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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. Welcome to voter Nomics,

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Speaker 1: where politics and markets collide, and we're doing an emergency

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Speaker 1: episode today, not just talking about all the elections around

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Speaker 1: the world, but talking specifically about the debate between Donald

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Speaker 1: Trump and Joe Biden more or less universally agreed to

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Speaker 1: have been a bad night, shall we say, for Joe Biden,

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Speaker 1: and we're going to be talking about this with two

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Speaker 1: people well positioned to have not just instant instant considered reaction,

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Speaker 1: if that isn't a contradiction in terms with us. In

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Speaker 1: the London studio, Tim O'Brien, senior executive editor of Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: Opinion and author of Trump Nation, The Art of Being

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Speaker 1: the Donald, and joining us from Atlanta, where the debate

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Speaker 1: was running on Sure Knowsley and Coffee, and he says

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Speaker 1: some fumes Bloomberg reporter and the host of Bloomberg's Big

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Speaker 1: Take podcast, David go. David, thank you in particularly because

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Speaker 1: I know that you've had a long night. You were

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Speaker 1: doing lots on Bloomberg Television for us, and you've already

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Speaker 1: put out an episode of the Big Take podcast on this,

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Speaker 1: I guess for many Democrats rather unhappy toppic.

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Speaker 2: Great to be here.

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Speaker 1: So I know CNN, who were hosting the debate and

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Speaker 1: broadcasting it, had a lot of constraints. So not only

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Speaker 1: was it sort of unusual in having no audience, but

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Speaker 1: I believe basically there were other reporters were not allowed

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Speaker 1: in the room. So what was your experience in Atlanta?

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Speaker 2: Yes, the debate took place in a CNN studio in

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Speaker 2: downtown Atlanta, and we the reporters, were in the basketball

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Speaker 2: arena at Georgia Tech, so not too far geographically from

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Speaker 2: the site of the debate, but we weren't in the

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Speaker 2: room itself, and so we sat around the concourse in

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Speaker 2: this arena during the debate itself and watched it on

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Speaker 2: a JumboTron in the middle, and there were TV screens

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Speaker 2: all around the concourse as well, and on the floor

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Speaker 2: where the basketball court usually is, there was a red

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Speaker 2: carpet and leading up to the debate and afterward that

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Speaker 2: was transformed into this spin room, spin floor, and surrogates

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Speaker 2: for each of the candidates came out and greeted reporters

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Speaker 2: and fielded their questions. So I watched the debate unfold

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Speaker 2: that way, and I think what stands out to me

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Speaker 2: is how once the debate ended, there was an intense

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Speaker 2: quiet in the arena. We made our way down to

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Speaker 2: the floor, and then all of a sudden, there was

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Speaker 2: kind of a crush of Republican surrogate circuits for Donald Trump,

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Speaker 2: who came onto the floor to field questions, holding up signs,

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Speaker 2: and reporters flocked to them. But we had to wait

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Speaker 2: a good ten or fifteen minutes before any Democrats came out,

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Speaker 2: and finally we saw Governor Gavin Neussom of California Senator

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Speaker 2: Raphael Warnick of Georgia. They stood together, reporters gathered around them.

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Speaker 2: But it's clear that in those ten or fifteen minutes,

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Speaker 2: in that vacuum, there must have been a lot of

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Speaker 2: soul searching and a lot of effort that went into

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Speaker 2: how to spin this in any positive light.

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Speaker 1: The mind boggles. I mean, when you sign up to

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Speaker 1: via surrogate Nina that it could go badly, but then

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Speaker 1: you sort of feel like you almost become like an

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Speaker 1: undertaker in the trying to talk about how Biden performed.

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Speaker 1: I think we know many people listening to this will

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Speaker 1: have either watched it in the US or around the

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Speaker 1: world or certainly seen some of the most damning clips.

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Speaker 1: We're seeing a lot of commentators talking about this is

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Speaker 1: the moment, the beginning of the end of the Biden presidency.

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Speaker 1: I saw one person many people calling for him to

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Speaker 1: stand down. How serious do you sense that is in

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Speaker 1: among senior Democrats and in the White House? Or is

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Speaker 1: that also a sort of moment of silence where people

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Speaker 1: are still just trying to compute that it happened.

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Speaker 2: There were a lot of whispers about the president's capacity

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Speaker 2: to serve a second term. I think that this has

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Speaker 2: amplified those whispers, and you talk about senior Democrats. As

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Speaker 2: I watched the response to this on television and saw

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Speaker 2: surrogates and others in that arena last night, I noticed

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Speaker 2: that a lot of graybeards in the party is now

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Speaker 2: types who have been big backers of the Bidens felt.

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Speaker 2: I don't know if emboldened is the right word, but

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Speaker 2: able to talk about the president's age and capacity in

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Speaker 2: a way that they hadn't before. So I think that

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Speaker 2: we're at a moment where the next forty eight or

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Speaker 2: seventy two hours are going to be key in terms

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Speaker 2: of how large that conversation gets, how all encompassing it

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Speaker 2: gets and plenty of people have drawn the analogy to

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Speaker 2: nineteen sixty eight when LBJA addressed the nation and said

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Speaker 2: that he wasn't going to seek a second term. I'll

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Speaker 2: point out that happened in March of that exactly, the

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Speaker 2: primaries were still very much underway. And I think the

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Speaker 2: trickiness of this moment is Joe Biden has been the

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Speaker 2: presumptive nominee now for such a long time. Yes, there

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Speaker 2: have been some Democrats who have made these outsider runs

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Speaker 2: to succeed him, but that hasn't happened, and so I

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Speaker 2: think that the actual procedure by which that would happen

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Speaker 2: is so unclear. It certainly colors and shapes the conversation

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Speaker 2: that we're going to have here in the next few days.

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Speaker 3: Tim O'Brien, Stephanie, are you in your sort of bones,

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Speaker 3: do you think that this will be the beginning of

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Speaker 3: a process that sees Biden no longer the candidate or

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Speaker 3: do we have to fall back to all the same

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Speaker 3: reasons why we didn't think that was likely a few

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Speaker 3: months ago, or even nine months ago.

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Speaker 4: Well, I think it raises the stakes. Clearly. He's badly

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Speaker 4: damaged by this debate. It's a monumental set back. He

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Speaker 4: had one job in that debate, which was to convince

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Speaker 4: voters he could stand shoulder to shoulder with Donald Trump

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Speaker 4: and displays much energy in an acute mind, and an

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Speaker 4: ability to defend some of the core policy issues that

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Speaker 4: the Democrats are steaking this campaign around. And he failed

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Speaker 4: and failed and failed, and he failed spectacularly to the

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Speaker 4: extent that I think actually probably his own team wasn't

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Speaker 4: fully prepared for how bad this would be. The you know,

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Speaker 4: the reality of removing him or coaching him to remove

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Speaker 4: himself or Biden himself willingly letting go is somewhat complex.

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Speaker 4: He controls the delegates that have been pledged to him. Historically,

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Speaker 4: in the United States, conventions were venues in which there

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Speaker 4: were real hashing out of who the nominee would be,

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Speaker 4: and that stopped around nineteen sixty I think JFK was

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Speaker 4: the last presidential candidate who was in a convention where

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Speaker 4: there was actual brokeraing going on on the floor. So

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Speaker 4: that's sixty four years ago, and I think we're there's

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Speaker 4: a possibility that this August we actually might have a

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Speaker 4: broker convention. And because certainly anybody in the party I

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Speaker 4: think with a sense of strategic wiliness and tactical import

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Speaker 4: is back on their heels. At a minimum, they're gonna

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Speaker 4: I think they're gonna be. There's gonna be a lot

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Speaker 4: of polling to see how badly Biden's hemorrhaging support. And

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Speaker 4: so then if the if the idea becomes he doesn't

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Speaker 4: to rescue this bid for the Democrats and to staunch

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Speaker 4: some of the I think unusual threats Donald Trump presents.

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Speaker 4: How do you deal with that? There's first a small

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Speaker 4: handful of people who would talk to Joe Biden, and

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Speaker 4: the most important is his wife Jill and his sister Valerie,

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Speaker 4: who are easily his two closest advisors. And then there's

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Speaker 4: a handful of White House professionals, might Donald in chief

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Speaker 4: of chief among them Ron Plain and Anita Dunn, and

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Speaker 4: they all would gradually have to say it might be

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Speaker 4: in the best interests of the party in this election

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Speaker 4: for you to willingly release your delegates. If he says no,

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Speaker 4: then it gets into kind of raw and interesting mud wrestling.

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Speaker 4: And I don't think anyone has an idea of what

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Speaker 4: that would look like. So there's that if he does

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Speaker 4: release his delegates, and he does decide to step aside,

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Speaker 4: there is not a clear person to who's waiting in

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Speaker 4: the wings to take on me. Obviously, Kamala Harris's vice

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Speaker 4: president is an obvious go to. There's not unified support

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Speaker 4: for her for a number of reasons on policy issues,

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Speaker 4: she hasn't been as firm on her feet at certain

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Speaker 4: moments as people would want. I also think the fact

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Speaker 4: that she's a woman and a loan of color has

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Speaker 4: weighed against her, so that she if she wants this,

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Speaker 4: she has to play for it. There's Gavin Newsom, the

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Speaker 4: governor of California, at Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan.

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Speaker 4: They're all going to be in the wings. So there's

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Speaker 4: both what will buy do and then what happens if

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Speaker 4: he does it, and all of that's up in the air.

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Speaker 1: I mean, he's certainly been quite stubborn to date, and

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Speaker 1: if he was in denial about his mental state, then

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Speaker 1: probably the only one who wasn't surprised by his performance

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Speaker 1: last night may have been Joe Biden. But I remember

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Speaker 1: Israel Kline, the The York Times columnist and obviously podcast host.

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Speaker 1: He had pitched this whole thing, and I think he

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Speaker 1: got a lot of blowback from others in the Democratic

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Speaker 1: Party a few months ago where he talked about actually

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Speaker 1: this kind of scenario that you would go a few

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Speaker 1: months things would not be getting better in the polls.

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Speaker 1: He obviously didn't foresee a debate that was as catastrophic

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Speaker 1: as last night. And the point he made was there

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Speaker 1: had been a fear around an open convention and a

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Speaker 1: sort of quote unquote brawl if it happens in a

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Speaker 1: convention setting, but actually for a set of voters who

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Speaker 1: were quote unquotes double haters and are fed up with

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Speaker 1: both candidates very unenthusiastic. The people voting for Trump, many

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Speaker 1: of them not enthusiastically doing so, unlike twenty sixteen. In

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Speaker 1: that context, actually a lively fight for the candidate candidacy

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Speaker 1: at an in Chicago where you have a number of

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Speaker 1: credible candidates could actually be a way to energize support

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Speaker 1: for Democrats. David, do you think there's anything in that,

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Speaker 1: because we now seem to be a little bit closer

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Speaker 1: to that scenario than we were.

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Speaker 2: I mean, something that stood out to me as I

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Speaker 2: watched his surrogates yesterday is how young they all are

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Speaker 2: compared to him, And so I mentioned Gavin Newsom coming

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Speaker 2: out at the end of the debate after the debate concluded.

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Speaker 2: He was on the floor before it, and he's a

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Speaker 2: quarter of a century younger than Joe Biden.

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Speaker 3: And.

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Speaker 1: Everybody's younger there.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we joked, you know who is enjoying this

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Speaker 2: more than Gavin Newsom himself just being out on the

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Speaker 2: floor and greeting reporters and batting down these questions of

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Speaker 2: is he the backup candidate if something were to happen

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Speaker 2: for Joe Biden, who pushed that out of the way

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Speaker 2: quite quickly.

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Speaker 4: And David a quarter century younger still makes him fifty six,

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Speaker 4: because that's.

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Speaker 2: How exactly exactly I think that we could have that.

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Speaker 2: I think what's interesting too about as Reclined is that

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Speaker 2: he wrote that got that blowback, and then he was

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Speaker 2: one among many converts who saw the State of the

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Speaker 2: Union address and thought that Joe Biden had pulled it off.

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Speaker 2: And I think that fueled a lot of optimism about

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Speaker 2: how this debate was going to go among those who

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Speaker 2: had been skeptical about the Presidence performance in this debate.

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Speaker 2: Going back to something that Tim said that I want

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Speaker 2: to hit on is I think once I watched the

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Speaker 2: debate start, I began to think that there was a

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Speaker 2: bit of perhaps political malpractice. I mean, this is a

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Speaker 2: debate that the Biden campaign wanted to have earlier than usual. Customarily,

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Speaker 2: these debates don't happen until the parties have picked their nominees,

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Speaker 2: and that didn't happen here. And I think Tim's hitting

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Speaker 2: on something. Joe Biden, of course, has been a politician

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Speaker 2: for a very long time and has a very close

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Speaker 2: circle of allies and advisors. The shorthand forward is Biden World,

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Speaker 2: and I think that there has to be some element

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Speaker 2: of soul searching that's going to happen now about why

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Speaker 2: didn't anyone speak up? Why didn't anyone sound the alarm

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Speaker 2: about this? I mean, the drum of commentary heading into

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Speaker 2: this debate from those people in particular and their friends

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Speaker 2: on cable TV here in the United States has been

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Speaker 2: there's no way that he's going to batch this. The

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Speaker 2: bar is low. He's definitely going to clear this bar.

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Speaker 2: And if this was a real concern that he perhaps

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Speaker 2: has good days and bad days, and there wasn't a

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Speaker 2: guarantee that this was going to be a success like

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Speaker 2: the State of the Union. They put him in a

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Speaker 2: very tricky position. I mean, he may very well have

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Speaker 2: wanted to be in that position, but one would think

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Speaker 2: that there would have been more protection and they would

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Speaker 2: have done more to prevent what happened yesterday from taking place.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that's interesting because you do feel,

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Speaker 1: among many other lots of sort of soul searching, it

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Speaker 1: does go back to the judgment question, the judgment of

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Speaker 1: his team not only putting him up for this, but

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Speaker 1: as you intimate, setting the terms of the debate, which

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Speaker 1: in a way that even at the time seemed to

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Speaker 1: oddly favor Donald Trump. You know, he was unpopular in

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Speaker 1: the past debates for having spoken over Joe Biden and

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Speaker 1: for seeming sort of seeming like a bully. But if

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Speaker 1: you silence the microphones, if you don't have any fact

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Speaker 1: checking in real time from the hosts, that all these

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Speaker 1: people all these months who've said, no, really, he's fine.

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Speaker 1: I mean, David, do you think that's also going to

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Speaker 1: bounce back on senior Democrats who have insisted that he's

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Speaker 1: absolutely on top of everything, because it was very hard

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Speaker 1: for many people to believe that watching him.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I was struck, especially by Claire mccaskell, the former senator,

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Speaker 2: who spoke immediately after this and just acknowledged the fact

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Speaker 2: that he had this job to do and couldn't do it.

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Speaker 2: As Tim laid out at the top, it just it

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Speaker 2: didn't work. And the objective was fairly simple here. You know,

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Speaker 2: you look at how these two candidates prepared for this debate,

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Speaker 2: and Joe Biden did it in a very traditional way.

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Speaker 2: He absconded to Camp David outside of Washington, d C.

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Speaker 2: Hold up with his advisors, did, as we understand it,

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Speaker 2: a few rounds of mock debates to get ready for this.

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Speaker 2: It was astonishing that that yielded nothing in terms of

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Speaker 2: canned lines that he might use to rankle Donald Trump,

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Speaker 2: or to emphasize how his policies are different, or to

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Speaker 2: underscore when Donald Trump was lying or bending the truth,

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Speaker 2: or has happened sort of completely off ffiscating what happened

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Speaker 2: with January the sixth, then with the COVID nineteen pandemic.

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Speaker 2: There were such extremes here and we knew going into

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Speaker 2: this debate. We talk about the rules. I mean, I

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Speaker 2: think that Dana Bash and Jake Tapper, the two CNN

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Speaker 2: anchors who moderated had said their job here wasn't to

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Speaker 2: fact check it in real time, but absent that, it

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Speaker 2: rested upon Joe Biden to do that. And I think

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Speaker 2: that may be in one of the greatest failings of

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Speaker 2: this that Donald Trump spewed a lot of lies which

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Speaker 2: were used to at this point, but Joe Biden did

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Speaker 2: nothing in the face of that to acknowledge or emphasize

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Speaker 2: the fact that these were all in truth.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess that was one other conclusion you could

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Speaker 1: draw that actually, lots of other people could have beaten

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump, that he would not have been hard to

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Speaker 1: beat in that debate, just he was extremely hard to

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Speaker 1: beat by Jay Biden, Right.

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Speaker 4: I don't think he was perceived as a convicted felon

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Speaker 4: and someone who had been found guilty of sexual assault

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Speaker 4: and twice impeached and foamed in an insurrection. He came

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Speaker 4: off as an energetic frat boy ready to get into

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Speaker 4: a bar fight, and at the moments on the I

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Speaker 4: think on the debate screen where he was perplexed by

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Speaker 4: Biden's ineptitude, he looked like an avatar. Are for everyone

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Speaker 4: watching the show who was also confused by Biden's inability

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Speaker 4: to land a blow, you know, and David raised his

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Speaker 4: good point about you know, the prep lines and and

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Speaker 4: and the policy lines that that didn't come up. I

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Speaker 4: almost think it's even it's it's it is definitely that,

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Speaker 4: as David pointing out. And it's even worse because I

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Speaker 4: think a couple of moments he tried to yes and

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Speaker 4: and either his response has meandered into sort of, oh

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Speaker 4: grandpa was walking around in the woods late at night

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Speaker 4: in his pajamas or uh. He mangled the point of

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Speaker 4: the line and it was painful to watch. And sometimes

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Speaker 4: when Trump was giving an answer, they'd have it, you know,

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Speaker 4: side by side on the TV screen, and and.

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Speaker 1: And the other point you think, how would you have

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Speaker 1: allowed the side by sides?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know Biden's slack jaw or or he's

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Speaker 4: looking off vacant and and and you sort of want

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Speaker 4: to put a warm blanket around his shoulders and lead

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Speaker 4: him off stage. And that's you know that TV is

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Speaker 4: a visual medium medium and in a debate, you know,

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Speaker 4: famous see Richard Nixon was sweating because he had a

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Speaker 4: fever and he hadn't really shaved, and people who listened

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Speaker 4: to the Kennedy Nixon debate on the radio thought Nixon

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Speaker 4: and one people watched on TV were like, this guy

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Speaker 4: looks like he's an unhealthy thug, and why would we

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Speaker 4: vote for him?

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Speaker 2: And it's a delicious thing just to interject, because Mark Thompson,

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Speaker 2: the head of CNN ahead of this, said he wanted

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Speaker 2: this debate to hearken back to that tim He wanted

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Speaker 2: to have this kind of spare, slim down version of

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Speaker 2: the debate, and so to have that element of a

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Speaker 2: Canady yes was ailing. I mean, that's what we heard

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Speaker 2: sort of minutes into this debate that Joe Biden had

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Speaker 2: a cold and that was what was causing all of this.

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Speaker 2: It's I mean, it's a delicious parallel that you're bringing

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Speaker 2: up there.

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Speaker 4: And you know, one of the clips I think that

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Speaker 4: went viral, or one of the moments that went viral,

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Speaker 4: was when he tried to explain how the administration and

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Speaker 4: Democrats had bulked up Medicaid and had delivered better health

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Speaker 4: care to Americans and there was a long pause where

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Speaker 4: he didn't talk, and he ended up, you know, as

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Speaker 4: was well known now, saying, you know, we killed Medicaid.

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Speaker 4: It happened on immigration, it happened on abortion. It happened

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Speaker 4: on the I mean, inflation, all the touch points, and

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Speaker 4: it was just very painful to watch because Joe Biden

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Speaker 4: in twenty twenty beat Donald Trump twice in debates and

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Speaker 4: owned him. And so this obviously is a much more

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Speaker 4: I think adult and challenged person this time around, who

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Speaker 4: has been a great public servant, but maybe a year

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Speaker 4: ago should have said the best thing i can do

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Speaker 4: right now, I've gotten us through this first term and

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Speaker 4: into a new place, So I'm going to step aside

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Speaker 4: for a new generation of Democrats. And he could have

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Speaker 4: owned the narrative at that point, and now the narrative

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Speaker 4: owns him.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to let you go in one second, but David,

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Speaker 1: to go back to where we started, insofar as it's

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Speaker 1: possible to say, what is your sense in terms of

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Speaker 1: the critical mass of senior Democrats and the likelihood of

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Speaker 1: them approaching Joe Biden or is this all going to

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Speaker 1: be in the hands of whether he accepts some kind

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Speaker 1: of reality or decides to stand down over the next

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Speaker 1: few days.

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Speaker 2: I'm very curious what the conversations are going to be

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Speaker 2: like among those senior Democrats and the degree to which

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Speaker 2: his campaign and Biden world, as I mentioned, pushed back

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Speaker 2: on all of this. Kate Bettingfield, his longtime aid and

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Speaker 2: former communications advisor, was on CNN last night and I

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Speaker 2: was struck by how frank she was in her assessment

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Speaker 2: of this debate as well. And think she's quite at

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Speaker 2: the point where she's saying that he shouldn't run her,

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Speaker 2: he should step aside.

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Speaker 4: But I'll be.

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Speaker 2: Looking for any indications that there are movements in that

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Speaker 2: for a moment, that the ground on which she is

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Speaker 2: standing is changing. And I again, I'll go back to

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Speaker 2: what I said. I think that the whispers have changed

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Speaker 2: to a wider, broader conversation about his fitness and capacity

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Speaker 2: for the job. And I just want to see sort

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Speaker 2: of how much traction that gets among senior Democrats, as

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Speaker 2: you say, just among policymakers more broadly.

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Speaker 1: And they're supposed to be out on the stump today campaigning,

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Speaker 1: and I guess potentially through the weekend. I mean, is

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Speaker 1: there any sense, I mean, even just looking at it

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Speaker 1: last night, you didn't feel that Biden was necessarily up

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Speaker 1: to that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So he went to this waffle house restaurant for

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Speaker 2: an early breakfast before he caught a flight to Raleigh,

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Speaker 2: and he actually actually seemed markedly better and more animated

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Speaker 2: at that at that restaurant. But yeah, he goes to Raleigh,

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Speaker 2: North Carolina, which is this battleground state where I'm from,

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Speaker 2: and he's supposed to campaign there today, and then this

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Speaker 2: weekend he has a series of kind of high dollar

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Speaker 2: fundraising events, one in the Hamptons and I think a

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Speaker 2: couple in New Jersey as well, So it's quite possible

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Speaker 2: that at those events he may address this or be

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Speaker 2: asked about this. Customarily, we don't get transcripts of the

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Speaker 2: back and forth between donors and the president, but we

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Speaker 2: do get a transcript of what he says at the top,

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Speaker 2: and we'll read that.

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Speaker 4: And it feels like ethically bad judgment to send someone

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Speaker 4: who's flubbed a debate to a waffle house the next day.

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Speaker 4: It's like having Rishi Sunak in front of Number ten

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Speaker 4: in the middle of the rain all visiting Titanic, Like,

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Speaker 4: how hard are some of these atmospherics to master?

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Speaker 1: Well, this goes back to the malepractice and tim do

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Speaker 1: you think, what's the chance that they're going to be

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Speaker 1: telling those but donnors are going to be telling in

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Speaker 1: the truth, because there don't seem to have been a

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Speaker 1: lot of people telling in the truth. If last night

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Speaker 1: it is more than just a bad night, if it

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Speaker 1: really does speak to his demeanor day to day.

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Speaker 4: I mean, I do think he even surprised his own handlers,

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Speaker 4: and I think people who had the state of the

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Speaker 4: union in mind, and even some of his some of

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Speaker 4: his other campaign stops where he looked stiff but was

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Speaker 4: verbally acute. And I could be wrong, but I don't

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Speaker 4: think anybody would have put him on the stage anticipating

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Speaker 4: you know, that you'd end up like with quasi motor there.

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Speaker 4: And so I think there's gonna be p The donors

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Speaker 4: have every reason to be frank. But again it's gonna

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Speaker 4: like the person who's going to be very important right

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Speaker 4: now is jiel Biden? His why?

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Speaker 1: And whoever lets him read the newspapers yes or doesn't?

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Speaker 4: Or watch TV?

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Speaker 1: David god, Tim Obrian, thank you, samank you, Stephanie, thank you,

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Speaker 1: thanks for listening to this special Crash episode of Photo

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Speaker 1: Nomics from Bloomberg. It was hosted by me Stephanie Flanders

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Speaker 1: and produced by Sammersadi with help from Chris Martleu. Additional

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Speaker 1: editing and sound designed by Blake Maples. Brendan Francis Nuna

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Speaker 1: is our executive producer, and Sage Bowman is head of

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Podcasts. With special thanks to Tim O'Brien and David Gore.

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Speaker 1: Please do subscribe, rate, and review the show fondly wherever

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Speaker 1: you listen to podcasts