Latest / Pod Save America / Trump v. Musk: Choose Your Daddy

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Trump v. Musk: Choose Your Daddy · Pod Save America

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Speaker 4: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
1:48
Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
1:48
Speaker 4: We've got a big show for you today. Later in
1:50
Speaker 4: the episode, you will hear the interview Lovett and I
1:53
Speaker 4: did and an event with Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson
1:56
Speaker 4: earlier this week about their book, Original Sin. You might
2:00
Speaker 4: have heard of it. But we have so much news
2:03
Speaker 4: to cover before that. Trump signed a flurry of executive
2:07
Speaker 4: orders late Wednesday night, one that bans or restricts the
2:11
Speaker 4: citizens of 19 countries from entering the United States. one
2:14
Speaker 4: that bans all international students from attending Harvard, and one
2:18
Speaker 4: that orders an investigation into Joe Biden's former aides over
2:21
Speaker 4: potential actions to hide information regarding the former president's mental
2:25
Speaker 4: and physical health. We'll get to those executive orders, but
2:28
Speaker 4: let's start with the news they seem designed to distract from.
2:33
Speaker 4: Donald Trump's third divorce. This one from his campaign sugar daddy,
2:38
Speaker 4: his doge bag in chief, his dark MAGA brother from
2:41
Speaker 4: another mother, Elon Musk.
2:46
Speaker 2: Great job.
2:46
Speaker 4: So, you know, in case, a lot has happened, Dan.
2:51
Speaker 4: And we're recording this Thursday afternoon. By the time you're
2:53
Speaker 4: all hearing this on Friday morning, who knows what else
2:56
Speaker 4: will have happened. But we'll just give you the quick
2:58
Speaker 4: rundown of how we got here. It all started a
3:01
Speaker 4: few days ago when Elon called Trump's economic plan a, quote, massive, outrageous,
3:06
Speaker 4: pork-filled Congress spending bill that's a, quote, disgusting abomination. He
3:13
Speaker 4: then threatened to, quote, fire all the politicians who support
3:16
Speaker 4: the bill in the 26 midterms. Trump was uncharacteristically quiet
3:22
Speaker 4: about this for about 48 hours until a reporter asked
3:26
Speaker 4: him about it in the Oval Office Thursday morning. And
3:29
Speaker 4: his response was worth the wait.
3:31
Speaker 3: Elon Musk.
3:32
Speaker 5: And I had a great relationship. But I'm very disappointed
3:35
Speaker 5: because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better
3:39
Speaker 5: than almost anybody sitting here. And he only developed the
3:42
Speaker 5: problem when he found out that we're going to have
3:44
Speaker 5: to cut the EV mandate. And he never had a
3:46
Speaker 5: problem until right after he left. And he hasn't said
3:49
Speaker 5: bad about me personally, but I'm sure that'll be next.
3:51
Speaker 5: You saw a man who was very happy when he
3:55
Speaker 5: stood behind the Oval Desk. And even with the black eye,
3:59
Speaker 5: I said, you want a little makeup? We'll get you
4:01
Speaker 5: a little makeup. But he said, no, I don't think so,
4:04
Speaker 5: which is interesting. People leave my administration, and they love us.
4:11
Speaker 5: And then at some point, they miss it so badly.
4:14
Speaker 5: And some of them embrace it, and some of them
4:17
Speaker 5: actually become hostile. I don't know what it is. It's
4:20
Speaker 5: sort of Trump derangement syndrome, I guess they call it.
4:23
Speaker 5: But Elon endorsed me very strongly. He actually went up
4:26
Speaker 5: and campaigned for me. I think I would have won.
4:28
Speaker 5: Susie would say I would have won Pennsylvania easily anyway.
4:32
Speaker 4: So Trump correctly predicted that personal attacks would follow, as
4:40
Speaker 4: Elon has responded by unleashing a flurry of tweets. I
4:45
Speaker 4: think it's still going.
4:46
Speaker 6: I don't know.
4:47
Speaker 4: We had to record at some point, so who knows
4:49
Speaker 4: what's happening now.
4:50
Speaker 3: But so far.
4:52
Speaker 4: The tweets have included, quote, Without me, Trump would have
4:55
Speaker 4: lost the election. Quote, Such ingratitude. And my personal favorite,
5:01
Speaker 4: which he directed towards Republican politicians, Trump has three and
5:04
Speaker 4: a half years left as president, but I will be
5:06
Speaker 4: around for 40 plus years. In response, Trump posted on
5:11
Speaker 4: Truth Social that he pushed Elon out of the White
5:13
Speaker 4: House because he was, quote, wearing thin and then threatened
5:17
Speaker 4: to terminate all of Elon's government contracts and subsidies. Not
5:22
Speaker 4: to be outdone, Elon then said, I guess this is
5:26
Speaker 4: my new personal favorite.
5:27
Speaker 2: I was going to say it.
5:28
Speaker 4: I clearly wrote that line before these tweets.
5:32
Speaker 3: All right.
5:32
Speaker 4: And then Elon said that the reason Trump hasn't released
5:36
Speaker 4: the Epstein files is because Trump is in the Epstein files.
5:41
Speaker 4: And then Elon called for his impeachment and to be
5:44
Speaker 4: replaced with J.D.
5:45
Speaker 3: Vance.
5:48
Speaker 4: So, Dan, it was just four months ago. It was February.
5:51
Speaker 4: when Elon tweeted, I love Donald Trump as much as
5:55
Speaker 4: a straight man can love another man. Now they've broken
5:59
Speaker 4: up right in the middle of pride. And I am
6:04
Speaker 4: just wondering if you have thoughts on the state of
6:08
Speaker 4: male friendship in America. Men today don't have any close friends.
6:11
Speaker 7: This is the problem.
6:13
Speaker 2: It's a classic story. Two lonely love star people meet online.
6:16
Speaker 2: They should... They bond quickly over shared passions like taking
6:21
Speaker 2: food and medicine away from the world's poorest people. They
6:24
Speaker 2: start spending every moment together. They become inseparable. Almost feels
6:28
Speaker 2: like their personalities merge. But John, they move too fast
6:31
Speaker 2: too soon. And before you know it, it blows up.
6:35
Speaker 2: Maybe they moved in together too quickly. Blows up. Things
6:39
Speaker 2: fall apart. Next thing you know, one of them is
6:41
Speaker 2: calling the other one a pedophile.
6:43
Speaker 3: And here we are.
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Speaker 4: A pedophile that he says... You wouldn't have been president
6:47
Speaker 4: without me, pedophile.
6:49
Speaker 3: I mean, by moving.
6:50
Speaker 2: To impeachment, Elon Musk has moved more aggressively than 99%
6:55
Speaker 2: of House Democrats on Donald Trump.
7:00
Speaker 3: I mean, it's wonderful. It is.
7:03
Speaker 2: Elon, finally, after many years, has found a way to
7:06
Speaker 2: make Twitter fun again. Yeah.
7:08
Speaker 4: This was the best day on Twitter since he took
7:10
Speaker 4: it over. I think it's the best day in politics
7:13
Speaker 4: in 2025. That's what I mean.
7:14
Speaker 2: Oh, I mean, not even easily.
7:16
Speaker 3: Yeah.
7:16
Speaker 4: I mean, there's not a lot of great ones to
7:18
Speaker 4: choose from. But Elon also, let's say he he he
7:22
Speaker 4: proposed a new political party. He said, why don't we
7:24
Speaker 4: have a new political party for the 80 percent of
7:27
Speaker 4: of of people in the middle? So I guess we're
7:30
Speaker 4: we're bringing back the Innovation Party.
7:31
Speaker 7: Yeah.
7:33
Speaker 3: I don't think he was. That's a deep cut.
7:35
Speaker 2: For close readers of Axios in 2017, you would know
7:39
Speaker 2: what that was.
7:40
Speaker 3: You know who you are.
7:43
Speaker 4: And he also hit Trump on tariffs. He quote tweeted
7:46
Speaker 4: someone saying, oh, can we admit the tariffs are stupid now?
7:50
Speaker 4: And Elon says, yeah, there'll be a recession. They're going
7:52
Speaker 4: to cause a recession by the second quarter or by
7:54
Speaker 4: the second half of the year. Elon is just going nuts.
7:57
Speaker 4: He is just tweeting up a storm.
7:59
Speaker 2: This was always the risk for Trump with the Elon partnership.
8:04
Speaker 2: And it's why Trump treads so carefully around Elon for
8:07
Speaker 2: so long. Because Elon has a megaphone almost as large
8:11
Speaker 2: as Trump's, and he is very good at getting attention.
8:14
Speaker 2: And when he goes, he goes bananas. And that's where
8:18
Speaker 2: we are right now.
8:19
Speaker 4: He goes bananas. He certainly is. Today's Pod Save America
8:23
Speaker 4: brought to you by Ketamine. That's neither here nor there.
8:28
Speaker 2: That's neither here nor there. That refers to nothing.
8:30
Speaker 4: That's just an ad break.
8:32
Speaker 2: If anyone was wondering, that's in reference to a New
8:33
Speaker 2: York Times story. That's for the lawyers out there.
8:37
Speaker 4: I think we all know the New York Times story,
8:40
Speaker 4: which I want to get to at some point. Because
8:42
Speaker 4: I have a question for you before we get into
8:43
Speaker 4: the current implications.
8:45
Speaker 3: Of all of this.
8:47
Speaker 4: Let's go back to Elon deciding to come out against
8:51
Speaker 4: the bill. Why do you think he turned on the
8:54
Speaker 4: bill and ultimately Trump Was it because, as the White
9:00
Speaker 4: House and Mike Johnson and other Republicans are suggesting, that
9:04
Speaker 4: the bill would eliminate tax credits for electric vehicles like Tesla's?
9:10
Speaker 4: Was it out of a genuine concern for the deficit
9:13
Speaker 4: and debt, like Elon says? Was it something else?
9:18
Speaker 2: Trying to make sense of Elon Musk's brain. That's quite
9:22
Speaker 2: a challenging mission you've given me.
9:25
Speaker 4: Please use the code CROOKED. 20% off your first order.
9:32
Speaker 2: What's the website?
9:35
Speaker 4: X.com.
9:38
Speaker 2: I do not believe it was because of the electric
9:41
Speaker 2: vehicle tax credits. Trump ran against the electric vehicle tax
9:46
Speaker 2: credits the entire campaign. I know this because Elon Musk
9:50
Speaker 2: tweeted it out today, but Elon Musk... was standing next
9:54
Speaker 2: to Donald Trump when Donald Trump was praising Elon Musk's
9:56
Speaker 2: integrity by pointing out that he was supporting Trump despite
10:00
Speaker 2: the fact that Trump opposed the electric vehicle tax cuts,
10:04
Speaker 2: and Elon had never asked him to change his position
10:06
Speaker 2: on it. So I do not think that's the reason.
10:08
Speaker 2: I think the Republicans probably made a mistake by suggesting
10:11
Speaker 2: that right off the bat. That probably inflamed Elon more
10:14
Speaker 2: to suggest that he could not– I'm not saying his
10:17
Speaker 2: concerns about the deficit are well-founded or necessarily legitimate. I
10:22
Speaker 2: don't know what his real concerns are here. The Republicans
10:24
Speaker 2: made a mistake by trying to suggest that pure picayune
10:28
Speaker 2: greed was what was driving his opposition. You could have
10:31
Speaker 2: just said, we disagree here, and that's it. And they
10:34
Speaker 2: did not do that, and they made this situation much worse.
10:37
Speaker 7: I think.
10:38
Speaker 4: that, you know, Elon has been tweeting videos of himself
10:42
Speaker 4: and retweeting other people tweeting videos of him talking about
10:46
Speaker 4: the debt and the deficit and what a problem it
10:48
Speaker 4: was for a long time. And I think that when
10:53
Speaker 4: Elon took over Doge, you know, he wanted to, he
10:57
Speaker 4: thought he was going to cut all the spending, he
10:58
Speaker 4: thought he was going to make government more efficient or whatever.
11:02
Speaker 4: And he knows that Doge has been seen now as
11:05
Speaker 4: basically a failure, that the cuts were far less than
11:09
Speaker 4: what he said he could cut. And so I think
11:11
Speaker 4: it kind of built from sort of feeling embarrassed or
11:15
Speaker 4: shamed about Doge to now being pissed about the bill.
11:19
Speaker 4: And I also think it results from just Elon still
11:22
Speaker 4: to this day, having served in government and supposedly being
11:25
Speaker 4: a very smart person, has no fucking idea what actually
11:28
Speaker 4: are the drivers of debt and deficit. And he genuinely
11:31
Speaker 4: thought that fucking feeding USAID into the wood chipper And
11:36
Speaker 4: which is, you know, has killed a bunch of kids
11:37
Speaker 4: in Africa that like somehow that's going to bring down
11:41
Speaker 4: the deficit and debt. And he doesn't realize that the
11:43
Speaker 4: biggest driver in our debt is the defense budget entitlements.
11:47
Speaker 4: And the fact that at least in this bill, Donald
11:49
Speaker 4: Trump and the Republicans want, you know, a couple trillion
11:53
Speaker 4: dollars in tax cuts, mostly for extremely rich people like
11:56
Speaker 4: Elon Musk. Yeah, I think it's like a basic lack
11:59
Speaker 4: of understanding about what causes the debt and deficit. But
12:01
Speaker 4: then also he seems to care about the debt and deficit.
12:04
Speaker 2: Neither Trump nor Elon know what's in this bill or
12:07
Speaker 2: what it does or how it works.
12:08
Speaker 7: Nope.
12:08
Speaker 1: That they're like talking past each other. I mean, maybe
12:12
Speaker 1: he cares about the deficits, maybe he doesn't. But if
12:14
Speaker 1: he were to truly care about them and truly understand
12:16
Speaker 1: how they worked, he would probably suggest giving back his
12:19
Speaker 1: tax cut.
12:20
Speaker 7: Right.
12:21
Speaker 2: Right. Or cutting the defense budget, which funds most of
12:24
Speaker 2: his companies. He's not doing that.
12:26
Speaker 3: He calls it like a pork-filled bill. There's no pork
12:29
Speaker 3: in the bill.
12:29
Speaker 2: There's a lot of dumb shit in the bill, but
12:31
Speaker 2: this is not because Republicans did not put pork in
12:34
Speaker 2: the bills because you cannot put those sorts of things
12:37
Speaker 2: in this type of budget reconciliation bill. This is not
12:40
Speaker 2: the appropriations bills that have the bridge to nowhere to
12:44
Speaker 2: another deep cut from a long time ago or the
12:46
Speaker 2: sort of classic pork barrel projects that are used as
12:50
Speaker 2: earmarks to buy off members. That's not what's in this bill.
12:52
Speaker 2: That's not why this bill has this deficit because it's
12:54
Speaker 2: a giant tax cut and a huge boost in the
12:58
Speaker 2: budgets for the Defense Department and Homeland Security to do
13:01
Speaker 2: mass deportation.
13:03
Speaker 4: Elon is correct that the bill is a disgusting abomination,
13:08
Speaker 4: as he said. The reason it's a disgusting abomination is
13:11
Speaker 4: because it spends a trillion dollars to give tax cuts
13:14
Speaker 4: for people making over a million dollars and then pays
13:17
Speaker 4: for that by kicking 15 million people off their health insurance.
13:22
Speaker 4: So that's, that's why it's a disgusting abomination. So he
13:25
Speaker 4: was half right on that one. I also think there
13:27
Speaker 4: was like a slow build in all of the stories
13:31
Speaker 4: that came out as Musk was leaving the white house
13:33
Speaker 4: after he left the white house about the cabinet being
13:36
Speaker 4: pissed at Musk and him not getting along with anyone
13:39
Speaker 4: in Trump world. And I have to say, I went back,
13:43
Speaker 4: this is total conspiracy theory for me, but this is
13:46
Speaker 4: where we air them out, right?
13:47
Speaker 7: Just in public.
13:49
Speaker 2: Yes, that's how it works these days.
13:50
Speaker 3: That's how it works now.
13:51
Speaker 2: We'll get to some of that later on, but yes.
13:52
Speaker 4: When you reread the New York Times story about Elon's
13:57
Speaker 4: alleged drug use while he was in the White House
13:59
Speaker 4: or while he was at least on the campaign traveling
14:03
Speaker 4: with Trump, early on it talks about how he's campaigning
14:07
Speaker 4: with Trump and the New York Times got a picture
14:09
Speaker 4: of his pill bottle that has like 20 random pills
14:13
Speaker 4: in it and Adderall and a bunch of other stuff
14:15
Speaker 4: and there's the ketamine stuff. And it's like sourced to
14:17
Speaker 4: people familiar But the way that it's written, I'm like,
14:21
Speaker 4: who would have given that to the New York Times,
14:23
Speaker 4: including a picture of the pillbox that he travels with?
14:27
Speaker 4: And I'm like, I don't know. He was with all
14:28
Speaker 4: the Trump people during the campaign. So maybe he suspects,
14:33
Speaker 4: at least, who knows if it was or not, maybe
14:35
Speaker 4: he suspects that it was White House people who fucked
14:37
Speaker 4: him on that story.
14:38
Speaker 2: Can I try a different theory here? Maybe that's right.
14:41
Speaker 2: I appreciate you delving, getting out the red string for this.
14:44
Speaker 7: Thank you.
14:45
Speaker 3: But do you think J.D.
14:46
Speaker 2: Vance is the one who gave it to the New
14:46
Speaker 2: York Times?
14:47
Speaker 7: Oh, interesting.
14:48
Speaker 2: Well, no, maybe not, because he's trying to depose Trump
14:50
Speaker 2: for J.D. Vance.
14:52
Speaker 7: Yeah.
14:52
Speaker 2: So maybe Stephen Miller.
14:54
Speaker 7: Either way.
14:54
Speaker 4: Maybe Stephen Miller.
14:57
Speaker 2: Awkward dinner conversation in the Miller household.
14:59
Speaker 6: Now that— Wow.
15:00
Speaker 4: Yeah, for those who don't know, when Elon left the
15:03
Speaker 4: White House, reports are that Katie Miller, Stephen Miller's wife,
15:07
Speaker 4: who was working for Elon or working as part of
15:10
Speaker 4: the Doge effort, was going to leave also to work
15:14
Speaker 4: for Elon. post-White House.
15:17
Speaker 2: I wonder if she drafted some of these tweets.
15:19
Speaker 4: And then someone noticed that Elon unfollowed Stephen Miller after
15:24
Speaker 4: the fight broke out today.
15:25
Speaker 2: He also unfollowed Charlie Kirk. This is a, I know
15:28
Speaker 2: this is not really where you spend your valuable time,
15:31
Speaker 2: but this is a classic reality star move. This also
15:34
Speaker 2: happens in sports a lot too, where there's like an
15:36
Speaker 2: entire beat of people who are like, The receiver just
15:39
Speaker 2: unfollowed the quarterback. What does that mean? Here's my theory
15:43
Speaker 2: of what happened there. I think Elon Musk has convinced
15:45
Speaker 2: himself he is some sort of fiscal austerity guy. Right.
15:52
Speaker 2: He's come to self-identify because of Doge. And he probably
15:57
Speaker 2: thinks this bill is stupid because it is.
16:00
Speaker 3: It's probably stupid.
16:01
Speaker 8: It is, yeah.
16:01
Speaker 2: So he calls it an abomination. First, he expresses some
16:05
Speaker 2: concern with it in an interview. He gets some positive
16:08
Speaker 2: feedback for that. Then he caused an abomination. He gets
16:11
Speaker 2: a lot of engagement over that. Now, all of a sudden,
16:14
Speaker 2: he has attention again because Elon really had stepped. He
16:16
Speaker 2: had been one of the main characters in world drama
16:20
Speaker 2: for about a year straight. Then he stepped back. He
16:23
Speaker 2: was getting less attention. His tweets were getting less traction.
16:25
Speaker 2: He was just kind of tweeting about new Tesla features
16:28
Speaker 2: and SpaceX launches. He wasn't the main character. Now, this
16:33
Speaker 2: was a chance to be the main character. Trump's talking
16:35
Speaker 2: about the oval office and he's in, and he's like
16:37
Speaker 2: getting that dopamine rush of posting that you.
16:40
Speaker 3: Know so well.
16:40
Speaker 4: A lot of people are talking about the ketamine, but
16:43
Speaker 4: really it's the dopamine. That's people are, people are just
16:47
Speaker 4: discounting all the dopamine that's coming from Elon, just firing
16:51
Speaker 4: off these tweets and getting all the response. And he's
16:54
Speaker 4: all juiced up. I think that's probably right. I think
16:57
Speaker 4: that's probably right. How do you think to get to
17:00
Speaker 4: something that really matters as opposed to just the fun
17:02
Speaker 4: reality show drama? Um, How do you think this could
17:06
Speaker 4: impact whether Trump's bill actually passes Congress?
17:10
Speaker 7: I think it.
17:11
Speaker 2: Makes the difficult task of getting this bill through the
17:15
Speaker 2: Senate and then back through the House even more difficult
17:17
Speaker 2: because Musk is giving voice to two groups of people
17:21
Speaker 2: who voted for it in the House with deep reservations
17:25
Speaker 2: and some senators in these two groups who have reservations
17:29
Speaker 2: about voting for it now. Those groups are the far right,
17:32
Speaker 2: drown the government in the bathtub MAGA freedom caucus types,
17:36
Speaker 2: who thinks that it didn't go far enough in terms
17:39
Speaker 2: of cuts to Medicaid, SNAP, et cetera. And then you
17:43
Speaker 2: have these sort of more traditional Republicans who are kind
17:47
Speaker 2: of like Paul Ryan Republicans in the closet, who have
17:51
Speaker 2: concerns substantively and politically about voting for a bill that
17:54
Speaker 2: adds $ 2. 5 trillion to the debt at a time of
17:57
Speaker 2: high interest rates where it becomes incredibly and prohibitively expensive
17:59
Speaker 2: to pay down that debt. And so a lot of
18:02
Speaker 2: those people are in the Senate. And so he just
18:04
Speaker 2: is giving them cover to oppose this bill in some way, shape,
18:08
Speaker 2: or form. Does it mean it won't pass? I don't
18:11
Speaker 2: know that yet, but it's a lot harder than it
18:13
Speaker 2: was before this. This is the first real obstacle that's
18:16
Speaker 2: been put in the way other than just caucus dynamics, right?
18:19
Speaker 2: This is someone who is driving, sort of shining a
18:23
Speaker 2: spotlight on the rift within the party and forcing it
18:26
Speaker 2: further apart.
18:28
Speaker 4: And how do you think The breakup could impact the
18:32
Speaker 4: future of the MAGA coalition because there's a lot of
18:38
Speaker 4: people trying to figure out whose side they're on today.
18:40
Speaker 4: In fact, we have the five on in our office
18:43
Speaker 4: like we always do. We love to watch the five
18:46
Speaker 4: on Fox and see what they're doing. And here's how
18:50
Speaker 4: Jesse Waters tried to navigate this today.
18:52
Speaker 2: But sometimes guys fight. Guys sometimes will punch you in
18:56
Speaker 2: the face and the next night you're having a beer.
18:58
Speaker 2: Sleep with your girlfriend and you patch things up.
19:01
Speaker 8: Really?
19:02
Speaker 3: Not your wife, your girlfriend.
19:06
Speaker 4: No one slept with my girlfriend.
19:07
Speaker 3: Let's put it that way.
19:08
Speaker 4: A lot to unpack there, Dan.
19:12
Speaker 2: Yeah.
19:14
Speaker 4: What's going on with Jesse? What's going on with Jesse?
19:16
Speaker 2: That I'm not going to touch that one. I don't
19:18
Speaker 2: really want to know how that all played itself out.
19:21
Speaker 4: Uh, Is Jesse saying that you could punch him in
19:23
Speaker 4: the face and then he'll have a beer with you
19:25
Speaker 4: the next night?
19:26
Speaker 3: Do you think that's what he's saying?
19:27
Speaker 2: I think in the end of this, he's suggesting he's
19:29
Speaker 2: the one who slept with someone's girlfriend and then had
19:31
Speaker 2: a beer with the person the next day.
19:32
Speaker 4: Yeah. And then Greg Gutfeld was kind of quiet after that.
19:35
Speaker 3: But anyway.
19:35
Speaker 2: Anyway, we're too deep into the five right now. I
19:40
Speaker 2: think that where this creates tension in the Republican Party
19:44
Speaker 2: is in the always uncomfortable marriage between the MAGA right
19:50
Speaker 2: and the tech right, right? The Peter Thiel, David Sachs,
19:54
Speaker 2: all-in guys, VC bros who came to support Trump in
19:58
Speaker 2: this election for a whole host of reasons. Some cultural,
20:01
Speaker 2: a lot economic, and they bought a lot of Trump's
20:05
Speaker 2: bullshit about There's when Trump went on the All In
20:08
Speaker 2: podcast and he promised that we were going to do
20:09
Speaker 2: these things to keep the high-skilled workers here in the country.
20:11
Speaker 2: And he just goes, we're going to staple a visa
20:13
Speaker 2: to diplomas. And that's not what this is, right? And
20:16
Speaker 2: this tension has been manifest in the Elon Musk-Steve Bannon
20:20
Speaker 2: feud since the day after the election.
20:23
Speaker 4: Steve Bannon, you say?
20:23
Speaker 2: Yeah. What does Steve Bannon have anything interesting to say today?
20:26
Speaker 3: Well, yeah.
20:27
Speaker 4: So as this fight was escalating very quickly over the
20:32
Speaker 4: course of Thursday– And Trump said, I'm going to terminate
20:35
Speaker 4: the contracts. And then we get the Epstein accusation. Then
20:38
Speaker 4: we get the call for Trump's impeachment. The joke was, OK,
20:43
Speaker 4: the only thing left here that hasn't happened yet is
20:45
Speaker 4: Trump trying to deport Elon Musk. And sure enough, Steve
20:51
Speaker 4: Bannon on his show calls for. Elon Musk's deportation, an
20:56
Speaker 4: investigation into Elon Musk, how he became a citizen of
21:00
Speaker 4: the United States, what his immigration process was, suggests deporting him,
21:06
Speaker 4: and then calls for Donald Trump to nationalize Starlink and SpaceX.
21:11
Speaker 4: So he just, he went, Steve Bannon, fucking, that's it.
21:15
Speaker 4: He went there.
21:16
Speaker 2: In the course of three hours, we went from a
21:19
Speaker 2: mild dispute around the financial implications of a budget bill
21:23
Speaker 2: to accusations of pedophilia, deportation, and impeachment.
21:28
Speaker 4: To your point about the tech right, Derek Thompson tweeted,
21:32
Speaker 4: The tech right got suckered by the most obvious con
21:34
Speaker 4: man in political history, defended him while he raised tariffs,
21:37
Speaker 4: slashed science, and scared away foreign talent, and now the
21:40
Speaker 4: administration is going to wreck SpaceX for spite while Bannon
21:43
Speaker 4: calls for Musk's deportation.
21:45
Speaker 3: Well done. I think Derek nailed it.
21:47
Speaker 2: Great job, people.
21:49
Speaker 4: That is exactly what happened with the tech right. They're
21:53
Speaker 4: total con men. And I don't think Donald Trump got
21:56
Speaker 4: conned by them because he got what he wanted. Although
21:59
Speaker 4: I will say, so Trump had an event at the
22:03
Speaker 4: White House after Elon called for his impeachment and said
22:07
Speaker 4: that he was in the Epstein files. And Trump got
22:10
Speaker 4: a shouted question about Elon at the end of the
22:13
Speaker 4: event and just did not take the bait. But seemed
22:16
Speaker 4: angry the whole time he was at the event.
22:19
Speaker 2: We'll revisit this tomorrow after Trump's 12 Diet Cokes and.
22:24
Speaker 4: Got his- His ketamine.
22:27
Speaker 2: He's gotten his phone back. Because one thing we know
22:30
Speaker 2: about Trump over the years is he prefers his fights
22:32
Speaker 2: in the tweets, not in the streets. And so I
22:36
Speaker 2: could see him launching tonight on True Social.
22:40
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's going to be a Seacott threat.
22:43
Speaker 7: At some point.
22:43
Speaker 2: There is, I mean, not to get into the nerdy
22:47
Speaker 2: communications of this, but Elon Musk is tweeting his on
22:51
Speaker 2: a platform where everyone is with millions of people and
22:54
Speaker 2: his millions of followers. And Trump is on his weird,
22:57
Speaker 2: picky-yoon platform that has very, very small number of people
23:00
Speaker 2: actually on it. And so he's only communicating by posting
23:03
Speaker 2: on this weird platform than other people screenshotting his truths,
23:07
Speaker 2: and then putting them on Twitter. Like, if he really
23:09
Speaker 2: wants to get this going, he's got to get back
23:10
Speaker 2: on Twitter, is what I would say.
23:12
Speaker 4: Yeah, I will say that the part of the MAGA
23:14
Speaker 4: coalition this time around, which is, you know, we shorthand it,
23:18
Speaker 4: is that the tech right, the Silicon Valley folks, the
23:20
Speaker 4: online types. It's also, you know, when we looked at
23:22
Speaker 4: the catalyst data, Trump did gain ground with college men,
23:27
Speaker 4: not just non-college men. And usually in the Trump era,
23:31
Speaker 4: college-educated voters have not been moving towards Trump. In fact,
23:35
Speaker 4: they've been moving towards the Democrats. And I do wonder,
23:38
Speaker 4: and I don't just think it's this fight at all,
23:40
Speaker 4: but I think as the Trump administration goes on, some
23:44
Speaker 4: of these college men who voted for Trump in 2024
23:47
Speaker 4: and maybe hadn't voted for him in 2020 or 2016,
23:52
Speaker 4: maybe because they thought Elon Musk and other business types
23:55
Speaker 4: put their stamp of approval on Donald Trump, I could
23:58
Speaker 4: see them starting to peel away from the MAGA coalition
24:01
Speaker 4: as time goes on.
24:02
Speaker 7: Yeah.
24:02
Speaker 2: I mean, these are most likely economically centered voters. And
24:06
Speaker 2: so it's less his fight with Trump. Although I think
24:09
Speaker 2: increasing the deficit by trillions of dollars does not help
24:12
Speaker 2: with these voters. I think putting in place tariffs that
24:14
Speaker 2: lead to a recession does not help with these voters.
24:17
Speaker 2: And they are probably, these are profiles more likely voters.
24:21
Speaker 2: These are the sort of voters who sat out 2016
24:25
Speaker 2: or voted third party in 2016, or maybe voted for Trump,
24:27
Speaker 2: who then voted for Democrat in 2018 and stuck with Biden.
24:30
Speaker 2: And so they are target voters for 2026, for sure.
24:33
Speaker 4: Yeah. All that said, the bill's problems on the right
24:37
Speaker 4: go way beyond Elon Musk. And as you just pointed
24:42
Speaker 4: out with some of the people pissed about the deficits
24:44
Speaker 4: and the trillions that it's adding to the deficits, the
24:47
Speaker 4: Republicans who care about the deficit aren't happy. Republicans who
24:49
Speaker 4: care that Medicaid cuts could cost them their jobs in 2026.
24:53
Speaker 3: They aren't happy.
24:54
Speaker 4: Even Marjorie Taylor Greene is unhappy, saying she didn't know
24:58
Speaker 4: everything that was in the bill when she voted for it.
25:00
Speaker 4: She's very upset at a provision, we talked about this
25:03
Speaker 4: on Offline, a provision that would prevent states and local
25:08
Speaker 4: governments from regulating AI on their own for the next,
25:12
Speaker 4: most of the next decade. So she's pissed about that.
25:17
Speaker 4: Here's a sampling of some of the Republican complaints.
25:20
Speaker 3: But now they want me.
25:20
Speaker 8: To vote for $ 5 trillion worth increase in a debt ceiling,
25:24
Speaker 8: and I'm just not for that.
25:25
Speaker 3: That's not conservative.
25:27
Speaker 6: Here's a lesson for us all. No matter what political
25:31
Speaker 6: party holds office and is in charge, We should all
25:35
Speaker 6: watch carefully the bills that we pass.
25:38
Speaker 8: The President and Senate leadership has to understand that we're serious.
25:43
Speaker 8: They all say, oh, we can pressure these guys.
25:44
Speaker 3: No, you can't.
25:45
Speaker 8: This is immoral what us old farts are doing to
25:49
Speaker 8: our young people. This is grotesque what we're doing. We
25:52
Speaker 8: need to own up to that. This is our moment.
25:54
Speaker 8: I can't accept this scenario. I can't accept it, so
25:57
Speaker 8: I won't vote for it unless we are serious about
25:59
Speaker 8: fixing it.
26:00
Speaker 4: This is our moment, old farts. What do you think
26:05
Speaker 4: about that messaging?
26:06
Speaker 7: Slam dunk?
26:07
Speaker 3: We're getting Republicans back?
26:08
Speaker 2: I think this bill is just going to be a
26:11
Speaker 2: huge political gift to the Republicans. I mean, I'm obviously
26:17
Speaker 2: kidding there, but let me just put in perspective how
26:20
Speaker 2: unpopular this bill is. So Hart Research, a Democratic research firm,
26:23
Speaker 2: did a poll for a bunch of groups, including Center
26:26
Speaker 2: for American Progress, Protect Our Care, Family... Families Over Billionaires.
26:31
Speaker 2: And they tested the bill and less than a third
26:34
Speaker 2: of voters support it. And then they went through and
26:36
Speaker 2: they did a message exercise where they did a generic
26:38
Speaker 2: description of the bill, Democratic arguments for the bill, back
26:41
Speaker 2: and forth between Democratic arguments and Republican arguments for the bill.
26:44
Speaker 2: When they finished that, the bill is nearly 30 points underwater.
26:48
Speaker 2: To help you understand how unpopular that is, the Trump
26:51
Speaker 2: tax cut in 2017, which was thought to be one
26:54
Speaker 2: of the most unpopular pieces of legislation in history, was
26:56
Speaker 2: about 14 points underwater when it passed in 2017. And
26:59
Speaker 2: the Affordable Care Act, which is in the lore of
27:02
Speaker 2: this incredibly polarizing bill that cost the Democrats 60-plus seats
27:06
Speaker 2: in 2010, that bill in the Kaiser Foundation tracking poll
27:09
Speaker 2: was six points above water when it passed in March
27:12
Speaker 2: of 2010. And so this is by far the least–
27:16
Speaker 2: no one is asking for this. And there's no benefit
27:18
Speaker 2: coming because people aren't getting– other than the exceptions around
27:22
Speaker 2: overtime and tips– No one's getting new tax cuts. They're
27:27
Speaker 2: just keeping the tax cuts they've had for four years.
27:30
Speaker 2: And so you're not even going to get this boost
27:32
Speaker 2: of like all of a sudden you're going to get
27:33
Speaker 2: your check in the mail with your new tax cut
27:35
Speaker 2: or your paycheck's going to look larger. That's not what's
27:37
Speaker 2: going to happen. It's just status quo for everyone other
27:40
Speaker 2: than people are going to lose their health care and
27:41
Speaker 2: their food assistance.
27:43
Speaker 4: And so far, the biggest challenge for those of us
27:47
Speaker 4: who oppose this bill has been that not enough people
27:50
Speaker 4: have heard about it and people aren't paying attention. Data
27:53
Speaker 4: for Progress did a poll also. and also found that
27:56
Speaker 4: the bill is very, very unpopular, but then found out
27:59
Speaker 4: that I think it was like 4% of people had heard.
28:02
Speaker 7: A lot about it.
28:02
Speaker 4: It was a very small number of people had heard
28:05
Speaker 4: a lot about it.
28:06
Speaker 2: I think 14 total respondents in their open-ended thing knew
28:10
Speaker 2: the bill had Medicaid cuts.
28:11
Speaker 7: 14?
28:12
Speaker 4: Total respondents, yeah. Oh my God.
28:15
Speaker 7: Okay.
28:15
Speaker 4: So that's the other consequence of this being the basis
28:21
Speaker 4: for the biggest breakup of the decade is that now
28:26
Speaker 4: people are going to like, well, how did this whole
28:28
Speaker 4: thing start? And then maybe they'll look into the bill.
28:31
Speaker 4: On that note, how do you think Democrats should take
28:32
Speaker 4: advantage of all this to kill the bill?
28:35
Speaker 2: It is to, like you've pointed out, the fundamental issue
28:41
Speaker 2: with the bill is that it's incredibly unpopular, but not
28:43
Speaker 2: enough people know about it or are paying attention to it.
28:45
Speaker 2: So everyone has to find the tallest mountain they can find,
28:47
Speaker 2: the biggest megaphone they can find, text all the people
28:49
Speaker 2: they can, shout about it, yell about it, talk about
28:53
Speaker 2: it in simple to easy to understand terms that it's
28:55
Speaker 2: essentially a tax cut for the very wealthy and corporations
28:59
Speaker 2: paid for by taking food and healthcare away from millions
29:02
Speaker 2: and millions of Americans. And on top of that, still
29:05
Speaker 2: adds trillions of dollars to the deficit. Like just everyone
29:08
Speaker 2: has to know about it. And when people know about it,
29:10
Speaker 2: they're going to be against it. And I think that
29:12
Speaker 2: we have two tasks here. There is a chance that
29:15
Speaker 2: we can create enough political pressure that they have to
29:16
Speaker 2: change what this bill looks like to take some of
29:18
Speaker 2: those cuts away It's something we'll have to pass because
29:21
Speaker 2: if they don't pass something, we will default on our
29:23
Speaker 2: debt and everyone's taxes will go up. So they'll have
29:24
Speaker 2: to pass something. But the potential to change the nature
29:27
Speaker 2: of what that is by making it as politically painful
29:30
Speaker 2: as possible, Elon Musk is helping us do that. He's
29:33
Speaker 2: not making the arguments that we would be making. He's
29:34
Speaker 2: not out there defending Medicaid. But as you say, he's
29:37
Speaker 2: drawing attention to it and putting a spotlight on it.
29:39
Speaker 2: And we can then can then follow in in the
29:41
Speaker 2: breach and make our arguments.
29:43
Speaker 3: Yeah.
29:44
Speaker 4: And some people are concerned because, as you point out,
29:47
Speaker 4: he's not making the same arguments that we are. And obviously,
29:51
Speaker 4: it is adding trillions to the deficit. He's correct about that.
29:54
Speaker 4: But the reason that I think we oppose the bill
29:57
Speaker 4: and probably most, I think, if you ask people to
30:00
Speaker 4: choose between what they hate most, Medicaid cuts and tax
30:04
Speaker 4: cuts for the rich, or adding to the deficit, I
30:07
Speaker 4: think they would choose the Medicaid cuts and the tax
30:09
Speaker 4: cuts for.
30:09
Speaker 3: The rich, for sure.
30:11
Speaker 4: But, you know, Elon Musk called the bill a disgusting abomination.
30:15
Speaker 4: We should call it a disgusting abomination, too. And we
30:18
Speaker 4: can explain why we think it's a disgusting abomination, which
30:20
Speaker 4: is maybe partly what Elon thinks, but also the fact
30:24
Speaker 4: that it's going to kick 15 million people off their
30:26
Speaker 4: health care. to pay for a trillion dollars in tax
30:29
Speaker 4: cuts for millionaires and billionaires.
30:31
Speaker 2: I agree with you that the Medicaid cuts are much
30:34
Speaker 2: more effective. All the testing shows that as an argument.
30:37
Speaker 2: We have this hesitancy as Democrats because we've been burned
30:40
Speaker 2: by austerity politics in the past to talk about the deficits.
30:44
Speaker 2: But we should talk about the deficits. There are times
30:46
Speaker 2: when it makes sense to go in a deficit, like
30:49
Speaker 2: after a financial crisis to save the economy, to give
30:52
Speaker 2: people money to stay alive during COVID. right? Those times
30:57
Speaker 2: make sense. To go into deficit to give tax cuts
31:01
Speaker 2: to rich people at a time of incredibly high interest
31:04
Speaker 2: rates where the debt you're ranking up costs so much
31:07
Speaker 2: more is insane. And it's going to bother a lot
31:10
Speaker 2: of people. And we should not shy away from that argument.
31:14
Speaker 2: I think we should make it.
31:16
Speaker 4: And I just think you don't have to complicate the
31:17
Speaker 4: simple here. Everyone hates the bill, right? Republicans hate it.
31:21
Speaker 4: Elon Musk hates it. This person hates it. You know,
31:24
Speaker 4: we have plenty of quotes now to play from all
31:26
Speaker 4: kinds of Republicans about how they hate the bill. We
31:28
Speaker 4: can talk about the Medicaid cuts. We can talk about
31:30
Speaker 4: the ACA cuts. There's just creating a lot of chaos
31:34
Speaker 4: around the bill about how it's intensely disliked. Because if
31:38
Speaker 4: the casual news consumer, if all they hear, oh, this
31:41
Speaker 4: is a bill that most people don't like.
31:43
Speaker 3: That's all.
31:45
Speaker 4: And then you'll get enough pressure on some of these
31:47
Speaker 4: Republicans to, you know, like then they have a very
31:50
Speaker 4: thin margin. They can lose three votes in the Senate
31:52
Speaker 4: and a couple more votes in the House. when it
31:54
Speaker 4: goes back to the House. So it's, you know, like
31:56
Speaker 4: you said, they probably, they need to pass something or
32:00
Speaker 4: else taxes go up. Did you see Trump was on
32:03
Speaker 4: Truth Social Wednesday, I think, talking about we should eliminate
32:06
Speaker 4: the debt ceiling altogether? You know that's a play that's coming.
32:10
Speaker 4: He's going to try to figure out how to get
32:11
Speaker 4: rid of the debt ceiling. That's a position that we've
32:12
Speaker 4: held personally over the past time. I know, I know.
32:14
Speaker 4: Because he was like, I agree with Elizabeth Warren on this.
32:17
Speaker 4: So we'll have him minting the coin, minting the gold coin.
32:20
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, there's a legislative abolition of the debt ceiling,
32:23
Speaker 2: and then there is simply minting the gold coin or somewhat,
32:27
Speaker 2: just not even enforcing it, which is what Trump is
32:31
Speaker 2: obviously going to try to do if somehow we pass the...
32:35
Speaker 2: We run out of money before they can get this
32:37
Speaker 2: disgusting abomination passed.
32:39
Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, kill the bill. That's the rallying cry. Elon
32:42
Speaker 4: started it. People like him can get credit for good
32:45
Speaker 4: ideas once in a while.
32:46
Speaker 3: Kill the bill.
32:47
Speaker 4: Kill the bill. That's what we got to do now.
33:15
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34:22
Speaker 4: Okay, let's get to the executive orders Trump would rather
34:25
Speaker 4: be making headlines right now, but are still quite awful.
34:28
Speaker 4: The first one, titled, very understated, reviewing certain presidential actions.
34:34
Speaker 4: opens an investigation to determine, quote, whether certain individuals conspired
34:38
Speaker 4: to deceive the public about Biden's mental state and unconstitutionally
34:43
Speaker 4: exercise the authorities and responsibilities of the president. Essentially, the
34:47
Speaker 4: claim here is that Biden didn't have command of what
34:49
Speaker 4: was happening in the White House and that his staffers
34:51
Speaker 4: basically ran the country via auto pen. In a statement,
34:56
Speaker 4: Biden responded, let me be clear. I made the decisions
34:58
Speaker 4: during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons,
35:01
Speaker 4: executive orders, legislation and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn't
35:05
Speaker 4: is ridiculous and false. That didn't stop Trump from elaborating
35:08
Speaker 4: on the conspiracy theory in the Oval on Thursday.
35:11
Speaker 5: Well, I don't think Biden would know whether or not
35:13
Speaker 5: he signed it.
35:14
Speaker 8: I'm asking if you've uncovered any of that information.
35:16
Speaker 5: No, but I've uncovered, you know, the human mind. I
35:18
Speaker 5: was in a debate with the human mind.
35:21
Speaker 7: And I didn't think he knew what the hell he
35:22
Speaker 7: was doing.
35:23
Speaker 5: So, you know, it's just one of those things, one
35:25
Speaker 5: of those problems. We can't ever allow that to happen
35:28
Speaker 5: to our country. The danger our country was in, but
35:31
Speaker 5: I know some of the people that used that auto pen,
35:34
Speaker 5: and those are not the people that had the same
35:36
Speaker 5: ideology as Joe Biden. These were radical left lunatics that
35:41
Speaker 5: used that. And they didn't get elected. He didn't get
35:44
Speaker 5: elected either, actually. Thank you very much, everybody.
35:48
Speaker 4: Speaking of mental decline. Dan, what do you think about this?
35:54
Speaker 2: I mean, Trump sounds like an unhinged crackpot talking about this.
35:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, he does.
35:59
Speaker 2: I mean, it makes no sense to most people. You
36:01
Speaker 2: have to be deep into MAGA fanfic to know what
36:05
Speaker 2: he's talking about. I don't want to gloss over the
36:08
Speaker 2: fact that everyone's just treating it as normal that the
36:11
Speaker 2: President of the United States ordered a criminal investigation into
36:14
Speaker 2: his political opponent with a memo and directed the White
36:19
Speaker 2: House counsel to work with the Attorney General on it.
36:22
Speaker 4: Not how things are supposed to work.
36:23
Speaker 2: No, no, definitely not.
36:24
Speaker 4: The White House is not supposed to order the Justice
36:27
Speaker 4: Department to conduct investigations. No, that's not supposed to work.
36:30
Speaker 2: And even, like, I know the frog in the pot
36:35
Speaker 2: is a very tired metaphor after 10 years of Trump,
36:38
Speaker 2: but the way everyone just covered this is if he
36:40
Speaker 2: was just signing an executive order to, like, review procurement processes,
36:45
Speaker 2: the Department of Defense are like, Donald Trump signed an
36:47
Speaker 2: order today as if, like, an unprecedented, insane... thing just happened,
36:52
Speaker 2: just like normal news.
36:55
Speaker 4: What happens here? And do you think this is a...
36:58
Speaker 4: Who is this a problem for?
36:59
Speaker 7: Huh.
37:01
Speaker 2: Who is this a problem for? Probably the people around
37:04
Speaker 2: Joe Biden. Not because there is anything real here. This
37:07
Speaker 2: is absurd. Even if you read all the reporting, you
37:12
Speaker 2: read Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson's book, which you guys
37:14
Speaker 2: are going to talk about later in this podcast, there
37:17
Speaker 2: is no allegation that Joe Biden is like purely a
37:20
Speaker 2: puppet of a bunch of woke staffers, just like auto-penning
37:23
Speaker 2: whatever they want while he dozes.
37:25
Speaker 3: Like that's not, there are really.
37:28
Speaker 4: Jake and Alex say that like in the first couple
37:29
Speaker 4: of pages, they're like those who expect this reporting to reveal,
37:33
Speaker 4: you know, someone who was like in serious, you know,
37:36
Speaker 4: I forget the word they used. It was just like
37:39
Speaker 4: a purely senile president who didn't know, had any idea
37:42
Speaker 4: what he was doing. You're going to be disappointed.
37:44
Speaker 2: So like, so there's that, this is complete and total bullshit. It,
37:49
Speaker 2: If this investigation actually moves forward, if the FBI is
37:53
Speaker 2: going to start interviewing people, the people around Joe Biden,
37:56
Speaker 2: some of whom have already been called to Congress to
37:58
Speaker 2: testify in the congressional version of this investigation, will probably
38:02
Speaker 2: incur significant legal expenses and be exposed to risk. Not
38:05
Speaker 2: because of this ridiculous conspiracy. Once you are being interviewed
38:10
Speaker 2: by law enforcement, especially law enforcement with malicious political intent,
38:14
Speaker 2: any sort of thing can happen from that. It was
38:18
Speaker 2: the investigation into Benghazi through the congressional investigations that led
38:21
Speaker 2: to Hillary Clinton's emails. Once they start digging, they can
38:24
Speaker 2: make your life very challenging if that's what they want
38:26
Speaker 2: to do, even if you never did anything wrong. Yeah.
38:29
Speaker 4: And let's be honest about what they're looking for here.
38:34
Speaker 4: If he doesn't like executive orders that Joe Biden signed
38:37
Speaker 4: with an auto pen, Donald Trump can overturn those orders,
38:41
Speaker 4: as he's been doing for the last couple months that
38:43
Speaker 4: he's been president. All that he cares about is the pardons.
38:47
Speaker 4: So he cares that Joe Biden pardoned a bunch of
38:49
Speaker 4: people or gave preemptive pardons to a bunch of people
38:51
Speaker 4: that Donald Trump would like to investigate and potentially jail.
38:55
Speaker 4: That's what they really care about here. There's also like
38:57
Speaker 4: the drama around it and they can take revenge on
39:00
Speaker 4: Biden and they can, you know, have a bunch of
39:02
Speaker 4: headlines and give chum to the right wing media about, oh,
39:04
Speaker 4: we're finally, you know, investigating the Bidens and the cover
39:07
Speaker 4: up and all that. But really, he just wants the
39:10
Speaker 4: pardons to go away.
39:11
Speaker 2: How you would ever possibly do that? The auto pen...
39:15
Speaker 2: I don't know that Joe Biden– there's no evidence that
39:17
Speaker 2: Joe Biden auto-penned those pardons. I would be shocked if
39:19
Speaker 2: he did. But even if he had, that has been–
39:24
Speaker 2: the auto-penn has been treated by the courts as a
39:27
Speaker 2: legally recognized way of executing law. and executive orders and
39:31
Speaker 2: things like pardons. So even though what it would mean.
39:34
Speaker 4: The first time he threw out this allegation, you know,
39:37
Speaker 4: people dug up video after video, picture after picture of
39:39
Speaker 4: Joe Biden signing legislation himself. I realized it was probably
39:44
Speaker 4: just the body double, but you know. Um, at least
39:47
Speaker 4: that's out there and that's going to be tough for
39:48
Speaker 4: courts to figure out if it was the body double
39:50
Speaker 4: or the real Joe Biden.
39:50
Speaker 2: Did you see that Elon Musk also suggested that there
39:52
Speaker 2: was a Trump body double?
39:54
Speaker 4: Yes.
39:54
Speaker 3: Yeah.
39:55
Speaker 4: No, I swear someone should look into that too. You know,
39:57
Speaker 4: maybe who was signing his legislation?
39:59
Speaker 2: I want to hear from these 2028 Democratic candidates about
40:02
Speaker 2: what their plan for that is if they win.
40:05
Speaker 4: So Trump or, uh, the Trump body double or the
40:09
Speaker 4: auto pen also signed two more orders, uh, both touching
40:12
Speaker 4: on immigration. One is a revival of his, uh, notorious
40:15
Speaker 4: first-term travel ban. This one's going to take effect on
40:18
Speaker 4: June 9th and ban citizens of 12 countries from entering
40:21
Speaker 4: the U.S., supposedly in the name of fighting terrorism. Those
40:25
Speaker 4: countries are Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan,
40:33
Speaker 4: and Yemen. It also partially restricts travel from seven other countries,
40:37
Speaker 4: including Cuba and Venezuela. We knew at some point this
40:40
Speaker 4: would be coming because Trump signed an order on Inauguration Day,
40:43
Speaker 4: directing relevant departments to identify countries where they could implement
40:47
Speaker 4: such a ban. So obviously there was a lot of
40:49
Speaker 4: other news today to cover besides the travel ban, but
40:52
Speaker 4: I would say fairly muted response, considering that last time
40:57
Speaker 4: he tried a travel ban when he first came into
40:59
Speaker 4: office in 2017, people flooded the airports and he had
41:04
Speaker 4: to pull back, also because it was a poorly written
41:08
Speaker 4: from a legal perspective, and the courts kind of threw
41:10
Speaker 4: it out. And then eventually, they got to the point
41:12
Speaker 4: where it could pass muster, at least with the Supreme Court.
41:15
Speaker 4: What do you think is going on there with the response?
41:18
Speaker 2: I think it is a sort of a dark and
41:20
Speaker 2: deeply depressing statement about where we've gone after the last
41:25
Speaker 2: seven years now, eight years now. I think about myself.
41:30
Speaker 2: I headed directly to the San Francisco airport after that
41:32
Speaker 2: was signed and protested with thousands of other people there.
41:35
Speaker 2: And What has happened, I think, is Trump's bigoted, jingoistic,
41:43
Speaker 2: nationalistic politics has become normalized in a way. In 2017,
41:48
Speaker 2: it was possible to imagine that the President of the
41:52
Speaker 2: United States would ban travel to people from Muslim countries
41:57
Speaker 2: because they were Muslim. That was the context for it.
41:59
Speaker 2: And people reacted to that with outrage and fervor. And
42:03
Speaker 2: just that sort of... it's not that it's acceptable. I'm
42:06
Speaker 2: not saying people accept, I'm not saying people like this,
42:09
Speaker 2: but it is this, we are no longer shocked by
42:12
Speaker 2: these sorts of things, right? When you're living in a
42:14
Speaker 2: world where the president is sending people without due process
42:17
Speaker 2: to a torture prison in El Salvador, these things do
42:19
Speaker 2: not seem as shocking as they were before. And that
42:21
Speaker 2: is ultimately, that is Trump winning. That's how authoritarians take
42:24
Speaker 2: power is that people lose the ability to be outraged
42:27
Speaker 2: at things very, very worthy of that outrage.
42:30
Speaker 1: Yeah.
42:30
Speaker 4: And substantively, you could argue that the travel ban has
42:33
Speaker 4: been overtaken by much more extreme immigration and deportation policies,
42:37
Speaker 4: like you just mentioned with Seacott. Also, they suspended all refugees,
42:42
Speaker 4: the refugee resettlement program in this country, except for the
42:45
Speaker 4: Afrikaner farmers, and a host of other immigration actions that
42:50
Speaker 4: seem far more extreme, even than the travel ban, even
42:53
Speaker 4: though the travel ban is horrific. So the other order
42:57
Speaker 4: he signed, is one that bans Harvard from being able
43:00
Speaker 4: to enroll new international students. Last month, Trump tried to
43:04
Speaker 4: revoke Harvard certification in the government's student and exchange visitor program,
43:08
Speaker 4: which a judge blocked while the court case proceeds. This time,
43:11
Speaker 4: Trump's arguing that he has a national security justification under
43:15
Speaker 4: the Immigration and Nationality Act. So it was the State
43:19
Speaker 4: Department and DHS last time that tried to block the
43:22
Speaker 4: international students that's currently going through courts that the judge
43:25
Speaker 4: temporarily blocked. Now, I think this is a legal sort
43:29
Speaker 4: of effort to say, well, this is a presidential power now,
43:33
Speaker 4: and this is a national security thing, and so courts
43:36
Speaker 4: should not intervene because it's the president's power. It's Article II.
43:38
Speaker 4: This is like their theory, the unitary executive theory. And
43:42
Speaker 4: so it's obviously almost certainly going to court. What do
43:46
Speaker 4: you think? Is it just that they're just going to
43:48
Speaker 4: keep fighting Harvard here?
43:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there's two things happening here. The first is...
43:55
Speaker 2: I think Trump just likes fighting with Harvard. I think
43:57
Speaker 2: he thinks it's good politics to fight with the most
44:00
Speaker 2: elite of elite institutions. It sort of, I think in
44:04
Speaker 2: his mind, creates this anti-establishment, anti-elite populist persona.
44:08
Speaker 4: It's like elites and he gets to attack elites and
44:12
Speaker 4: foreigners in one. Yes.
44:14
Speaker 2: Harvard is the easiest one to pick on. They're hard
44:18
Speaker 2: to pick on the sense that they have resources. And
44:21
Speaker 2: so they're not scared like some of the other universities,
44:23
Speaker 2: but they are the I think the easiest to demonize.
44:26
Speaker 2: It's the most famous school, it's the most elite school.
44:29
Speaker 2: So I think that this is part of that larger
44:31
Speaker 2: conservative project. I don't know whether Trump thinks about it
44:34
Speaker 2: that way, but the people behind him certainly do. People
44:36
Speaker 2: writing these orders and fighting these authorities do.
44:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, certainly.
44:39
Speaker 4: Yeah, for Trump, it's hard to tell. There is some
44:43
Speaker 4: evidence that they at least feel the need to sort
44:46
Speaker 4: of paint this action as not as extreme as it is.
44:51
Speaker 4: And Trump's saying like, oh, You know, Chinese students are
44:54
Speaker 4: still welcome in our institutions. It's just we're going to
44:57
Speaker 4: just look at their social media accounts. And international students
45:00
Speaker 4: can still come to these schools and to Harvard. And
45:03
Speaker 4: we want to work with Harvard to fix this. But
45:05
Speaker 4: Harvard is not, you know, there's probably some bad ones.
45:08
Speaker 4: And Harvard's not giving us a list of the bad
45:10
Speaker 4: ones or letting us check. Otherwise, we're happy to have
45:12
Speaker 4: international students. And I can't tell why he's doing that. But,
45:16
Speaker 4: you know, it may suggest that they know that it's
45:19
Speaker 4: not quite popular to just say we're going to have
45:21
Speaker 4: a ban on on all international students and a ban
45:26
Speaker 4: on all Chinese students everywhere in America, and we're going
45:29
Speaker 4: to try to destroy the nation's most elite institution, one
45:35
Speaker 4: of the best universities in the world, right? So maybe
45:38
Speaker 4: there's a hint that they know that that's not super popular.
45:40
Speaker 2: I think there's a tension at the heron of all
45:42
Speaker 2: Trump's things, which is that he likes to beat up
45:45
Speaker 2: on elite institutions, but what he really wants more than
45:47
Speaker 2: anything else is being accepted by those elite institutions.
45:50
Speaker 7: Yeah.
45:50
Speaker 4: And if he can't be accepted by them, then he
45:52
Speaker 4: at least wants to be feared.
45:53
Speaker 7: Yeah.
45:54
Speaker 4: So, you know, obviously more bad news on immigration there.
45:57
Speaker 4: But there's been some slivers of good news out there
46:00
Speaker 4: on some of these deportations and immigration. So Judge James Boasberg,
46:06
Speaker 4: who Trump famously does not like, he ruled that using
46:10
Speaker 4: the Alien Enemies Act to deport over 100 Venezuelan men
46:14
Speaker 4: to El Salvador's mega prison was unlawful. and that the
46:17
Speaker 4: administration has to provide habeas relief to them. Of course,
46:20
Speaker 4: the Supreme Court unanimously believes that as well, so we'll
46:23
Speaker 4: see if he actually follows. But then there's a couple
46:25
Speaker 4: cases that we have talked about last episode and prior
46:29
Speaker 4: to that that we should update you on. The Missouri
46:33
Speaker 4: woman from Hong Kong named Carol, who we spoke about
46:36
Speaker 4: last episode, she's lived 20 years in a very rural,
46:40
Speaker 4: Trumpy area of Missouri. I think it was like 80% Trump.
46:45
Speaker 4: And they she was arrested. She was she has three
46:48
Speaker 4: kids thrown in detention. She has been released. And this
46:53
Speaker 4: followed just an uproar from the town. All these people
46:56
Speaker 4: who said they voted for Trump, they they marched and
47:00
Speaker 4: they and they pushed their local officials on this. And
47:03
Speaker 4: so they have she's not completely out of the woods yet,
47:05
Speaker 4: her lawyer says, but she is currently released. And they
47:07
Speaker 4: think that they they feel good about getting her to
47:10
Speaker 4: stay in the United States. The Massachusetts High School honor
47:13
Speaker 4: student who came here from Brazil when he was five
47:17
Speaker 4: and was detained on his way to volleyball practice, thrown
47:21
Speaker 4: in an detention center, shackled. He has been released from
47:24
Speaker 4: ICE detention as well. And I can't remember if I
47:28
Speaker 4: talked about this in the show, but the four-year-old girl
47:31
Speaker 4: from Bakersfield here in California, living in Bakersfield, she's from Mexico.
47:35
Speaker 4: Her parents brought her here.
47:37
Speaker 3: It was legal.
47:37
Speaker 4: She has legal status. She was able to come here
47:40
Speaker 4: because she needed life-saving care that she couldn't get in Mexico.
47:45
Speaker 4: And she got that care and it's keeping her alive.
47:47
Speaker 4: And if they deported her back to Mexico, which is
47:50
Speaker 4: what they wanted to do, doctors said that she very
47:53
Speaker 4: well probably would have died. And she is now being allowed,
47:57
Speaker 4: she's getting an exception to stay here. All three of
47:59
Speaker 4: those cases that I mentioned, the decisions followed just a
48:04
Speaker 4: public outcry from both in the communities where these people
48:09
Speaker 4: have lived for a long time, and also just nationally,
48:13
Speaker 4: people calling attention to it. And so as bleak as
48:17
Speaker 4: things are, I do think raising awareness of these cases
48:21
Speaker 4: when we hear about them, it's not just doing it
48:24
Speaker 4: to yell about it. I think it really does have,
48:26
Speaker 4: like political pressure does have an effect. And, you know,
48:32
Speaker 4: so we should keep it up.
48:33
Speaker 2: No, our forces have power. Yeah. All right.
48:37
Speaker 4: When we come back, you're going to hear the conversation
48:39
Speaker 4: Lovett and I had with Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson
48:41
Speaker 4: about original sin, all the Biden discourse. Two things before
48:44
Speaker 4: we do that. In case you missed it, Lovett sat
48:46
Speaker 4: down this week for a YouTube exclusive with New York
48:48
Speaker 4: Attorney General Tish James, who the Trump administration is now
48:51
Speaker 4: going after because she went after Trump. They talked about
48:54
Speaker 4: weaponizing the justice system, the New York City mayor's race,
48:57
Speaker 4: and a lot more. You can check out the full
48:58
Speaker 4: conversation on our YouTube page, youtube.com slash at sign pod
49:03
Speaker 4: save america. While you're there, please subscribe. It's a huge
49:06
Speaker 4: help to us. It takes less than a second to
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Speaker 4: Alyssa Mastromonaco sits down with economist Cecilia Rouse. to unpack
49:20
Speaker 4: big topics like the national debt, tariffs, and the long-term
49:23
Speaker 4: impact of today's economic policies. And on a new polar coaster,
49:27
Speaker 4: Dan broke down rising approval ratings for Trump and surprising
49:30
Speaker 4: new polling that shows Pete Buttigieg ahead of Kamala Harris
49:33
Speaker 4: in an early look at the 2028 Democratic field. Dan,
49:36
Speaker 4: you also took questions, right?
49:38
Speaker 2: I took lots of great questions from our Discord listeners
49:41
Speaker 2: who are our subscribers, they're friends of the pod.
49:43
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51:15
Speaker 3: All right. Hey, everybody. Here we are, the.
51:26
Speaker 4: First four names on the Biden family Christmas card list.
51:33
Speaker 3: How you guys doing? Congrats on number one.
51:36
Speaker 7: Thank you so much.
51:37
Speaker 3: New York Times. Look at that.
51:39
Speaker 1: Pretty good.
51:40
Speaker 7: All right.
51:43
Speaker 4: So the book has now been out long enough that
51:46
Speaker 4: we get to ask you about the reaction to the book.
51:50
Speaker 4: Because I don't know if you've noticed, but it's been
51:52
Speaker 4: quite intense. Including from the subject of the book, former
51:57
Speaker 4: President Joe Biden.
51:58
Speaker 7: Who, just in case you didn't know, said that he
52:01
Speaker 7: could beat us up.
52:02
Speaker 3: Well, that was my first question.
52:03
Speaker 4: Because I looked at that clip and he was like,
52:08
Speaker 4: they didn't mention you guys? They didn't mention us or
52:11
Speaker 4: the book. They didn't mention you guys or the book.
52:13
Speaker 4: They just asked about the discussion about his mental capabilities.
52:17
Speaker 4: And Biden responded, you can see that I'm mentally incompetent.
52:20
Speaker 4: I can't walk. and I could beat the hell out
52:23
Speaker 4: of both of them.
52:25
Speaker 2: I saw that live, and I immediately texted you. I said,
52:27
Speaker 2: I think Biden just said he could beat you up.
52:29
Speaker 3: I first heard it from you. I think you're the
52:32
Speaker 3: both of them, because you're not referenced. You're not referenced
52:34
Speaker 3: in any way. It was unclear if it was simultaneously
52:37
Speaker 3: or one after the other.
52:38
Speaker 1: I think it's like the one gorilla versus 100 men
52:41
Speaker 1: kind of situation.
52:43
Speaker 3: Did you guys take that to be you? I don't
52:46
Speaker 3: know who else it could have been, but.
52:48
Speaker 4: I took it to be us. Yes, I took it
52:50
Speaker 4: to be us. Other Bidens have also weighed in on
52:52
Speaker 4: the book. His children, Hunter and Ashley, one of his granddaughters, Naomi.
52:57
Speaker 4: But there's one official response from a Biden spokesperson that's
53:01
Speaker 4: in almost every single story about the book. They haven't
53:03
Speaker 4: changed it. We continue to await anything that shows where
53:06
Speaker 4: Joe Biden had to make a presidential decision or where
53:09
Speaker 4: national security was threatened or where he was unable to
53:12
Speaker 4: do his job. In fact, the evidence points to the opposite.
53:15
Speaker 4: He was a very effective president. What do you guys
53:18
Speaker 4: think of that response?
53:18
Speaker 7: Well, so that was the response that they gave before
53:22
Speaker 7: the book was released. And I said at the time, okay,
53:27
Speaker 7: wait until you read it and you'll get an answer.
53:30
Speaker 7: You'll have to change that statement, but they have not.
53:33
Speaker 7: And the truth of the matter is that the book
53:35
Speaker 7: has any number of moments where one can wonder if
53:40
Speaker 7: whatever issues he was having did actually affect his ability
53:45
Speaker 7: to do the presidency in the way that we would want.
53:48
Speaker 7: And there was actually an essay about this in Slate
53:51
Speaker 7: today about one of the anecdotes that I found most disturbing,
53:55
Speaker 7: which was Senator Michael Bennett from Colorado goes to the
53:58
Speaker 7: White House in June 2024 before the debate, and it's
54:03
Speaker 7: an immigration event. And Biden has a very unsettling kind
54:08
Speaker 7: of moment where he seems to have some sort of
54:10
Speaker 7: neurological episode in front of the cameras, very quick but
54:13
Speaker 7: he's like talking and nobody can understand what he's saying
54:16
Speaker 7: and it's not.
54:17
Speaker 3: That thing he does when he whispers to.
54:20
Speaker 7: Make a point do you know what i'm saying like
54:23
Speaker 7: that's if you couldn't hear that that's that thing he
54:25
Speaker 7: does when he whispers to make a point watch me
54:28
Speaker 7: nobody's saying yes anyway it's not that these mics aren't
54:31
Speaker 7: aren't biden level mics um but uh it's it's he's
54:35
Speaker 7: having some moment it's like some weird thing and senator
54:38
Speaker 7: bennett leaves the white house and thinks to himself this
54:43
Speaker 7: is why our immigration policy is such a mess because
54:47
Speaker 7: the commander in chief can't manage the portfolio. He can't
54:50
Speaker 7: handle it. He'd like, he can't tell people what to
54:53
Speaker 7: do because he's not able to be engaged the way
54:57
Speaker 7: that whether or not you like his policies. And I
54:59
Speaker 7: imagine this crowd doesn't Trump or Obama or, or other
55:04
Speaker 7: presidents have been able to. And in fact, The Department
55:08
Speaker 7: of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was waiting at the
55:12
Speaker 7: very beginning of the Biden presidency for the order to
55:16
Speaker 7: do more border enforcement, which would be a Biden-esque way
55:19
Speaker 7: to do the job or an Obama-esque way to do
55:21
Speaker 7: the job. And the order never came. So there are
55:25
Speaker 7: in the book moments of people wondering if he's not
55:29
Speaker 7: able to do the job.
55:31
Speaker 4: I want to step back and talk about how you
55:33
Speaker 4: guys went about writing this book. Just for people who
55:36
Speaker 4: don't know how a book like this comes together, could
55:39
Speaker 4: you talk a bit about your reporting process, the sourcing,
55:42
Speaker 4: verifying anecdotes and recollections, the fact-checking and all that, Alex?
55:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, if anyone's like, well, now you tell us,
55:50
Speaker 3: I don't blame them for feeling that way. But the
55:52
Speaker 3: truth is that this book came about, almost every single
55:56
Speaker 3: interview of the over 200 was done after November 5th. Um,
56:00
Speaker 3: the origins of it actually are, uh, I was on
56:03
Speaker 3: Jake's show the day before the election. He said, I
56:06
Speaker 3: think Kamala Harris might lose. And I've been thinking about
56:10
Speaker 3: this book where we examine how the democratic party allowed
56:14
Speaker 3: Trump to come back. Um, would you be interested? And
56:17
Speaker 3: like Jake and I were friendly, but we weren't like,
56:20
Speaker 3: let's write a book friendly. And, uh, so I was like,
56:24
Speaker 3: buy me dinner first. Kind of. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
56:26
Speaker 4: Uh, And so I was like, sure, sure.
56:31
Speaker 3: Okay, whatever. And then didn't think it was going to
56:33
Speaker 3: go anywhere. And then sure enough, Jake sends me a
56:37
Speaker 3: draft of a book proposal the night of November 6th.
56:40
Speaker 3: And we turned in and we did all those interviews. Finally,
56:45
Speaker 3: people that we had been cold calling, sliding into their
56:48
Speaker 3: DMs for like four years that never wanted to talk.
56:51
Speaker 3: Or if they did talk, they weren't exactly candid because
56:54
Speaker 3: I think there was this And we can talk more
56:56
Speaker 3: about this, this gripping fear that saying anything would ultimately
57:00
Speaker 3: help Donald Trump and not change Joe Biden's mind. Now
57:03
Speaker 3: that was over and people were willing to finally confide,
57:07
Speaker 3: you know, small episodes that they had seen that troubled them,
57:12
Speaker 3: that they sort of dismissed as perhaps one offs and
57:15
Speaker 3: were willing to sort of take us behind the scenes. Now,
57:19
Speaker 3: many of those people are still anonymous. We like every
57:21
Speaker 3: single time we always try to get people on the record.
57:24
Speaker 3: Sometimes people do, sometimes people don't, but that's why we
57:26
Speaker 3: interviewed over 200 people because even when they're not, when
57:29
Speaker 3: they're anonymous, you need more cooperation.
57:32
Speaker 6: Yeah.
57:32
Speaker 7: And just cause this is the writer's block and this
57:34
Speaker 7: is Los Angeles where even bus drivers have screenplays. I'll
57:37
Speaker 7: give you just, um, the idea of some, some of
57:40
Speaker 7: the writer stuff we did. Um, for me, it just,
57:43
Speaker 7: as a writer, this is my seventh book and structure
57:45
Speaker 7: is like the most important thing for me. You know,
57:48
Speaker 7: I'm sure everybody here knows that George RR Martin from
57:51
Speaker 7: the game of Thrones books, um, says that there are
57:54
Speaker 7: gardeners and there are architects, and I'm definitely an architect,
57:57
Speaker 7: that you need to build the house and then you
57:59
Speaker 7: fill in the rooms. And so we started with the structure,
58:05
Speaker 7: like here are what I think the chapters should be.
58:07
Speaker 7: Alex and I went back and forth and figured that out.
58:10
Speaker 7: Here are all the people we want to interview. And
58:12
Speaker 7: then we would just write chapters. And when they were done,
58:16
Speaker 7: they weren't done. But we would just fill in the
58:18
Speaker 7: rooms and then go back. And the biggest disagreement we had,
58:22
Speaker 7: this is a very, very gratifying, pleasant, professional relationship, but
58:27
Speaker 7: the biggest disagreement we had was Google Docs versus Word.
58:32
Speaker 4: And you were, let me guess, you were the Word guy. Yes,
58:35
Speaker 4: I'm the Word guy.
58:36
Speaker 7: Absolutely.
58:37
Speaker 3: Listen, we wrote the entire book in one Word document
58:47
Speaker 3: that we emailed back and forth. It wasn't even by chapters.
58:50
Speaker 1: Jake's doing smoke signals, sending his horse and buggy out
58:54
Speaker 1: with the latest edition.
58:55
Speaker 3: And as the millennial, I'm like, honestly, my Command-S buttons
58:59
Speaker 3: don't even work anymore. So I was frantically trying to
59:02
Speaker 3: save the document because it doesn't auto-save like Google Docs.
59:06
Speaker 7: So we started with Google Docs, OK? I'm not against
59:10
Speaker 7: Google Docs.
59:10
Speaker 1: Some people are saying that maybe you were saying you
59:12
Speaker 1: were OK with Google Docs, but maybe behind the scenes
59:15
Speaker 1: weren't as capable with Google Docs, that there's some evidence
59:18
Speaker 1: that maybe you'd lost a step with Google Docs.
59:24
Speaker 6: True.
59:24
Speaker 1: It's true.
59:25
Speaker 7: You can't point to any evidence This is a cover-up.
59:31
Speaker 3: But I will say this.
59:32
Speaker 7: So we had a list of 200-plus people that we
59:36
Speaker 7: wanted to interview, and we interviewed almost every single person.
59:40
Speaker 7: Google Docs stops at 100, right? So the next time,
59:45
Speaker 7: we had two different lists of Google Docs. This is
59:48
Speaker 7: too much in the Google Docs weeds. But he couldn't
59:50
Speaker 7: handle the second Google Doc. The fact that there was
59:52
Speaker 7: a second Google Doc.
59:53
Speaker 3: Anyway. The second Google Doc. So the book.
59:58
Speaker 1: You were talking about this, that before the election, before
1:00:04
Speaker 1: Joe Biden steps aside, there's this incredible fear, right? And
1:00:07
Speaker 1: this is not a kind of mercenary or kind of political.
1:00:10
Speaker 1: It's a genuine concern for the country that if you
1:00:14
Speaker 1: have concerns about Joe Biden's age and you go public
1:00:16
Speaker 1: with those concerns, that might hurt him. He's not stepping aside.
1:00:20
Speaker 1: You've done nothing to make our situation better. You've made
1:00:23
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's situation better. What is the logic here? after
1:00:27
Speaker 1: the election for people to still be afraid to speak
1:00:30
Speaker 1: honestly about this, including in the book, you make reference
1:00:33
Speaker 1: to people who were publicly defending Biden, I believe to
1:00:36
Speaker 1: this day, while talking to you behind the scenes.
1:00:40
Speaker 2: And you could tell us who they are.
1:00:43
Speaker 7: Well, you definitely know who they are, but you don't
1:00:46
Speaker 7: know who they are. So I think that there is
1:00:49
Speaker 7: still a tremendous amount of fear about the anger of
1:00:55
Speaker 7: the Biden campaign. I mean, it is odd to be
1:00:59
Speaker 7: attacked by Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, Ashley Biden, Naomi Biden.
1:01:05
Speaker 7: I guess there's a wife and maybe like six grandkids
1:01:08
Speaker 7: that we're waiting for before.
1:01:09
Speaker 3: We get the whole set.
1:01:12
Speaker 7: But I mean, it's not pleasant. And then, you know,
1:01:17
Speaker 7: the Democratic Party is, it's not like everybody, I mean,
1:01:20
Speaker 7: I think that the book has changed the conversation where
1:01:24
Speaker 7: people just now accept that what we're saying is true.
1:01:28
Speaker 7: I mean, you guys were there last year, but a
1:01:30
Speaker 7: lot of people were very reluctant to acknowledge this. I
1:01:32
Speaker 7: think the book has changed the conversation, but it's not
1:01:35
Speaker 7: as though the 2028 candidates are like, are running out there.
1:01:39
Speaker 7: We like holding the book up and saying like, we
1:01:41
Speaker 7: need to deal with this as a party. I mean,
1:01:42
Speaker 7: people are still in denial about it. Yeah.
1:01:45
Speaker 4: I mean, you guys use obviously the word cover up
1:01:49
Speaker 4: in the title. provocative intentionally, I'm sure. What I have
1:01:55
Speaker 4: always tried to figure out is, and I know you
1:01:56
Speaker 4: guys have said that some of the people you talk to,
1:01:59
Speaker 4: some of the people in that inner circle, like genuinely
1:02:03
Speaker 4: believe he's fine. Or at least you leave open the
1:02:07
Speaker 4: fact that... So is it a cover-up if they are
1:02:11
Speaker 4: genuinely thinking everyone else is crazy, we're around him all
1:02:15
Speaker 4: the time, we think he's fine, even if... We all
1:02:20
Speaker 4: see something different.
1:02:21
Speaker 3: It's a great question. And the reason why we use
1:02:24
Speaker 3: cover up is because, listen, everyone knew Joe Biden was old.
1:02:27
Speaker 3: Everyone saw it. The polling displayed it. But even with
1:02:32
Speaker 3: people recognizing he was old, the Joe Biden we saw
1:02:35
Speaker 3: in the debate stage was still very shocking. to tens
1:02:38
Speaker 3: of millions of people. And the reason it was shocking,
1:02:40
Speaker 3: and I think the book really shows this, is that
1:02:43
Speaker 3: debate Biden, for lack of a better term, that was
1:02:45
Speaker 3: not the first or even close to the first time
1:02:48
Speaker 3: he had acted that way behind the scenes. And there
1:02:51
Speaker 3: were active, even if they would not acknowledge it to themselves,
1:02:55
Speaker 3: by their very actions, they were trying to hide and
1:02:59
Speaker 3: conceal Joe Biden from acting like that. in public from
1:03:04
Speaker 3: members of their own cabinet, from members of the Democratic Party,
1:03:07
Speaker 3: from members of Congress. And those efforts became increasingly frantic
1:03:13
Speaker 3: the six to eight months before the debate. Now, your
1:03:17
Speaker 3: other question of, well, if they don't know they're covering
1:03:20
Speaker 3: it up, they're not Congress, is it a cover-up? By
1:03:23
Speaker 3: very virtue, one quick example, if you saw Joe Biden
1:03:26
Speaker 3: and Jill Biden on The View just like two weeks ago,
1:03:30
Speaker 3: She's doing what she has been doing for the last
1:03:32
Speaker 3: year and a half, which is she sort of helps
1:03:34
Speaker 3: him out when he's struggling. She'll jump in and sort
1:03:37
Speaker 3: of complete sentences. I'm sure she'll say, he's fine, he's great.
1:03:42
Speaker 3: But by her very actions, she is showing that she
1:03:46
Speaker 3: recognizes that he needs her to pick up, she is
1:03:49
Speaker 3: trying to pick up his slack.
1:03:50
Speaker 7: I think actually that the statement that they've given suggests
1:03:56
Speaker 7: that they know he couldn't, do the job 24-7. They
1:04:01
Speaker 7: don't dispute, I mean, what we have in the book,
1:04:04
Speaker 7: I don't know how many people have actually read the book,
1:04:06
Speaker 7: but what we have in the book is, these aren't
1:04:08
Speaker 7: like our conclusions based on like what, you know, our
1:04:12
Speaker 7: view watching TV. This is based on, you know, more
1:04:15
Speaker 7: than 200 interviews with cabinet officials, members of Congress, fundraisers, donors,
1:04:20
Speaker 7: you know, people who saw him up close, who told
1:04:22
Speaker 7: us their stories. So when cabinet secretaries tell us that
1:04:27
Speaker 7: by the end of the Biden presidency, he could not
1:04:30
Speaker 7: be relied upon for that proverbial 2 a.m. phone call
1:04:34
Speaker 7: in the middle of the night with a national security emergency.
1:04:36
Speaker 7: I mean, that's a big deal. That means he can't
1:04:39
Speaker 7: do the job of president. That's what it means. I mean,
1:04:42
Speaker 7: that's what the job is. I'm old enough to remember
1:04:44
Speaker 7: when Hillary was running ads against Obama in Texas, saying
1:04:48
Speaker 7: that he couldn't be relied upon to do that because
1:04:50
Speaker 7: he was so inexperienced. I'm sure that's seared into your brain. And, John,
1:04:54
Speaker 7: you probably wrote those. It's a good ad. It's a
1:04:56
Speaker 7: good ad.
1:04:57
Speaker 3: Love it. Love it.
1:04:58
Speaker 4: We're just writing it together.
1:05:00
Speaker 2: It's a good ad. Good ads don't always work. Every
1:05:04
Speaker 2: losing campaign isn't wrong about everything.
1:05:07
Speaker 7: But but he couldn't be counted on. He couldn't be
1:05:09
Speaker 7: counted on for that. And their their answer. They don't
1:05:12
Speaker 7: say in their statement that. you know, it's not true
1:05:16
Speaker 7: that he lost his train of thought in uncomfortable ways.
1:05:19
Speaker 7: It's not true that he didn't recall the name of
1:05:21
Speaker 7: his national security advisor. It's not true that he couldn't
1:05:24
Speaker 7: be relied upon for the 2 a.m. phone call. They say,
1:05:27
Speaker 7: and his decisions were fine and you can't point to
1:05:29
Speaker 7: any evidence as to otherwise. And I mean, yeah, I can,
1:05:33
Speaker 7: but that's not even the point. You're kind of granting
1:05:35
Speaker 7: the whole premise of the book.
1:05:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, it sort of, you, it does sort of raise
1:05:40
Speaker 1: the question, well, what does it mean to be up
1:05:41
Speaker 1: to the job, right? And what do we require of
1:05:43
Speaker 1: this person in this sort of unique environment? role that
1:05:46
Speaker 1: they play, because I can see how you could say
1:05:49
Speaker 1: both statements are true. You have this image of what
1:05:51
Speaker 1: a president does, and it's in the room making a decision.
1:05:55
Speaker 1: Seven people around a table, they're presenting options, maybe they disagree,
1:05:58
Speaker 1: maybe they don't, and you say go, or you say yes,
1:06:00
Speaker 1: or you say no. And even in the book, you
1:06:01
Speaker 1: acknowledge that when Joe Biden is in control of the schedule,
1:06:05
Speaker 1: when it's at his time, at his choosing, he can
1:06:08
Speaker 1: do that task, right? But the Bennett example is something else,
1:06:13
Speaker 1: which is a harder to measure thing that part of
1:06:17
Speaker 1: the job of being president is over time taking in
1:06:21
Speaker 1: information from a bunch of different people, synthesizing it, moving
1:06:24
Speaker 1: a debate forward. That's never a decision, right? He can
1:06:28
Speaker 1: no longer have that capacity in part because of his
1:06:30
Speaker 1: declining ability to communicate while still meeting that kind of
1:06:35
Speaker 1: decision-making in a meeting threshold. And by the way, I
1:06:38
Speaker 1: believe people in his, maybe it's Jake Sullivan or Tony
1:06:41
Speaker 1: Blinken have said that they did have the 2 a.m.
1:06:43
Speaker 1: moment with him and they did feel like.
1:06:44
Speaker 3: He was up to doing that. Yeah, and I think
1:06:47
Speaker 3: your point of like, what is the job of a
1:06:50
Speaker 3: president is a good one. And so let's say, we
1:06:55
Speaker 3: have senior officials that say that if the job is
1:06:57
Speaker 3: making decisions and communicating, he was clearly not able to
1:07:01
Speaker 3: do the latter for most of the four years and
1:07:03
Speaker 3: it got worse. But also, you know, What's sort of
1:07:07
Speaker 3: striking about their argument is they're saying, yes, he could
1:07:11
Speaker 3: no longer communicate. Yes, he would ramble and stumble in meetings. Yes,
1:07:16
Speaker 3: his schedule was often limited from 10 to 4. His
1:07:19
Speaker 3: energy would be bad when he got tired. He became unfocused.
1:07:23
Speaker 3: But we swear that it never affected. And all those
1:07:27
Speaker 3: things that are signs of decline or aging never affected
1:07:31
Speaker 3: his decision making, which, I mean, they don't know. Yeah.
1:07:37
Speaker 7: So let me just point to some decisions that he
1:07:39
Speaker 7: made that we wonder about. OK, first of all, there's
1:07:43
Speaker 7: the immigration that Senator Bennett wonders about. And I think
1:07:46
Speaker 7: that is a fair a fair argument to make, because
1:07:49
Speaker 7: that is about managing. I mean, Barack Obama was you know,
1:07:55
Speaker 7: he pushed for immigration reform, but he also, you know,
1:07:59
Speaker 7: kept a strict border and deported a lot of people.
1:08:03
Speaker 7: He got a lot of flack for that. as you recall.
1:08:07
Speaker 7: He also got reelected.
1:08:09
Speaker 3: So, I mean.
1:08:10
Speaker 4: But I do think on that one, the part... I mean,
1:08:12
Speaker 4: we could tell a whole conversation about the immigration stance
1:08:15
Speaker 4: of the Democratic Party and how it evolved over the years.
1:08:17
Speaker 4: But I do think, like, the die was cast in
1:08:19
Speaker 4: the 2020 primary when.
1:08:22
Speaker 3: Every candidate was like, yeah, we'll decriminalize border crossings. Except
1:08:25
Speaker 3: for Biden.
1:08:25
Speaker 4: Except for Biden. But the staff, well, look, how much
1:08:28
Speaker 4: was Biden involved and how much not? Like where's the staff?
1:08:31
Speaker 4: Although that's the point. That's what we're saying. But I'm
1:08:34
Speaker 4: saying is that what's surprising about the immigration thing is the, the,
1:08:37
Speaker 4: the closest aides around him are like pretty moderate Democrats, right?
1:08:42
Speaker 4: It's not like a bunch of.
1:08:43
Speaker 7: I don't know about Ron Klain though. Ron Klain, the
1:08:46
Speaker 7: White House chief of staff for the first couple of years, uh,
1:08:49
Speaker 7: became this, even though his roots were in like neo,
1:08:53
Speaker 7: you know, new conservative Democrats like Al Gore, he became
1:08:56
Speaker 7: the hero to the progressives. And I think there's, an
1:09:00
Speaker 7: argument to be made that he steered the ship of
1:09:02
Speaker 7: state to the left. But beyond that, I don't know
1:09:07
Speaker 7: how aware President Biden was that there were criticisms from
1:09:11
Speaker 7: people like Larry Summers or Jason Furman, that they were
1:09:15
Speaker 7: putting too much money into the economy and it was
1:09:17
Speaker 7: going to be inflationary.
1:09:19
Speaker 3: I don't know.
1:09:19
Speaker 7: And now that's necessary. I'm not proving it, but I
1:09:21
Speaker 7: just don't know. I don't know. We have, we have
1:09:24
Speaker 7: no reporting that suggests that the decisions he made about
1:09:27
Speaker 7: Afghanistan in 2021 were enrooted in anything other than his fierce,
1:09:32
Speaker 7: determinative belief that he was right about Afghanistan and that
1:09:36
Speaker 7: Obama and the generals were wrong.
1:09:37
Speaker 5: Yes.
1:09:38
Speaker 3: Okay.
1:09:38
Speaker 7: But I don't know what information he was capable of
1:09:42
Speaker 7: absorbing and synthesizing, as you say, and on and on.
1:09:47
Speaker 1: Part of this, though, is what I realized, and I
1:09:50
Speaker 1: realized in stark relief when reading the book as well,
1:09:53
Speaker 1: is in the same way that I think people around
1:09:56
Speaker 1: Biden who do not to this day believe they were
1:09:59
Speaker 1: part of a cover-up, one piece of evidence being they
1:10:01
Speaker 1: thought he was going to win the debate, they put
1:10:05
Speaker 1: him out there, but that over time being around someone,
1:10:08
Speaker 1: your baseline moves, my baseline moves, right? Because Let's say
1:10:11
Speaker 1: we disagree. And actually, I do think Biden's decision making
1:10:14
Speaker 1: was was up to snuff. And I don't believe his
1:10:16
Speaker 1: actual capacity to make governing decisions was impacted. Part of
1:10:18
Speaker 1: the job of a president is persuading people to come along.
1:10:21
Speaker 1: If you are unable to persuade people to the correctness
1:10:24
Speaker 1: of your views, to build a coalition, either in Congress
1:10:27
Speaker 1: or amongst the public, you're weaker. You can't get things done.
1:10:29
Speaker 1: You can't achieve the goals you're trying to achieve. And
1:10:32
Speaker 1: even Democrats who were making this argument that I was
1:10:35
Speaker 1: among them for a time that no, you can't. You
1:10:40
Speaker 1: may have questions about his ability to communicate, but these
1:10:42
Speaker 1: right-wing fear-mongering about dementia and that he's not doing the job,
1:10:46
Speaker 1: that's unfair. He's able to do the job of president,
1:10:48
Speaker 1: but I was accepting less from a president. I didn't
1:10:51
Speaker 1: realize the cost of having the bully pulpit basically empty.
1:10:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it was... I mean, ever since television was,
1:10:59
Speaker 3: you know, was invented, communication is just an essential part
1:11:02
Speaker 3: of the job. And you could say, like, that's not
1:11:04
Speaker 3: fair or that doesn't... shouldn't matter, but it just does. Yeah.
1:11:08
Speaker 4: And I.
1:11:09
Speaker 3: The bar was lowered like gradually.
1:11:11
Speaker 4: Cause I remember when he gave the state of the
1:11:13
Speaker 4: union in February of 2023. And I remember watching that
1:11:18
Speaker 4: state of the union without looking at Twitter and at
1:11:21
Speaker 4: the reaction. I'm just like, how do I think he's doing?
1:11:23
Speaker 4: And I was like, he got past, he got through it.
1:11:27
Speaker 3: He's okay.
1:11:27
Speaker 4: And then I turned to the coverage or at least
1:11:30
Speaker 4: like social media and everyone was like.
1:11:32
Speaker 3: That was amazing. He's great. And I'm like, he was good.
1:11:35
Speaker 4: Like he didn't have any stumbles and he was like
1:11:36
Speaker 4: quick on his feet to like joust with the Republicans,
1:11:40
Speaker 4: but it wasn't like great. And then you think to yourself,
1:11:43
Speaker 4: and you guys talk about this in the book a lot,
1:11:45
Speaker 4: that there's the Biden-ness, right? Which is Joe Biden forever
1:11:50
Speaker 4: when he was much younger was still amazing. long-winded, gives
1:11:54
Speaker 4: very long answers, tells stories, very gaffe-prone. And so as
1:11:58
Speaker 4: he gets older, and especially as he gets into this
1:12:01
Speaker 4: term as president, you're like, is that just Joe Biden
1:12:05
Speaker 4: being the typical Joe Biden who tells really long stories, stumbles,
1:12:09
Speaker 4: gaffes that he's been doing forever? Or is it something else?
1:12:13
Speaker 4: And I do think that was, it was legitimately difficult
1:12:15
Speaker 4: to figure that out.
1:12:16
Speaker 7: So I'm from Philadelphia. So Joe Biden has been on
1:12:20
Speaker 7: my TV since I was three. because Delaware is such
1:12:25
Speaker 7: a small state. They don't have a media market. They
1:12:27
Speaker 7: rely on ours.
1:12:27
Speaker 2: A lot of toll booths, but no media market.
1:12:29
Speaker 4: Yeah.
1:12:31
Speaker 7: And so the very first, uh, I was a cartoonist
1:12:35
Speaker 7: in college and the very first cartoon I did for
1:12:39
Speaker 7: the daily Dartmouth was making fun of Joe Biden for
1:12:43
Speaker 7: his plagiarism scandal. Um, So this is somebody... So.
1:12:47
Speaker 2: You've had it out for him forever.
1:12:50
Speaker 3: No, it's just... This is actually new information to me.
1:12:55
Speaker 7: When I worked for Salon.com, I interviewed... Or I was
1:12:58
Speaker 7: part of a briefing that he did in 2001. So
1:13:02
Speaker 7: I've been aware of this guy for a long, long time.
1:13:05
Speaker 7: And the Biden-ness, and this is in the book, and
1:13:07
Speaker 7: it's an important part of... Not to let anybody off
1:13:10
Speaker 7: the hook, but it's an important part of why, for
1:13:12
Speaker 7: some people, it was difficult... to understand what was going
1:13:16
Speaker 7: on with him is that he's always been long-winded. He's
1:13:19
Speaker 7: always told long, pointless stories. He's always been a blowhard,
1:13:26
Speaker 7: and he's always been gaff-prone. And in fact, it's really
1:13:30
Speaker 7: remarkable the degree to which his vice presidential staff reinvented
1:13:36
Speaker 7: him as the cool, avuncular uncle with the aviators and
1:13:42
Speaker 7: the ice cream and the Camaro This crowd looks like
1:13:45
Speaker 7: they're at least my age. And so you know, there
1:13:48
Speaker 7: was a time when he was just kind of known
1:13:51
Speaker 7: as a blowhard senator. In fact, not to bring up
1:13:54
Speaker 7: another uncomfortable moment from the Obama campaign, but here I go.
1:13:59
Speaker 3: Jake's memory.
1:14:01
Speaker 1: If only there was somebody who could harness it to
1:14:04
Speaker 1: generate some sort of renewable energy.
1:14:07
Speaker 3: You can buy original sin.
1:14:09
Speaker 7: Profile of Barack Obama in Rolling Stone magazine in 2007
1:14:13
Speaker 7: or 2008. And there is a moment where Barack Obama
1:14:16
Speaker 7: is sitting at a hearing and the chairman of the committee, unnamed,
1:14:20
Speaker 7: is speaking and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And Barack
1:14:23
Speaker 7: Obama writes on a piece of paper and hands it
1:14:24
Speaker 7: to Gibbs, Robert Gibbs. Shoot me now.
1:14:29
Speaker 8: I remember that.
1:14:30
Speaker 4: Who's the chairman and what's the committee?
1:14:31
Speaker 7: Joe Biden, Senate Foreign Relations.
1:14:34
Speaker 4: Well, and look, that had been my impression of Joe
1:14:38
Speaker 4: Biden until he was vice president and we.
1:14:41
Speaker 3: All worked for the White House.
1:14:41
Speaker 7: He was a great vice president and the image was recreated.
1:14:43
Speaker 4: I do think there was part of him that was like,
1:14:46
Speaker 4: he did want to show some discipline as vice president.
1:14:49
Speaker 4: He had ascended to this role and he's just, I mean,
1:14:51
Speaker 4: for all the blowhard and the stories, he was also
1:14:53
Speaker 4: like such a good human being and he was like
1:14:56
Speaker 4: very grounded and I think the relationship, and we can
1:14:59
Speaker 4: talk about where it ended up, but the relationship between
1:15:02
Speaker 4: he and Obama, which started as, okay, this is a partnership,
1:15:05
Speaker 4: it makes sense to you, they became really, really close
1:15:08
Speaker 4: by the end of those four years. And then I
1:15:11
Speaker 4: think beyond that, we all know what happened.
1:15:13
Speaker 7: Yeah, no, but my point is just that that Biden-ness,
1:15:18
Speaker 7: in the book we have aides who are like, well,
1:15:20
Speaker 7: is he just telling a story like he always does,
1:15:23
Speaker 7: or is this something else? Is he just being completely
1:15:26
Speaker 7: inappropriate because he's 79 or has he always been completely inappropriate?
1:15:32
Speaker 7: We have a one European leader, uh, sitting down, having
1:15:36
Speaker 7: a meeting with Biden during his presidency and Biden just blah, blah, blah.
1:15:41
Speaker 7: And like completely misses the brief does not talk about
1:15:44
Speaker 7: what he's supposed to. And this leader says something, but
1:15:46
Speaker 7: he's always been a bit like that. Right. I mean,
1:15:48
Speaker 7: you know, so it was not necessarily, people didn't notice
1:15:52
Speaker 7: it at first.
1:15:54
Speaker 3: Well, and this is, I mean, and, in some, like,
1:15:57
Speaker 3: this story is very familiar, I think, to basically everybody
1:16:00
Speaker 3: who has an aging relative, right? And, you know, is
1:16:03
Speaker 3: the relative doing X because there's something off, or just
1:16:07
Speaker 3: because they're just being themselves, and they're just older, you know? And,
1:16:12
Speaker 3: but in this case, it happened on the largest stage with, like,
1:16:15
Speaker 3: potential consequences for all of us. And that's also, I mean, too,
1:16:18
Speaker 3: you know, we're poking fun at them a little bit,
1:16:20
Speaker 3: but you know, that's why we frame the book as
1:16:23
Speaker 3: a tragedy because he is a good, I mean, he
1:16:26
Speaker 3: is a good man and a well-intentioned one. And he
1:16:30
Speaker 3: was undone by both power, his own ego, and his own, like,
1:16:35
Speaker 3: you know, I think in some ways a virtue of
1:16:37
Speaker 3: never giving up that became sort of a tragic vice.
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Speaker 1: Company for sponsoring this episode. Well, there's also, I think
1:18:25
Speaker 1: there's a more generous version of Biden-ness too, which is
1:18:29
Speaker 1: something I felt even in the days after the debate,
1:18:32
Speaker 1: which is part of why I think we would watch
1:18:36
Speaker 1: that State of the Union or other big Biden moments
1:18:38
Speaker 1: and feel like, am I misreading this? Is he doing
1:18:40
Speaker 1: better than I feel? Because even in past debates, there
1:18:46
Speaker 1: was a sense that, you know what, the people that
1:18:49
Speaker 1: are hyper and in politics, people that have maybe been
1:18:51
Speaker 1: writers in their lives, watch it in a different way,
1:18:54
Speaker 1: in a more kind of persnickety and kind of like
1:18:59
Speaker 1: the Russian judges, kind of grading on points, watching for style.
1:19:06
Speaker 1: they already know what Biden thinks. They already know his
1:19:08
Speaker 1: policy views. So they're watching the language. They're watching the stumbles.
1:19:10
Speaker 1: But people that are just trying to understand what he
1:19:12
Speaker 1: stands for and what he believes and who he is
1:19:13
Speaker 1: as a person aren't feeling that. And the other part
1:19:16
Speaker 1: of this, too, is he was underestimated. That's a wrong
1:19:20
Speaker 1: claim point.
1:19:21
Speaker 3: Throughout his life.
1:19:21
Speaker 1: Throughout his life and as a candidate, you know, that
1:19:24
Speaker 1: he was underestimated in the 2020 primaries.
1:19:26
Speaker 3: He pulls it out.
1:19:28
Speaker 1: In the first two years of his administration, I think,
1:19:31
Speaker 1: governs in an extraordinary way, has achievements through Congress that
1:19:35
Speaker 1: a lot of people thought were impossible, plays his hand
1:19:37
Speaker 1: as well as anybody could possibly play it. And I
1:19:41
Speaker 1: remember when Dean Phillips first jumps in, one of the
1:19:43
Speaker 1: challenges he has is age was the critique, right?
1:19:46
Speaker 3: This is before October.
1:19:48
Speaker 1: 7th and a lot of the fallout that caused, and
1:19:50
Speaker 1: I think part of what you cover in the book
1:19:52
Speaker 1: does reveal why he had such trouble communicating and also adjusting.
1:19:56
Speaker 1: But it was hard to make an argument against Joe Biden,
1:19:59
Speaker 1: especially in the first two years of his term, because
1:20:03
Speaker 1: it was hard to point to moments where age really
1:20:05
Speaker 1: had limited his ability to govern when you look at
1:20:08
Speaker 1: the legislative achievements, when you look at his response to
1:20:11
Speaker 1: the pandemic and the economic crisis. So I do think
1:20:15
Speaker 1: that was part of it, too, that a lot of
1:20:17
Speaker 1: people had felt uncertain about their own judgment, especially in
1:20:21
Speaker 1: a world where Donald Trump could win and Joe Biden
1:20:23
Speaker 1: was the only person who could beat him, that who
1:20:26
Speaker 1: are we to question the people around Joe Biden when
1:20:28
Speaker 1: he'd been so successful?
1:20:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you remember during the 2019-2020 Democratic primary
1:20:34
Speaker 3: when Joe Biden was like, I'm going to be able
1:20:36
Speaker 3: to negotiate with Mitch McConnell. There were little guffaws from
1:20:40
Speaker 3: the base of the party. And Joe Biden passed the
1:20:43
Speaker 3: infrastructure bill with, I think, 19 Senate Republicans. Don't quote
1:20:47
Speaker 3: me on that. And then did an event in early
1:20:50
Speaker 3: 2023 with Mitch McConnell saying, In Kentucky, and Mitch McConnell
1:20:55
Speaker 3: called the infrastructure bill a legislative miracle. So you could
1:20:58
Speaker 3: also imagine how Joe Biden and the people in his
1:21:02
Speaker 3: inner circle who had felt underestimated, who had listened to
1:21:06
Speaker 3: the people laughing at them, were saying, oh, but that
1:21:09
Speaker 3: also created this insularity where eventually they would not listen
1:21:13
Speaker 3: to outside critics, even well-intentioned ones.
1:21:16
Speaker 7: So America loves an underdog. And Joe Biden has been
1:21:20
Speaker 7: an underdog throughout his life. And one of the qualities
1:21:24
Speaker 7: that the American people love about him, admire about him,
1:21:30
Speaker 7: is his ability to get up off the ground after
1:21:34
Speaker 7: fate or God or whatever has thrown something horrible at him.
1:21:38
Speaker 7: Whether it's a debilitating stutter or that horrible car accident
1:21:42
Speaker 7: that took the life of his wife and daughter and
1:21:45
Speaker 7: sent his two sons to the hospital in 1972, or
1:21:46
Speaker 7: his brain aneurysms in 1988. and on and on and on.
1:21:55
Speaker 7: And what makes this a tragedy is that it's that
1:22:01
Speaker 7: quality that makes it so he can't see when it
1:22:05
Speaker 7: is actually time to give up because he has been
1:22:09
Speaker 7: so determined to fight and achieve and do good things
1:22:14
Speaker 7: for the country. He's not, I mean, members of his
1:22:18
Speaker 7: family might be, but he's not trying to enrich himself
1:22:21
Speaker 7: as president of the United States. And then the other
1:22:25
Speaker 7: tragedy about this story is that he defined his presidency
1:22:29
Speaker 7: as a battle for the soul of America to save
1:22:32
Speaker 7: America from Trump and Trumpism. And because of those decisions
1:22:36
Speaker 7: he made to run for reelection and to hide what
1:22:39
Speaker 7: was happening to him, he delivered the country back into
1:22:42
Speaker 7: the hands of Donald Trump.
1:22:44
Speaker 8: Yeah.
1:22:44
Speaker 4: And look, this is why, you know, reading your book
1:22:48
Speaker 4: and just having experienced the last couple of years, You know,
1:22:51
Speaker 4: like I have anger towards Joe Biden. I think I
1:22:53
Speaker 4: have more anger, especially after reading your book, towards the
1:22:59
Speaker 4: close group of advisors that kept most of the other
1:23:02
Speaker 4: White House staff, campaign staff, pollsters, everyone else at bay.
1:23:07
Speaker 4: And no one thought to themselves, can this guy really
1:23:11
Speaker 4: do it? Is this a good idea? I thought one
1:23:13
Speaker 4: of the most shocking revelations in the book for me
1:23:16
Speaker 4: was you talked to some people who worked for Biden
1:23:18
Speaker 4: back in 2020. And you write that ahead of the
1:23:21
Speaker 4: Democratic National Convention in 2020, Biden did a series of
1:23:25
Speaker 4: Zooms to produce a campaign video of him talking to voters.
1:23:28
Speaker 4: And one Democrat you talked to said, who is working
1:23:32
Speaker 4: with the Biden campaign, it was like a different person.
1:23:35
Speaker 4: This was like watching grandpa who shouldn't be driving. I
1:23:37
Speaker 4: didn't think he could be president. This was when some
1:23:40
Speaker 4: top Democrats entered an angry phase. I became disillusioned with
1:23:43
Speaker 4: the entire apparatus because what I was seeing on this
1:23:46
Speaker 4: video in 2020 was That means people working for him
1:23:49
Speaker 4: every day see this. Did anyone else tell you that
1:23:52
Speaker 4: they had concerns as far back as 2020?
1:23:56
Speaker 7: A small handful of people who had known him for
1:23:59
Speaker 7: a long time. One said that the first time that
1:24:05
Speaker 7: they noticed any sort of deterioration came after his son
1:24:10
Speaker 7: Bo's tragic death of brain cancer in May 2015. And
1:24:14
Speaker 7: this person, this top aide said, it was like watching
1:24:18
Speaker 7: water poured on sand, what happened to Biden's psyche. And
1:24:22
Speaker 7: then there were people that popped in on him in 2017, 2018,
1:24:26
Speaker 7: before he ran, who said it seemed as though he'd
1:24:28
Speaker 7: aged 10 years in one or two. And then in
1:24:34
Speaker 7: the Hur report, when Robert Hur does his special counsel
1:24:36
Speaker 7: report on Biden's mishandling of classified information, one of the
1:24:40
Speaker 7: things that, one of the reasons they conclude that they
1:24:43
Speaker 7: can't prosecute Biden successfully, even though they conclude he did
1:24:47
Speaker 7: break the law with the classified information, was not just
1:24:51
Speaker 7: the interview they did with Biden in October 2023, the
1:24:56
Speaker 7: audio of which was released a few weeks ago, but
1:24:58
Speaker 7: because of the audio, the tapes that they had of
1:25:01
Speaker 7: Biden talking to his ghostwriter in 2017, 2018, where it
1:25:07
Speaker 7: sounds like debate Biden, or for want of a better term,
1:25:12
Speaker 7: non-functioning Biden. where he is not clear on dates, where
1:25:16
Speaker 7: he's not clear on situations, and he loses his train
1:25:21
Speaker 7: of thought in a major way. And Alex had great
1:25:25
Speaker 7: reporting in the book that suggested that AIDS said, would
1:25:30
Speaker 7: privately acknowledge that while COVID was one of the worst
1:25:33
Speaker 7: things to happen to the United States, it was one
1:25:35
Speaker 7: of the best things to happen to Joe Biden's presidential
1:25:37
Speaker 7: campaign in 2020, because he could run from his basement. Ah.
1:25:44
Speaker 4: I also can't believe that there was no real discussion
1:25:50
Speaker 4: or debate among Biden and even his broader circle of advisors,
1:25:57
Speaker 4: senior staff, about running for reelection in 2024, particularly because
1:26:04
Speaker 4: he talks about himself in the 2020 campaign now famously as,
1:26:08
Speaker 4: you know, I'm nothing more than a bridge to this
1:26:10
Speaker 4: generation of new leaders behind me. He also says in 2020,
1:26:15
Speaker 4: I'm just a transitional candidate. So he doesn't take a
1:26:18
Speaker 4: one term pledge, but makes it seem like he may
1:26:23
Speaker 4: only serve one term. And then I remember thinking to myself, like,
1:26:29
Speaker 4: is he going to run for reelection? Like, it doesn't
1:26:31
Speaker 4: seem like. And then we did well in the midterms.
1:26:33
Speaker 4: And I was like, oh, I wonder if I wonder
1:26:35
Speaker 4: if they're going to have a debate about this. But
1:26:36
Speaker 4: it sounds like there was no real debate. meeting, discussion, anything?
1:26:40
Speaker 6: Yeah.
1:26:40
Speaker 3: And what's sort of shocking is one of the most
1:26:42
Speaker 3: consequential political decisions, perhaps in American history, is how little
1:26:47
Speaker 3: process there actually was. And basically what happened was Joe Biden, who,
1:26:53
Speaker 3: you know, we were, someone close to him said, he
1:26:55
Speaker 3: is nothing if not for this. And this is the
1:26:57
Speaker 3: guy that had been thinking about being president as soon
1:26:59
Speaker 3: as he was constitutionally eligible to be president. And that
1:27:02
Speaker 3: was in And he basically, he wanted to run for re-election.
1:27:13
Speaker 3: The first lady wanted him to run for re-election. Somebody
1:27:16
Speaker 3: equated Joe Biden, like a long-term advisor, there was this metaphor,
1:27:20
Speaker 3: he's like a shark. He just has to keep swimming
1:27:22
Speaker 3: or he'll die. And basically- Men need therapy.
1:27:26
Speaker 1: And if you're a man here- and you're not in therapy,
1:27:35
Speaker 1: do a favor for your wife.
1:27:37
Speaker 3: Or husband.
1:27:39
Speaker 2: Or husband.
1:27:39
Speaker 3: Thanks, Jake.
1:27:42
Speaker 2: Gaysplain to me during fucking pride.
1:27:47
Speaker 3: Somebody needed to gaysplain. I'm sorry. I was right here.
1:27:50
Speaker 2: Sorry, I interrupted y'all.
1:27:56
Speaker 3: Basically, just as he was going to run, Jill and
1:27:59
Speaker 3: Hunter were completely on board with And, you know, and
1:28:03
Speaker 3: we can get into Hunter stuff later if you want to. But,
1:28:05
Speaker 3: you know, Hunter had obviously, you know, spiraled and I
1:28:08
Speaker 3: think saw in his dad's presidency and the fight against
1:28:12
Speaker 3: Trump sort of a chance to redeem himself. And also
1:28:16
Speaker 3: a way, if we're being honest, to stay out of prison.
1:28:20
Speaker 3: And I think basically the family decided. And when anybody
1:28:24
Speaker 3: in the inner circle was like, are we going to
1:28:26
Speaker 3: talk about this? Are we going to have a real discussion, debate?
1:28:29
Speaker 3: Word came down from Mike Donilon said, president's decided, it's over. And,
1:28:33
Speaker 3: you know, in fairness, like even those that had concerns,
1:28:38
Speaker 3: none of them ever got in Joe Biden's face. You
1:28:40
Speaker 3: could say that's part because of their own, you know, cowardice,
1:28:44
Speaker 3: or also because of the culture that Biden and the
1:28:47
Speaker 3: family in particular had created, where dissent or questioning was
1:28:52
Speaker 3: immediately suspected as disloyalty.
1:28:54
Speaker 7: Barack Obama went by the White House in spring, summer 2023.
1:28:59
Speaker 7: to kind of kick the tires and see if this
1:29:01
Speaker 7: was a good idea. And at that point, their relationship
1:29:04
Speaker 7: was strained enough because, as Obama would put it, when
1:29:09
Speaker 7: people would say to him, is Biden really going to
1:29:12
Speaker 7: run for re-election? You should talk to him. And he
1:29:14
Speaker 7: would say, he's still pissed at me for backing Hillary
1:29:19
Speaker 7: in 2016. So their relationship was at the point where
1:29:23
Speaker 7: Obama didn't feel like he could say, hey, you should
1:29:27
Speaker 7: think twice about this.
1:29:28
Speaker 4: Can you just say about the Hillary thing too?
1:29:32
Speaker 3: It's not true.
1:29:33
Speaker 4: Well, the timeline on this is also, I think it's
1:29:35
Speaker 4: confusing for people because the way the story is told,
1:29:38
Speaker 4: it's like the beginning of the 2016 race and it's
1:29:42
Speaker 4: Hillary and Bernie and Joe Biden and Obama's like, and
1:29:45
Speaker 4: I pick Hillary and that's not what happened at all.
1:29:47
Speaker 4: What happened was Joe, Beau dies and Joe Biden is
1:29:52
Speaker 4: mourning his son Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton enter the race.
1:29:57
Speaker 4: They have six, seven months of campaigning. They have organizations
1:30:01
Speaker 4: in Iowa.
1:30:02
Speaker 7: Ten months. Ten months.
1:30:03
Speaker 4: Okay, ten months of campaigning.
1:30:04
Speaker 7: This is in the book, just so you know. He's
1:30:07
Speaker 7: not lecturing us. He wants to make sure you know. Well,
1:30:09
Speaker 7: because it just gets confusing about like why.
1:30:11
Speaker 4: And so Joe Biden contemplates in the fall a late
1:30:15
Speaker 4: entry into the race after Hillary and Bernie had already
1:30:18
Speaker 4: been campaigning against each other forever and have these big
1:30:20
Speaker 4: organizations in Iowa. And then goes to Obama and is like,
1:30:24
Speaker 4: can I jump into the race this late? And Obama's like, well,
1:30:27
Speaker 4: if you jump into the race this late, A, probably
1:30:30
Speaker 4: it's going to help Bernie Sanders win because Hillary and
1:30:33
Speaker 4: Biden would split the vote of non-progressives. And also was
1:30:38
Speaker 4: genuinely concerned. You guys write this in the book. Genuinely
1:30:40
Speaker 4: concerned about him because he was still grieving his son.
1:30:45
Speaker 3: But that, you know... It.
1:30:47
Speaker 7: Became in Biden's brain... And look, we write about this
1:30:52
Speaker 7: in the book. This is the Biden mythology. And all
1:30:54
Speaker 7: politicians have their own mythology. But by 2019, 2020, it
1:31:01
Speaker 7: had changed into a theology where there was just this faith.
1:31:06
Speaker 7: And it's a small cult of people who believed in it.
1:31:09
Speaker 7: But like all religions, skeptics were not allowed. And this
1:31:15
Speaker 7: belief and part of this mythology or theology is Barack
1:31:20
Speaker 7: didn't back me in 2016, which is also one of
1:31:23
Speaker 7: the reasons why, although Alex and I differ on why
1:31:25
Speaker 7: did Biden endorse Kamala so quickly? My version is the
1:31:30
Speaker 7: more charitable one, which is he's proud of the fact
1:31:33
Speaker 7: that he picked Kamala Harris to be his vice president,
1:31:36
Speaker 7: not so much for Kamala Harris, but because of what
1:31:38
Speaker 7: she represents. And he doesn't want to do to her
1:31:42
Speaker 7: what he thinks Obama did to him, which, as you note,
1:31:45
Speaker 7: is not really accurate. It's revisionist history, but that's how
1:31:49
Speaker 7: he thinks of it. And I think that what Jake
1:31:52
Speaker 7: said is true.
1:31:52
Speaker 3: I just also think that Biden, as he is fuming,
1:31:57
Speaker 3: is like, oh, you're going to kick me out? You
1:31:59
Speaker 3: get Kamala. You're not going to be able to get
1:32:02
Speaker 3: the open process that you guys want, that Obama wants,
1:32:05
Speaker 3: that Pelosi wants. I get to choose who it is,
1:32:10
Speaker 3: and also I'm going to show what it means to
1:32:12
Speaker 3: really be loyal to to my vice president.
1:32:15
Speaker 7: This is one of the few areas of disagreement. There's
1:32:17
Speaker 7: Word versus Google Docs. This is what motivates him. And
1:32:21
Speaker 7: we've learned in our San Francisco leg of the tour,
1:32:24
Speaker 7: he thinks that The Rock is a good movie. I'm
1:32:26
Speaker 7: with Alex on that.
1:32:28
Speaker 3: Thank you.
1:32:28
Speaker 4: What kind of a feat?
1:32:33
Speaker 1: Opinion is that The Rock is not a good movie.
1:32:38
Speaker 4: Man, the people are with me, Jake.
1:32:40
Speaker 2: What a ridiculous statement.
1:32:44
Speaker 3: But I will say, and you guys saw this, that
1:32:46
Speaker 3: resentment toward Obama. We got some of that, too. You
1:32:52
Speaker 3: remember in 2019, Biden would not appear on Pod Save America.
1:32:55
Speaker 3: I think every Democrat running for president appeared on Pod
1:32:58
Speaker 3: Save America. Every Democrat appeared on The Axe Files with
1:33:02
Speaker 3: former Obama advisor David Axelrod. Joe Biden didn't. And I mean,
1:33:06
Speaker 3: I think he did in the general election.
1:33:07
Speaker 4: Yeah, we got him.
1:33:10
Speaker 2: Well, whenever Joe Biden comes on Pod Save America, he
1:33:12
Speaker 2: does win.
1:33:14
Speaker 3: One and one.
1:33:16
Speaker 7: There is one Biden aide said to us that when
1:33:22
Speaker 7: he's talking about the elites, he's talking about Obama.
1:33:27
Speaker 8: Yeah.
1:33:28
Speaker 4: Which is, which it's just, it's, it's sad.
1:33:30
Speaker 7: And I don't like, he's probably talking about us too,
1:33:33
Speaker 7: but I'm just saying like Obama is definitely in his
1:33:35
Speaker 7: brain when he's thinking that.
1:33:37
Speaker 4: Here's the other thing I've always wondered too, like as,
1:33:39
Speaker 4: so he decides he's going to run again. And I
1:33:43
Speaker 4: think a lot of people are like, well, why, why
1:33:44
Speaker 4: didn't the democratic party do something? Why didn't someone get involved?
1:33:48
Speaker 4: Did you guys in your reporting hear anything about other
1:33:53
Speaker 4: potential candidates in 2024? Like, were some of them getting ready?
1:33:58
Speaker 4: Were they thinking about it? Because honestly, like they are
1:34:02
Speaker 4: as responsible, like someone would have had to run against him.
1:34:06
Speaker 4: And we would always, because people like our, our staff
1:34:08
Speaker 4: was like, why is Joe Biden the one? And other people,
1:34:11
Speaker 4: and I'd be like, look, someone's got to run against him.
1:34:15
Speaker 3: You know, and then you guys interviewed Dean Phillips, like
1:34:18
Speaker 3: MSNBC would not even have Dean Phillips on. You guys
1:34:21
Speaker 3: like did a tough, like good interview with him. Yeah.
1:34:23
Speaker 4: And was not, and look, and we were, And during
1:34:26
Speaker 4: that interview, I was like, well, I get why someone
1:34:29
Speaker 4: is running against Joe Biden. It didn't seem like he had.
1:34:31
Speaker 4: And in fairness to Dean Phillips, he was like, look,
1:34:34
Speaker 4: no one else would do it.
1:34:35
Speaker 7: He tried to get Whitmer, Pritzker, Newsom, he tried to
1:34:41
Speaker 7: get them to run. Some of them wouldn't even take
1:34:44
Speaker 7: his call. Bill Daley, Obama's former chief of staff, former
1:34:48
Speaker 7: Clinton commerce secretary, he tried to get people to run.
1:34:52
Speaker 7: Nobody would do it. You know, there isn't a very long,
1:34:56
Speaker 7: proud history of people challenging incumbent presidents and defeating them
1:35:01
Speaker 7: in primaries. Usually what happens is, Ted Kennedy being the
1:35:04
Speaker 7: one exception, usually you go off into disgrace. People still, though,
1:35:09
Speaker 7: were mad at Ted Kennedy for centuries, not centuries, for decades. Well,
1:35:14
Speaker 7: it felt like centuries. For, you know, blaming him for,
1:35:17
Speaker 7: you know, weakening Jimmy Carter. I mean, it's stupid as
1:35:21
Speaker 7: a revisionist, but... There were candidates that were up until
1:35:28
Speaker 7: the end of 2023 watching to see if Joe Biden
1:35:31
Speaker 7: was actually going to go through with this. And there
1:35:34
Speaker 7: were maybe five or six that could have on a
1:35:38
Speaker 7: dime put a campaign together. I think Newsom, Harris, Whitmer, Buttigieg,
1:35:47
Speaker 7: maybe Pritzker. Am I forgetting anything? And Klobuchar.
1:35:54
Speaker 3: But nobody was going to do it against him. Yeah,
1:35:57
Speaker 3: there was sort of a just-in-case primary going on. I mean,
1:36:01
Speaker 3: you had Pritzker and Newsom cutting checks for the Charleston,
1:36:05
Speaker 3: South Carolina mayoral race in 2023. I'm sure it was.
1:36:11
Speaker 3: Completely just good intentioned out of the kindness of their
1:36:13
Speaker 3: hearts to get involved in those races. And yeah, there
1:36:18
Speaker 3: was quietly everyone's positioning. And it got to the point, actually,
1:36:22
Speaker 3: in early 2024, where Biden campaign chair, General Malley Dillon,
1:36:27
Speaker 3: actually starts calling some of the governors and feels like
1:36:31
Speaker 3: they're sort of subtly trying to undermine Biden.
1:36:33
Speaker 7: She hears that Governor Healey of Massachusetts is talking up Whitmer.
1:36:38
Speaker 7: And she and O'Malley Dillon gets mad about it. I
1:36:41
Speaker 7: will say, though, something that is very specific to where
1:36:44
Speaker 7: we are as a country right now is, first of all,
1:36:48
Speaker 7: there is very little incentive for courage built into our politics.
1:36:52
Speaker 7: People are all about the base and all about not
1:36:55
Speaker 7: rocking the boat. Second of all, parties are so weak
1:36:59
Speaker 7: right now. This is a smart crowd, so I'm not
1:37:02
Speaker 7: going to ask, can you name who was DNC chair?
1:37:05
Speaker 7: during the Biden presidency, Jamie Harrison. But I had to
1:37:09
Speaker 7: beat you to it. But this was not somebody who
1:37:14
Speaker 7: was brought in because he was going to be able
1:37:16
Speaker 7: to tell Joe Biden some hard truths.
1:37:18
Speaker 2: Well, there's a Mara Healy.
1:37:21
Speaker 1: I think there's a way to get from that to
1:37:23
Speaker 1: some of the larger lessons that we should take forward
1:37:26
Speaker 1: from this, other than to probably not nominate Joe Biden
1:37:28
Speaker 1: in 2028, which I.
1:37:29
Speaker 3: Think we're all... Settled.
1:37:31
Speaker 4: Settled.
1:37:32
Speaker 2: Pretty good on.
1:37:32
Speaker 3: He's going to resent the positive America even more now.
1:37:36
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:37:37
Speaker 7: You know, you joke about that. They still, to this day,
1:37:40
Speaker 7: Biden and his top aides say that he could have won,
1:37:45
Speaker 7: could have beaten Trump, And he could serve as president
1:37:48
Speaker 7: until January 2029.
1:37:51
Speaker 2: I just think that's sad.
1:37:52
Speaker 7: They still argue that point.
1:37:55
Speaker 1: But I think this gets at what I was going
1:37:58
Speaker 1: to point at from the book, which is you have this,
1:38:00
Speaker 1: there's a moment with Maura Healey where she's walking out
1:38:04
Speaker 1: of the, I guess the White House, and she says
1:38:05
Speaker 1: to Reschetti, I'd love to see the polling.
1:38:07
Speaker 3: And he's like, I know polling.
1:38:09
Speaker 1: And I believe it's directly to you as a quote
1:38:13
Speaker 1: where she says, there's no chessboard, To paraphrase, there's no
1:38:18
Speaker 1: one pulling the strings behind the scenes. There was just
1:38:21
Speaker 1: one old man and his enablers who refused to do
1:38:26
Speaker 1: the right thing. That's basically what she says. And that
1:38:29
Speaker 1: was sort of my, as I'm reading the book, I
1:38:32
Speaker 1: was like, oh my God, everyone was feeling the same way.
1:38:37
Speaker 1: Everyone had these questions. If you saw Joe Biden once
1:38:41
Speaker 1: at his worst, you thought, is this a strange aberrance?
1:38:44
Speaker 1: Am I seeing something that no one else is seeing?
1:38:45
Speaker 3: I'm being reassured.
1:38:47
Speaker 1: And it's not just people that are seeing him at
1:38:49
Speaker 1: town halls. it's governors, it's senators. There was nobody making some,
1:38:56
Speaker 1: there was no grand decision being made. There was no
1:38:59
Speaker 1: DNC making machinations. It was just a bunch of people
1:39:02
Speaker 1: kind of fuddling along, making the best decisions they thought
1:39:06
Speaker 1: they needed to make each day, leading us to this
1:39:08
Speaker 1: kind of cataclysm.
1:39:09
Speaker 3: And the reason why they began increasingly shielding him from governors,
1:39:16
Speaker 3: is to make people say, oh, it was just a one-off.
1:39:19
Speaker 3: It must have just been sort of a bad day,
1:39:20
Speaker 3: bad hour. And they were gaslighting, not just like the
1:39:24
Speaker 3: public and reporters, but they were gaslighting their own members
1:39:28
Speaker 3: and leaders of the Democratic Party, members of their own cabinet.
1:39:31
Speaker 7: Yeah, and one of the things we learned in this,
1:39:34
Speaker 7: we learned so much while researching this book, but one
1:39:37
Speaker 7: of the things we learned is they weren't just hiding
1:39:39
Speaker 7: Biden from the world, they were hiding the world from Biden.
1:39:43
Speaker 7: and when we talk to his pollsters, they are, in
1:39:47
Speaker 7: my view, some of the most moving and alarming sections
1:39:51
Speaker 7: of the book have to do with these three pollsters.
1:39:54
Speaker 7: Most pollsters don't work in the White House. Pollsters always
1:39:56
Speaker 7: work outside of the White House. And the campaign had
1:40:00
Speaker 7: somebody that did data, but then there were also these
1:40:02
Speaker 7: three pollsters. Three of the best in the business.
1:40:05
Speaker 4: Great pollsters.
1:40:06
Speaker 7: Yeah, Jeff Guerin and Molly Murphy and Jeffrey Pollack, and they...
1:40:11
Speaker 7: They had data, and they couldn't ever bring it to
1:40:15
Speaker 7: the president, which is crazy, but they would bring it
1:40:18
Speaker 7: to Donilon and Reschetti, and then Donilon and Reschetti would
1:40:22
Speaker 7: put it through the Donilon and Reschetti-izer and present it.
1:40:27
Speaker 3: To Joe Biden.
1:40:28
Speaker 2: It's a landslide bus.
1:40:31
Speaker 4: They told the New Yorker that they genuinely believe that
1:40:35
Speaker 4: polling is broken now, and so polling doesn't matter, even
1:40:38
Speaker 4: though they had polling that was telling them Bad things.
1:40:42
Speaker 7: And when David Plouffe came in after Biden had dropped
1:40:44
Speaker 7: out and he saw the actual polling and saw that
1:40:48
Speaker 7: not only were they going to lose all of the
1:40:51
Speaker 7: battleground states and by a lot, but they were on
1:40:55
Speaker 7: track to lose Minnesota and Colorado and Virginia and New Mexico,
1:41:02
Speaker 7: I think, was on the bubble and New Hampshire. And
1:41:05
Speaker 7: it would have been a bloodbath. And whatever you think
1:41:08
Speaker 7: of Kamala Harris, she at least brought the party together.
1:41:11
Speaker 7: to treading water. And so it was a bad night,
1:41:16
Speaker 7: but it wasn't just a complete wipeout.
1:41:18
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, the Trump campaign believes, like, they would have
1:41:21
Speaker 3: a 57, potentially a 57-seat majority in the Senate if
1:41:25
Speaker 3: it had not been for Kamala Harris' top ticket.
1:41:27
Speaker 7: It's 53 right now, just for people who are normal.
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1:42:47
Speaker 4: Since the book, you guys have taken a lot of
1:42:48
Speaker 4: shit from both the right and Democrats, Biden supporters.
1:42:54
Speaker 3: On the right... Oh, boy. Read the tweets, baby.
1:42:58
Speaker 4: Well, I'm confused about this because they have accused, the
1:43:04
Speaker 4: Trump media folks have accused you guys of being part
1:43:08
Speaker 4: of the cover-up that you write about.
1:43:11
Speaker 3: It's just Jake. It's mostly Jake. It is mostly Jake.
1:43:13
Speaker 3: It's just me.
1:43:15
Speaker 4: But, like, A, most of the information in the book
1:43:18
Speaker 4: you found out after the election. B, before the election, like,
1:43:23
Speaker 4: people who spent time around Biden either... wouldn't talk to
1:43:28
Speaker 4: reporters or wouldn't tell reporters the truth. So what is the...
1:43:34
Speaker 4: What were you guys... What was the media... Not just YouTube,
1:43:36
Speaker 4: but like the media. I mean, Alex, you won an
1:43:40
Speaker 4: award at the Correspondence Center. And even you said like,
1:43:43
Speaker 4: this is a story we all miss. And I thought
1:43:46
Speaker 4: that was... I was like, I don't know that you
1:43:48
Speaker 4: guys necessarily missed the story because there wasn't a story
1:43:52
Speaker 4: to get if the people who could tell the story
1:43:54
Speaker 4: refused to tell it.
1:43:55
Speaker 3: I think... So a few different points on that. I
1:43:59
Speaker 3: think there is a difference between while a lot of
1:44:03
Speaker 3: right wing media was right to be skeptical of Biden's abilities,
1:44:09
Speaker 3: there's a big difference between showing on a loop him
1:44:14
Speaker 3: stumbling up the stairs of Air Force One and doing
1:44:17
Speaker 3: behind the scenes reporting. I also said I thought we
1:44:20
Speaker 3: missed a lot of the story in part because Jake
1:44:22
Speaker 3: and I had just done this book and I was like,
1:44:24
Speaker 3: holy shit. there was a lot that I didn't know. Now,
1:44:28
Speaker 3: that being said, I do think, in particular for reporting
1:44:33
Speaker 3: and reporters, a hinge moment is after Robert Herr's report
1:44:38
Speaker 3: in early 2024, in which he basically decides not to
1:44:42
Speaker 3: prosecute Joe Biden because he says the jury would not
1:44:46
Speaker 3: convict such an old man with a bad memory. And
1:44:51
Speaker 3: if you look at the coverage, I think the White House...
1:44:54
Speaker 3: comms team, you know, props to them. They did a
1:44:56
Speaker 3: very good job. Uh, but I think if you look
1:44:58
Speaker 3: at the coverage, it was not skeptical enough. And I
1:45:03
Speaker 3: think that's, if I think, you know, I think the
1:45:05
Speaker 3: fairest critique is really those like four or five months
1:45:09
Speaker 3: before the debate, when after the special counsel report, I think, um, that's,
1:45:15
Speaker 3: that's what I think. Like you can really, I think
1:45:17
Speaker 3: objectively argue the media did not do a good enough job.
1:45:21
Speaker 7: Yeah. What about you?
1:45:23
Speaker 4: I had to watch Megyn Kelly yell at you for
1:45:25
Speaker 4: a while on that show. I was like, what?
1:45:28
Speaker 2: You actually didn't have to.
1:45:29
Speaker 7: I think that the conservative media, we discovered while we
1:45:37
Speaker 7: were reporting this, was right to be skeptical of his
1:45:41
Speaker 7: acuity from the beginning, from 2019. Because our reporting suggested
1:45:45
Speaker 7: that it was an issue as far back as 2015.
1:45:48
Speaker 7: And so.
1:45:51
Speaker 7: You know, when I get new information, I change my mind,
1:45:56
Speaker 7: which is not, I think, a difficult thing for mature
1:45:59
Speaker 7: adults to do. So I have no problem acknowledging that
1:46:07
Speaker 7: the skepticism in 2019, 2020 about his acuity was correct.
1:46:12
Speaker 7: I thought he was aging. I didn't see acuity issues
1:46:15
Speaker 7: at that time. I was mistaken. The Tone and tenor
1:46:21
Speaker 7: of some of the criticism, I think, is rooted in
1:46:24
Speaker 7: the fact that a lot of these same people said
1:46:29
Speaker 7: that when Obama took office, he was a secret Muslim,
1:46:34
Speaker 7: that the new Black Panthers were going to take over
1:46:37
Speaker 7: the country, that Hillary was going to die in 2016,
1:46:41
Speaker 7: that the election was stolen in 2020, and on and
1:46:45
Speaker 7: on and on.
1:46:45
Speaker 4: I mean, the current president, just a couple days ago,
1:46:50
Speaker 4: shared a post that said, actually, Biden was executed in
1:46:53
Speaker 4: 2020 and it was a body double the entire time.
1:46:56
Speaker 2: By the way, we should have paid more for that
1:46:58
Speaker 2: body double.
1:46:59
Speaker 3: Thank you. Can we not get a.
1:47:01
Speaker 2: If we're going to replace the guy.
1:47:02
Speaker 1: This guy, we got a used body double.
1:47:07
Speaker 7: Do you have anything in a Ryan Reynolds? Yeah, something
1:47:11
Speaker 7: new off the lot here. So I think that they are... And,
1:47:16
Speaker 7: you know, they were right about this. Now, again, as
1:47:20
Speaker 7: Alex says, there's a difference between calling him an applesauce
1:47:26
Speaker 7: head and laughing at him and saying he needs a
1:47:29
Speaker 7: sippy cup and showing these clips on a loop and
1:47:33
Speaker 7: doing investigative reporting. But that said, because of what you mentioned,
1:47:39
Speaker 7: it took a lot to do investigative reporting on this.
1:47:43
Speaker 7: And even if you go back and read some of
1:47:46
Speaker 7: the pieces that really were shocking at the time, Peter
1:47:50
Speaker 7: Baker wrote one in 2023 about how much rest they
1:47:53
Speaker 7: built into his schedule in terms of trips. Alex's incredible
1:47:57
Speaker 7: scoops about Biden's schedule. The Wall Street Journal reporters Siobhan
1:48:02
Speaker 7: Hughes and Annie Linsky. Like even if you if you
1:48:06
Speaker 7: go back and read those incredibly important stories that were
1:48:09
Speaker 7: very difficult and brought a lot of criticism to the reporters,
1:48:13
Speaker 7: they're nothing compared to what we found out. after the
1:48:17
Speaker 7: election was over and people felt like, OK, I don't
1:48:20
Speaker 7: have to worry about helping to elect Trump. He already won.
1:48:24
Speaker 7: So now I can unburden myself.
1:48:25
Speaker 1: I'd also just also add to that the American people
1:48:28
Speaker 1: had made up their decision. on Joe Biden's age. They
1:48:31
Speaker 1: had decided he was too old to seek re-election.
1:48:33
Speaker 7: They decided that in 2022.
1:48:35
Speaker 1: But so to the idea that this is something that
1:48:37
Speaker 1: wasn't in front of people, that wasn't a big subject
1:48:39
Speaker 1: of discussion, it was one of the most important debates.
1:48:41
Speaker 1: We were talking about it on Pod Save America all
1:48:43
Speaker 1: the time. How does he address this liability? He's failing
1:48:46
Speaker 1: to address it. And the weeks after the debate, it
1:48:48
Speaker 1: was shocking, not just the performance in the debate, but
1:48:51
Speaker 1: that the obvious solution is him going out there over
1:48:54
Speaker 1: and over again was not one they were taking advantage of.
1:48:57
Speaker 1: And it's, it's really, chilling to read in the book
1:49:00
Speaker 1: that that's not a demand being made just from people
1:49:02
Speaker 1: on the outside Chuck Schumer is asking that different senators
1:49:05
Speaker 1: are asking.
1:49:05
Speaker 7: And Schumer concludes that he's not doing it because he
1:49:09
Speaker 7: can't now I'm.
1:49:10
Speaker 1: Sorry to do this and because I do think we
1:49:15
Speaker 1: have some audio that I think is important to play
1:49:17
Speaker 1: and I think it is an indictment of you personally
1:49:21
Speaker 1: Jake speaking of what this is speaking of Chuck Schumer
1:49:25
Speaker 1: I did listen to part of the book in the
1:49:28
Speaker 1: car I did some on the text, but some in
1:49:33
Speaker 1: the car. Can we just play a little bit of
1:49:36
Speaker 1: the audio version of Original Sin?
1:49:40
Speaker 7: I'm urging you not to run. Do you think Kamala
1:49:43
Speaker 7: can win? Biden asked. I don't know if she can win,
1:49:47
Speaker 7: Schumer said. I just know that you cannot. Biden said
1:49:52
Speaker 7: that he needed a week. They stood. On their way out,
1:49:55
Speaker 7: Biden put his hands on Schumer's shoulders. You have bigger
1:49:58
Speaker 7: balls than anyone I've ever met Biden told him.
1:50:04
Speaker 3: You did a voice? What the fuck was that?
1:50:05
Speaker 8: Multiple voices.
1:50:07
Speaker 2: Wow.
1:50:08
Speaker 3: I screwed up. I should have listened to the audio.
1:50:10
Speaker 1: I don't even know how it's possible that your impression
1:50:12
Speaker 1: of Chuck Schumer is anti-Semitic.
1:50:14
Speaker 3: You're a Jewish man.
1:50:16
Speaker 2: You're from Philadelphia.
1:50:19
Speaker 7: I will tell you, wherever I go on this book tour,
1:50:25
Speaker 7: People come and they say, I'm listening to the book
1:50:27
Speaker 7: on tape and I love your impression. That is the
1:50:32
Speaker 7: God's honest truth. This is actually the first time I
1:50:36
Speaker 7: have heard that. Yeah, me too.
1:50:38
Speaker 3: I thought it was good. Also, you did a Biden too.
1:50:41
Speaker 3: I didn't know.
1:50:42
Speaker 7: I was holding back because I didn't want it to
1:50:44
Speaker 7: be full anti-Semitic.
1:50:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
1:50:46
Speaker 3: You went half.
1:50:47
Speaker 7: Just slightly.
1:50:48
Speaker 3: Unbelievable. I'm Jewish in case people don't know this.
1:50:50
Speaker 2: He's Jewish.
1:50:51
Speaker 7: And very proud of it. And if you have a
1:50:53
Speaker 7: problem with that, you can leave. I'll do the last question.
1:50:59
Speaker 4: That's based on the criticism, uh, that you guys have
1:51:02
Speaker 4: gotten from a lot of Democrats. Uh, this criticism we
1:51:07
Speaker 4: get whenever we talk about it, uh, which is why
1:51:10
Speaker 4: is this still relevant now? And leave the guy alone,
1:51:14
Speaker 4: you know, leave, leave the past in the past. And
1:51:17
Speaker 4: let's focus on the current president who at least half
1:51:20
Speaker 4: the country would argue is, is more unfit than Joe Biden,
1:51:25
Speaker 4: albeit for different reasons.
1:51:27
Speaker 3: Um, What do you guys say to that? I mean,
1:51:30
Speaker 3: I would say this is part of the reason why
1:51:33
Speaker 3: the Democratic Party is in the situation it's in. I mean,
1:51:35
Speaker 3: anytime there was any coverage about age, whether or not
1:51:38
Speaker 3: I brought it up or Jake brought it up, it was,
1:51:41
Speaker 3: what about Trump? And reporting is about holding up a mirror.
1:51:45
Speaker 3: And the Democratic Party can either look in the mirror
1:51:48
Speaker 3: and recognize this is part of the reason they lost,
1:51:51
Speaker 3: that while they rightly mock Republicans for trashing Trump in
1:51:56
Speaker 3: private and then going out there and saying he's the
1:51:59
Speaker 3: most ethical, bestest president in American history, you know, they
1:52:03
Speaker 3: were doing the exact same thing when they were trotting
1:52:06
Speaker 3: out being like, Biden is sharp, he's running circles around us,
1:52:09
Speaker 3: he is so engaged, you wouldn't even believe it, all
1:52:12
Speaker 3: you had to do is be in the meetings. And
1:52:14
Speaker 3: it just wasn't true. So I guess, you know, Democrats,
1:52:18
Speaker 3: if they want, I have no idea if the Democratic Party,
1:52:20
Speaker 3: if the voters are actually going to engage with the
1:52:24
Speaker 3: content of this book, but Reporting is just about trying
1:52:27
Speaker 3: to hold up that mirror in front of people and
1:52:30
Speaker 3: whether or not they look in is up to them.
1:52:32
Speaker 7: So I have two points on this. First of all,
1:52:34
Speaker 7: it just happened. The debate wasn't even a year ago.
1:52:39
Speaker 7: It was June of last year. I mean, it just happened.
1:52:43
Speaker 7: When were you supposed to write books?
1:52:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, by the way, also, I learned here tonight that
1:52:50
Speaker 1: you did the book proposal on November 6th.
1:52:52
Speaker 2: You are sick.
1:52:53
Speaker 3: You're a sick man.
1:52:55
Speaker 7: I have problems. The other point I would make, it's true,
1:52:59
Speaker 7: I'm very driven. I agree.
1:53:02
Speaker 3: He cares too much. That's his biggest weakness. That's my, okay,
1:53:06
Speaker 3: quick Obama aside. Oh, no.
1:53:09
Speaker 7: No, this is a good Obama story. This is one
1:53:11
Speaker 7: of my favorite Obama stories. It's one of the first
1:53:13
Speaker 7: debates in 2020, 2007 or 2008. And it's like Hillary,
1:53:19
Speaker 7: John Edwards, and Obama. And they're asked, what is your
1:53:22
Speaker 7: biggest fault? And Obama goes first. And he's like, well,
1:53:25
Speaker 7: I'm really messy. I have a messy desk. It's a
1:53:28
Speaker 7: real problem. And then John Edwards is like... I care
1:53:34
Speaker 7: so much about people.
1:53:35
Speaker 3: The voices. The voices.
1:53:37
Speaker 7: I really, really, it's a problem. I really care about
1:53:41
Speaker 7: the American people. And then Hillary's like, I work so hard.
1:53:46
Speaker 7: I work so hard for the American people. And then
1:53:49
Speaker 7: Obama's like, wait a second. I didn't think we were
1:53:51
Speaker 7: giving answers like that. I thought we were supposed to
1:53:54
Speaker 7: really answer the question. The best Obama moment ever.
1:53:58
Speaker 4: And then he would, he would tell that story on
1:54:00
Speaker 4: the stump for like the next couple of weeks. It
1:54:02
Speaker 4: was like a great laugh line.
1:54:04
Speaker 7: The other thing I would say in response to the,
1:54:06
Speaker 7: why aren't you covering Trump? I cover Trump every day
1:54:08
Speaker 7: for two hours, um, still even on the road. Uh,
1:54:11
Speaker 7: but beyond that, so, uh, I don't know how many
1:54:13
Speaker 7: of you have gone to New York to see good
1:54:15
Speaker 7: night and good luck. Um, if you haven't yet, it's great.
1:54:18
Speaker 7: If you haven't yet, CNN is actually going to show
1:54:20
Speaker 7: it on Saturday night on CNN. Um, and you should
1:54:22
Speaker 7: see it cause it's really good. It's a, they're, they're,
1:54:25
Speaker 7: they're doing a live, uh, uh, broadcast of the play.
1:54:29
Speaker 7: But at the very end of the whole play takes
1:54:32
Speaker 7: place in 1954, it's Murrow and McCarthy and all that.
1:54:35
Speaker 7: At the very end, there is like, the one thing
1:54:39
Speaker 7: that's not said in 1954 is there's this montage of
1:54:41
Speaker 7: video clips of television news. And, you know, there's like
1:54:46
Speaker 7: the moon landing and JFK getting assassinated and all these things.
1:54:49
Speaker 7: And at the end of this montage, it's maybe, I
1:54:52
Speaker 7: don't even know, five, 10 minutes, something like that. It
1:54:54
Speaker 7: goes like that. But At the end of it, you
1:54:56
Speaker 7: see Republicans lying about the 2020 election on cable, and
1:55:00
Speaker 7: then you see Democrats lying about Biden's acuity on cable.
1:55:06
Speaker 7: And I asked Clooney for an interview I did when
1:55:09
Speaker 7: we did the New Yorker excerpt of the book, just
1:55:13
Speaker 7: to give like a little special something for the New Yorker.
1:55:17
Speaker 7: I asked Clooney to weigh in. Why did you put
1:55:21
Speaker 7: that in? Obviously, George Clooney... played a role in all
1:55:25
Speaker 7: of this when he wrote his op-ed calling for Biden
1:55:27
Speaker 7: to drop out. And he said, it's important that we,
1:55:30
Speaker 7: you know, call that out to the people vouching for
1:55:32
Speaker 7: Biden because we have to speak truth to power no
1:55:35
Speaker 7: matter who's in power. And I said, well, what do
1:55:37
Speaker 7: you tell people who say, you know, what about Trump?
1:55:41
Speaker 7: He said, how do you think we got Trump?
1:55:45
Speaker 8: Yeah.
1:55:47
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, I mean, look, from a perspective of,
1:55:50
Speaker 4: you know, a couple Democrats who want Democrats to win again,
1:55:54
Speaker 4: You cannot tell people that what they are seeing and
1:55:57
Speaker 4: what they are hearing isn't true. And it wasn't just
1:56:01
Speaker 4: over the last four years. It was a Biden thing
1:56:03
Speaker 4: with the age. It was also about inflation and costs.
1:56:08
Speaker 4: And someone would say, oh, gas prices are high. And
1:56:10
Speaker 4: then someone would say, oh, well, you just took that
1:56:12
Speaker 4: picture in front of a gas station where the prices
1:56:15
Speaker 4: are always high. And it's like, I get that that
1:56:16
Speaker 4: can be frustrating. I've been on the other side of it.
1:56:19
Speaker 4: I've worked in the White House and yelled at reporters,
1:56:23
Speaker 4: maybe you guys, Um, but like at some point the
1:56:27
Speaker 4: voters get to decide and you have to listen to
1:56:30
Speaker 4: the voters because if you do not listen to the voters,
1:56:33
Speaker 4: you cannot get the votes.
1:56:34
Speaker 3: You need to take power.
1:56:35
Speaker 4: It seems very simple, but it is something that we,
1:56:37
Speaker 4: we have at least some parts of the party have forgotten.
1:56:40
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's a lesson of this book that,
1:56:42
Speaker 3: you know, there's an old expression that Washington is often
1:56:45
Speaker 3: the last to get the news and the democratic party and,
1:56:50
Speaker 3: and very much including, and especially this, the Biden white house, uh,
1:56:55
Speaker 3: did not want to respect or listen to their own voters.
1:56:59
Speaker 3: And I think you could also argue that the Democratic
1:57:03
Speaker 3: Party has not listened or totally respected their voters in
1:57:08
Speaker 3: the last three presidential primaries. And some of the argument
1:57:10
Speaker 3: has been, well, we don't want a divisive primary because
1:57:13
Speaker 3: Hillary was hurt by Bernie. You guys know, probably the
1:57:16
Speaker 3: most divisive Democratic primary in recent American history was your guys'.
1:57:20
Speaker 3: And Obama entered with 60 Democratic Senate seats. Divisive primaries
1:57:26
Speaker 3: allow for debate and for voters to decide who the
1:57:29
Speaker 3: strongest candidate is. They're not inherently bad.
1:57:31
Speaker 7: I would argue that the last time the Democratic Party,
1:57:34
Speaker 7: on the presidential level, listened to its voters was 2008.
1:57:37
Speaker 7: What about 2020? I don't know.
1:57:38
Speaker 3: In 2020, the party....
1:57:43
Speaker 7: So just to remind folks, Buttigieg won Iowa, Bernie won
1:57:47
Speaker 7: New Hampshire, Bernie won Nevada, Joe Biden won South Carolina.
1:57:52
Speaker 7: And then there was this uprising of Obama and the
1:57:55
Speaker 7: party influencers to get everybody out of the race, except
1:58:00
Speaker 7: for Joe Biden, so that they could beat Bernie, because
1:58:04
Speaker 7: they were terrified Bernie was going to be the nominee.
1:58:07
Speaker 7: And they did that. They, I'm not here to advocate
1:58:10
Speaker 7: for Bernie Sanders, but, um, and obviously it worked out
1:58:13
Speaker 7: the way the Democrats wanted it to work out. But
1:58:15
Speaker 7: the last time Democrats actually in 2012 doesn't really count
1:58:19
Speaker 7: because it's an incumbent, but the last time there was
1:58:21
Speaker 7: an open process and the Democrats said, okay, go, you know, Obama,
1:58:26
Speaker 7: Hillary Edwards, whoever Biden, uh, Chris Dodd, whatever, like, And
1:58:31
Speaker 7: the voters did a pretty good job.
1:58:32
Speaker 1: Well, the voters also, I mean, look, yes, but voters
1:58:35
Speaker 1: chose Joe Biden in that primary in 2020. I think
1:58:38
Speaker 1: there's some truth in what you're saying, but I will
1:58:40
Speaker 1: also say there was another moment when I feel like
1:58:42
Speaker 1: what we saw was a kind of the voters having
1:58:46
Speaker 1: their say in a way and a kind of moment
1:58:48
Speaker 1: where you saw how the Democratic Party is very different
1:58:50
Speaker 1: than the Republican Party, which is after that debate.
1:58:53
Speaker 3: Because I do think there's a part of this story that.
1:58:55
Speaker 1: Is, I think, even though it did not end the
1:58:57
Speaker 1: way we had all hoped, is inspiring, which is in
1:59:00
Speaker 1: the wake of that debate, what you saw is people
1:59:02
Speaker 1: willing to tell the truth about what they saw and
1:59:05
Speaker 1: the importance of making a change. You have leading Democrats
1:59:07
Speaker 1: going to Joe Biden, asking him to step aside. You
1:59:10
Speaker 1: have these incredible moments which you report on in the
1:59:12
Speaker 1: book of members of Congress trying to speak directly to
1:59:15
Speaker 1: Joe Biden about this, not liking what they're hearing, not
1:59:18
Speaker 1: accepting no for an answer. You have people on the
1:59:21
Speaker 1: outside talking about this. You have a real and genuine
1:59:24
Speaker 1: moment of, a group of people coming together and saying, hey,
1:59:27
Speaker 1: for the good of the country, this guy has to
1:59:28
Speaker 1: step aside because Trump is an existential threat. And it
1:59:31
Speaker 1: may not have ended in Kamala being president, but it did,
1:59:34
Speaker 1: I think, speak to me, like the values you're trying
1:59:37
Speaker 1: to say we didn't evince before when people were getting
1:59:42
Speaker 1: behind Joe Biden.
1:59:44
Speaker 3: I would say they get half credit. I mean, I
1:59:47
Speaker 3: think your point is well taken that if Donald Trump
1:59:51
Speaker 3: had had, like showed serious signs of decline or whatever,
1:59:54
Speaker 3: that and had that similar debate, I grant the point
1:59:58
Speaker 3: that a lot of Republican lawmakers would not have the
2:00:01
Speaker 3: courage to finally speak out and say something.
2:00:03
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, he tried to steal an election and
2:00:06
Speaker 4: stage an insurrection in the Capitol, and they're.
2:00:07
Speaker 3: Like, all right, let's do it.
2:00:08
Speaker 1: They had 24 hours of courage in the wake of it.
2:00:09
Speaker 1: All I'm saying is I think what I take away
2:00:11
Speaker 1: from it is there was no one in charge. There
2:00:14
Speaker 1: was no one making the decision. We were kind of
2:00:16
Speaker 1: sleepwalking towards disaster. And then after that debate, we woke up.
2:00:20
Speaker 1: And the question is now, how do we make sure
2:00:22
Speaker 1: we stay awake and are honest about challenges the Democratic
2:00:26
Speaker 1: Party faces.
2:00:26
Speaker 3: Granted. I was just going to add, though, I don't
2:00:28
Speaker 3: think you get points for courage when you only do
2:00:32
Speaker 3: it because you now believe you might lose.
2:00:35
Speaker 2: Oh, Alex, I thought we were going to lose for months.
2:00:38
Speaker 4: I think we just knew it after the debate.
2:00:43
Speaker 7: I think that Alex and I have a slightly less
2:00:46
Speaker 7: positive review of Democrats, and I'll just tell you why.
2:00:50
Speaker 7: Can anybody here guess how many Democratic governors... called for
2:00:54
Speaker 7: Biden to drop out of the race after the debate? One. Governor,
2:01:00
Speaker 7: Governor Healey of Massachusetts. How many Democratic senators?
2:01:05
Speaker 1: One.
2:01:06
Speaker 7: Senator Welsh of Vermont. I mean, it wasn't an outpouring
2:01:10
Speaker 7: of courage. It was a lot of behind the scenes
2:01:13
Speaker 7: maneuvering because people didn't want to come across as jerks.
2:01:17
Speaker 7: The House members were braver.
2:01:19
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:01:20
Speaker 3: Um, and, and they're, you know, they're the lowest on
2:01:22
Speaker 3: the totem pole in Washington. We thought we were going insane.
2:01:25
Speaker 3: We were like, what, what is happening? What did they,
2:01:26
Speaker 3: did we miss something?
2:01:27
Speaker 2: Well, the thing, that was what was so surprised, right?
2:01:29
Speaker 1: Cause we're talking about it and we're getting a lot
2:01:31
Speaker 1: of blowback online, but privately hearing from a lot of
2:01:35
Speaker 1: people being like, thank you guys for saying, glad you
2:01:36
Speaker 1: guys are out there saying this.
2:01:37
Speaker 2: We need people out there saying this.
2:01:40
Speaker 7: And then the other thing I would say is that the,
2:01:43
Speaker 7: the argument is about whether or not he should be
2:01:44
Speaker 7: the nominee. But the truth of the matter is our
2:01:47
Speaker 7: reporting suggests that he, he could not be an effective
2:01:50
Speaker 7: president 24 seven, which is what the job requires. And
2:01:54
Speaker 7: there's only one member of, there's only one elected democratic
2:01:57
Speaker 7: official that I know of. And that's Congresswoman Marie Glusenkamp
2:02:01
Speaker 7: Perez in Washington state who actually said he shouldn't be
2:02:04
Speaker 7: the nominee. And to be honest, he probably shouldn't be
2:02:05
Speaker 7: president either.
2:02:07
Speaker 4: And although you said too, in the book, this also
2:02:09
Speaker 4: shocked me that out of the 200 plus people you
2:02:12
Speaker 4: guys talked to, there were very few, uh, who actually
2:02:16
Speaker 4: thought he could serve out a second term, which that
2:02:18
Speaker 4: means that that would include senior White House staff, campaign staff,
2:02:21
Speaker 4: who told you that they did not think he could serve.
2:02:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, they were like, the plan was to get to
2:02:26
Speaker 3: November 5th and figure it out later. I mean, we
2:02:28
Speaker 3: had one long-time Biden aide that, I mean, that was,
2:02:34
Speaker 3: I mean, if the right wing sometimes refers to the
2:02:39
Speaker 3: Trump derangement syndrome, mocking Democrats that I think actually very
2:02:43
Speaker 3: sincerely are opposed to Trump's agenda. But if you continue
2:02:46
Speaker 3: the metaphor, the biggest symptom is publicly telling everyone that
2:02:51
Speaker 3: Joe Biden could be president for another four years. And
2:02:55
Speaker 3: the people knew that he could not do the job
2:02:58
Speaker 3: he was running for, but there was such fear of
2:03:01
Speaker 3: Trump that they said, let's go. And members, longtime Biden
2:03:05
Speaker 3: people basically felt that eventually if he had won, there
2:03:09
Speaker 3: would have eventually been some sort of constitutional crisis because
2:03:13
Speaker 3: clearly the people around him were not willing to cede power.
2:03:17
Speaker 7: So we always say that almost all the interviews of
2:03:21
Speaker 7: the more than 200 we did for the book were
2:03:22
Speaker 7: after the election. We have to put in the stupid
2:03:24
Speaker 7: almost because of this one interview that Alex did with somebody.
2:03:27
Speaker 7: Tell them what they told you.
2:03:28
Speaker 3: I mean, they were honest. It was a longtime Biden aide,
2:03:30
Speaker 3: and they said all he had to do was win
2:03:32
Speaker 3: and then only had to show proof of life every
2:03:35
Speaker 3: once in a while.
2:03:37
Speaker 2: I feel like we've... I want to end on a
2:03:41
Speaker 2: light moment from the book. LAUGHTER Do we.
2:03:45
Speaker 3: Have another clip?
2:03:46
Speaker 2: No, this is a small moment.
2:03:47
Speaker 7: We didn't even play my Obama, which is really good.
2:03:50
Speaker 3: That is true. His Obama is good.
2:03:52
Speaker 4: Not because I've listened, but because he does.
2:03:54
Speaker 3: It all the time.
2:03:55
Speaker 2: Save it for the sequel.
2:03:56
Speaker 7: The return of Hunter.
2:04:01
Speaker 4: You can do the voiceover for the second volume of
2:04:03
Speaker 4: Promised Land for Obama.
2:04:06
Speaker 1: So the debate happens, and how does it come to
2:04:09
Speaker 1: be that Doug Emhoff is watching the debate with Rob Reiner.
2:04:13
Speaker 3: And then the debate ends.
2:04:14
Speaker 2: Rob Reiner, furious, starts berating Doug Emhoff.
2:04:18
Speaker 3: Poor Doug.
2:04:19
Speaker 7: Well, I think it was more that he was, that
2:04:21
Speaker 7: Rob Reiner, who is a very excitable fella, was just screaming.
2:04:28
Speaker 7: And he seemed to be yelling at Emhoff. And he said,
2:04:32
Speaker 7: we're going to lose our fucking democracy because of you.
2:04:36
Speaker 7: And Emhoff thought, because of me?
2:04:40
Speaker 2: Because of sweet Doug? We can all agree that Doug
2:04:43
Speaker 2: is not to blame.
2:04:45
Speaker 3: Well.
2:04:45
Speaker 2: Okay, that has to be it. That's it, that's it.
2:04:48
Speaker 3: Doug Emhoff, no. Jake, Alex, thank you so much.
2:04:51
Speaker 6: Thank you.
2:04:51
Speaker 3: Everybody go buy Original Sense. That's our show for today.
2:05:00
Speaker 7: Oof, long one.
2:05:01
Speaker 4: Lovett and Tommy and I will be back with a
2:05:03
Speaker 4: new show on Monday. If you want to listen to
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2:05:31
Speaker 4: it with friends and family. Pod Save America is a
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Speaker 4: Cricket Media production. Our producers are David Toledo and Saul Rubin.
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Speaker 4: Our associate producer is Farrah Safari. Reid Cherlin is our
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Speaker 4: executive editor and Adrian Hill is our executive producer. The
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Speaker 4: show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor
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Speaker 4: is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin
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Speaker 4: and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of news
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Speaker 4: and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Naomi
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Speaker 4: Sengel is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team,
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Speaker 4: Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Ben Hethcote, Mia Kelman, Molly Lobel,
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Speaker 4: Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild
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Speaker 4: of America East.