Speaker 1: This is Steve Schmidt and welcome to another edition of
Speaker 1: the Warning Podcast. And today I am really happy to
Speaker 1: bring you Chris Whipple. He is the investigative reporter, the
Speaker 1: political journalist who has written the book that is in
Speaker 1: the news detailing what happened in the twenty twenty four election.
Speaker 1: The name of the book is Unchartered, How Trump beat Biden,
Speaker 1: Harris and the odds in the wildest campaign in history.
Speaker 1: There is a profound issue, in my view, that is
Speaker 1: raised in this book. It's the second of three books
Speaker 1: that have been talked about publicly that will be coming
Speaker 1: out that look at the White House decision making and
Speaker 1: Biden's condition, the implications of it, all the consequences of
Speaker 1: the decision, the accountability for that decision, and of course
Speaker 1: the full magnitude, dude of the crisis. Right now, we're
Speaker 1: going to get into it with Chris Whipple. But when
Speaker 1: you read this book, and it's urgent that you do
Speaker 1: read this book, buy this book. You need to understand
Speaker 1: the dynamics of power and this book will help you
Speaker 1: do that. And when I read these books, what they
Speaker 1: are is first drafts of history. This will be an
Speaker 1: issue that is studied in the United States fifty years
Speaker 1: from now, seventy five years from now, it will have
Speaker 1: as long in endurance as did the questions around Edith
Speaker 1: Wilson's decisions during that administration and how she handled her
Speaker 1: incapacitated husband. Now Edith Wilson after President Wilson had a stroke,
Speaker 1: never relented from her conviction that she did the right
Speaker 1: thing and did what Woodrow Wilson would have wanted her
Speaker 1: to do. Of course, if you have responsibility for maintaining
Speaker 1: a constitutional republic, it was the wrong thing to do.
Speaker 1: The continuity of constitutional powered succession does not flow through
Speaker 1: the president's wife. And so, with no further ado, I
Speaker 1: want to bring Chris Whipple into the conversation and get started.
Speaker 1: And so Chris, I said that I look at the
Speaker 1: book as a first draft of history. But how did
Speaker 1: you look at it as you were writing it? And
Speaker 1: what was your intention to try to find out, explore
Speaker 1: and bring to the reader and do doing this because
Speaker 1: obviously there's going to be a lot of books written
Speaker 1: about this, and so why were you like I have
Speaker 1: to write one about this?
Speaker 2: Yeah, first, Steve, great to be with you, Honored to
Speaker 2: be here. I was writing a different book under contract
Speaker 2: for HarperCollins in the summer of twenty twenty four. It
Speaker 2: was to be a book about presidential campaign managers from
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty eight to the present. When suddenly, that fateful
Speaker 2: weekend of July twenty twenty one, the bottom fell out
Speaker 2: of the political world, and when Biden dropped out, I
Speaker 2: said to myself, I can't do both books, but this
Speaker 2: is the book I have to do the twenty twenty
Speaker 2: four campaign, because it's the political story of the century,
Speaker 2: and it reed it needed my full time attention. I
Speaker 2: thought I was uniquely qualified to do it because not
Speaker 2: because I'm smarter than anybody else, but because I had
Speaker 2: sources within Biden world and Trump world, and I ultimately
Speaker 2: got them in Harris world as well to tell the
Speaker 2: stories I think nobody else could have done. So that's
Speaker 2: why I felt it was compelling, but mostly for history,
Speaker 2: because it's just this was a book that had to
Speaker 2: be written and had to be done fast. I called
Speaker 2: my boss at HarperCollins, Lisa Sharky, who's a force of nature,
Speaker 2: and she immediately agreed to put her team behind it,
Speaker 2: and off I went.
Speaker 1: What has the reaction been to the book by the
Speaker 1: people who are featured in the book. Ron Klain, Steve Schetty,
Speaker 1: Mike Donaldan, do they believe they were fairly treated in
Speaker 1: the book.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing. I can't answer that question satisfactorily because
Speaker 2: I've only really been in contact with Ron playing since
Speaker 2: the book came out, and as you know, it came
Speaker 2: out yesterday. It's been making headlines for a while because
Speaker 2: of an excerpt I did in Vandy Fair two excerpts
Speaker 2: and other stuff. But here's the thing, Steve, It's it's
Speaker 2: the it's the strangest and wildest story you can imagine
Speaker 2: behind closed doors. My view is that Karl Rove got
Speaker 2: it wrong when he said that this was a gigantic conspiracy.
Speaker 2: I don't think. I don't believe this was a cover
Speaker 2: up in the Watergate sense of the word. It was
Speaker 2: stranger and wilder and every bit as troubling as that.
Speaker 2: What I think happened was that Biden's inner circle convinced themselves,
Speaker 2: including Ron Klain, and we can talk about him because
Speaker 2: you know you need you need a master psychologist to
Speaker 2: explain what happened with him, But they managed to convince
Speaker 2: themselves that Biden could somehow win this thing, that he
Speaker 2: could run, that he could win, and that they could
Speaker 2: all stay in power for another four years. Now, Klaan
Speaker 2: is the real, as the New York Times book review
Speaker 2: put it in my I can't quote them exactly, but
Speaker 2: the reviewer said, you know, how do you how do
Speaker 2: you possibly reconcile these two Ron Klains Clain told me
Speaker 2: in devastating detail just how wobbly and out of it
Speaker 2: Joe Biden was during the debate prep a camp. David
Speaker 2: and nobody else has that story. Ron told it to
Speaker 2: me in detail. The floodgates open and he and he
Speaker 2: gave me a blow by blow description of how Biden
Speaker 2: was out of it. He was he couldn't really explain
Speaker 2: what he wanted to do in a second term. He
Speaker 2: was obsessed with Emmanuel McCrone and ol Off Schultz and
Speaker 2: kept talking about how they think I'm a great president,
Speaker 2: so I'm must be. He half jokingly thought that Biden
Speaker 2: thought he was president of NATO instead of the US.
Speaker 2: He at one point the president left aspen Lodge just
Speaker 2: got up, walked out to the pool, sank into a
Speaker 2: lounge chair, and fell sound asleep. They managed to entice
Speaker 2: him back later in the day. I could go on.
Speaker 2: But here's the long, winted answer. But to get back
Speaker 2: to your original question, how do you reconcile the ron
Speaker 2: Klain who witnessed that disastrous debate prep prior to that
Speaker 2: terrible debate, and the ron Klain who a few weeks
Speaker 2: later was fighting to keep Joe Biden in the race
Speaker 2: at almost any cost. He wanted to die on that hill.
Speaker 2: He thought that Biden should stay on as the nominee.
Speaker 2: And we can talk about it. It's it's hour by hour.
Speaker 2: It's an amazing behind the scenes story. So I've talked
Speaker 2: to Ron he has said he hasn't disputed a single
Speaker 2: thing that I've reported, except he says I had the
Speaker 2: framing wrong. He thinks that Joe Biden's condition had to
Speaker 2: do with his poor preparation by the White House aides
Speaker 2: who succeeded him. He doesn't mention, he doesn't name Jeff Science,
Speaker 2: but he's clearly talking about Science and his team and
Speaker 2: thought that they failed somehow to prepare Biden for the debate,
Speaker 2: prep that he And it makes no sense to me
Speaker 2: because again, you know is Biden wanders out and falls
Speaker 2: asleep in a lounge chair by the pool and that's
Speaker 2: somehow Jeff science is fault. I don't think so.
Speaker 1: Does wrong claim have any sense of discernible shame and
Speaker 1: chense of discernible guilt? Do any of these people in
Speaker 1: this moment look at what is happening to this country
Speaker 1: and appreciate that this is what will be carved on
Speaker 1: their gravestones.
Speaker 2: It's the you know, it's the sixty four thousand dollars question,
Speaker 2: and I don't know the answer to it.
Speaker 1: Steve.
Speaker 2: You know again, I've been in contact with Ron and
Speaker 2: since the book came out, and again he disputes what
Speaker 2: he calls the framing of of that pre debate.
Speaker 1: Prep As we get deeper into the conversation, I'm only
Speaker 1: going to stop you to challenge not you, obviously, but
Speaker 1: what I think is a nonsense concept.
Speaker 2: I've also got a siren going by, so this is
Speaker 2: a good time to pok.
Speaker 1: I can't hear it. The country is besieged by incoherence,
Speaker 1: by nonsense talk, the tariffs, the math. This is a
Speaker 1: White House chief of staff, a person who has, through appointment,
Speaker 1: held tremendous power, tremendous responsibility, is called on to exercise judgment.
Speaker 1: And his answer to this is now you got the
Speaker 1: framing wrong. Well, what does that mean? What could it
Speaker 1: conceivably mean? Because the book makes clear an extraordinary and
Speaker 1: vivid detail, unrefuted, that the president of the United States
Speaker 1: is just utterly incapacitated. And you know that because Ron
Speaker 1: Klain tells you that, and then Ron Klain does everything
Speaker 1: he can conceivably do to maintain the incapacitated president in
Speaker 1: a political campaign that all of the campaign experts, starting
Speaker 1: with David Pluff, appreciate. They've been behind from day one,
Speaker 1: that they can't win, and they're telling the country A.
Speaker 1: He's fine, b they're winning. C. Biden is the only
Speaker 1: candidate who can beat Trump, though d He's losing to
Speaker 1: Trump and he's incapacitated. And ron Claim comes back and
Speaker 1: he says, no, you have the narrative wrong. What does
Speaker 1: that mean? Yeah, no, I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't know what it means either, except let me
Speaker 2: just let me just say one thing in fairness to
Speaker 2: their belief that this guy could actually run again, and
Speaker 2: that is, there are some inconvenient facts here from the
Speaker 2: point of view of people who say this was a
Speaker 2: gigantic conspiracy and everybody knew that Biden was incapacitated, and
Speaker 2: I knew.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. Listen, Listen. I knew in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two because I consume news and I watched television.
Speaker 1: I said it would be a national catastrophe if he
Speaker 1: ran again. I knew, and you were right, and I
Speaker 1: what and and the Congress knew. Democratic Congress Nan Dean
Speaker 1: Phillips talks about that on a podcast. Joe Biden had
Speaker 1: gone into a conference launch and he was utterly incoherent.
Speaker 1: So one of the great lies in this is that
Speaker 1: nobody knew. The most astonishing aspect of these three books
Speaker 1: is the next one. Jake Tapper is going to write
Speaker 1: a book, and Jake Tapper's asking questions about the Biden
Speaker 1: cover up. It is madness. Well, no, I agree with you,
Speaker 1: type of madness that you're seeing play out with Trump
Speaker 1: and the tariffs precisely.
Speaker 2: But here's the thing, Steve, here's the stunning thing that
Speaker 2: is absolutely inexplicable to me, but absolutely fascinating, and that
Speaker 2: is I am convinced that these guys, the inner circle,
Speaker 2: and I'm talking about Mike donald On, Steve Shetty, Bruce Reid,
Speaker 2: the people, the real inner circle, they were closer than science,
Speaker 2: the chief of staff to the President. They watched that
Speaker 2: debate on June twenty seventh, and they convinced themselves that
Speaker 2: this was just a quote unquote bad night. They truly
Speaker 2: believed that. And I'll give you an example. Anita don
Speaker 2: one of his closest advisers, was watching a so called
Speaker 2: dial group, a focused group of people turning dials up
Speaker 2: and down, registering their reaction. And after Biden had his
Speaker 2: meltdown and said we finally saved Medicare, when any reasonable
Speaker 2: objective observer would have said, he's he can't go on,
Speaker 2: he's he's had a stroke or something, something is terribly wrong,
Speaker 2: they convinced themselves that Biden had actually won that debate.
Speaker 2: And here's this is now. Anita Don said, look after
Speaker 2: that moment, which was the worst moment arguably, Trump said
Speaker 2: a lot of outrageous things, as he always does, and
Speaker 2: dials were, dials were being dialed downward, and she said,
Speaker 2: you know, I think we picked up some votes. I
Speaker 2: kid you not, that is what she thought, and that
Speaker 2: wasn't spent. I think she believed it. I know that.
Speaker 2: Just to finish I know that Mike Donalon again, he well,
Speaker 2: let me before I get to Donald. Several months later,
Speaker 2: I'm at the White House. I interviewed Rashetti and Reid
Speaker 2: and they were still in this force field of denial.
Speaker 2: They were convinced that the party had lost its mind,
Speaker 2: that it had walked away from a guy who won
Speaker 2: eighty one million votes in twenty twenty and that he
Speaker 2: would have won this time around. Donaldon went to the
Speaker 2: Kennedy School and told the assembled audience that the same
Speaker 2: thing that and Donalon was convinced. So that's the depth
Speaker 2: of delusion and denial here.
Speaker 1: That was my next question. He was as he was
Speaker 1: convinced or he's delusional both, perhaps delions both.
Speaker 2: Perhaps you look anybody, anybody who's ever had to take
Speaker 2: the car keys away from an octagenarian father. Grandfather knew
Speaker 2: that Joe Biden had no business running for reelection in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four at the age of eighty two, showing
Speaker 2: the effects of aging that everybody could see, but they
Speaker 2: they believed what they wanted to believe instead of their
Speaker 2: lying eyes. In effect, that's to me what is so
Speaker 2: unbelievably strange and fascinating about the book. And of course
Speaker 2: I get into the detail.
Speaker 1: So we apply a standard I apply a standard does
Speaker 1: not give the benefit of the doubt to the MAGA folks,
Speaker 1: to Donald Trump's cabinet. When you look at Pete Hegsath
Speaker 1: and Tulci Gabbert and Mike Wall's on the signal chat
Speaker 1: conducting military operations, I try and think, is there any
Speaker 1: conceivable analogy that equals it with regard to recklessness? And
Speaker 1: there is you just described. And so you also opened
Speaker 1: another door to the competency of these people that Aneda done.
Speaker 1: And I think this is so important to focus on
Speaker 1: the incompetence and competence and how crazy politics in the
Speaker 1: United States is. Okay, you have a woman who watched
Speaker 1: that debate happened, and I want everyone who's watching this
Speaker 1: to appreciate this. You watched the debate. I knew what
Speaker 1: was going on in that debate. Some I would say,
Speaker 1: at a at a maximum thirty seconds in right and
Speaker 1: I and I have a social media post within two
Speaker 1: minutes that makes clear. So she watches that said no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we won because people had a dial in their hands.
Speaker 1: And you have an entire generation of Democratic candidates who
Speaker 1: literally cannot speak an English sentence in front of an
Speaker 1: American voter until they have someone like I need it done,
Speaker 1: tell them what to say because of what the dial said,
Speaker 1: and what the dial said was Joe Biden won.
Speaker 2: That was crazy. And look, I'm not saying that this
Speaker 2: in any way excuses what Biden's inner circle did. I
Speaker 2: think history is going to judge them harshly. I think
Speaker 2: that this was a debacle of epic proportions.
Speaker 1: It left the betrayal of the country. It was. It
Speaker 1: was a betrayal of the country of the highest magne kid.
Speaker 2: It was an abdication of leadership for sure, all the
Speaker 2: way around. And look, and not just of Biden's inner circle,
Speaker 2: but of Democrats who failed to step up and challenge Biden,
Speaker 2: as you know, as Bill Dailey put it to me,
Speaker 2: you know, none of them had any freaking balls. Nobody
Speaker 2: would step up, and nobody of consequence would step up
Speaker 2: and challenge.
Speaker 1: So let's step back and we'll come back to the
Speaker 1: White House players. But I want to talk about the
Speaker 1: concept of cover up and I want to react specifically
Speaker 1: to something you said here. Okay, So yeah, I saw
Speaker 1: you say on Tara tar palm Aery's podcast about this
Speaker 1: that I wanted that I was interested and I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk through with you. And what you said was
Speaker 1: that it was not a cover up in the Watergate style. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And as soon as you said that, I saw, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna ask you a question, and you're coming on. And
Speaker 1: obviously it's not a Watergates style cover up, but for
Speaker 1: no other reason. The water state, the Watergate style cover
Speaker 1: up began in nineteen seventy two, but you would acknowledge
Speaker 1: that cover ups did not begin with Watergate. Sure, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so I was yes or no? Does this meet your
Speaker 1: definition of a cover up?
Speaker 2: My answer would be it's stranger and more inex applicable
Speaker 2: than a cover up. It is a case of the
Speaker 2: most powerful, all the presidents, men and women, lost in
Speaker 2: a fog of denial and delusion. And to me, that's
Speaker 2: equally dangerous, if not more so. And here's here's here's
Speaker 2: what they knew. And they knew this going way back,
Speaker 2: and you could certainly define this as a cover up.
Speaker 2: What they knew going back to twenty twenty was that
Speaker 2: Joe Biden couldn't campaign effectively at all. They hit him
Speaker 2: in the basement, as we all know, to use that cliche.
Speaker 2: And there's a scene in the book that I described
Speaker 2: that's really compelling When a former a Democratic operative from
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty campaign comes to interview for a job
Speaker 2: on the twenty twenty four campaign. She's in the oval
Speaker 2: office with the president and his aides, and the conversation
Speaker 2: takes an unexpectedly to turn when they say to her,
Speaker 2: one of the aides, you know what, in twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: we had COVID, We had the excuse to keep him
Speaker 2: in the basement.
Speaker 1: What do we do now?
Speaker 2: So there was no doubt about it that there was
Speaker 2: a cover up of Biden on the campaign trail. For sure.
Speaker 2: It wasn't the first time that, you know, somebody tried
Speaker 2: to hide a presidential candidate. And I mean, Jerry Ford
Speaker 2: was such a lousy candidate that the Great, the Great
Speaker 2: Steve's Spencer, sorry, the Great Stuve Spencer said to him
Speaker 2: when he wanted to go barnstorming and campaigning, And Ford
Speaker 2: said why not? Spencer said, because you're a lousy fucking candidate.
Speaker 2: And Ford took a drag on his pipe and said, oh,
Speaker 2: all right then.
Speaker 1: But so it was the.
Speaker 2: First time, but there was a there was They knew,
Speaker 2: without a doubt, they knew that they had to minimize
Speaker 2: his time on the Camp Pain Trail and his interactions
Speaker 2: with others.
Speaker 1: Okay, so after twenty twenty, Joe Biden called me true story.
Speaker 1: I saw a DC number and I called it back
Speaker 1: and man answered the phone, and I just said, who's
Speaker 1: this and he says it's Joe. I said, Joe. Hib
Speaker 1: It goes. Joe Biden was as I mister President elect.
Speaker 1: He goes, I just want to thank you. I would
Speaker 1: not have won this election without the Lincoln Project. And
Speaker 1: that's true, he would not have. Lincoln Project raises one
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars, has a billion dollars of impact, is
Speaker 1: denounced by the left and the Democratic Washington Consultants is ineffective.
Speaker 1: Is the only opposition group in that year right that
Speaker 1: lays a glove on him, crushes him, destabilizes the campaign.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty four, I haven't been involved in the
Speaker 1: group for four years. This group is now a grift,
Speaker 1: raises fifty five million dollars in four years. It pockets
Speaker 1: ninety percent of it. Eleven percent is spent on political activity.
Speaker 1: That's a big business. Yeah, Okay, so there is an
Speaker 1: industry that surrounds the inner circle that protects him. So
Speaker 1: what you are describing is an inner circle of people
Speaker 1: who are deluded in a fog. And I think it
Speaker 1: is easy to say from there, these are well intentioned people,
Speaker 1: and they did a bad thing in the end, but
Speaker 1: it was out of love for this guy. Because there's
Speaker 1: that moment that comes for us where you have to
Speaker 1: take dad's keys away from the car, and that's not
Speaker 1: what this is. This is the most powerful man in
Speaker 1: the world. This is the President of the United States.
Speaker 1: Every one of these people in the White House raised
Speaker 1: their hand. They took an oath not to Joe Biden,
Speaker 1: the Constitution of the United States, and they had an
Speaker 1: obligation to the American people. And so I don't think
Speaker 1: it's as benign as what you said because I experienced it. Okay,
Speaker 1: I experienced what happened when you went out. So what
Speaker 1: I want to say is they were belligerent, they were aggressive,
Speaker 1: they shouted down, they punished, they retaliated, and in my case,
Speaker 1: progressive groups filed complaints with the FEC. Weaponizing government against
Speaker 1: the political opponent. Sounds familiar. So when I look at
Speaker 1: the core, we have all these people and we'll come
Speaker 1: back there. But then there's the circle around it, right
Speaker 1: there's the bulwarks Tim Miller. So, Tim Miller, prominent guy,
Speaker 1: former RNC Press secretary, Jeb Bush press secretary. This is
Speaker 1: the guy who's never been involved in a winning campaign. Right,
Speaker 1: is a political gadfly. He's in the business of never
Speaker 1: Trump defines political courage. You can find him online jumping
Speaker 1: out of a bush at that nut from Arizona, Carrie
Speaker 1: Lake Grady stalks term. He's on the line at the
Speaker 1: White House Christmas Party receiving line. And for any of
Speaker 1: you who have not ever been around a president, it's
Speaker 1: just protocols. The head of escape Tim Miller. Literally he
Speaker 1: chocks everybody on this line. He jumps up out of
Speaker 1: the line and he hugs Joe Biden. Biden, of course
Speaker 1: is out of it, but he says to Bid, I'll
Speaker 1: do anything to keep you in this job. Yeah, debate happens,
Speaker 1: of course. Tim Miller is one of the first people
Speaker 1: he's got to get out. But when Dean Phillips went out,
Speaker 1: Tim Miller is a perfect example. Right, he's the hit man.
Speaker 1: I'm a grifter, I'm a this, I'm a that, I'm
Speaker 1: a well like Dean Phillips, I'm a war criminal. Because
Speaker 1: how Darren, whether it's Tim Waltz, the idea though that
Speaker 1: it was four people in it, and they saw bullshit.
Speaker 1: It was an entire political party. And so the fundamental
Speaker 1: question that every candidate is going to have to answer
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty eight is this one. Why did Biden lose? Now,
Speaker 1: in the spirit of name that tune you asked, I
Speaker 1: Tim Walts that question right or one of them? Nobody
Speaker 1: can answer that that question coherently because of the cost
Speaker 1: and the price of being yoked and tied to this
Speaker 1: monstrous cover up that led to Trump. Because the answer
Speaker 1: to the question of how Trump won, I want to
Speaker 1: give you an answer as a political consult. Okay, my
Speaker 1: previous side, old Trump was elected president of the United States,
Speaker 1: the most prolific liar in American history, because on fundamental
Speaker 1: questions of honesty, on the border, on the economy, and
Speaker 1: on Biden's fundamental fitness, the dishonest candidate in the race,
Speaker 1: the liar in the race was Joe Biden, and the
Speaker 1: honest candidate in the race on those issues was Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: And in the end, the cheapest words in American politics
Speaker 1: turned out to be I'm a Biden.
Speaker 2: Trust me, Well, I might argue with you about about
Speaker 2: Trump and the border, for example, because you know his
Speaker 2: only interest in the border was using it as a
Speaker 2: as a political Cudgelty.
Speaker 1: Did did the Biden administration tell the American people the
Speaker 1: border was secure? The border is not secure.
Speaker 2: Now listen, I'm not arguing that they did a good
Speaker 2: job on the border by enemies, but the other thing, Steve,
Speaker 2: just to circle back to your other point, I would
Speaker 2: not necessarily argue with any of the points you've made,
Speaker 2: except to say that I've never suggested, nor am i
Speaker 2: today suggesting that there was anything benign about what these
Speaker 2: guys and women in the Inner Circle did. It was,
Speaker 2: it was, It's resulted in a tragedy, and and and
Speaker 2: that's really what my book is about. It's it's about
Speaker 2: what happened behind closed doors that is stranger than you
Speaker 2: could possibly imagine. Because at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: whether whatever their motive might be, and it and that
Speaker 2: may be you know, above my pay grade and may
Speaker 2: require your motive, was power, a psychologist, power they.
Speaker 1: Want they their motive was power. Every one of those
Speaker 1: keep knew that they would never ever again in their
Speaker 1: lives be walking up the stairs behind the President on
Speaker 1: Air Force one and flying on Marine one and being
Speaker 1: in the White House and architecting history.
Speaker 2: And I can't rule that out of the motive they wanted.
Speaker 1: They wanted another hit on that pipe as much as
Speaker 1: Hunter Biden wanted another hit on his crack pipe at
Speaker 1: the lowest points of his exdiction. That's why now.
Speaker 2: But Steve, that oversimplifies the story that I tell in
Speaker 2: my book because in my view that while while their
Speaker 2: motives may well have been what you'd described, I am
Speaker 2: convinced that they were convinced that Biden could win this thing,
Speaker 2: and to this day they are convinced of that. It's
Speaker 2: maybe deluded, but Exhibit A is the fact that they
Speaker 2: sent him out onto that stage on June twenty seventh
Speaker 2: to go toe to toe with Donald Trump after a
Speaker 2: disastrous debate prep in which they knew, should have known
Speaker 2: that he wasn't up to it. They sent him out
Speaker 2: there anyway. They thought he could win it. That's what's
Speaker 2: so but wild about this story.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Jill Biden and Hunter Biden in her
Speaker 1: role in this. So sure, I have Chuck Todd on
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago, and Chuck Todd said something
Speaker 1: It was brutal. It was trip. I've thought it, and
Speaker 1: I have very few unexpressed thoughts in terms of I
Speaker 1: just don't have the guts to say that something that's trip.
Speaker 1: And he said this was a guy with two adult
Speaker 1: drug addicted kids after the death of his eldest son
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen. The family isn't chaos. It's like, this
Speaker 1: is the time for me to run for president. So
Speaker 1: she wants the power too. What's her wrong?
Speaker 2: Well, look, her role is that she was always there
Speaker 2: to support Joe and whatever Joe wanted to do. We
Speaker 2: can't know exactly what happened behind closed doors, and particularly,
Speaker 2: you know, can you imagine being Joe Biden's wife during
Speaker 2: that debate on June twenty seventh.
Speaker 1: Well, and why was Joe Biden's wife or husband or whatever.
Speaker 1: My spouse wouldn't have been running for president. So what
Speaker 1: I want to understand is her psychological disorder or what's
Speaker 1: making her tick, because it's not an act of love.
Speaker 1: It was an act of cruelty, and it was an
Speaker 1: act of despicable betrayal again towards the country which she
Speaker 1: had the high honor to serve as first Lady. Is
Speaker 1: she wanted more.
Speaker 2: Well, whatever her motive may have been, she was certainly
Speaker 2: all in with Joe power. She was all in with Joe.
Speaker 2: And look, I mean, I write about the fact that
Speaker 2: right after that debate, minutes later, back at the Atlanta Hotel,
Speaker 2: she's gushing about what a great job he did and
Speaker 2: how he answered all the questions.
Speaker 1: She's doing that because she has to compensate. Is the
Speaker 1: spouse because she believes it because someone told her to
Speaker 1: say it, Like, what's happening there? Is she taking command?
Speaker 1: Is she saying that you have all betrayed him, that
Speaker 1: it's the prep that was the problem, not his sentience.
Speaker 1: What's happened?
Speaker 2: I think we can know for sure what she was thinking.
Speaker 2: All we can know for sure is that she was
Speaker 2: all in. She was all in. And you know, we
Speaker 2: can't know if behind closed doors she said, Joe, listen,
Speaker 2: I'm worried. You need to see a doctor. You need
Speaker 2: to have an exam. We don't know, but every indication
Speaker 2: we have was that she was all in for Joe
Speaker 2: to just keep going. And that's you have.
Speaker 1: A thorough neurological exam. In twenty twenty four, twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: I do not know the answer to that question. And
Speaker 2: if somebody produces they failed neurological exam or or you know,
Speaker 2: some deep sixed Parkinson's diagnosis that I'm not aware of,
Speaker 2: I'll salute and say, yeah, that was a classic cover up.
Speaker 2: But I think it was so much more complex and
Speaker 2: fascinating to me again and inexplicable. You know, you need
Speaker 2: a degree in psychology or to know much more about
Speaker 2: the human mind to explain what happened here.
Speaker 1: Let's let's go back now to the inner circle, because
Speaker 1: again it's a vast apparatus surrounding this the party. Everyone
Speaker 1: is in on it. You talk about the debate, I
Speaker 1: want to ask you specifically about Valerie Biden's reaction in
Speaker 1: the in the aftermath of it. But when the Biden
Speaker 1: team is now in this period before Kamala Harris gets
Speaker 1: into the race, and we start with from the thirty
Speaker 1: seconds into the debate, most people I professionally recognize this
Speaker 1: as a disaster. I needed done. She has the dials,
Speaker 1: so the dials told her this is good. Joe Biden
Speaker 1: has come out of this, and she's like, this is great.
Speaker 1: When does it start to that there was a fire
Speaker 1: in the house, right and people respond to that not good.
Speaker 1: Is the kitchen Okay, the kitchen's gone, It's all gone. Right,
Speaker 1: When does it start to when does reality sink in?
Speaker 2: Well, almost immediately, I think reality starts to sink in.
Speaker 2: They're still in denial about it, the Internet circle, they're
Speaker 2: still fighting back, and Done was aggressively going after anybody
Speaker 2: who suggested that it was more than just a bad night.
Speaker 1: What does that mean when you say he's going after
Speaker 1: people aggressively, how does that manifest it?
Speaker 2: Well, just just publicly denouncing the suggestion and in no
Speaker 2: uncertain terms. You know, even Geno Mallley Dylan, the usually
Speaker 2: clear eyed chair of the of the campaign for Biden,
Speaker 2: evidently convinced herself that well, not that many people saw
Speaker 2: the debate anyway, fifty people watched it, right, So it's
Speaker 2: just it's just amazing. But what happened was, and I
Speaker 2: described this in the book, really day by day, hour
Speaker 2: by hour, starting.
Speaker 1: With Valerie, I asked you a bunch there, so we
Speaker 1: got Jill Biden's over here, Anita don is saying the
Speaker 1: dials have said, and Valerie Biden has a different reaction.
Speaker 2: At twelve thirty am. And I report this in the book.
Speaker 2: The evening the night of the debate, one of Joe
Speaker 2: Biden's best friends looks at his phone. It's buzzing, he
Speaker 2: answers it. It's Valerie Biden Owens, the president's sister, and
Speaker 2: she is distraught and weeping and shouting, And the first
Speaker 2: thing she says to Joe Biden's close friend is what
Speaker 2: did they do to my brother at Camp David. From
Speaker 2: that point she was mostly incoherent and ultimately hung up
Speaker 2: the phone. The next morning she called back. She was
Speaker 2: lucid and pissed off, and again was complaining to Biden's friend.
Speaker 2: How could they possibly have arrived at the CNN just
Speaker 2: minutes before the debate? How could he have had such
Speaker 2: lousy makeup? How did they make him look like Dorian Gray?
Speaker 2: She went on and on and on and laying this
Speaker 2: all at the feet of the debate prep team. Although
Speaker 2: she didn't mention Ron Klain by name, Ron was running
Speaker 2: in look I mean again, Readers can judge for themselves.
Speaker 2: What was that all about? Was it a sister's denial?
Speaker 2: Just is reflexive twining to pin it on anybody but
Speaker 2: her beloved brother?
Speaker 1: What was it?
Speaker 2: I don't know, He hasn't otherwise.
Speaker 1: So we have Jill Biden. He did great and needed
Speaker 1: done the dial hose he won Valerie Owens at someone
Speaker 1: else's fault. Hunter Biden is at the strategy table in
Speaker 1: the White House as a core decision maker with his father. Really,
Speaker 1: I guess in the way that George W. Bush was
Speaker 1: with his father in nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 2: Well, Hunter was there during that period in the White House.
Speaker 2: To what extent he was making any decisions, I don't
Speaker 2: who knows.
Speaker 1: Was he in the senior most councils of decision making.
Speaker 2: He was there for a period of time. And Hunter,
Speaker 2: as you know, would show up at White House events
Speaker 2: and you know, almost the way Elon musk Waltz is
Speaker 2: into the Oval Office today. He was just there and
Speaker 2: Joe Biden and listen Biden. Biden really leaned on him
Speaker 2: for advice. I think that's true.
Speaker 1: So again, right, I I've written extensively about this, right,
Speaker 1: and I I've lambasted the Republicans for the cruelty. I say,
Speaker 1: it was obvious to me that politics has gone so
Speaker 1: off the rails that you you had a you had
Speaker 1: an orchestrated effort that was aimed at breaking Hunter Biden
Speaker 1: and trying to induce a suicide. And and I, you know,
Speaker 1: I pray for Hunter Biden, right I I I you know,
Speaker 1: he's somebody in recovery, and and I hope Hunter Biden
Speaker 1: makes it. But Hunter Biden had no business sitting in
Speaker 1: the West wing of the White House being involved in
Speaker 1: any discussion right with anybody with security clearances. He took
Speaker 1: a constitutional oath about whether this should go on, right,
Speaker 1: it's immoral for him to be in there, right for
Speaker 1: a lot of different reasons. But if he's going to
Speaker 1: participate in that conversation, that's a conversation that takes place
Speaker 1: upstairs in the residents right at the table. That's a
Speaker 1: family decision, right. But nobody says, hey, Hunter Biden shouldn't
Speaker 1: be here with this small group of insiders. And the
Speaker 1: one thing that unites all of them from Hunter is
Speaker 1: that is that Joe Biden's got to be president for
Speaker 1: four more years. And so finally what happens that is
Speaker 1: the determinative thing. Just take us through into that to
Speaker 1: that final end where Harris is going to uh is
Speaker 1: going to get the call, How does she find out
Speaker 1: when is the first time the two of them them
Speaker 1: talk and then I want to I want to talk
Speaker 1: about something that I want to talk about two other
Speaker 1: things on the back of that in the hour, I
Speaker 1: want to talk about the media role in this, which
Speaker 1: is profound. But you get the end of the campaign,
Speaker 1: there's this event that takes place in Arlington where the
Speaker 1: Harris is and Doug Kamala Harris and Doug Ema offer
Speaker 1: there and Jill Biden comes in and she very clearly
Speaker 1: snubs Kamala Harris at this event, right, ice ice cold interaction,
Speaker 1: completely unprofessional, obvious, right, you know, as you're as you're
Speaker 1: watching this, and no one really covered it and talked
Speaker 1: about it, right, but I mean you could see the
Speaker 1: bad blue blood right pouring through through the television. So
Speaker 1: so with that in mind, right, knowing that there's very
Speaker 1: hard feelings, right, just like very precisely like in the
Speaker 1: in the chain of events. And I wrote today on
Speaker 1: my thing it's you know, this is the one hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty fifth anniversary of the surrender of Robert Lee
Speaker 1: to Grant, and I published an excerpt from from Grant's autobiography,
Speaker 1: really the details right of all the you know, I
Speaker 1: come up to Wilma McLean's house and this is what
Speaker 1: went down. Right, So in that sense, right, you know,
Speaker 1: it just even to us maybe even like a little mundane, right, like,
Speaker 1: just take me to an hour before, to approximate moment
Speaker 1: before he's getting out, How it goes down, how she
Speaker 1: finds out, and why the bad blood.
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, this is the really the heart
Speaker 2: heart of the story, the heart of the book. Although
Speaker 2: I have planning on the campaign itself and on Harris
Speaker 2: and Trump, but those final hours in the before that
Speaker 2: fateful weekend of July twenty twenty one, that Sunday the
Speaker 2: twenty first being the day he stepped away, it was
Speaker 2: just unbelievable. Behind closed doors on the subject of Hunter,
Speaker 2: let me just mention briefly that no, it was not
Speaker 2: it was certainly not a career enhance her to challenge
Speaker 2: Hunter in any way around Joe Biden. That's how Anita
Speaker 2: had done. Ultimately fell out with Joe Biden in the
Speaker 2: final days before he stepped away. It was because her husband,
Speaker 2: Bob Bauer, the president's attorney, had dared to suggest that
Speaker 2: Hunter should lower his profile and because it was causing
Speaker 2: the president political problems. Well, that was not well received
Speaker 2: by Joe Biden. And so Anita done and Bob Bauer
Speaker 2: really fell out, fell from grace, but in the inner circle,
Speaker 2: absolutely fascinating. And one of the stories I tell in
Speaker 2: great detail is how Biden's original chief of staff, Ron Klain,
Speaker 2: to circle back to him, really was in a kind
Speaker 2: of showdown with his current chief Jeff Zience. At the
Speaker 2: very end, Klain went to Science. Clain was convinced, despite
Speaker 2: having presided over that DISASTERUS debate prep, he was still
Speaker 2: convinced that Biden should be at the top of the ticket,
Speaker 2: that what they needed to do was rally the progressives
Speaker 2: and have a hundred of them walk out on the
Speaker 2: White House lawn with Joe Biden and he would somehow
Speaker 2: rescue his nomination. And he's calling Jeff Science and saying, Jeff,
Speaker 2: you got to rally the progressives. What's going on? You know,
Speaker 2: why isn't he Why isn't he meeting with the progressives
Speaker 2: right now? And Zien said, look, you know, we're working
Speaker 2: on it, And Clain just really lowered the boom on
Speaker 2: him and said, the presidency's at stake here anyway. That
Speaker 2: that whole dynamic between the two them was fascinating. So
Speaker 2: those final days are pretty amazing. On the twentieth, twentieth
Speaker 2: twenty first that weekend, that's Sunday, Biden had gone radio silent.
Speaker 2: He wasn't calling the White House. One advisor said he
Speaker 2: suspected something was up, but nobody knew for sure. Rochetti,
Speaker 2: Steve Roschetti, and Mike Donolan arrived Sunday morning. Biden was
Speaker 2: on the phone working out the details of that multi
Speaker 2: nation prisoner swap. He finally comes out and they have
Speaker 2: that pivotal historic talk to three of them, and Raschetti
Speaker 2: lays it out, says that the polls that claims argues
Speaker 2: that there is still a path for Joe Biden. It's
Speaker 2: going to be brutal, It's going to be bloody.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean just I mean from a competence perspective,
Speaker 1: it's delusional. It's is he Is he delusional or is
Speaker 1: he incompetent? Or is it both? I don't know. He's
Speaker 1: a I don't know. I know Steve Schetty is a
Speaker 1: Biden insider, is a Washington lobbyist, right, he was a
Speaker 1: DC lobbyist, right, a generational hanger on, right who gets
Speaker 1: into this job. Right, So I have no idea, right
Speaker 1: if his political acumen on the one twe hundred scale
Speaker 1: is point zero five. It sounds like it, right. If
Speaker 1: that's what his conclusion was, well.
Speaker 2: That was his conclusion, and that he could still and
Speaker 2: moreover that he would he was still all in if
Speaker 2: if the president wanted to run, if he wanted to
Speaker 2: go ahead. What they all knew the fact that none
Speaker 2: of them could sugarcoat? Was there knowledge that the party leaders,
Speaker 2: Pelosi and the rest of them in all likelihood, come
Speaker 2: Monday morning would have come out publicly against Joe Biden
Speaker 2: being on the ticket, and they knew it was game over. Uh,
Speaker 2: And yet there they were saying, boss and effect not
Speaker 2: in so many words, but if you want to run,
Speaker 2: we're with you. So again stunning, stunning, delusional in my
Speaker 2: view behavior. But to this day, if you sit down
Speaker 2: with Mike donal On and ask him if Joe, if
Speaker 2: if Joe Biden should have should have stayed on the ticket,
Speaker 2: he will tell you. He will look you in the
Speaker 2: eye and say absolutely the party lost its mind walking
Speaker 2: away from it.
Speaker 1: Has the Democratic Party lost its mind to the degree
Speaker 1: that it's possible that any of these people will be
Speaker 1: around another presidential campaign? Ever?
Speaker 2: Again, you look, you would you could answer that better
Speaker 2: than I could, Steve, having been in that world.
Speaker 1: It's not it's not because it's not a loss. Right,
Speaker 1: this wasn't this wasn't about I mean, this is the
Speaker 1: egregiousness of this. And I'm just like, I'm genuinely curious.
Speaker 1: Right is in time in a needed in Needa done
Speaker 1: and Bob Bauer Right? Democratic power couple? Right? Is is
Speaker 1: she in her mind's eye? Is she a a? I
Speaker 1: guess that the word used to be the gray beard?
Speaker 1: Is she a Washington gray beard? A A A powerful
Speaker 1: you know advisor.
Speaker 2: I honestly don't know what they think.
Speaker 1: Where do these people fit into in their view in
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party? Right now, I'll give you a specific example.
Speaker 1: I said this when when I said this in January,
Speaker 1: this is very obvious to me. And and this is
Speaker 1: I would bet a lot of money on this. Joe
Speaker 1: Biden will not have a presidential library, not like Obama,
Speaker 1: not like Reagan, not like Bush. Bush's right. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm a University of Delaware graduate. David Pluff and I
Speaker 1: were the founding fellows of the By and Center. Right
Speaker 1: you know there that you know, whatever the vice presidential
Speaker 1: gialt there'll be there'll be some facility that'll be at
Speaker 1: the University of Delaware, but there's not going to be
Speaker 1: a presidential library. Maybe none of that stuff.
Speaker 2: Once again, I mean, I would say that, you know,
Speaker 2: history will come down very hard on Joe Biden and
Speaker 2: his inner circle. It's it's hard to imagine them suddenly being,
Speaker 2: you know, at the side of another presidential candidate. But
Speaker 2: I have no idea what there what they think their
Speaker 2: future is. All right, I am I didn't answer your
Speaker 2: question about how Kamala found out, but but I can
Speaker 2: do that briefly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So you know what happened was that there's no evidence
Speaker 2: I know of that she knew it would happen on
Speaker 2: that day, July twenty one. But what I can tell you,
Speaker 2: and what I report exclusively in the book, is that
Speaker 2: prior to that weekend, she had privately secretly put out
Speaker 2: the word the Democratic Operatives to pore over the rules
Speaker 2: make sure figure out how she could seize the nomination
Speaker 2: as quickly as possible in the event that Biden stepped away,
Speaker 2: and Lorraine Voles, her chief of staff, had been looking
Speaker 2: at what might happen. Ever since Biden had had to
Speaker 2: have a colonoscopy and seed power for one day. A
Speaker 2: couple of years prior, they were looking at this, and
Speaker 2: people were getting phone calls about the rules, and there
Speaker 2: was even pressure on some senators to drop, to come
Speaker 2: out against Byron on Monday.
Speaker 1: Is that where the bad blood is from?
Speaker 2: That's my reporting, and it may well be. It may
Speaker 2: well be. She got the call, you know, at the
Speaker 2: Naval Observatory. She was in the kitchen with a grand niece,
Speaker 2: I believe, and she said when she got the call,
Speaker 2: Biden said, listen, I'm I'm dropping out. She said, are
Speaker 2: you sure?
Speaker 1: Are you? Are you? You know?
Speaker 2: She she acted, She certainly acted surprised. I don't think
Speaker 2: that she knew it was coming at that moment.
Speaker 1: So I want to I want to kind of as
Speaker 1: we as we wrap this up again, Right, this is
Speaker 1: a really important book. It's a extraordinarily important first draft
Speaker 1: of history. I mean, fifty years from now, historians will
Speaker 1: be writing about this, and and they will be going
Speaker 1: in a book right as as a as a first
Speaker 1: right as as you know, as they get into the archives. Right,
Speaker 1: there's gonna there's gonna be one hundred books writing about this, right, whatever, whatever,
Speaker 1: the ultimate what over? The ultimate number is I skimmed
Speaker 1: the first one, you know, they kind of yours is
Speaker 1: the one right that I was looking forward to. Right this,
Speaker 1: this is what happened. I think Alex Thompson at Axios
Speaker 1: is a very good reporter and he was one of
Speaker 1: the very few reporters I think he's Biden look the
Speaker 1: way president should be covered. Alex Thompson is the real deal,
Speaker 1: and he's one of the best political reporters in the country.
Speaker 1: And so he announced as a book and he's doing
Speaker 1: it with Jake Tapper, and so that you look at
Speaker 1: a duo and I don't know how they write this
Speaker 1: book together. I'll be I'll be honest, because you got
Speaker 1: one guy who sought the truth and helped Biden new account,
Speaker 1: and you got another guy who I think is a
Speaker 1: totem of how the media covered this, which is to
Speaker 1: ignore it. So I mean, very simple. You can go
Speaker 1: back and see what Dean Dean, how Jake Tapper covered
Speaker 1: Dean Phillips walking out, which was an act of courage,
Speaker 1: right to say, like we still have time, but it
Speaker 1: was too late, and of course Dean was was completely right,
Speaker 1: but generally astonished I mean this did anybody in Jake
Speaker 1: Tapper's position would have a lack of self awareness. He's
Speaker 1: written books before. I mean, you can write a book
Speaker 1: about a thousand different things. He's going to write about
Speaker 1: this and so this, this does not happen.
Speaker 3: In the world of Dan Rather and of Peter Jennings
Speaker 3: and of Tom Brocaw and of the world of a
Speaker 3: ABC News such as it.
Speaker 1: Was, or see ES News such as it was during
Speaker 1: your during your careers, So right, MSNBC, CNN, how do
Speaker 1: you evaluate their role in this? And I'm asking because
Speaker 1: contact between the people you wrote about and now, for example,
Speaker 1: Jake tapp Topper who's writing about what happened, was constant,
Speaker 1: and that constant contact was on the basis, if if
Speaker 1: you report the truth about Joe Biden, you'll be punished,
Speaker 1: There'll be a retribution against you. There won't be a
Speaker 1: guest will deny you access. So there's no story that
Speaker 1: I'm aware of, right that that looked at this issue,
Speaker 1: right and just objectively right, CNN or anything you're aware
Speaker 1: of right that, Like, we're a Jake Tapperson, we gont
Speaker 1: to figure out what's going on here. We got Sandre
Speaker 1: Goodd at this network. Right, We're we're gonna go report
Speaker 1: this story. Did did did that happen anywhere in your
Speaker 1: mind that I missed?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess I would. I guess Steve, I would
Speaker 2: say that, you know, the same way Reagan didn't want
Speaker 2: to speak ill of any Republicans that that. I don't
Speaker 2: want to.
Speaker 1: I don't want I don't want to judge like lawyers. Huh.
Speaker 2: I don't want to judge my competitors.
Speaker 1: One of the one of the one of the things,
Speaker 1: one of the things, one of the things I just
Speaker 1: laughing at. I said, finally, right, an event has occurred, Right,
Speaker 1: that will get lawyers to criticize other lawyers. Right, we
Speaker 1: finally we've breached the thing. But we have not breached
Speaker 1: the line yet where journalists will criticize.
Speaker 2: Right, We're not going to go after each other. And
Speaker 2: having said that, I guess, Look, I guess I would
Speaker 2: say to readers, you know their book is not out
Speaker 2: until what why wait?
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 2: Pick pick up uncharted?
Speaker 1: Pick up my book? Now? I think that Unchartered is
Speaker 1: an essential book, and I want to I just want
Speaker 1: to before I wrap it up, is there anything else
Speaker 1: you want to say about it? And I'll do the
Speaker 1: pitch and everything, and I'm gonna try to. If I
Speaker 1: can make everyone in the country read this book, I
Speaker 1: would wave a wand I would buy them the book
Speaker 1: and I would make them read this book. That's how
Speaker 1: important I think this book is.
Speaker 2: Well, thanks, Steve, I mean, and I'm flattered and honor
Speaker 2: just to be with you. So enjoy the conversation. And no,
Speaker 2: I think we've covered it.
Speaker 1: I want to say, everyone who's listening, why why journalism
Speaker 1: like this is so important and the application for it
Speaker 1: in politics and reality. This was a terrible thing that happened, terrible,
Speaker 1: terrible thing, and a terrible consequence has resulted with Donald
Speaker 1: Trump as we live through these events, right, this is
Speaker 1: this is This is cause and effect. This is the
Speaker 1: consequence of one of the most selfish, self interested decisions
Speaker 1: a small group of people have ever inflicted on the
Speaker 1: United States in the two hundred and fifty years of
Speaker 1: the country's existence. The American Revolution starts the anniversary celebrations
Speaker 1: in ten days April to nineteen, two hundred and fiftieth
Speaker 1: anniversary at the beginning of the American Revolution. And I
Speaker 1: want to talk about, just for a second, why this
Speaker 1: issue is so important because it is the key that
Speaker 1: unlocks the door to how we get out of this disaster.
Speaker 1: The American people have been lied to. MAGA voters were
Speaker 1: lied to by Donald Trump, and Democratic voters were lied
Speaker 1: to by the Bidens and this team, and the result
Speaker 1: of those lives is catastrophe, disaster for the country. And
Speaker 1: we share that in common. Republican voters, magical voters, Democratic voters,
Speaker 1: MAGA voters, and progressive voters share the abuse of being
Speaker 1: lied to by the most powerful people in the world
Speaker 1: so they could have more power. And the consequences in
Speaker 1: the suffering are going to be immense because of those lives,
Speaker 1: we have to forgive each other as people and appreciate
Speaker 1: as an American people, we have been pitted against each
Speaker 1: other by powerful people with powerful propaganda platforms and powerful lies.
Speaker 1: And the way through this is to appreciate as we
Speaker 1: get into the next election that Democrats will have to
Speaker 1: look at Republicans with grace and say you were lied to,
Speaker 1: and Republicans will have to look at Democrats with grace
Speaker 1: and say you were lied to. We were all lied to,
Speaker 1: and are we going to let the lies take something
Speaker 1: ephemeral from us? Or are we going to make an
Speaker 1: American stand together. This is a story about power, is
Speaker 1: a story about greed. It is a story that tells
Speaker 1: a tale of what happens when there is no restraint,
Speaker 1: when common sense dissipates, when delusion overwhelms obligation. This is
Speaker 1: one of the most profound and tragic stories in the
Speaker 1: history of the country. Personal tragedy for Joe Biden that
Speaker 1: we chose it, for his family, and for all of
Speaker 1: these people who have done irreparable harm to three hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty million people who live in this country. Shameful
Speaker 1: doesn't begin to describe it. But because of the power
Speaker 1: of the First Amendment, because of the initiative of Chris Whipple,
Speaker 1: because of journalism and courage, you know what happened. And
Speaker 1: I urge all of you to not treat the most
Speaker 1: powerful people in the world like teenagers treat Taylor Swift.
Speaker 1: Don't be a fan, be a citizen and demand the
Speaker 1: fulfillment of the obligations of people who seek to serve
Speaker 1: the country. Are they serving you? Are they serving the
Speaker 1: American Constitution? Because this project that we share is something
Speaker 1: by design that none of us ever get to see
Speaker 1: the end of. It goes on we stand here today
Speaker 1: on the shoulders of a forgotten man who deserves mentioning
Speaker 1: on April ninth, you listens, Grant, he saved the country
Speaker 1: such sacrifice. There's only ever been seven hundred million Americans.
Speaker 1: One million gave their lives so that generations not yet
Speaker 1: born could live in freedom. This book is a story
Speaker 1: of about twenty people out of the seven hundred million
Speaker 1: Americans who've ever lived, who stand in a infinestinally small
Speaker 1: percentile of people who have done the most damage to
Speaker 1: the country in its long history, and history will scorn
Speaker 1: them for it deservedly. And the names were shetty and done.
Speaker 1: We'll linger with the names like Hexa and Lutnik and
Speaker 1: gabbered all together. And in the final analysis they'll be
Speaker 1: grouped with names like Lee and Davis and others who
Speaker 1: wrecked and destroy and damnage. What was the inheritance that
Speaker 1: they were born into? And shame on them all. And
Speaker 1: with that I say to all of you, thanks for listening,
Speaker 1: Thank you to Chris Whipple for coming, and I urge
Speaker 1: all of you to read this book.
Speaker 2: Steeve, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: You got it. Thanks Chris, and I'm Steve Schmidt. This
Speaker 1: is the warning. I invite you to join this community,
Speaker 1: where I promise to be honest, blunt and direct about
Speaker 1: what is happening in this country. America is in crisis.
Speaker 1: Follow and subscribe to this channel and on substackt. Thank
Speaker 1: you