I want to get straight to Stephen Tornow, who's live at a campaign rally in Philadelphia.

All right.

He says he knows, but what more details do we have here?

Omar, we have been hearing in recent days that former President Trump has narrowed his list of frontrunners down to Senator J.D.

Vance, Senator Marco Rubio, and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum.

Well, today on the way to this Philadelphia rally, he stopped for cheesesteaks, and he said he has made a decision.

Listen to what he said.

In my mind, yeah.

Do they know?

Do they know?

Nobody knows.

That's right.

Trump went on to say that he will make an announcement, Trump went on to say he will make an announcement, quote, pretty soon, and we have been eyeing the Republican National Convention for that announcement.

Now, President Trump has obviously taken the stage here in Philadelphia.

He is out on the campaign trail today.

Instead of studying for this debate, he's not holding any mock debate sessions, he's not briefing books, studying with advisers like President Biden is.

He has chosen to be out on the campaign trail.

He's coming to Philadelphia after speaking to Christian conservatives earlier today in Washington, D.C., where he said that he previously floated creating a UFC league for migrants.

Listen to what he said.

He told Dana White, the president of the UFC.

I said, Dana, I have an idea.

Why don't you set up a migrant league of fighters and have your regular league of fighters?

And then you have the champion of your league.

These are the greatest fighters in the world.

Fight the champion of the migrants.

I think the migrant guy might win.

That's how tough they are.

He didn't like that idea too much, but actually, it's not the worst idea I've ever had.

Now Trump is about to address the crowd here, as you can hear.

He's rallying them today in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, a very important part of this swing state.

He has been to Pennsylvania four times already this year, clearly a key battleground for him.

Omar.

And Steve Contorno reporting in a very loud rally.

I've done that before.

It is a skill.

Steve, you pulled it off masterfully.

Thanks for being there, man.

All right.

I'm now joined by CNN political analysts Sung Min Kim and Laura Baron Lopez.

All right.

So we just heard from Steve there, five days out from debate night, Laura.

Trump has said he's decided, even if they don't know it yet.

How critical is this pick to potentially gain support that he might not have at this point?

I don't think ultimately that we are going to see that much shift from voters based on who he picks as vice president.

Previously, it did help him.

When he picked Mike Pence, it was meant to rally evangelicals around him, which he didn't have as much support amongst that group.

When he was running in 2016, Mike Pence helped him do that.

But amongst these three, it's difficult to see where exactly he thinks he'd be adding to those considered.

It's difficult to see where he'd be adding more voters.

A lot of these candidates have made very clear that they are loyal to him, that they align themselves with him across the board, be it on policy, but also on election denialism.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That there's no separate boxes that he doesn't already tick himself.

Sung Min, I want to bring you in because as for right now, Trump is skipping any traditional debate prep.

Obviously, he's out on the campaign trail in Philadelphia hosting rallies.

But do you think Trump is using today's appearances in a way to sort of test out some possible debate material and how it might play in front of an audience, even though, of course, during the debate, there will be no one in studio just through the camera?

Right.

I think the last several weeks leading up to the CNN debate next week has been sort of a testing ground for both men to see what lines work, to prepare their attack lines.

We know President Trump likes to sort of throw things out into the crowd to see what gauges a reaction or what works.

And we also know what President Biden has done in the last several weeks to kind of sharpen his attack lines.

He's had a lot of fundraisers.

I was with him at the fundraiser with former President Bill Clinton and former First Lady Hillary Clinton in Virginia this past week, where his lines of attack against Donald Trump were getting sharper and sharper.

And we know that's in preparation for that debate next week.

And so what we've been seeing from, you know, frankly, both men over the last couple of weeks is this all part of the preparations for how they're going to perform this coming Thursday.

And obviously, we know Biden is preparing right now at Camp David.

Laura, I want to bring you back in on this, because it seems to be very different in tone than I guess what we're seeing from the former president.

I mean, campaign rally versus debate prep, a little different in the nature there.

But is this indicative of how seriously Biden's team is taking this?

Was this always going to happen?

Is this just who Biden is?

Just what are your impressions?

I think that President Biden was always going to do some form of debate prep.

He traditionally does that in the past.

This debate prep is being led by Ron Klain, his former White House chief of staff.

And they did say, though, the campaign has said that he's not going to have as much time for debate prep as he maybe did in 2020 leading into those debates with Donald Trump because of the fact that he's president this time around, has a lot of other duties because of that.

But they do view this as a moment where they're going to have the largest audience to show that contrast, the contrast that Seung Min was saying that Biden is trying to sharpen his attacks on and show that he is a very different candidate than Donald Trump all across policy, be it abortion, be it threats to democracy, be it even the economy and be it on immigration.

And I think that you're going to see President Biden really try to focus on all of those big differences come the debate.

And they view it as an incredibly important moment for him.

I mean, no doubt this will be the chance for voters to actually see him unscripted in a moment against his opponent and see how sharp he is in person, because Seung Min, I want to bring you in on that point because, I mean, look, it's no secret that the Trump campaign has attacked over and over Biden's stamina, mental fitness, you name it.

But then this week we heard Trump take a different tune, saying he's not underestimating Biden on the debate stage, that he's a worthy debater.

Take a listen to some of what he said.

I watched him with Paul Ryan and he destroyed Paul Ryan, Paul Ryan with the water.

He was chugging water at a left and right.

I didn't think a human being would be able to drink so much water at one time.

And he beat Paul Ryan.

So I'm not underestimating him.

I'm not underestimating him.

I mean, look, obviously, we're reading tea leaves in the game before the game here.

But were you surprised to hear that sort of shift in tone so close to this debate?

I was sort of surprised that President Trump, former President Trump, did it himself.

It is a traditional, classic debate strategy to kind of raise those expectations for your opponent.

But it was surprising because Donald Trump and Republicans have spent so long, virtually the entire campaign, painting President Biden as this sort of someone who has lost, someone who has kind of lost his cognitive abilities.

And just days before the debate, it's President Trump and his allies saying, well, no, he's actually a really good debater.

Look at him back in 2012.

We expect him to come out strong.

I don't know if it might be too late to change the narrative of what the public's expectations are for President Biden, especially with what Donald Trump and the Republican Party have done, all they have done over many months to just kind of portray Biden and attack him over his age.

But it was an interesting tactic.

I think someone in that circle maybe realized that they had lowered expectations for President Biden a little too much.

And you're right.

That could end up being a major factor over the course of this.

Laura, before we go, I want to ask a little bit about the fundraising numbers that we've seen because obviously Trump campaign announced a huge number raised over the course of May.

President Biden, same huge number, maybe difference in cash on hand versus you see the numbers there on your screen.

How much of a difference does that actually make, though, in the perceptions of where the country is?

Because I feel like people are locked into where they want to be right now.

I think you have to be careful about how much you read into those numbers and how much grassroots support that that actually reflects.

We do know that the Trump campaign has said that they have been getting more small dollar donations lately after the conviction.

That being said, again, you can't read too much into those numbers ultimately.

And yes, Trump seems to have surpassed Biden this time around in fundraising, but he is spending a lot of that money on legal fees.

So even though the number, his number looks bigger than Biden's and Democrats, he may ultimately not have as much money as Biden and Democrats do to spend in those battleground states, where it counts, trying to reach the voters to get them to mobilize and turn out to vote.

Yeah.

Resources, nonetheless.

I think both campaigns, it's fair to say, have resources at their disposal.

Lauren Barron-Lopez, appreciate it.

Summon Kim.

Thanks for being here.