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Episode One Hundred Thirty Five: Forced Fumble · The Death Of Journalism

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Welcome episode number one hundred and thirty five of the Death of Journalism podcast.
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My name is John Zigler. I'm your host on today's show. So much
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good stuff to get to the State of the Union, the GOP response,
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the oscars, Trump mysteriously flip flops on TikTok, a controversial high school basketball
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game goes viral but not nearly enough, and legendary coach Nick Saban finally tells
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the harsh truth about why he really retired. We begin this episode of the
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Death of Journalism podcast by talking about the State of the Union address, which
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probably feels like it happened forever ago in this modern news cycle, but there
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were some important things that happened at that address and surrounding it, and I
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wanted to talk about it to lead off this episode of the podcast. I
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told you in episode number one hundred and thirty four that Republicans were walking into
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a trap when it came to the State of the Union address, and that
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expectations were so unbelievably low for Joe Biden that it was going to be very
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easy for him to exceed them. And when it came to the primary issue
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of whether or not Biden had the energy or the mental acuity to at least
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in a perfunctory way do the job. There's no question that Biden exceeded those
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exceedingly low expectations. So much about life is expectations. And by going after
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Biden, which I fully understand why they have done this, because there's legitimacy
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to it, but by going after Biden so hard on the issue of potential
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dementia and loss of memory and declining mental acuity, there was a double edged
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sword. And that double edged sword was as long as Biden showed up and
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was functional, that he was going to exceed expectations and was going to be
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seen as a victor in the State of the Union address. And I don't
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think there's any question that Biden did that. And that's essentially what I predicted
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was going to happen, because while Biden is in a very precarious mental state,
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he's clearly declining, he is still functional. And you know, in
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my experience about yours, but in my experience, I've had a pretty extensive
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experience with men in their eighties. You know, this is not something that
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happens overnight and on big events, you know, Holidays, Christmas, Easter,
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birthdays or whatever. They're able to get it together. They're able to
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be functional. Now, it may only last for a couple of hours.
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And there's no question that Biden was starting to wane in the second hour of
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the State of the Union address. I'm sure his advisors were very, very
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nervous that he was running out of gas, and it was in that time
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period when he was forced into a fumble, which I'm going to get to
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in just a moment. But there's no question that for the first hour or
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so of this speech, Joe Biden clearly was with it enough to pass the
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test. Now, the test was very easy. Again, the expectations were
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exceedingly low. But just like I warned you, he's able to do that,
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partially because he's not as far gone as a lot of Republicans would like
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you to believe, and also because it's just the nature of humanity. And
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you know, there are those of course on the writers say oh my gosh,
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what drugs did they give him? I have no idea whether it was
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just a red bull or whether it was something stronger than that, but I'm
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sure that they were doing everything they possibly could to make sure he was energized
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for that speech, and of course it resulted in him doing a whole lot
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of shouting that normally would have been considered, you know, something that was
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off putting. But again, because the standards and the expectations were so low,
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Biden shouting to prove that he's not dying was seen as somehow a victory,
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and Republicans have to accept that reality. It's a double edged sword here
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when you go after somebody for mental acuity and potential dementia, because when it
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turns out on live television that at the biggest of end of the year that
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they're clearly not suffering from dementia and they're clearly at least somewhat functional, there's
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going to be a price to pay for that, and I think that's what's
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going to happen here. Now. How much of an impact that's going to
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have on the polls, I don't know. As of this moment, there
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are no major polls that have come out post State of the Union. But
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as far as the speech itself, the content of it, there's no question
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that this was an extremely partisan speech, the most partisan in my lifetime and
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very potentially the most partisan in the history of the State of the Union.
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Address. This was not a State of the Union address. This was a
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political convention speech. And unfortunately things have been heading in this direction for a
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very long time the State of the Union. And I realize it's easy to
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look at the past with rose colored glasses. I try exceedingly hard not to
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do that. But there's no question that this has been a classic example of
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the slippery slope where bit by bit, piece by piece, the State of
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the Union address has become more and more political, more and more partisan,
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more and more divisive, and we have reached a nator, at least for
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now. In what Biden did during this speech, there was no unity about
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this. He referred thirteen times to his predecessor, Donald Trump. I can't
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ever remember anytime when a president did something like that previously. Now there are
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those who will say, but John never in history if we had a situation
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where a president was running against a former president his predecessor in a general election.
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True, but that doesn't change the reality that this was overtly partisan,
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extremely political. To go after you're a political opponent in a general election year
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in the State of the Union address thirteen times I do not think was appropriate,
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and I don't think it's healthy for the country. There has to be
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some place, some little portion of our national discourse that can still be considered
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at least somewhat nonpartisan. It used to be the State of the Union address
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that is no more, and frankly, it's never going to be that way
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again, because either we're going to get Joe Biden again followed by Kamala Harris
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some point in his second term, or we're gonna get Donald Trump with no
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restrictions, no guardrails whatsoever. And his speeches were more partisan than his predecessors.
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Again, this has been a slippery slope for a long time. But
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you know, you ain't seen nothing yet. When it comes to a second
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Trump term, and when it comes to situations like a State of the Union
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address where he has retribution and revenge on his mind, I mean, my
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god, the mind boggles. So I did not like the speech from a
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substance standpoint. It was very, very liberal. By the way, the
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media will not tell you this, and I didn't even realize it at first,
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but huge portions of Biden's speech, about six or seven different segments of
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it, were plagiarized from previous Biden State of the Union addresses. Now,
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technically that's not plagiarism when you steal from yourself or your speech writers steal from
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themselves. But at the very least not to show that Biden's not getting anything
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done because he keeps making the exact same promises year after year after year.
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So I think that's another important point to make here. But I hated the
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substance. I didn't like the style of it. All the shouting, and
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I'm somebody who shouts a lot, but you know, I thought Biden did
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that way too much in an effort to prove how energetic he is. But
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I fully acknowledge that from the standpoint of jumping over the dementia bar Biden did
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that. And from a content standpoint, this was a surgical strike on the
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twenty twenty four election. This was clearly designed to hit the key demographic groups
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that are going to determine whether or not Biden gets re elected. And by
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the way, for those who claim that the State of the Union address is
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now meaningless because of fragmentation and no one watching, it's nowhere near as powerful
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as it used to be. But the ratings were pretty solid. They were
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up from a year ago. By the way, I think they might have
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been up a little bit because of the drama created not just by the fact
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that we're an election here, but by the anticipation that this guy with dementia
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is going to have to get through an hour and a half in front of
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a live audience in a national television live address, which he rarely does,
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and the entertainment value could be pretty high. So that was another way in
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which Republicans walked into a trap. The audience was larger than it has been
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in recent years, so this was a victory in many ways for Joe Biden,
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at least at first. From a macro standpoint, there was no question
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that by and large this was a win for Biden. Now, I mentioned
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that he was forced into a fumble in the second portion of the second hour
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of what turned out to be about an hour and a half presentation, and
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I have to give credit, even though I don't like her, Marjorie Taylor
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Green, who's a jackass and was dressed like one in her red maga,
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which is a violation of the of the rules, But you know, she
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forced Joe Biden into a fumble where she was essentially heckling him over the issue
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of illegal immigration and the issue of Lincoln Riley, the Georgia student who was
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murdered by an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, that has gotten a lot of publicity,
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especially on the right, in the last couple of weeks. And you
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know, Biden was pretty much fine when he was on the teleprompter, but
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he was forced off the teleprompter by the heckling from Marjorie Taylor Green. Again.
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I hate this. I hate this, but I have to give her
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credit. That pressure causes mistakes, and in this situation, Biden fumbled.
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Now the media has done a pretty good job, at least on the left,
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of trying to cover up this fumble. But it is remarkable how quickly
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and how dramatically Biden melted down once he was off the teleprompter. I'm gonna
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play for you about a thirty second clip where there are multiple problems the moment
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that Biden gets off the teleprompter. I'm gonna go through them very briefly.
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Now he references Lincoln Riley, not lacn. Lincoln Riley is the head football
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coach at USC and it's clear he's saying Lincoln Riley. Now that's not just
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disrespectful to Lake and Riley who was murdered. But it's also an indication he
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really hasn't been paying attention to the story that to me is the most significant
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part of that situation. Then he refers to her murderer as an illegal.
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Even you know, it follows up by saying something like, that's right.
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So clearly, you know, old Joe Biden. If you think about this
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from the old man's perspective, how their memory works, he's remembering what Joe
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Biden from like the nineteen seventies of the nineteen eighties might have said when it
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was okay to use the term illegal. So he refers to the murder as
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an illegal. Then, by the way, I want you to listen carefully,
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and we're gonna play this clip twice because there's so much nuance to it.
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But it sounded at first as if he was then trying to make the
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argument that so many other people are also killed by illegals. The White House
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would later try to claim that what he said was those people are actually killed
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by legals. I've never heard of legal citizens being referred to as legals,
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but apparently now where we're going, it's okay to refer to actual citizens as
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legals. But you're not allowed to describe people in the country illegally as illegals.
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Now. To be fair, when I listen to this, I do
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think that that's what Biden was saying. He was referring to all the people
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murdered, pretending. I guess theoretically more people are murdered by legals than by
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illegals. To me, that opens up a whole new series of problems if
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that's what he was saying. But I do agree that he was probably using
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the word legals. And so here he is the clip that occurs when Congresswoman
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Marjorie Taylor Green heckles Joe Biden at the State of the Union and causes a
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meltdown by the President of the United States. I'd be a winner, Not
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really. I Lincoln Riley an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal,
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That's right, But how many of thousands of people being killed by legal
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To her parents, I say, my heart goes out to you. Having
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lost children myself, I understand. But look, now, a lot was
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going on there. There was a lot, probably too much for a news
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media that has no interest in delving deeply into this part of the speech,
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because this was by far the most illuminating element of what happened during the State
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of the Union address. But to me, the issue of the word illegal
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is the key moment here, the word illegal that Biden is clearly not just
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okay with using, but he is willing to justify it. Again, he's
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off script here, he's off teleprompter, and so just to be fully clear,
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and I know you could rewind on a podcast if you need to,
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but I just want to play this a second time to make it easier for
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you. Listen to those three things again, Lincoln Riley, he's an illegal.
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And you know, in comparison to the number of people who are killed
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by legals, I guess this isn't that big of a deal. Then,
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of course, he tries the virtue signal by referencing the death of his own
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children, none of them were murdered or certainly had anything to do with illegal
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aliens. But I guess that's what you do in the modern age if you're
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a liberal. And just again, here's what that sounded like. Just so
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you're clear on what Biden did say and what he did not say. I'd
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be a winner, not really. I Lincoln Riley, an innocent young woman
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who was killed by an illegal, that's right, But how many of thousands
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of people being killed by legal To her parents, I say, my heart
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goes out to you, having lost children myself, I understand. But look
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now, we live in such a bizarre world that on the left, the
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biggest problem with what happened there was the use of the word illegal. I
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mean, this is just parody stuff. This is upside down world material here.
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You would think you were making this up, but you're not. That
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this is all real. So the Left has a minor temper tantrum over the
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issue of their guy, their president, having the gall to refer to an
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illegal immigrant as an illegal, and Nancy Pelosi went on CNN and admonished Joe
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Biden for using the word illegal, not forgetting Lincoln Riley's name wrong and mixing
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it up with the head football coach at USC. No, no, no,
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we need to protect the feelings of illegal immigrants. That's what's really important
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here. And here's what it sounded like when Nancy Pelosi did that on CNN.
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They should have said undocumented. But it's not a big thing. Okay,
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Well, what's the big thing? I actually wasn't even gonna ask about
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that. I was just going to ask more about the moment. But you
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do think that he should have said undocumented. That wasn't condmn my question.
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Well, we usually say oudocumented, he said, But of course it did
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not stop there. No, no, no, no, you need Biden
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to backtrack on having the gall to have used the word illegal, because I
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actually thought, and I half jokingly tweeted during the State of the Union address,
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thank you Joe Biden for now making it acceptable again to use the word
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illegal to describe an illegal immigrant. I mean, heck, we've actually made
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some progress here. I've always been of the belief that once you go down
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this slippery slope in one direction when race or ethnicity is involved, you can
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never go back because everything you just went past is considered to be racist.
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So thank you. Joe. Biden's one of the few people could have the
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authority, the moral authority, as a liberal president to be able to do
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that. This was a great victory. We're not allowed to say illegal immigrant
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again. But no, no, no, no, Biden gets asked about
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it the next day. Now, this is, you know, one of
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those not really an interview. This is he's kind of passing the press gaggle
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on a tarmac, and he's asked about whether or not he should have used
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the word illegal. And this is really interesting if you listen carefully, what
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Biden says here is, well, no, I probably shouldn't have used it,
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but they're technically not supposed to be here. Now, when I first
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heard this, I thought he's referring to the phrase, you know, technically
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not supposed to say that, But no, that's not what he means if
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you listen carefully. In my strong opinion, he's saying, you know,
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technically illegal immigrants aren't supposed to be here. So it's he's still hiding behind
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the idea that it's okay to refer to them as being here illegal. And
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here's what that sounded like, justcause, do you regret using the word illegal
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to describe immigrants last night? Sir? Well not probably? Who did?
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I don't regret it? Who technically not supposed to be here? So at
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that point I thought, oh my gosh, so he's really gonna stick by
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the use of the word illegal. And more importantly, it's his belief that,
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you know, it's just a technical designation, they're really not supposed to
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be here. But you know, whatever, it's not that big of a
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deal anymore, And so I guess it's still okay to use the word illegal,
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not exactly the tie of tone that you should be using when we're being
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invaded on our southern border in an unprecedented fashion. This is the belief system
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of the guy who is in charge and has a hell of a lot more
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power in this issue than he or the media are pretending as they float this
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narrative that Republicans are actually to blame for the crisis on the border. But
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that wasn't good enough for liberals, No, no, no, So finally
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Biden does a formal interview with MSNBC, which is basically like doing an interview
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with a family member, and on MSNBC, Biden completely backs off the word
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illegal and essentially apologizes or admits that that is not the proper terminology, making
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liberals once again, I guess, happy, but somehow not causing, at
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least at this point, a massive controversy in the other direction. Biden should
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be being forced to pay for this, and so far he's not. And
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here's what that sounded like on MSNBC. And noticed the look of surprise on
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your face when you walked into the chamber and you saw Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green,
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it was priceless. You feign shop at seeing her. But during your
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response to her heckling of you, you use the word illegal when talking about
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the man who allegedly killed an undocumented person. I shouldn't have used the legal
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as undocumented. And look, when I spoke about the difference between Trump and
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me, one of the things I talked about on the border was that is
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the way he talks about vermin, the way he talks about these people polluting
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the blood. I talked about what I'm not going to do, what I
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won't do. I'm not going to treat any of these people with disrespect.
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Look, they've built the country, the reason our economy is growing. We
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have to control the border and more orderly slow. But I don't share it
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to you at all, So you regret using that word. Yes, this
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whole chain of events, to me is by far from a substance to substance
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of standpoint, the most significant thing that happened related to the state of the
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Union address. Here we have immigration or illegal immigration, at the top of
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the minds of men many voters. Most surveys indicate it's the most important issue
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or the issue most often cited by voters as to what they think is most
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important. And here he is going from using the word illegal while again misstating
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the name of the victim, so we're more concerned about the murderer than we
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are the victim. He kind of backs off a little bit the next day,
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and then he completely backs off of this in an interview with MSNBC while
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exposing his real mentality and how completely unqualified he is to get a handle on
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the border, which, by the way, if nothing else, should destroy
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this entire narrative that somehow Biden isn't the blame. So we look at the
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stats, and the stats during his presidency are off the charts, unprecedented when
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it comes to the southern border invasion. And now he's exposing that he doesn't
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really think it's that big of a deal. They're technically not supposed to be
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here, and he's more concerned about offending illegal aliens or illegal immigrants, with
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the phrase he uses to describe him. Then he is worried about offending anybody
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related to the actual victim of the murder that began the conversation to begin with,
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and so he bows down to wokeness and says, you know, that
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was wrong to use the term illegal. They're undocumented workers, and you know,
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all is good in liberal land. Again, that was a massive error.
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Massive I've referred to it as a fumble. That's a fumble that ought
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to be recovered and maybe you know, even taken in in a rational world,
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taken into the end zone for a defensive touchdown that has not happened for
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a lot of reasons, the media being one of the major ones. But
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you know so well, Biden understandably is being declared the victor by everybody in
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the big picture of what happened with regard to the state of the Union when
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it comes to what actually transpired and the lasting impact once the words have already
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been forgotten, the lasting impact is what happened with regard to that exchange with
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Marjorie Taylor Green and the backtracking and the revelations regarding Biden's true beliefs on illegal
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