GEOFF BENNETT: For more analysis of President Biden's upcoming press conference and his political standing, we're joined now by Democratic strategist and former adviser to Hillary Clinton Philippe Reines.

Philippe, thanks so much for being here.

PHILIPPE REINES, Former Clinton Adviser: Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: What, if anything, can President Biden do in this press conference tonight to quell concerns and end these calls for him to exit the race?

PHILIPPE REINES: Honestly, I would say nothing because everyone is so dug in, that there's confirmation bias.

And that if you want him to have to leave, you're going to find plenty of things in what he says and how he says it and how he looks to walk away with that.

Before the press conference even started, he accidentally called President Zelenskyy President Putin.

So you have half of Washington already lighting up their phones.

GEOFF BENNETT: But he caught himself and made the correction.

PHILIPPE REINES: He caught himself, yes.

I don't think it's a big deal.

I mean, the fact that he even knows world leaders, I mean, most Americans wouldn't catch that, but this is how Washington, as you know, works.

The issue here is, why are we all sitting around with bated breath watching a press conference for a NATO Summit?

If Joe Biden is going to salvage this, which he absolutely can, he's got to go out and do his job without there being these huge moments in time that can blow up, because you know what?

These huge moments in time aren't going to save him.

They can only go bad.

He needs to go out there on a regular basis, maybe just go to the hamburger store with Vice President Harris with the Ray-Bans on, have someone yell a question at him, or be in the Rose Garden and sign something.

It needs to be regular, not, OK, we're doing this big interview with George Stephanopoulos, this big interview with Lester Holt, this big press conference.

I could tell you right now, I have been to a ton of NATO and other kind of press conferences.

Half of that room is foreign press.

They're going to raise their hand and they're going to ask something actually about NATO.

And the American press is going to be livid, because that's not why they're there.

GEOFF BENNETT: As we mentioned, top campaign staffers met with Senate Democrats today to address their concerns.

If you're a Biden campaign adviser, what's your best argument to some of these worried Democrats as to why Joe Biden should stay in the race?

PHILIPPE REINES: I think it's a couple of things.

First, listening to Jen O'Malley Dillon laying it out, that's obviously the first place to start, that there are many ways to get there.

I'm sure she did it in the room, but, obviously, you need to hear how.

The how is what's missing right now.

Everyone is focused on the damage, not how to move on.

We're all mired in it.

I -- what's missing here is this notion that moving away from Joe Biden, which we should all remember is entirely his decision -- the entire country can decide it shouldn't be him and that doesn't make a difference -- that there is a cost to that.

There are people who support Joe Biden who would be upset by that.

OK.

It would rationally and logically be Kamala Harris, the vice president, his partner, to be the nominee.

Now, there are lots of people playing fantasy football who then want to say, you know what, it should be Gretchen Whitmer or Gavin Newsom or maybe them together or maybe them reversed.

There's a huge opportunity cost there, a huge risk.

Every iteration you go out, you have to do the cost/benefit analysis.

So, frankly, to some extent, the argument you're making is, it is not cost-free to just suddenly uproot who the nominee is.

There's an argument -- first of all, he's the only person that's beaten Donald Trump.

So maybe we just stick with the horse that we rode in on.

But there's also an argument that, if Joe Biden were to lose, which I don't think is the fait accompli, but, if he were to lose, there would be less carnage.

There'd be a lot of very upset people, yours included, that there would be less carnage than if it went through the process of some various cockamamie schemes that alienated multiple demographics and subsets of the party to end up in the same place,losing the White House.

That could linger for a long time.

GEOFF BENNETT: What do you think it means then that the Biden campaign, its data team, according to The New York Times, is poll-testing Kamala Harris against Donald Trump right now?

PHILIPPE REINES: I know that looks -- that's an attractive thing to look at.

I don't think that's abnormal.

I think that that's prudent.

I think they need to test every single thing they can.

In 2012, Barack Obama tested Hillary Clinton as vice president.

You just do these things because you need to understand.

And I think part of that is an interesting point, is that, if you look at the arguments that are being made to President Biden, one of them is the data, and it is polls.

And they're not necessarily a slam dunk.

The national polls are in no way dispositive of what's been going on.

The state polling is starting to crater.

But you need to know these things.

You need -- if the party, which isn't as monolith -- but if there's going to be a decision by the president to take an extraordinary step, it needs to be as well-informed as possible, not just for himself, but for the vice president, for the vice president's supporters, for all of us, because, at the end of the day, we want to keep Donald Trump out of office.

So if they just add a question an existing poll, great.

GEOFF BENNETT: You're a veteran Democratic strategist.

How much damage do you think these last two weeks, since this debate, has done, not just to President Biden, but to the ticket, the Biden/Harris ticket?

PHILIPPE REINES: The first week after the debate was very damaging, because it was essentially silence.

This past week, before Nancy Pelosi pretty much reignited the fire, was effective, in that he called into cable shows.

He was very strong about it.

He sent a very smart and clever letter to the Hill.

The issue here to me is, this is salvageable, but not the way the White House and the campaign has been fighting or not fighting over the last two weeks.

They are not meeting the conversation where it's happening.

And I think that's going to be the problem with this press conference, is that, one, he's going to look the same.

So that's 0 for 1 one right there.

He's going to not be talking about this in a health context.

And that's 0 for 2.

And that's tough.

GEOFF BENNETT: Philippe Reines, thanks, as always, for your insight.

PHILIPPE REINES: No, thank you for having me.

GEOFF BENNETT: Appreciate it.