GEOFF BENNETT: Let's shift our focus now to the Trump campaign.

A new piece in "The Atlantic" offers a rare behind-the-scenes look at Donald Trump's reelection effort.

Staff writer Tim Alberta embedded with the campaign this past spring and spoke with Trump campaign co-managers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita for a piece titled "Trump Is Planning for a Landslide Win."

Tim Alberta joins us now.

Thanks so much for being with us.

TIM ALBERTA, "The Atlantic": Hey, thanks, Geoff.

My pleasure.

GEOFF BENNETT: When you write that Donald Trump and his campaign are planning for a landslide, what accounts for that level of confidence?

What is it rooted in?

TIM ALBERTA: Well a couple of things, Geoff.

I think, first, the context matters quite a bit here.

When you think about the past two presidential elections, 2016 won very narrowly by Donald Trump, we're talking about a difference at the end of the day of 77,744 votes spread across three states.

That was Donald Trump's margin of victory in 2016.

And then, in 2020, it was actually even tighter.

Joe Biden won by a combined 42,918 votes spread across three states.

So we have had these consecutive nail-biters in the Electoral College.

And the Trump campaign looks at 2024 in that context.

They are now running a campaign that is far more sophisticated, far more efficient with its money, far more professional from the top down.

And they also believe that they are running against the weakest candidate in any of those three elections.

So, to be clear, Geoff, the confidence is really not rooted in Donald Trump.

It is rooted in Joe Biden.

The Trump campaign believes that Biden is a fundamentally flawed candidate and that they are actually sort of building a campaign that is specifically designed to draw out and exacerbate his key weaknesses as an opponent.

And, to be clear, all of this was well before the debate in late June that has the Democrats now wondering whether Biden should even be their nominee.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, your reporting that the Trump campaign is optimized to run a very specific race against a specific candidate, Joe Biden, how are they responding to this potential change of the ticket?

And I should underscore and emphasize the word potential because President Biden says he's not stepping aside.

TIM ALBERTA: I think they're pretty anxious about it, Geoff.

To be clear, the Trump campaign will tell you, at least on the record, that they are happy to run against anyone, that any Democratic replacement would inherit Joe Biden's flaws and his weaknesses.

But that's not true.

And they know that it's not true.

They recognize that this is a campaign, as you just said, that's been designed around beating one very specific opponent.

And everything they have been doing, the targeting that they have been doing of voters, the advertisements that they're cutting, the fund-raising ploys that they're making, the viral Internet videos that they have been churning out, they're all designed around Joe Biden.

So if suddenly he were replaced at the top of the ticket, I think in many ways it's back to square one for the Trump campaign.

They recognize this.

And I think they're deeply unnerved by the possibility of a switcheroo at the top of the Democratic ticket.

GEOFF BENNETT: Trump's previous campaigns in 2016 and 2020, certainly well-funded, not as well organized, or as well-disciplined.

What does Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita bring to the 2024 effort?

TIM ALBERTA: I think that you have to realize that, in politics, there are people who are sort of practitioners, there are folks who will sort of latch onto campaigns and maybe offer some advice on polling or on strategy or speechwriting or whatever else, but then there are sort of a select class of people who are truly the sort of the brains behind an operation, the people who can really run campaigns at a tactical, mechanical level in a way that few others can.

And Susie Wiles, in particular, is someone who has earned that reputation over a number of years.

I think I'd mostly point, Geoff, to the fact that Florida, which had for decades been regarded as the nation's top electoral prize, is no longer even on the table.

Democrats have conceded the state of Florida in this election.

They're not even playing there.

And when you wonder why, the answer is Susie Wiles.

She, more than anyone, had engineered campaigns on behalf of Republicans in Florida that effectively made the state not competitive anymore for Democrats, because Republicans were winning so many nonwhite voters in those elections.

She has taken some of that same modeling, some of that same targeting approach and put it into practice in this Trump 2024 campaign.

And then I think her partner, Chris LaCivita, he is best known as the ad maker who created the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign that really devastated John Kerry back in 2004.

And LaCivita is best understood as a shrewd and ruthless operative who really understands how to target an opponent's weaknesses.

And that is really the combination, Wiles and LaCivita, these unique skill sets, they are two of really the most feared operators I have ever been around in politics.

And, together, they have really, I think, streamlined the Trump operation.

And, also, I think that they have streamlined Donald Trump a little bit.

I think that they have been able to bring him into alignment with their goals as a campaign in ways that no one else has been able to.

GEOFF BENNETT: What is their preferred path to victory?

I ask because the Biden campaign put out a memo this past week that said there are multiple pathways to 270 electoral votes.

Right now, they write winning the blue wall states -- that's Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania -- is the clearest pathway to that aim.

Does the Trump team see a path that is equally as narrow?

TIM ALBERTA: You know, I think the one thing both campaigns would agree on at this point is that Biden's path to 270 has gotten smaller and smaller.

And, really, what the polling has shown, the polling that's publicly available, the polling that's been done by both parties, suggests that Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, the three states that Trump flipped in 2016 and that Biden flipped back in 2020, that those three states really are the pathway for Joe Biden to get reelected and that, if any one of those three states is taken off the board by Trump, the math at that point becomes pretty much unworkable for the Democrats.

GEOFF BENNETT: Tim Alberta of "The Atlantic," thanks so much, Tim.

We appreciate it.

TIM ALBERTA: You bet.

Thanks.