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Episode One Hundred Seventy One: Zoo Animals · The Death Of Journalism

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Welcome to episode number one hundred and seventy one of the Death of Journalism podcast.
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My name is John Zigler. I'm your host on today's show. It
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appears that the Democratic coup against Joe Biden is standing down or is it just
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regrouping. George Stefanopholis has caught admitting the obvious about Biden's future. Things get
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heated in the White House press briefings over Parkinson's disease, and as Donald Trump
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finally listening to some of my advice, well maybe just a little bit.
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We begin this episode with the state of the Biden coup. In the last
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episode of the Death of Journalism podcast, I told you that it looked to
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me as if Biden was going to survive this. I've always felt as if
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he was going to survive this, but that the chances of him doing so
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we're increasing almost by the minute because of what transpired on Monday morning with him
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or his people releasing the mutual assured destruction threat, which was essentially right out
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of the Trump playbook, where Biden basically said, look, you want to
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come after me, come after me, good luck. I'm going to stay
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in this. I'm not going anywhere and if you come after me, this
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is going to be bad for me, bad for you, bad for everybody,
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bad for the party, bad for the country. And I thought he
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had a very good point. Now I do think there's huge problems with this
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entire tactic if you're of the belief that Joe Biden is this honorable, honest,
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character driven old man who just is beyond his years, because that's the
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narrative that a lot of Democrats and even some of the liberal media have still
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been trying to sell to us. And my reaction to this is okay,
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politically, strategically, from a Machiavellian perspective, this is the exact right button
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to push. But how do you still make maintain your image of Joe Biden
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as this man of dignity and honor and character and honesty when he's willing to
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blow up the entire party And by the way, based upon your theory of
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this race, if Donald Trump is elected, the country has gone forever.
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He's willing to blow up the country too. Because the whole basis of this
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gambit was that, look, you can't get me without destroying the party.
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And this is something I've been saying for even before the debate the backle but
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certainly once this became a major issue post debate, Biden is right or Biden
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whoever is making Biden's decisions for him, whoever's behind the strategy I believe is
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one hundred percent correct, But that doesn't make it morally right. It doesn't
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make it consistent with the narrative the image that has been created for Joe Biden.
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Those are two things are completely inconsistent in my view, and there have
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been some Democrats who have been beside themselves because it's sure seemed as if on
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Monday morning, Joe Biden had turned into Donald Trump. That this was exactly
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out of the Trump playbook from twenty sixteen, basically the same situation as I
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referenced in the last episode of the podcast, where after the Access Hollywood tape
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in twenty sixteen, the Republican Party was ready to bail, but they knew
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they couldn't completely bail on Donald Trump because there would be a complete and total
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disaster down ballot. But there was a presumption after the Access Hollywood tape that
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Trump couldn't win, and Trump held the party hostage. Trump held the party
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hostage in some ways during the entire twenty sixteen cycle. You can't take out
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Trump because if you do, you lose too large a portion of your base,
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and you can't win a national election that way. Well, in a
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somewhat similar fashion, Biden doesn't have nearly the same kind of cult like support
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that Trump does, but he is the president of the United States, and
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unless he goes voluntarily, getting rid of him would require a civil war that
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would be unbelievably bloody. It would be incredibly public, It would be at
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best embarrassing, but I actually think it would be even worse than that.
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I have thought about this, I don't know, hundreds of times, all
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the different scenarios that would ensue here, and based upon the makeup. This
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is maybe the part that's being missed by so many people. The makeup of
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the modern Democratic Party is inherently dysfunctional. It has all sorts of factions and
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demographics that have almost nothing common. There are also a bunch of nut jobs.
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We've seen this constantly. We saw this during COVID, We've seen this
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with regard to the transgender issue. We've seen this regard to the pro Palestinian
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protests. I mean, we've seen this time and time again, these people,
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the ones that are the activist, the ones that are most prominent in
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the movement, they're nuts. And so now you're gonna put these people who
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have mental illness in front of a camera, and in a short period of
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time, under unprecedentedly bad circumstances, you're going to have them choose a presidential
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candidate and a vice presidential candidate while you're president, who was your nominee up
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until five minutes ago, is fighting this and is the victim of a coup,
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and you've got allows the vice presidential nominee who happens to be a woman
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of color, which, based upon your rules, is someone you can't bypass.
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I mean, this is just a recipe for complete and total disaster.
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And the people around Biden, whoever is making his political strategy, understand this.
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They understand that this is a powerful weapon. But it is right out
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of the Trump playbook. And this has been very confusing to at least some
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Democrats who have the self awareness to go, wait a minute. Now.
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I haven't seen too many Democrats go wait a minute, maybe Biden isn't the
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guy we thought he was, Because I just think it's completely inconsistent to have
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this vision of Biden, which I think is fanciful at best, that he's
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just this honorable, honest man of character. This guy lies all the time,
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and there are so many aspects of what has happened and not happened post
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debate that prove he's not a man of character. If he was really a
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man of character, he would get out of the race. If he was
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really a man of character, he would never been in the race. A
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true man of character would have realized, you know what, I can't do
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this for another four years. It's not good for the country, it's not
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good for me, it might not be good for my party if my health
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goes downhill. I can't do this. I mean Lyndon Johnson. There's so
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many parallels to nineteen sixty eight right now what's going on with the Democratic Party,
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including the fact that the convention is in Chicago this year. But Lyndon
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Johnson decided not to run for reelection, and it had nothing to do really
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with his health or age. He just didn't think he was popular enough and
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couldn't win, and so he dropped out when he didn't have to. Well,
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and Linda Johnson was a complete asshole. No one thinks of Linda Johnson
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as a man of character. Lindon Johnson was a famous asshole, but he
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did what he thought was the right thing for the country. Yet here Joe
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Biden didn't do that. And now we have all sorts of Democrats and liberal
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media members that are basically pretending that that was never an option, that it
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was never an option to find another candidate to run against them in the primary.
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And I'm sorry. You already had your chance. You had a primary
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process. There were no legitimate candidates that stood up. Now RFK tried to
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and was boxed out by the Democratic establishment. I don't think you ever had
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a chance to beat Joe Biden anyway, but you had a chance. You
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decided not to have a primary process. The price you pay for that is
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that if your candidate runs out of gas literally and figuratively from a mental and
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physical standpoint in the middle of the campaign, your stock or at the very
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least, you only have one other option, which is your vice presidential nominee.
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And that's where you get forced to pay the price for having picked the
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vice president that was based on DEI diversity equity and inclllusion. They weren't qualified
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they were chosen on the basis of their gender and their skin color, and
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they're terrible. Okay, so you got the benefit of that in twenty twenty,
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whatever that was. But this is these are the rules of your religion
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on the left. So you took that path. You took the path of
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least resistance. Now you have to pay the price because you have no viable
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option if Joe Biden isn't the candidate. So you have to pay the price
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for not having a primary process. You could have had a primary, but
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you didn't have one because you were too cowardly to tell the truth to make
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Joe Biden realize he shouldn't be doing this. For four years, everyone took
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that path of least resistance, and now you also have to pay the price
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for having ADEI vice president that nobody likes and isn't up to the job,
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either from a political standpoint or from an intellectual perspective. In my view,
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I don't think either Biden or Harris are intellectually capable of doing this job properly.
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Unfortunately, I don't think Donald Trump really is either. So this is
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where we are in this country. But this threat of mutual assured destruction I
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am fascinated by because it is so clearly the correct political path if you're trying
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to stave off a coup. But it also goes directly against Joe Biden's entire
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narrative of who he is as a human being, and it shows what a
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lie, the whole thing is. The whole thing is a lie. He's
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not a man of character, He's selfish as hell. He's delusional that he
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thinks he can continue on with this. However, he has enough cards that
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I played properly, he can and likely very well likely survive this coup attempt.
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And since the last episode of the podcast, there were several indications that
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the coup is quickly fading. Senator Mark Warner, who over the weekend was
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supposedly going to be leading this cadre of Democratic senators to come out publicly and
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either request or demand that Biden stepped aside basically back down, put out a
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very tepid statement because it was clear, especially after the mutual assured destruction threat,
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that there was no appetite for this. It was basically a womp,
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womp, womp. So you came up tiny, you didn't have what it
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took. You lost your balls you backed down, and it was clear that
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part of why that happened was that Warner's effective boss in the Senate, Senate
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Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer, came out and was rather supportive of his old
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friend Joe Biden. So it appeared as if the coup was standing. However,
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there are still some murmurs. There have been a couple of Democratic lawmakers
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that have come forward and said I'm on board with the idea that Biden needs
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to get out. And then Nancy Pelosi went on MSNBC this morning on the
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Morning Joe Show, although neither Joe or Miko were apparently there, at least
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not during Nancy Pelosi's interview. I didn't see the show itself. I just
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saw the clip preparing for this morning's episode. But this statement from Nancy Pelosi
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is from flat out hilarious. This is one of the funniest things I have
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seen in this kind of a situation in a long time. I don't know,
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I don't want to oversell it, but this is really funny, especially
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if you understand the full context. So, Nancy Pelosi, former Speaker of
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the House, Grand dam of the of the Democratic Party, the elder stateswoman,
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you know. She gets asked live on Morning Joe and MSNBC whether or
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not, essentially Biden should get out of the race or not, and she
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basically says, well, he needs to make that decision, and it's his
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decision to make. So she's pretending that she's being very supportive of Joe Biden,
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saying, look, he has all the power. I'm paraphrasing, it's
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his decision. And then she gets reminded by the interviewer on MSNBC, but
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he has already made the decision. He's made it as clear as possible.
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And her response is basically, yeah, well we still we just want him
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to make the decision. In other words, he hasn't come to the decision
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that we like yet, but we firmly support his authority and right to make
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that decision for himself. Eventually, we hope will come to the right one.
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That's my paraphrase, and here's what it sounded like in reality. So,
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matter speaker, you just went through the president's record, but let me
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ask you about the current moment. Does he have your support to be the
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head of the democratics. Again, as long as the president had the president,
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it's up to the president to sucide if he is going to run.
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We're all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short. I
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think overwhelming support of the caucus. It's not for me to say, I'm
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not the head of the caucus anymore. But he's beloved, he is respected,
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and people want him to make that decision. He has me, he
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has said he has made the decision. He has said firmly this week he
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is going to run. Do you want him to run? I want him
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to do whatever he decides to do. And that's the way it is.
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Whatever he decides, we go with. I think it's really important and I
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would hope everyone would join in. She let him deal with this NATO conference.
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This is a very big deal. Thirty heads of over thirty heads of
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state are here. He is the host of it, and that means not
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just hosting. It means orchestrating the discussion and setting the agenda. And he's
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doing so magnificently. And I've said everyone, let's just hold off whatever you're
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thinking. Either tell somebody privately, but you don't have to put that in
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on the table until we see how we go this week. It really doesn't
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get that much more bizarre than that, where Nancy Pelosi is pretending that she's
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firmly supporting the president. He's the one in charge. Biden has this decision
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to make, but she's refusing to acknowledge he's already made the decision. I
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mean, what more do you want him to do, unless, of course
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you don't like the decision he came to. He's already gone on ABC with
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George Stavnopolis and said it would take the Lord Almighty telling him to get out
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of the race, and even then he's sort of implied he might not do
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it. And then he released that letter on Monday morning threatening the Democratic Party
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with complete and total destruction if they go after him, and saying, hey,
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come after me at the convention, good luck. I mean, he
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could not be more clear about this yet Nancy Belosi is just pretending, well,
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you know, we just hope he comes to a decision, the decision
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we like. Now I'm not I assume from that parsing it that the decision
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she would like Joe Biden to make is to suddenly come to his senses and
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voluntarily step down and presumably endorse Kamala Harris. And everyone plays nice and there's
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no coup and there's no blood, and we're just going to try to thread
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this needle. We think we think we can still do this. You know,
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we'll pick a vice presidential nominee for Kamala Harris and the you know,
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the media is probably feeling a bit of guilt over what they've done here,
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so they owe us, you know, some payback here. They're going to
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let us get away with changing our candidate, maybe even at to the Republican
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Convention, which would be absolutely ludicrous, you know, especially Saince Biden's not
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dead. He's not even close to dead. And by the way, with
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regard to Biden's physical health, I mean, I just think it's it is
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absolutely amazing and a bit hilarious that a lot of people seem to think that
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the Trump card here, not the Donald Trump card, but the you know,
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the cliche trump card here is the twenty fifth Amendment that somehow Democrats and
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Republicans and you know, the Speaker of the House is even implied he's in
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favor of the twenty fifth Amendment being invoked here somehow have that ultimate Trump card
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against Biden. And I'm like, that is ridiculous from a Democratic standpoint.
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Ridiculous. First of all, I don't honestly think that Biden's health is nearly
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bad enough to qualify based upon what the twenty fifth Amendment was intended to do
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and in order to get rid of a president that was not physically capable of
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doing the job. I mean, can you imagine if that. First of
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all, it's never going to happen, But second of all, if it
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did ever happen, the president that it would set would be absolutely bizarre and
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incredibly dangerous. We've already lowered the threshold for impeachment to the point of absurdity,
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where Donald Trump gets impeached twice during his first term in office, is
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now and is now the favorite to be the next president of the United States
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four years later. So we've already watered down impeachment. But if you ever
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got rid of a president because they had a brain couple of brain farts at
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a debate or a public speaking engagement, that would be insane. That would
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be ludicrous. And I'm someone that believes that Biden has absolutely no business running
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for president to be reelected and served for another four years. I agree that
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there's no chance that his health, mental or otherwise is good enough to justify
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that, but that's not the threshold for the twenty fifth Amendment, and so
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I just don't think it's politically realistic. I don't think it'd be a good
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idea, and from a Democratic Party standpoint, it would cause the worst possible
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scenario that would be the bloodiest of all civil wars. I don't in my
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opinion, if they went down that path, especially with Kamala Harris being the
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most likely person to take over not just obviously the presidency and then the nomination,
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I think you're bringing in a complete and total electoral catastrophe for Democrats.
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I do not believe that that scenario is currently in play. I think if
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Democrats stay the course where they are, if they had rallied around Joe Biden
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instead of wetting their pants, I think they would still have a chance to
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win the presidency, they would be still favored to win the House, and
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the worst that they could possibly do in the Senate would probably be a fifty
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one to forty nine deficit. That would be like the worst case scenario if
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Democrats had not wet their pants. In response to all this, and I'm
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going to get in a little bit to why they wet their pants to the
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degree that they did. But I want to go back to the state of
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the coup for a second. So Nancy Pelosi's hilarious statement, I think has
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has given the coup supporters at least some hope here because they are interpreting what
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she is saying as this is not a done deal, this isn't over yet.
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She's just not willing to come out and say publicly, get the hell
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out, Joe. So she's pretending to be supportive of Joe Biden while really
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leaving the door wide open for him to get the hell out. And this
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had an impact. I believe this is what had an impact on the betting
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odds. The betting odds on Monday went very much in Joe Biden's favor to
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be the Democratic nominee. This morning they've gone in the other direction. Now
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Biden's still the favorite. Last I checked, he's at about fifty percent to
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be the Democratic nominee. Kamala Harris is about thirty seven thirty eight percent.
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I still think that's low for Biden. I still believe that inertia is an
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incredibly powerful force in a situation like this, but that it is you know,
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it's still theoretically possible. I sit on Monday, and I'll stand by
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it, you know, if there is a major medical situation or if a
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complete catastrophe. For instance, at Thursday's NATO press conference, which is being
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referred to as a big boy press conference, unbelievably by two different major Biden
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administration officials, including the Press secretary Kareem Jean Pierre, both seemingly on purpose
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referred to that press conference as a big boy press conference. Now they were
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rightfully mocked for this. I think, what and when you say both say
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big boy press conference, that's clearly by design. It's delusional that they think
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that's a good idea given the circumstances. But it seems like what they're doing
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is making it as big a deal as possible under the hopes that Biden passes
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the test. And so therefore if they raise the stakes on that press conference,
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it can help stave off the coup of course in calling it a big
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boy press conference. If it goes the other way, and it goes very,
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very badly, you could see the ice finally start to crack, the
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thinning ice start to crack under Joe Biden's feet, especially after what Nancy Pelosi
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said this morning. But I still believe there needs to be a major and
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I mean major event that would cause the structure of this situation to fundamentally change.
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Unless that occurs, Joe Biden is still, as I've said continually,
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is still going to be the Democratic nominee. And don't believe people that tell
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you they know differently. Those people are liars. Those people are frauds.
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The people like Bill O'Reilly and Tucker Carlson and others who told you lied to
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you that they had sources that this was a done deal, that Biden was
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out, it was over, and then you know the plan was in place.
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There was no plan in place, clearly obviously from just the events of
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this week. Now there's another late breaking news story that may have even more
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influence over the betting odds going against Joe Biden today, and this could be
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close to a game changer. And I can't believe I've even saying it because
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it sounds ridiculous on his face. But I'll just tell you what happened.
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You've probably heard about it by now, and that is that actor George Clooney
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has written an op ed in the New York times urging Joe Biden to get
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out of the race. And obviously, Clooney is a very well respected liberal.
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He's a celebrity, and he just co hosted a fundraiser in Hollywood for
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Joe Biden three weeks ago that raised almost thirty million dollars, and so his
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voice has weight, and he's also not in a situation where he has that
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much to lose, like you know, a Democratic elected official. In fact,
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he addresses the cowardice he doesn't call it that, but the cowardice of
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Democratic elected officials for not speaking out in this op ed where he essentially says
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that every single elected Democrat, that's what he says, believes that Biden needs
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to get out of the race. They're just not saying it publicly. He
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goes on to say, it's devastating to say it. But the Joe Biden
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I was with three weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the Joe big effing
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deal Biden of twenty ten. He wasn't even the Joe Biden of twenty twenty.
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He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate. Now there's
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obviously there's an issue of okay, well, why didn't you say anything then?
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I mean, remember, there was the whole cheap fakes narrative right that
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was trying to claim that right wing outlets like the Hollywood Reporter, which is
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hardly right wing, we're somehow posting videos that did not depict reality. From
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that fundraiser, you know, Barack Obama having to lead Joe Biden off the
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stage holding his hand where he seemed kind of lost after freezing up. Well,
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we were told that that was fake, those were cheap fakes, that
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that was video manipulation, that was a right wing narrative. Now George Clooney,
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who was there, because it's now, I guess in his self interest
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to admit the truth, is admitting that, no, that wasn't a right
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wing narrative, that was reality. He didn't say anything, then he's saying
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something now. So there's the hypocrisy issue. There's also the issue of that
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he wants Joe Biden to save democracy by getting out of the race. So
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we're going to save democracy by completely and totally forgetting the fact that there was
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a democratic primary process and that Joe Biden won basically all the delegates. That's
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how you're going to save democracy by not having a democratically elected nominee. That's
26:59
another Hue problem. But from a political standpoint, this is an interesting strategy.
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This is a clear indication that the coup is not over, the attempt
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a coup is not over. This is a regrouping. This is a gambit
27:18
to try to give democratic elected officials cover, to try to give them a
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little bit of courage. Hey, if George Klooney can do it, then
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there's not that much to fear here and time is wasting. We got to
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do this now. This is also clearly an appeal to Joe Biden himself.
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Now, as of this taping, we have no idea what the reaction of
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Joe Biden and the Biden administration is going to be. But this is I
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don't know that it's a game decider, but this is a potential game changer.
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This is a situation where the coup is clearly not over, and the
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betting markets are responding to that. And as of this taping, again Biden
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is now back to barely being the favorite to being the Democratic nominee. I
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don't know that this dramatically fundamentally changes everything, but it tells me, especially
28:23
in combined with Nancy Pelosi's open door policy. That the game ain't over yet.
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It is still theoretically possible that Biden decides on his own to get out.
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That's still the only scenario where this can even theoretically work at all.
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For Democrats, it has to be seen as voluntary. Now, how they
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can claim it's voluntary at this point when they're putting a gun to Biden's head
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in every way possible, and you know, his friends like George Clooney are
28:53
disparaging him in the pages of the New York Times. I don't know,
28:57
but they may try so. I do think that the Clooney situation is significant.
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I don't know that it's decisive, but it's definitely a major development in
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this story that is not yet over and is certainly not going away. And
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it's not just George Clooney that is facilitating this narrative that the coup attempt isn't
29:22
over. It's also George Stephanoppolis. What I'm referring to here is that George
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Stephanopfolis has been caught on tape saying that he does not believe that Joe Biden
29:34
could serve another four years in office. Now, this did not occur during
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or having anything to do directly with Stephanopolis's interview with Joe Biden. I had
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theorized a couple of episodes ago in anticipation of that interview, that boy,
29:53
they're giving Stephanopolis an awful lot of power here, the power to choose the
29:59
questions, the own potentially the editing, although they ended up airing it live
30:04
as if it was live even though it was on tape, but also giving
30:08
him the opportunity to provide his analysis, and that if he said, you
30:14
know, sitting right across from Biden for all of twenty two minutes, that
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I didn't think he was all there, then this was going to be a
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very, very bad and potentially fatal situation for Joe Biden's candidacy. Well,
30:27
nothing like that happened. In fact, Stephanopolis went out of his way during
30:33
the Friday night ABC News special to not say anything about his view of the
30:40
interview or Biden specifically, which I think from a journalistic standpoint made some sense,
30:45
although I wouldn't have had a huge problem. I mean, if Stephanoppolis
30:48
wanted to give his personal take on what happened during the interview or surrounding the
30:55
interview that would be perfectly legitimate, especially in today's modern news media, but
31:00
none of that happened. It seemed like they went out of their way to
31:03
keep Stephanopholis's personal views out of this. And of course, Stephanopholis is a
31:07
long time Democrat, became famous as a Democratic operative political analyst for Bill Clinton.
31:14
Everyone seemingly knows that, and now has remade himself for the last couple
31:18
of decades as a supposedly objective news anchor. Well, very strangely, and
31:25
I have not been able to get to the bottom of this. I tried,
31:30
but it didn't seem based upon what I could tell from what TMZ is
31:34
reporting on this, I can't figure out what really was going on behind the
31:40
scenes here. But in a very strange and my view, somewhat suspicious set
31:45
of circumstances, George Stevenopholis was I don't think he would say confronted, but
31:52
he was certainly approached in New York City, not looking anything like George Stefanopolis.
31:57
It seemed like he was coming back from a workout or something. But
32:00
it certainly seems as if somebody knew that George Stefanopholis was was going to be
32:07
walking the streets. Maybe that's what I'm just theorizing. This is, you
32:10
know, where he normally works out, and people knew when he normally does
32:15
his workouts. Again, this is purely my theory. And they approach him
32:20
on the street they're recording, and they ask Stephanopolis, and again, having
32:25
done similar things a lot in my life, there's no way, there's zero
32:30
chance that this was completely and totally spontaneous. Where someone's walking down the street
32:37
in New York City, they think they see George Stefanopolis. They instantly turn
32:42
on their the camera on their phone and they're ready to go with a direct
32:46
question of Stepanopholis about the state of Joe Biden. And for the most part,
32:55
Stepanoplis doesn't even respond. And in fact, the audio here is not
33:00
good at all, and there's no video. And so I think that's gonna
33:05
have a huge impact over the influence of this event and this clip, I
33:13
mean in a weird way, because it was done surreptitiously, and because Stephanopolis
33:19
has put out a statement saying I shouldn't have responded, and ABC News has
33:22
said this is not the official position of ABC in a weird way that will
33:27
draw people to this video that was posted by TMZ without a whole lot of
33:32
context, and it doesn't I don't know that this was a TMZ person.
33:37
It could have been. I don't know. Again, I wish I had
33:39
figured this out by this point. I'm going to continue to try to do
33:43
so, maybe for a future episode of the podcast, but as of this
33:45
moment, I don't know whether not this person was a TMZ person or someone
33:50
just sold the tape to TMZ. But the surreptitious element of it, I
33:55
think will draw people to it because you're basically finding out now what George Steppannoflos
34:00
really believes. This is not a public statement that is inherently, you know,
34:07
created for public consumption, and therefore might not be real or honest or
34:12
sincere or authentic. So I think the authenticity of what it says about Stepanofls's
34:19
true view is interesting and relevant, and clearly this is what Stepanofflos really believes.
34:25
But I also think the fact that the video is non existent and the
34:31
audio is terrible may diminish how many people actually are exposed to this and therefore
34:38
its political relevance or potency. I debated whether or not to even play the
34:45
audio, because again it's not great audio, but I think you'll be able
34:50
to discern it. And just for the record, I think because the audio
34:52
is not that great, it's part of the story itself. I decided,
34:55
you know what, I might as well play it. So here is what
34:59
happened. And this person went up to George Stapf Bnopholis on the streets of
35:04
New York City asked about Joe Biden and I hope you'll be able to hear
35:08
the Stephanopholis says that he doesn't think Joe Biden can serve another four years.
35:15
Hey, Hey, how you doing. What do you think? Do you
35:17
think Biden should sut down? You talked to him more than anybody else have
35:22
lately, and he would be answer, you don't think you can start for
35:25
more years? All right, that's an answer. Now. Do I believe
35:30
that that's what George Stapfhannopolis truly thinks about Joe Biden? Absolutely positively. So
35:38
it's also not, or at least it shouldn't be a controversial view. It's
35:44
been something that I have been saying for well over a year, both on
35:47
this podcast and on radio shows and a couple times on NewsNation Television network with
35:53
Dan Abrams that this is not just about where Joe Biden is today. This
35:59
is about where Joe Biden would be over four years from now. And it's
36:04
completely and totally ludicrous that we're even having this conversation. And frankly, this
36:08
is Joe Biden's fault. I want to go back to that. I mean,
36:12
this is why he's not a man of character. This is why he's
36:15
not a man who has a firm grip on reality. A true man of
36:17
character who had a even a remote grip on reality would realize he can't do
36:22
this for another four years, and he would have never even run for the
36:28
Democratic nomination. And so, one hundred percent, that's what Stephanopolis really does
36:32
believe. I think this is what most people believe, Democrats and Republicans,
36:39
It's probably what almost everybody in the Democratic elite believes. Of course, they
36:45
thought up until the debate that they could get away with this, that this
36:52
cover up, for lack of a better term, could continue through November.
36:57
They could stave off a Trump come bag, they could get Biden back in
37:01
there, and then when necessary, he could step aside and Kamala Harris would
37:08
become the first female president of the United States. I've said that one hundred
37:13
times on this podcast, that that was always the plan. Well, now
37:19
the cats out of the bag, and even George Stephanopholis is admitting to it
37:22
now. Interestingly, just before the Stepanopolis tape came out, at the White
37:29
House Press briefing, Kareem Jehan Pierre was directly asked a question that should have
37:36
been asked a long time ago, and should be asked, if Joe Biden
37:39
constantly constantly because we no longer live in a world where anyone really cares that
37:45
much about the press secretary lying on the president's behalf. That's now just unfortunately
37:51
expected that this is the way things are going to work. But just for
37:54
the record, Kaareen John Pierre was asked whether or not Biden in tends to
38:00
serve out a full second term. And here's what that sounded like when she
38:06
basically, in my view, lied, Peter, I know no yarch chat
38:10
yesterday, Yes, thank you, greet Does President Biden commit to serving a
38:15
full second term if re elected? Yes, thank you. Yeah, that's
38:22
a lie. That is not the truth. There is no possible way that
38:28
Joe Biden is going to serve a full second term, even if he somehow
38:32
staves off the coup beats Donald Trump. By the way, those scenarios are
38:37
not impossible at all. I don't think they're likely. I mean, the
38:40
second one is not likely. I think the first one is very likely.
38:44
The second one is not very likely. But I think it is certainly within
38:46
the realm of very plausible scenarios that Biden remains the nominee and gets re elected.
38:54
But there is no chance that he serves out his full term. And
39:00
it's not just because he's not going to be physically able to do it.
39:05
It's because the self interest dramatically changes once he's reelected. Once he's reelected,
39:15
he is forever enshrined in you know, the pantheon of two term presidents.
39:22
He would have done it against all odds. He would have staved off a
39:28
Donald Trump comeback, and he would be able to hand off his presidency to
39:35
a historic woman of color. In the liberal world, that makes him,
39:43
you know, basically an icon. There's no shame in that. In fact,
39:49
there's only honor. There's honor in facilitating, you know, with the
39:54
end of your presidency, the beginning of this historic woman of colors presidency,
40:00
first female president, obviously first female of color, and if he's able to
40:07
survive two years after reelection, he creates a situation where she could theoretically serve
40:15
ten years. I've talked about this many times, and I'm not sure very
40:19
many people are even aware of this, that if somehow Biden wins reelection and
40:24
he survives just past the midterms of twenty twenty six, and then he would
40:31
resigns and Kamala Harris takes over, she can serve out his term and still
40:38
run for two more consecutive terms, So she could be president in theory for
40:44
ten years. I know a lot of Republicans say, John, that's crazy,
40:46
there's no chance of that ever happening. She's so awful, and I
40:51
always say, okay, but once she's president, everything changes. Once she's
40:57
a historic president. And you know, under that scenario, we're still looking
41:01
at Trump probably running for a fourth straight time into his eighties, and I
41:07
think she would have a hell of a chance of beating him at that point,
41:09
especially if the economy wasn't a disaster. And so I just I don't
41:16
this is not a scenario I want to see happen at all, and I'm
41:20
trying to warn people about it. And one of the better things that has
41:23
happened because of the debate debacle is that now this is a topic that can't
41:29
be avoided. I think one of the worst possible scenarios of this election was
41:35
that somehow we go through the entire election cycle and it never becomes a huge
41:40
issue about Hey, wait a minute, what's Biden going to do in that
41:45
second term? And is Kamala Harris going to take over? Now? I
41:49
think that even the average voter understands that that's what we're talking about here,
41:54
that it's really Kamala Harris that's running when it comes to his potential second term
42:01
for Joe Biden and I have urged both publicly and privately, the Trump people
42:07
to make this a huge narrative point in the campaign. Thanks for listening to
42:13
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42:16
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