WEBVTT - Inside Biden's Campaign Chaos | A Conversation with Chris Whipple 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.040 This is Steve Schmidt and welcome to another edition of 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.800 the Warning Podcast. And today I am really happy to 0:00:06.880 --> 0:00:12.719 bring you Chris Whipple. He is the investigative reporter, the 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:16.720 political journalist who has written the book that is in 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:21.640 the news detailing what happened in the twenty twenty four election. 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:25.000 The name of the book is Unchartered, How Trump beat Biden, 0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:29.240 Harris and the odds in the wildest campaign in history. 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:34.400 There is a profound issue, in my view, that is 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:38.479 raised in this book. It's the second of three books 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:41.760 that have been talked about publicly that will be coming 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:46.320 out that look at the White House decision making and 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:52.519 Biden's condition, the implications of it, all the consequences of 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:58.280 the decision, the accountability for that decision, and of course 0:00:58.920 --> 0:01:04.040 the full magnitude, dude of the crisis. Right now, we're 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:08.760 going to get into it with Chris Whipple. But when 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:12.319 you read this book, and it's urgent that you do 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:19.080 read this book, buy this book. You need to understand 0:01:20.160 --> 0:01:25.840 the dynamics of power and this book will help you 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:31.600 do that. And when I read these books, what they 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:38.880 are is first drafts of history. This will be an 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:43.800 issue that is studied in the United States fifty years 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:47.680 from now, seventy five years from now, it will have 0:01:48.880 --> 0:01:54.440 as long in endurance as did the questions around Edith 0:01:54.520 --> 0:02:01.360 Wilson's decisions during that administration and how she handled her 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:10.560 incapacitated husband. Now Edith Wilson after President Wilson had a stroke, 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:16.639 never relented from her conviction that she did the right 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:20.440 thing and did what Woodrow Wilson would have wanted her 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:25.720 to do. Of course, if you have responsibility for maintaining 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:29.840 a constitutional republic, it was the wrong thing to do. 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:35.840 The continuity of constitutional powered succession does not flow through 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:39.720 the president's wife. And so, with no further ado, I 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:43.639 want to bring Chris Whipple into the conversation and get started. 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:46.240 And so Chris, I said that I look at the 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:48.919 book as a first draft of history. But how did 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:52.000 you look at it as you were writing it? And 0:02:52.480 --> 0:02:57.520 what was your intention to try to find out, explore 0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:01.320 and bring to the reader and do doing this because 0:03:01.960 --> 0:03:04.760 obviously there's going to be a lot of books written 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:07.520 about this, and so why were you like I have 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:08.600 to write one about this? 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:12.360 Yeah, first, Steve, great to be with you, Honored to 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:16.480 be here. I was writing a different book under contract 0:03:16.480 --> 0:03:20.320 for HarperCollins in the summer of twenty twenty four. It 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:24.440 was to be a book about presidential campaign managers from 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:29.720 nineteen sixty eight to the present. When suddenly, that fateful 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:35.200 weekend of July twenty twenty one, the bottom fell out 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:39.680 of the political world, and when Biden dropped out, I 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:43.600 said to myself, I can't do both books, but this 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:46.240 is the book I have to do the twenty twenty 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:50.440 four campaign, because it's the political story of the century, 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:55.680 and it reed it needed my full time attention. I 0:03:55.760 --> 0:04:00.880 thought I was uniquely qualified to do it because not 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:04.200 because I'm smarter than anybody else, but because I had 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:09.680 sources within Biden world and Trump world, and I ultimately 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:13.600 got them in Harris world as well to tell the 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:17.760 stories I think nobody else could have done. So that's 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:20.920 why I felt it was compelling, but mostly for history, 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:23.680 because it's just this was a book that had to 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:26.560 be written and had to be done fast. I called 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:31.400 my boss at HarperCollins, Lisa Sharky, who's a force of nature, 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:34.520 and she immediately agreed to put her team behind it, 0:04:34.920 --> 0:04:35.640 and off I went. 0:04:36.240 --> 0:04:39.240 What has the reaction been to the book by the 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:45.279 people who are featured in the book. Ron Klain, Steve Schetty, 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:50.320 Mike Donaldan, do they believe they were fairly treated in 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:50.840 the book. 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:57.000 Here's the thing. I can't answer that question satisfactorily because 0:04:57.080 --> 0:05:00.560 I've only really been in contact with Ron playing since 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:02.400 the book came out, and as you know, it came 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:06.680 out yesterday. It's been making headlines for a while because 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:09.480 of an excerpt I did in Vandy Fair two excerpts 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:14.960 and other stuff. But here's the thing, Steve, It's it's 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:20.160 the it's the strangest and wildest story you can imagine 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:27.880 behind closed doors. My view is that Karl Rove got 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:31.600 it wrong when he said that this was a gigantic conspiracy. 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:35.960 I don't think. I don't believe this was a cover 0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:38.560 up in the Watergate sense of the word. It was 0:05:38.680 --> 0:05:42.760 stranger and wilder and every bit as troubling as that. 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:47.680 What I think happened was that Biden's inner circle convinced themselves, 0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:51.239 including Ron Klain, and we can talk about him because 0:05:53.040 --> 0:05:56.039 you know you need you need a master psychologist to 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:59.960 explain what happened with him, But they managed to convince 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:02.919 themselves that Biden could somehow win this thing, that he 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:06.320 could run, that he could win, and that they could 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:09.560 all stay in power for another four years. Now, Klaan 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:12.680 is the real, as the New York Times book review 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:15.640 put it in my I can't quote them exactly, but 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:20.400 the reviewer said, you know, how do you how do 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:25.080 you possibly reconcile these two Ron Klains Clain told me 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:31.040 in devastating detail just how wobbly and out of it 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:34.960 Joe Biden was during the debate prep a camp. David 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:38.680 and nobody else has that story. Ron told it to 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:43.359 me in detail. The floodgates open and he and he 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:46.720 gave me a blow by blow description of how Biden 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:51.200 was out of it. He was he couldn't really explain 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:53.719 what he wanted to do in a second term. He 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:57.400 was obsessed with Emmanuel McCrone and ol Off Schultz and 0:06:57.480 --> 0:06:59.640 kept talking about how they think I'm a great president, 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:04.280 so I'm must be. He half jokingly thought that Biden 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:07.839 thought he was president of NATO instead of the US. 0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:11.560 He at one point the president left aspen Lodge just 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:13.920 got up, walked out to the pool, sank into a 0:07:13.960 --> 0:07:18.080 lounge chair, and fell sound asleep. They managed to entice 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:20.200 him back later in the day. I could go on. 0:07:21.000 --> 0:07:25.120 But here's the long, winted answer. But to get back 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:31.280 to your original question, how do you reconcile the ron 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:37.920 Klain who witnessed that disastrous debate prep prior to that 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:42.440 terrible debate, and the ron Klain who a few weeks 0:07:42.520 --> 0:07:46.679 later was fighting to keep Joe Biden in the race 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:50.080 at almost any cost. He wanted to die on that hill. 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:53.800 He thought that Biden should stay on as the nominee. 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:57.200 And we can talk about it. It's it's hour by hour. 0:07:57.320 --> 0:08:01.720 It's an amazing behind the scenes story. So I've talked 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:05.520 to Ron he has said he hasn't disputed a single 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:09.200 thing that I've reported, except he says I had the 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:14.760 framing wrong. He thinks that Joe Biden's condition had to 0:08:14.800 --> 0:08:21.320 do with his poor preparation by the White House aides 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:25.400 who succeeded him. He doesn't mention, he doesn't name Jeff Science, 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:29.960 but he's clearly talking about Science and his team and 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:35.320 thought that they failed somehow to prepare Biden for the debate, 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:39.840 prep that he And it makes no sense to me 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:46.880 because again, you know is Biden wanders out and falls 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:49.040 asleep in a lounge chair by the pool and that's 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:52.400 somehow Jeff science is fault. I don't think so. 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:59.599 Does wrong claim have any sense of discernible shame and 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:06.960 chense of discernible guilt? Do any of these people in 0:09:07.040 --> 0:09:11.760 this moment look at what is happening to this country 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:18.040 and appreciate that this is what will be carved on 0:09:18.120 --> 0:09:18.960 their gravestones. 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:22.360 It's the you know, it's the sixty four thousand dollars question, 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:24.760 and I don't know the answer to it. 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:25.160 Steve. 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:29.120 You know again, I've been in contact with Ron and 0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:34.360 since the book came out, and again he disputes what 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:38.560 he calls the framing of of that pre debate. 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:41.720 Prep As we get deeper into the conversation, I'm only 0:09:41.760 --> 0:09:45.480 going to stop you to challenge not you, obviously, but 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:48.400 what I think is a nonsense concept. 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:50.920 I've also got a siren going by, so this is 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:51.680 a good time to pok. 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:57.480 I can't hear it. The country is besieged by incoherence, 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:05.120 by nonsense talk, the tariffs, the math. This is a 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:12.319 White House chief of staff, a person who has, through appointment, 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:24.680 held tremendous power, tremendous responsibility, is called on to exercise judgment. 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:27.680 And his answer to this is now you got the 0:10:27.720 --> 0:10:31.240 framing wrong. Well, what does that mean? What could it 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:37.920 conceivably mean? Because the book makes clear an extraordinary and 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:44.920 vivid detail, unrefuted, that the president of the United States 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:53.959 is just utterly incapacitated. And you know that because Ron 0:10:54.080 --> 0:11:03.600 Klain tells you that, and then Ron Klain does everything 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:15.000 he can conceivably do to maintain the incapacitated president in 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:23.760 a political campaign that all of the campaign experts, starting 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:32.080 with David Pluff, appreciate. They've been behind from day one, 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:39.240 that they can't win, and they're telling the country A. 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:49.120 He's fine, b they're winning. C. Biden is the only 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:55.400 candidate who can beat Trump, though d He's losing to 0:11:55.520 --> 0:12:00.680 Trump and he's incapacitated. And ron Claim comes back and 0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:04.120 he says, no, you have the narrative wrong. What does 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:05.920 that mean? Yeah, no, I don't. 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:09.840 I don't know what it means either, except let me 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:13.319 just let me just say one thing in fairness to 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:18.160 their belief that this guy could actually run again, and 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:23.400 that is, there are some inconvenient facts here from the 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:26.720 point of view of people who say this was a 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:32.120 gigantic conspiracy and everybody knew that Biden was incapacitated, and 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:33.800 I knew. 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:39.760 But here's the thing. Listen, Listen. I knew in twenty 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:45.600 twenty two because I consume news and I watched television. 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:49.600 I said it would be a national catastrophe if he 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:54.880 ran again. I knew, and you were right, and I 0:12:54.960 --> 0:13:03.040 what and and the Congress knew. Democratic Congress Nan Dean 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:06.120 Phillips talks about that on a podcast. Joe Biden had 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:09.960 gone into a conference launch and he was utterly incoherent. 0:13:10.280 --> 0:13:13.600 So one of the great lies in this is that 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:21.280 nobody knew. The most astonishing aspect of these three books 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:25.920 is the next one. Jake Tapper is going to write 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:32.800 a book, and Jake Tapper's asking questions about the Biden 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:36.880 cover up. It is madness. Well, no, I agree with you, 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:41.600 type of madness that you're seeing play out with Trump 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:43.160 and the tariffs precisely. 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:46.400 But here's the thing, Steve, here's the stunning thing that 0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:52.679 is absolutely inexplicable to me, but absolutely fascinating, and that 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:57.200 is I am convinced that these guys, the inner circle, 0:13:57.280 --> 0:14:01.680 and I'm talking about Mike donald On, Steve Shetty, Bruce Reid, 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:05.720 the people, the real inner circle, they were closer than science, 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:09.719 the chief of staff to the President. They watched that 0:14:09.920 --> 0:14:14.280 debate on June twenty seventh, and they convinced themselves that 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:18.160 this was just a quote unquote bad night. They truly 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:22.280 believed that. And I'll give you an example. Anita don 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:25.160 one of his closest advisers, was watching a so called 0:14:25.200 --> 0:14:28.040 dial group, a focused group of people turning dials up 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:32.400 and down, registering their reaction. And after Biden had his 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:37.960 meltdown and said we finally saved Medicare, when any reasonable 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:42.880 objective observer would have said, he's he can't go on, 0:14:43.920 --> 0:14:48.120 he's he's had a stroke or something, something is terribly wrong, 0:14:48.720 --> 0:14:53.200 they convinced themselves that Biden had actually won that debate. 0:14:53.400 --> 0:14:57.280 And here's this is now. Anita Don said, look after 0:14:57.320 --> 0:15:01.800 that moment, which was the worst moment arguably, Trump said 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:04.080 a lot of outrageous things, as he always does, and 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:08.080 dials were, dials were being dialed downward, and she said, 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:10.640 you know, I think we picked up some votes. I 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:13.640 kid you not, that is what she thought, and that 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:17.080 wasn't spent. I think she believed it. I know that. 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:23.680 Just to finish I know that Mike Donalon again, he well, 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:27.360 let me before I get to Donald. Several months later, 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:30.200 I'm at the White House. I interviewed Rashetti and Reid 0:15:31.880 --> 0:15:35.240 and they were still in this force field of denial. 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:40.520 They were convinced that the party had lost its mind, 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:42.920 that it had walked away from a guy who won 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:45.960 eighty one million votes in twenty twenty and that he 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:50.320 would have won this time around. Donaldon went to the 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:55.680 Kennedy School and told the assembled audience that the same 0:15:55.760 --> 0:16:01.840 thing that and Donalon was convinced. So that's the depth 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:03.960 of delusion and denial here. 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:08.040 That was my next question. He was as he was 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:14.480 convinced or he's delusional both, perhaps delions both. 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:19.800 Perhaps you look anybody, anybody who's ever had to take 0:16:19.840 --> 0:16:26.520 the car keys away from an octagenarian father. Grandfather knew 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:29.800 that Joe Biden had no business running for reelection in 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:33.680 twenty twenty four at the age of eighty two, showing 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:39.960 the effects of aging that everybody could see, but they 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:43.680 they believed what they wanted to believe instead of their 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:47.360 lying eyes. In effect, that's to me what is so 0:16:48.280 --> 0:16:52.320 unbelievably strange and fascinating about the book. And of course 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:53.400 I get into the detail. 0:16:53.800 --> 0:17:00.360 So we apply a standard I apply a standard does 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:04.640 not give the benefit of the doubt to the MAGA folks, 0:17:05.440 --> 0:17:09.800 to Donald Trump's cabinet. When you look at Pete Hegsath 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:13.600 and Tulci Gabbert and Mike Wall's on the signal chat 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:20.520 conducting military operations, I try and think, is there any 0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:29.919 conceivable analogy that equals it with regard to recklessness? And 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:36.560 there is you just described. And so you also opened 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:43.600 another door to the competency of these people that Aneda done. 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:46.720 And I think this is so important to focus on 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:51.840 the incompetence and competence and how crazy politics in the 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:57.800 United States is. Okay, you have a woman who watched 0:17:57.800 --> 0:18:02.920 that debate happened, and I want everyone who's watching this 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:07.119 to appreciate this. You watched the debate. I knew what 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:10.000 was going on in that debate. Some I would say, 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:17.480 at a at a maximum thirty seconds in right and 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:22.080 I and I have a social media post within two 0:18:22.160 --> 0:18:26.680 minutes that makes clear. So she watches that said no, no, no, 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:30.800 we won because people had a dial in their hands. 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:38.560 And you have an entire generation of Democratic candidates who 0:18:38.680 --> 0:18:43.560 literally cannot speak an English sentence in front of an 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:47.240 American voter until they have someone like I need it done, 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:50.760 tell them what to say because of what the dial said, 0:18:51.320 --> 0:18:55.199 and what the dial said was Joe Biden won. 0:18:56.440 --> 0:18:59.320 That was crazy. And look, I'm not saying that this 0:18:59.440 --> 0:19:03.720 in any way excuses what Biden's inner circle did. I 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:06.920 think history is going to judge them harshly. I think 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:10.520 that this was a debacle of epic proportions. 0:19:11.560 --> 0:19:14.720 It left the betrayal of the country. It was. It 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:18.920 was a betrayal of the country of the highest magne kid. 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:21.320 It was an abdication of leadership for sure, all the 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:25.000 way around. And look, and not just of Biden's inner circle, 0:19:25.040 --> 0:19:27.960 but of Democrats who failed to step up and challenge Biden, 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:30.040 as you know, as Bill Dailey put it to me, 0:19:30.680 --> 0:19:34.280 you know, none of them had any freaking balls. Nobody 0:19:34.640 --> 0:19:38.560 would step up, and nobody of consequence would step up 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:39.639 and challenge. 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:48.119 So let's step back and we'll come back to the 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:50.680 White House players. But I want to talk about the 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:55.639 concept of cover up and I want to react specifically 0:19:55.680 --> 0:19:58.200 to something you said here. Okay, So yeah, I saw 0:19:58.280 --> 0:20:04.399 you say on Tara tar palm Aery's podcast about this 0:20:04.480 --> 0:20:06.720 that I wanted that I was interested and I wanted 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:10.200 to talk through with you. And what you said was 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:15.760 that it was not a cover up in the Watergate style. Yeah, 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:19.000 And as soon as you said that, I saw, I'm 0:20:19.000 --> 0:20:22.840 gonna ask you a question, and you're coming on. And 0:20:25.160 --> 0:20:29.760 obviously it's not a Watergates style cover up, but for 0:20:29.800 --> 0:20:32.920 no other reason. The water state, the Watergate style cover 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:36.760 up began in nineteen seventy two, but you would acknowledge 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:43.880 that cover ups did not begin with Watergate. Sure, yeah, okay, 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:50.240 so I was yes or no? Does this meet your 0:20:50.400 --> 0:20:52.640 definition of a cover up? 0:20:53.400 --> 0:21:00.680 My answer would be it's stranger and more inex applicable 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:05.160 than a cover up. It is a case of the 0:21:05.200 --> 0:21:09.359 most powerful, all the presidents, men and women, lost in 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:13.879 a fog of denial and delusion. And to me, that's 0:21:14.040 --> 0:21:21.080 equally dangerous, if not more so. And here's here's here's 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:24.320 what they knew. And they knew this going way back, 0:21:24.359 --> 0:21:26.800 and you could certainly define this as a cover up. 0:21:27.480 --> 0:21:29.919 What they knew going back to twenty twenty was that 0:21:30.000 --> 0:21:35.560 Joe Biden couldn't campaign effectively at all. They hit him 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:38.680 in the basement, as we all know, to use that cliche. 0:21:39.760 --> 0:21:41.840 And there's a scene in the book that I described 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:46.720 that's really compelling When a former a Democratic operative from 0:21:46.720 --> 0:21:49.600 the twenty twenty campaign comes to interview for a job 0:21:50.000 --> 0:21:53.439 on the twenty twenty four campaign. She's in the oval 0:21:53.480 --> 0:21:57.560 office with the president and his aides, and the conversation 0:21:57.760 --> 0:22:02.480 takes an unexpectedly to turn when they say to her, 0:22:03.000 --> 0:22:06.560 one of the aides, you know what, in twenty twenty, 0:22:06.600 --> 0:22:09.440 we had COVID, We had the excuse to keep him 0:22:09.440 --> 0:22:10.040 in the basement. 0:22:10.520 --> 0:22:11.399 What do we do now? 0:22:12.520 --> 0:22:15.200 So there was no doubt about it that there was 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:18.159 a cover up of Biden on the campaign trail. For sure. 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:23.120 It wasn't the first time that, you know, somebody tried 0:22:23.160 --> 0:22:26.320 to hide a presidential candidate. And I mean, Jerry Ford 0:22:26.520 --> 0:22:31.920 was such a lousy candidate that the Great, the Great 0:22:32.920 --> 0:22:37.120 Steve's Spencer, sorry, the Great Stuve Spencer said to him 0:22:37.520 --> 0:22:41.560 when he wanted to go barnstorming and campaigning, And Ford 0:22:41.600 --> 0:22:45.520 said why not? Spencer said, because you're a lousy fucking candidate. 0:22:45.680 --> 0:22:48.960 And Ford took a drag on his pipe and said, oh, 0:22:49.000 --> 0:22:49.680 all right then. 0:22:50.920 --> 0:22:51.880 But so it was the. 0:22:51.800 --> 0:22:55.040 First time, but there was a there was They knew, 0:22:55.280 --> 0:22:57.840 without a doubt, they knew that they had to minimize 0:22:58.600 --> 0:23:02.680 his time on the Camp Pain Trail and his interactions 0:23:03.080 --> 0:23:03.639 with others. 0:23:04.040 --> 0:23:12.080 Okay, so after twenty twenty, Joe Biden called me true story. 0:23:12.280 --> 0:23:16.399 I saw a DC number and I called it back 0:23:16.480 --> 0:23:19.960 and man answered the phone, and I just said, who's 0:23:19.960 --> 0:23:24.840 this and he says it's Joe. I said, Joe. Hib 0:23:25.920 --> 0:23:31.200 It goes. Joe Biden was as I mister President elect. 0:23:32.080 --> 0:23:34.800 He goes, I just want to thank you. I would 0:23:34.880 --> 0:23:38.080 not have won this election without the Lincoln Project. And 0:23:38.080 --> 0:23:42.199 that's true, he would not have. Lincoln Project raises one 0:23:42.280 --> 0:23:46.719 hundred million dollars, has a billion dollars of impact, is 0:23:46.760 --> 0:23:53.200 denounced by the left and the Democratic Washington Consultants is ineffective. 0:23:54.080 --> 0:23:59.359 Is the only opposition group in that year right that 0:24:00.760 --> 0:24:04.840 lays a glove on him, crushes him, destabilizes the campaign. 0:24:06.000 --> 0:24:09.320 In twenty twenty four, I haven't been involved in the 0:24:09.359 --> 0:24:11.679 group for four years. This group is now a grift, 0:24:13.400 --> 0:24:19.560 raises fifty five million dollars in four years. It pockets 0:24:21.119 --> 0:24:28.160 ninety percent of it. Eleven percent is spent on political activity. 0:24:28.840 --> 0:24:36.440 That's a big business. Yeah, Okay, so there is an 0:24:36.520 --> 0:24:42.000 industry that surrounds the inner circle that protects him. So 0:24:43.520 --> 0:24:48.800 what you are describing is an inner circle of people 0:24:48.800 --> 0:24:52.600 who are deluded in a fog. And I think it 0:24:52.880 --> 0:24:57.760 is easy to say from there, these are well intentioned people, 0:24:58.800 --> 0:25:02.679 and they did a bad thing in the end, but 0:25:03.240 --> 0:25:06.640 it was out of love for this guy. Because there's 0:25:06.680 --> 0:25:09.439 that moment that comes for us where you have to 0:25:09.480 --> 0:25:11.639 take dad's keys away from the car, and that's not 0:25:11.680 --> 0:25:14.200 what this is. This is the most powerful man in 0:25:14.240 --> 0:25:16.720 the world. This is the President of the United States. 0:25:16.760 --> 0:25:19.439 Every one of these people in the White House raised 0:25:19.480 --> 0:25:21.960 their hand. They took an oath not to Joe Biden, 0:25:22.040 --> 0:25:24.560 the Constitution of the United States, and they had an 0:25:24.600 --> 0:25:28.040 obligation to the American people. And so I don't think 0:25:28.040 --> 0:25:33.439 it's as benign as what you said because I experienced it. Okay, 0:25:33.520 --> 0:25:39.439 I experienced what happened when you went out. So what 0:25:39.520 --> 0:25:45.040 I want to say is they were belligerent, they were aggressive, 0:25:46.520 --> 0:25:55.119 they shouted down, they punished, they retaliated, and in my case, 0:25:57.800 --> 0:26:10.800 progressive groups filed complaints with the FEC. Weaponizing government against 0:26:10.840 --> 0:26:18.160 the political opponent. Sounds familiar. So when I look at 0:26:18.200 --> 0:26:21.160 the core, we have all these people and we'll come 0:26:21.200 --> 0:26:24.520 back there. But then there's the circle around it, right 0:26:24.760 --> 0:26:31.280 there's the bulwarks Tim Miller. So, Tim Miller, prominent guy, 0:26:32.480 --> 0:26:38.800 former RNC Press secretary, Jeb Bush press secretary. This is 0:26:38.800 --> 0:26:43.120 the guy who's never been involved in a winning campaign. Right, 0:26:43.359 --> 0:26:49.520 is a political gadfly. He's in the business of never 0:26:49.600 --> 0:26:54.160 Trump defines political courage. You can find him online jumping 0:26:54.240 --> 0:26:57.879 out of a bush at that nut from Arizona, Carrie 0:26:57.960 --> 0:27:03.840 Lake Grady stalks term. He's on the line at the 0:27:03.840 --> 0:27:11.280 White House Christmas Party receiving line. And for any of 0:27:11.280 --> 0:27:13.680 you who have not ever been around a president, it's 0:27:13.680 --> 0:27:18.800 just protocols. The head of escape Tim Miller. Literally he 0:27:19.720 --> 0:27:23.359 chocks everybody on this line. He jumps up out of 0:27:23.400 --> 0:27:27.880 the line and he hugs Joe Biden. Biden, of course 0:27:27.960 --> 0:27:29.320 is out of it, but he says to Bid, I'll 0:27:29.320 --> 0:27:35.959 do anything to keep you in this job. Yeah, debate happens, 0:27:36.000 --> 0:27:37.879 of course. Tim Miller is one of the first people 0:27:38.800 --> 0:27:42.040 he's got to get out. But when Dean Phillips went out, 0:27:42.840 --> 0:27:45.360 Tim Miller is a perfect example. Right, he's the hit man. 0:27:47.080 --> 0:27:52.840 I'm a grifter, I'm a this, I'm a that, I'm 0:27:52.880 --> 0:27:56.800 a well like Dean Phillips, I'm a war criminal. Because 0:27:56.800 --> 0:28:03.239 how Darren, whether it's Tim Waltz, the idea though that 0:28:03.320 --> 0:28:07.320 it was four people in it, and they saw bullshit. 0:28:08.320 --> 0:28:14.120 It was an entire political party. And so the fundamental 0:28:14.200 --> 0:28:19.119 question that every candidate is going to have to answer 0:28:19.200 --> 0:28:27.240 in twenty twenty eight is this one. Why did Biden lose? Now, 0:28:29.520 --> 0:28:32.560 in the spirit of name that tune you asked, I 0:28:32.760 --> 0:28:37.200 Tim Walts that question right or one of them? Nobody 0:28:37.240 --> 0:28:42.640 can answer that that question coherently because of the cost 0:28:43.520 --> 0:28:48.120 and the price of being yoked and tied to this 0:28:48.320 --> 0:28:52.840 monstrous cover up that led to Trump. Because the answer 0:28:52.920 --> 0:28:55.560 to the question of how Trump won, I want to 0:28:55.600 --> 0:28:58.800 give you an answer as a political consult. Okay, my 0:28:58.920 --> 0:29:02.400 previous side, old Trump was elected president of the United States, 0:29:03.760 --> 0:29:07.760 the most prolific liar in American history, because on fundamental 0:29:07.800 --> 0:29:12.640 questions of honesty, on the border, on the economy, and 0:29:12.640 --> 0:29:17.560 on Biden's fundamental fitness, the dishonest candidate in the race, 0:29:17.640 --> 0:29:20.680 the liar in the race was Joe Biden, and the 0:29:20.720 --> 0:29:23.760 honest candidate in the race on those issues was Donald Trump. 0:29:24.760 --> 0:29:28.640 And in the end, the cheapest words in American politics 0:29:28.640 --> 0:29:31.320 turned out to be I'm a Biden. 0:29:31.360 --> 0:29:35.800 Trust me, Well, I might argue with you about about 0:29:35.840 --> 0:29:39.600 Trump and the border, for example, because you know his 0:29:39.680 --> 0:29:42.080 only interest in the border was using it as a 0:29:42.400 --> 0:29:43.920 as a political Cudgelty. 0:29:46.720 --> 0:29:51.040 Did did the Biden administration tell the American people the 0:29:51.080 --> 0:29:55.040 border was secure? The border is not secure. 0:29:55.520 --> 0:29:58.400 Now listen, I'm not arguing that they did a good 0:29:58.440 --> 0:30:01.120 job on the border by enemies, but the other thing, Steve, 0:30:01.320 --> 0:30:04.280 just to circle back to your other point, I would 0:30:04.280 --> 0:30:08.480 not necessarily argue with any of the points you've made, 0:30:09.200 --> 0:30:13.480