presented by the American Petroleum Institute.

Hey, good morning. I'm Playbook co-author Rachel Bade. It's Thursday, June 27th.

After months of questions about whether we'd even see a presidential debate at all,

the big day is finally here. President Joe Biden in his rival Donald Trump takes center stage in Atlanta tonight

at 9 p.m. where they'll both get grilled by practiced CNN pros, Jake Tapper, and Dana Bash. And here

to break down what we'll be watching for is White House reporter and co-author of the West Wing

Playbook Lauren Egan. Good morning, Lauren. Hey, Rachel. So let's start with

Biden since you cover the White House. Talk a little bit about how high the stakes are for the president.

And I've got to add, you know, as our colleague Annie Reese noted in a text, if you're Biden world,

you have to be shitting bricks right now.

Seems about right. Yeah. I mean, like no one in the West Wing or in the Wilmington headquarters

is trying to downplay how big this moment is for the president. They've all recognized that this

could be a huge turning point in the election. And I think how they're viewing it is, like, they really don't think that Americans are tuned in to the election yet, like, at all. When we ask them about, like, Biden's low poll numbers, they keep saying, look, people just aren't paying attention yet. Like, it's all going to change once Americans finally tune in. And what we keep hearing from them, like how they're doing the

debate is they literally say that they're going to plan to drag Trump into the living rooms

of Americans. And that's how they're thinking of it. They think once people finally pay attention

to what Donald Trump's been saying, some of the rhetoric he's used on the campaign trail,

that things are finally going to start to turn a corner for the president. But of course, like, there's another side of that.

If Biden doesn't have a strong performance, then, you know, that could leave them in a really

tough position. And we're going to kind of see whatever narrative comes out of the debate has the

potential to sort of sit there all summer and bake with the electorate, especially since, like, we might not really have another big moment like this

until potentially the next presidential debate, which isn't until September, super close

to when most Americans are going to start voting.

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