchanges with the vice president but in the end the Harris campaign did not Prevail on that so the microphones will be muted when the candidate is not speaking now that said just to keep things spicy apparently the moderators do have the option I don't totally understand this perhaps my colleagues here do the moderators apparently do have the option to unmute both candidates mics at the same time if there is significant enough cross talk that they feel they need to if they feel they need to unmute both microphones in order for the audience to understand what is going on they have the leeway to do that now now that would be an extraordinary circumstance so technically I should probably say we don't expect that but honestly who expects anything anymore anything is possible monkeys may fly water May flow uphill so we thank you for being with us tonight on at MSNBC for this coverage we know you have every option for where to watch tonight's debate it's going to be everywhere but we're really grateful that you are here with us I am joined here in New York by my colleagues Joy Reed and Nicole Wallace and Chris Hayes and Lawrence O'Donnell Lawrence I want to start with you about those rules does anything jump out to you is something that you think is well you know I'm really glad about uh winning the coin toss again to get to sit beside Joy Reed table but uh Rachel thank you for the most absurdest reading of debate rules in history uh debate rules are an embarrassment to the American political system it is a game show created for and by television it is preposterous at every level the two minutes and a president is never never limited to two minutes in a response or in a time to think about something or say something but then when you get all the way down to this utterly nutty microphones are absolutely muted except they're not and when they're not is not describable uh this this set of rules now has entered has crossed the line into the Twilight Zone of debate rules but there's no I don't want to ruin the suspense Trump's going to lose the debate because in debating you lose if you lie like right off the bat you lose if you lie you lose hundreds of points right off the score if you lie uh he's going to lie and for younger people they might not know prior to Trump lying didn't happen in presidential debates disagreements did you know a a bush might say well you know tax increases will hurt the economy and a Democrat might say please tell me when that's ever happened because they don't you know that be that kind of interpretation of what happens with a tax cut or uh you know your idea of how to cut the deficit won't actually work but people weren't lying it didn't happen and the worst moment any candidate ever suffered in a presidential debate was when Jerry Ford as president in his debate said that he did not think that Poland was heavily under the influence and controlled by the Soviet Union and he had to correct that the next day uh and that's it that's it in the whole history of it you can't pick another factual mistake yeah it was like it it it's that's known sorry uh Mr Ford that is actually wrong and it wasn't a lie it was an attempt by a politician to make something sound better for his purposes you know it lived within the the norm of political attempts to bend stuff and he bent it too far he bent reality and he lost AR arguably over I mean it was really a devastating moment the this trumpian thing is nonsense it makes the entire debate idea even more absurd than it's always been and Trump is going to lose and the and the question is just is is the American Media going to recognize that or they're going to say you know he actually he lied well that was a good that lie worked and that you know that's what's going to happen after this there are going to be people who are saying you know arguing that Donald Trump did okay or that kamla Harris didn't okay when he is going to lie and lose there's no doubt about it so I will distinguish between the rules of the debate which I think you have arguably dismantled you have inarguably dismantled and the logistics of the debate because they did make logistical decisions that the campaigns in some instances disagreed with Nicole one of those is no audience which the Harris campaign has contended is a disadvantage actually and that might be a little bit counterintuitive but they content is that a live audience brings out the worst in Donald Trump and that without a live audience you essentially get quiet Trump which is not real Trump and is actually maybe his best foot forward in terms of presenting himself just in terms of whether he seems like a person who can control his own faculties what do you make of these rules and and Logistics and and how the campaigns are viewing them as advantages or disadvantages look this may make me unpopular up here but I don't think anyone that the Harris campaign is interested in talking to tonight gives a damn about any of this right they are talking tonight and the momentum that she has achieved in the most extraordinarily successful I mean we compare her candidacy to Obama's but President Obama had months and months to get to where she got in days and days so what she has to build this incredibly successful movement candidacy what she what she gets to do tonight is to take that sort of political Special Sauce that that she and only she has ever done an American itics and present it to the largest TV audience that's it nobody watching that she cares about politically and statistically gives a damn about the rules and and for whatever the rules are dumb not dumb fair not fair they agreed to them so she's not the victim of any of the rules um she agreed to them she's there tonight so the rules are what the rules are but what her really Miracle campaign needs to do tonight is to leave all of this to us right leave this to Cable chatter and go grab the voters that having you know seen a rally or don't know who she is or maybe have heard some of those lies maybe they heard she's a radical San Francisco liberal and she used to stand there and do what Liz Cheney said was deliver speech that George W bush could have given or Ronald Reagan which which is probably the so far the largest TV audience that has seen her but if you saw her that night and you see her tonight and and she gives again what LZ Cheney said was a speech that Ronald Reagan could have given you won't believe the lies and so this is this is interesting endlessly ceaselessly interesting to us and I actually have an an even more radical view than you I think they should ask one question who won 2020 and if they can't get Trump to tell the truth or answer I don't think they should go any further stay on it like stay on it but but but your your attorney general said that was um but Chris kreb said it I mean like I actually have an even more radical view than you do on the rules but I'm not sure that helps KLA Harris sustain the moment this is what Chris ha was saying earlier in our coverage