Speaker 1: Welcome back to a Numbers Game Podcast, Ryan Kurdoski, Happy
Speaker 1: Memorial Day. I hope you are all having a wonderful
Speaker 1: Memorial Day, whatever you're doing, having a barbecue or going
Speaker 1: to the racetrack like my family always did, being degenerates.
Speaker 1: I'm just joking. We didn't. We weren't that degenerate anyway.
Speaker 1: I hope you guys have a great Memorial Day. Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening on this holiday. I am exhausted because
Speaker 1: I spent up. I was up two nights in a
Speaker 1: row at three o'clock in the morning each night reading
Speaker 1: Original Sin President Biden's Decline, It's cover up and his
Speaker 1: disastrous choice to run again by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson.
Speaker 1: It's a good book, really good pick. I mean, it
Speaker 1: kept me up because it was it wasn't bad. It
Speaker 1: was actually a patren or. It was quick and there
Speaker 1: were things that I learned there. And I want to
Speaker 1: talk about the book in this episode special Memorial the
Speaker 1: episode maybe you're looking for summer reading. I actually do
Speaker 1: recommend this spoke to people. I do. I know there's
Speaker 1: a lot of anger by conservatives around, especially Jake Tapper.
Speaker 1: And the scene ends coverage over Joe Biden. I understand,
Speaker 1: and very few people have been as wronged by CNN
Speaker 1: as I have, and I can still get past it.
Speaker 1: So you can get past it read this book. Certain
Speaker 1: things that I think were super interesting in this book
Speaker 1: that I just I'm kind of blown away from one
Speaker 1: one of the people involved in Joe Biden's like to
Speaker 1: make Joe Biden look better and was with Joe Biden
Speaker 1: frequently to do all of his videos with Steven Spielberg.
Speaker 1: I never knew that. I did not hear. Maybe it
Speaker 1: was reported, I don't know, but Steven Spielberg et director Jaws,
Speaker 1: you know, Stephen Freakin Spielberg was involved in trying to
Speaker 1: make Joe Biden look better because he couldn't record videos.
Speaker 1: I found that absolutely fascinating. I also found it fascinating
Speaker 1: which Democratic politicians would go on record to talk about it.
Speaker 1: Governor Massachusetts would go sat there and went on record.
Speaker 1: A senator from Colorado sat there, went on record and said,
Speaker 1: I knew Joe Biden wasn't well. I think, in my
Speaker 1: personal opinion, they're underplaying how concerned they actually were. Also
Speaker 1: super interesting and fascinating part of the book, the Colorado senator.
Speaker 1: I forget which one it was now because I didn't
Speaker 1: make a big note about it. But the Colorado Senator
Speaker 1: sat there and said, who keeps pushing Joe Biden to
Speaker 1: the left? And it seemed like he was well aware
Speaker 1: that where Biden Biden was doing as president wasn't always
Speaker 1: in the Joe Biden lexicona what he did policy wise,
Speaker 1: and a lot of the blame is put on Ron Klein.
Speaker 1: Ron Klain's main purpose was to do as much as
Speaker 1: what the progressive caucus in Congress wanted as possible. It
Speaker 1: was always to lean to the far left, which I
Speaker 1: think was fascinating because conservatives what always say, I understand
Speaker 1: Biden said he was a moderate for so many years.
Speaker 1: Obvious there was this leaning evolution of Biden to the left,
Speaker 1: but it was hard left on things like immigration, to
Speaker 1: the left of Obama on immigration. Who was responsible for that?
Speaker 1: Just my orkis is there something in the White House?
Speaker 1: It turns out it was Ron and Klean. Super fascinating. Also,
Speaker 1: super interesting part of the book was I'm saying the
Speaker 1: word super too much, so I'm going to stop that.
Speaker 1: But really interesting part of the book was when Biden
Speaker 1: said in the debate, we defeated medicaire the famous line, right.
Speaker 1: Dana Bash looked over at Jake Tapper, passed him a
Speaker 1: note and said, he just lost this election. Which is
Speaker 1: great because I've never actually heard what the people in
Speaker 1: the debate moderators are saying to each other while it's
Speaker 1: going on, and they are communicating, So that was really fascinating.
Speaker 1: The other thing that I wanted, I thought was highlighted,
Speaker 1: was when they brought all the Democratic centers together. This
Speaker 1: is post debate when Biden is down seven points nationally
Speaker 1: and he's going to lose not only in the swing states,
Speaker 1: but also in Maine, in Minnesota, in New Mexico, and
Speaker 1: the governors of these states are saying, you're going to
Speaker 1: lose New Mexico, You're going to lose Maine, all the
Speaker 1: rest of it. John Fetterman gets up and starts screaming
Speaker 1: at his fellow Democratic senators and saying, how dare you,
Speaker 1: how dare you betray a great president? How dare you
Speaker 1: do this to him? And it was and John Fetterman
Speaker 1: was one of only five Democrats in the room, along
Speaker 1: with Tammy Duckworth and like one or two other ones
Speaker 1: who sat there and John Fedneron was the most vocal
Speaker 1: supporter post debate, which was fascinating because Fetterman, I guess
Speaker 1: because he suffered a seizure, but was willing to overlook
Speaker 1: everything after we knew everything. Fetterman was completely complicit, and
Speaker 1: I don't care that he cannot operate as a person.
Speaker 1: We need to support him. Loved that. Loved that. Only governor,
Speaker 1: by the way, to sit there democratic governor post debate
Speaker 1: to say you need to drop out right now, ned
Speaker 1: La Mom from Connecticut, super moderate governor. Stop saying super
Speaker 1: moderate governor of Connecticut. Thought that was really really interesting.
Speaker 1: And the relationship between Kamala and Joe is so deep
Speaker 1: because Joe never wanted Kamala Harris, and Kamala Harris her
Speaker 1: loyalty to Biden it had a ceiling. She was loyal
Speaker 1: to a point, but she wouldn't put herself out there
Speaker 1: if it meant hurting her. So much so that at
Speaker 1: the debate, at a debate watch party, one of the
Speaker 1: Democratic donors looked at Doug and Hooff, Kamala's husband, and
Speaker 1: started screaming at him, you destroyed democracy, You destroyed democracy tonight.
Speaker 1: I was stunned. The book has a lot. The authors
Speaker 1: are getting scrutinized a lot, as they should. In some cases,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of questions the authors should answer. Luckily
Speaker 1: for us, one of the two authors, Alex Thompson, a
Speaker 1: very very good reporter who reported on Biden's health and
Speaker 1: well being long before the mainstream media did, is with
Speaker 1: me today. So coming up next is author of the
Speaker 1: book Original Sin, Alex Thompson. I am one of only
Speaker 1: two conservatives that have gotten to interview one of the
Speaker 1: authors besides Megan Kelly. So stay tuned. You're not going
Speaker 1: to want to miss what I ask him. Alex Thompson
Speaker 1: is the national political correspondent for Axios and the co
Speaker 1: author of the book Original Sin, President Biden's decline, It's
Speaker 1: cover up, and his disastrous choice to run for president again.
Speaker 1: Right here, Alex, you ruin my sleep. I was up
Speaker 1: for two nights till three o'clock in the morning reading
Speaker 1: this book, getting everything down, getting notes and questions. It
Speaker 1: is a page turner. It is genuinely a very very
Speaker 1: well written, compelling, even sympathetic book. At times, it really
Speaker 1: was very good. Thank you so, and I know that
Speaker 1: conservative media is definitely having its moment with you guys,
Speaker 1: But I don't want to ask. I don't want to.
Speaker 1: I want since it's not to makeing Kelly interview. She's fine,
Speaker 1: but not an interview. So my first question about like
Speaker 1: the book, because I want to get to the bones
Speaker 1: of the book, is when you, as someone who's written
Speaker 1: a book before, when you write a book, when you
Speaker 1: reach out to the publisher, you the publisher asked, who
Speaker 1: is the audience? Who was the audience in mind when
Speaker 1: you were writing this book, because a lot of times
Speaker 1: it seems like it's for a democratic audience.
Speaker 2: M h. Is that you mean that this You mean
Speaker 2: this book? You think it's very democratic your book?
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, I actually think our intention, and I don't
Speaker 3: know if we achieved it, was that it actually would
Speaker 3: be both the right and the left. We thought that basically,
Speaker 3: we pitched that liberals are going to be sort of
Speaker 3: disoriented and want to know how what what happened? And
Speaker 3: our hope was that conservatives, even though a lot of
Speaker 3: conservatives obviously feel deep frustration because they feel they had
Speaker 3: been saying that, hey, he was in decline for a
Speaker 3: long time and felt that that was not being covered
Speaker 3: aggressively by much of the mainstream media. We thought that
Speaker 3: still conservatives would be interested in the behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: The Highncy stories are wild. I touched upon them. When
Speaker 1: the donor's yelling at Doug m Hoff saying you ruined democracy,
Speaker 1: I was like, whoa and John.
Speaker 2: That was director Rob Regner.
Speaker 3: So, you know, we were hoping that even the Republicans,
Speaker 3: I think, feel a little dis ilusions and also feel like, uh,
Speaker 3: you know, I think that the behind the scenes details
Speaker 3: of how the Democratic Party covered up for Biden for
Speaker 3: so long. We thought that and we said this, I mean,
Speaker 3: this was literally our pitch to the publisher that this
Speaker 3: is not a right leaning book or a left leaning book,
Speaker 3: Like the audience is not necessarily left lean or right.
Speaker 3: We think there's good arguments to both sides to be interested.
Speaker 1: I think that maybe because all the sources were mostly
Speaker 1: all Democrats, I think that maybe that's why there's a
Speaker 1: left leaning comp Like what Manners was speaking, I noticed that,
Speaker 1: but I just wanted to know your opinion on that.
Speaker 1: So there is Joe Biden, Donald Trump have something very
Speaker 1: much comment, which is their internal ethos, is that they
Speaker 1: believe that they are outsiders. They believe that the media,
Speaker 1: the leads the establishment hate them, and that everything that
Speaker 1: they have accomplished is in defiance of those forces. Can
Speaker 1: you describe the ethos, because Biden almost is like a
Speaker 1: Kennedy esque mentality where he created his own legend, like
Speaker 1: Jackie created the legend of Camelot and then all the
Speaker 1: living Kennedy's just assumed it. Biden created a legend of
Speaker 1: himself and then everyone just assumed it. Could you describe that?
Speaker 1: In the book?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we even call it became a Biden theology, and
Speaker 3: I'd say the first commandment of that theology is that
Speaker 3: Biden always gets back up. Biden is always counted out,
Speaker 3: and he always comes back and proves his critics wrong.
Speaker 3: I'd say, there, you know, there's also parts of the theology,
Speaker 3: and the same way there are with you know, with
Speaker 3: Camelot and with whatever you know, I don't know if
Speaker 3: you want to call it mag a court or something,
Speaker 3: but with Trump that there are there are parts of
Speaker 3: the theology that you know, if you take a set back,
Speaker 3: certainly ring faults and you know, and you know, for
Speaker 3: for instance, one person very close to the family, they
Speaker 3: they basically said, you know, parts of the like parts
Speaker 3: of the tenants of the Biden theology are like, you
Speaker 3: know that hunters, you know that that Hunter's sobriety is stable,
Speaker 3: that Joe cares more about his family than his ambition.
Speaker 2: That Jill is like a very warm and nice person, and.
Speaker 3: Uh and and they repeat these things as if they
Speaker 3: are just obvious facts.
Speaker 1: And don't call people fat, which Joe did at the
Speaker 1: campaign Hampshire, which was so fascinating.
Speaker 3: But but the Biden press team insisted to us that
Speaker 3: he didn't.
Speaker 1: So I think it's on camera.
Speaker 2: I have to fact check you there. Uh.
Speaker 3: I think I don't remember what their spin was. I
Speaker 3: think they they were like, I can't remember what word
Speaker 3: they said he said, but it was obvious, like a.
Speaker 3: But yes, the rule, the other Biden rule of don't
Speaker 3: call fat people fat, which you know in some ways
Speaker 3: is being polite, but the other, the dark side of
Speaker 3: that saying is ignore inconvenient truths.
Speaker 1: So the evolution of Jill Biden in your book is
Speaker 1: fascinating because you say in the beginning of the book
Speaker 1: that Jill did not like being a politician's wife, or
Speaker 1: she wasn't a natural, She wasn't she didn't because she worked.
Speaker 1: I did not know that she was a professor or
Speaker 1: even while she was second Lady, and she all of
Speaker 1: a sudden goes from being kind of in the background
Speaker 1: and begrudgingly in the background to being a quasi chief
Speaker 1: of staff and having her own team run the large
Speaker 1: segments of the White House. That was why did she change?
Speaker 2: Great question, I think.
Speaker 3: Some people, and I guess there's no one clean answer,
Speaker 3: according to people that i've that have talked to her,
Speaker 3: or that worked for or our sources within the White House.
Speaker 2: And to your point, you know, she she taught college
Speaker 2: even through the presidency. She's still taught at a community college.
Speaker 3: And I think what people around her say is that
Speaker 3: something seemed to change over the course of the vice
Speaker 3: presidency and then certainly in the intervening years post the
Speaker 3: vice presidency, And some people felt that she fell in
Speaker 3: love with the life and you know, the Vogue covers
Speaker 3: and sort of you know, the elevated style and elegance.
Speaker 3: And I also think that she definitely deeply loves Joe.
Speaker 3: And I think I remember I remember someone said to
Speaker 3: me that, you know, Joe Biden is nothing if not
Speaker 3: for this, and saw him sort of in the wilderness
Speaker 3: in those years seventeen eighteen and saw that this gave
Speaker 3: him purpose and that you know, it was.
Speaker 2: Everything he ever wanted.
Speaker 3: I think I think both the combination of falling in
Speaker 3: love with life but also this, you know, it's sort
Speaker 3: of like the dark side of loyalty and love, right,
Speaker 3: is that it can't you know, you can end up
Speaker 3: justifying more and more and so And to your point,
Speaker 3: the early signs that she is going to be a
Speaker 3: very as someone in the White House put it there,
Speaker 3: several people in the whitest put one of the most
Speaker 3: powerful first ladies in American history. The signs are there
Speaker 3: at the beginning of twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, when her
Speaker 3: top aide, a man named Anthony Bernall, is made one.
Speaker 1: Of the Your characterizations of him, by the way, are hysterical. Sorry,
Speaker 1: they're so funny. I could picture him, Evefough. I've never
Speaker 1: seen him or heard him before. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I know this person.
Speaker 3: He's he's certainly there is a certain archetype both as
Speaker 3: a person in a DC sort of DC like advanced
Speaker 3: man operative right.
Speaker 2: Anyway, he he becomes one.
Speaker 3: Of the deputy campaign managers on the campaign, very unusual,
Speaker 3: and then once they go into the White House, he
Speaker 3: becomes sort of like a shadow like personnel officer, placing
Speaker 3: this person and that person, you know, and his main
Speaker 3: coda is like loyalty above everything, and there is there
Speaker 3: is no greater virtue and no greater sin than being
Speaker 3: even perceived as disloyal. And he becomes seen internally as
Speaker 3: sort of loyalty to police. And he is constantly in
Speaker 3: the First Lady's ear. This person is this, this person
Speaker 3: is this. And so when he and he becomes incredibly
Speaker 3: important in the president's scheduling, he's sitting in the president
Speaker 3: scheduling meetings, and you know, like basically the conversation ender
Speaker 3: is He'll be like, Jill won't like this, you know, yea,
Speaker 3: and then and the conversation's over. And because if you object,
Speaker 3: then maybe, oh, is that because you're disloyal, you know.
Speaker 2: And the way that she eventually.
Speaker 3: The combination of them two sort of slowly pushed out
Speaker 3: anyone seen as disloyal and sort of placed all people
Speaker 3: that they trusted, you know, I think they you know,
Speaker 3: people have said that both if she was like the
Speaker 3: most powerful, one of the most powerful slaves, he was
Speaker 3: certainly probably the most powerful First Lady chief of staff.
Speaker 2: We've maybe ever seen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you brought the Vogue covers. And that's interesting
Speaker 1: because I remember hearing from my friends in Capitol Hill
Speaker 1: and in various positions that that was a big contention
Speaker 1: because Kamala Harris got a Vogue cover before Jill Biden,
Speaker 1: which is not traditional that we've never had a female
Speaker 1: vice president before. And Jill, Jill never seemed to like
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris, she never trusted her because of the original thing.
Speaker 1: I was calling basically Biden a racist during the debate,
Speaker 1: and you made an illusion that she, you know, Forgabe
Speaker 1: and not forget YadA, YadA, YadA, and Biden didn't really
Speaker 1: want her. He woned Gretchen Whitmer and was really pushing
Speaker 1: to her. Do you think that he ever did? And
Speaker 1: he was by incredibly destructive to her presidential campaign, and
Speaker 1: you characterizes her being more loyal to him than him
Speaker 1: to her. Do you think that he at the end
Speaker 1: of his presidency regretted picking her?
Speaker 3: No, because it's like one of those things like a
Speaker 3: president can't ever say they regretted it, right, It's such
Speaker 3: a consement decision. Do I think there were I can
Speaker 3: tell you this, there were a lot of feelings among
Speaker 3: Biden's top staff that regretted picking her. I remember while
Speaker 3: I was reporting this book, the book's called original Sin.
Speaker 3: They were like, no, no, no, the original sin is
Speaker 3: not him running again, it's picking Kamala Harris because they
Speaker 3: did not have confidence that she would be a good
Speaker 3: candidate or that she could win.
Speaker 1: Right well, even when they realized top Democrats realize something's
Speaker 1: wrong with Joe Biden, we may need to replace him,
Speaker 1: their initial thing is, let's get Gretchen Whitmer. Her name
Speaker 1: comes up far more frequently in the early conversations, and
Speaker 1: it's only the Black caucus that's It's like, you're not
Speaker 1: going to pick You're not going to side stuff the
Speaker 1: first black female president, female vice president for the nomination.
Speaker 1: What did top Democrats see in her as a liability
Speaker 1: early on? That they knew about his way before? I
Speaker 1: think most other ones did well.
Speaker 3: She ran a disastrous twenty twenty presidential campaign despite massive
Speaker 3: hype and you know, big crowds early on. She didn't
Speaker 3: even she had to drop out early and didn't have
Speaker 3: to go to Iowa.
Speaker 2: You can see the.
Speaker 3: Revolving door of staff that have gone through her office
Speaker 3: back when she was a state attorney general. She'd also
Speaker 3: really with the exception of like twenty ten attorney general race,
Speaker 3: she never won a tough race, and that twenty ten
Speaker 3: attorney general race she barely won. She I mean, she
Speaker 3: underperformed the rest of the ticket.
Speaker 1: Two points I think are a point and a half
Speaker 1: in California, which is good for a Democrat.
Speaker 3: And a lot of people thought that, you know, she
Speaker 3: wasn't especially nice to staff and didn't seem to get
Speaker 3: in the weeds of the substance. And I just think
Speaker 3: also I think, you know, I think Democrats, especially this
Speaker 3: generation of Democrats, which remembers sort of like you know,
Speaker 3: Northeast liberal, were worried about you know, San Francisco liberal, right,
Speaker 3: and what's a different kind of liberal, Yeah, but a
Speaker 3: similar sort of you know, a similar can can be
Speaker 3: sort of seen. Especially it's a different sort of liberal,
Speaker 3: especially on cultural issues, which you saw in sort of
Speaker 3: the Trump campaign response to her.
Speaker 2: She had she had joined much of the rest of
Speaker 2: the party and running to the left in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3: So I think the combination of all of those things,
Speaker 3: plus Pelosi and Kamala have never gone along going back
Speaker 3: to San Francisco days, like Pelosi supported her opponent in
Speaker 3: the DA race back in like two.
Speaker 2: Thousand and four, whatever year that was. So this goes
Speaker 2: back like a long.
Speaker 1: Way, and Gavin Newsom didn't like her a lot of people.
Speaker 1: I mean, Kamala, you don't have to be likable to
Speaker 1: be to make friends. Apparently something you didn't touch on
Speaker 1: the book that much, And I thought it was a
Speaker 1: glaring thing with conservatives that we talk about and we've
Speaker 1: talked about for a long time, is this the Biden
Speaker 1: family business is very much connected to their connection towards
Speaker 1: Joe and Joe's connection to power. Was that a motivating
Speaker 1: factor in why Jill and Hunter did not want him
Speaker 1: to drop out was that they're now and the brother
Speaker 1: too did not want him to drop out, and they
Speaker 1: all make money off of being close to the president
Speaker 1: and the former vice president.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, you know, with Hunter, I think he
Speaker 3: was actually more because it wasn't like Hunter was able
Speaker 3: to do any more business anymore, right, because there was
Speaker 3: so much scrutiny.
Speaker 1: He was still signed paintings though.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well he had to stop because of the scrutiny already,
Speaker 3: Like in twenty twenty one, he was still painting, but
Speaker 3: he wasn't able to sell them.
Speaker 1: So, you know, had Hitler been as successful as Hunter Biden,
Speaker 1: world War two would have never happened.
Speaker 2: But it was I think.
Speaker 3: I think it was a combination of Actually, for Hunter
Speaker 3: in particular, I think it was a combination of both,
Speaker 3: you know, livelihood, because you know, while Biden was president,
Speaker 3: you know, I think he felt confident he would stay
Speaker 3: out of jail. And I think he you know, he
Speaker 3: has like a very nice life that's sort of propped
Speaker 3: up by this former Hollywood agent. He lives in like
Speaker 3: this great beautiful house in Malibu, you know, so he's
Speaker 3: living like a comfortable existence and doesn't have a job
Speaker 3: besides painting.
Speaker 2: So I think there's a livelihood part of it.
Speaker 3: But also I think, you know, I think, and we
Speaker 3: get into this a little bit, the Hunter's sobriety is
Speaker 3: so caught up in his dad's.
Speaker 2: Staying in office. Because you have to remember, when Joe Ran.
Speaker 3: Decided to run in April twenty was still in like
Speaker 3: the depths of his crack addiction, and they didn't even
Speaker 3: know where he was most of the time.
Speaker 1: That scene where Joe was chasing him trying to get
Speaker 1: him into rehab is really powerful and compelling thank you, and.
Speaker 3: He's you know, he's he's following, and it's it's so striking.
Speaker 3: He gets sober like three weeks after his dad gets
Speaker 3: in the presidential race. That's his sobriety date under oath
Speaker 3: and core right, and so, you know, I think that
Speaker 3: was sort of keeping him stable. You know, Jill, I
Speaker 3: think like, as we said, like liked the life. You know,
Speaker 3: her top aid would always be like, we'll do this
Speaker 3: in the second term. We're going to do this trip
Speaker 3: in the second term, this and that. You know, I
Speaker 3: think there was like a livelihood the I think, and
Speaker 3: I get the question of like why didn't you go
Speaker 3: more into the business stuff. I think because of the
Speaker 3: tremendous scrutiny and the Republican investigations a lot of like
Speaker 3: the sketchy, the sketchy details that they got away with
Speaker 3: and the VP years and in the in the years
Speaker 3: between VP and president, they actually weren't doing as much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but even I mean, after Biden leaves the White
Speaker 1: House he gets a talent agent, like, yeah.
Speaker 2: But he did that after he was vice president too.
Speaker 1: I guess. So I don't know, I've heard. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's reportings that they are looking to try to make
Speaker 1: more money right now and the family needs money. And
Speaker 1: it's just it's a fascinating thing that this was so
Speaker 1: often their business model as being close to power, and
Speaker 1: was Bo going to be that person to offer them
Speaker 1: then access had he not died? I make that's a
Speaker 1: question lurks in my mind. Obviously you can't. No one
Speaker 1: knows what the answer is. But they do, but no
Speaker 1: one else knows the answer. Say e's fascinating your book.
Speaker 1: Robert Hurr couldn't find a job after his thing because
Speaker 1: he was smeared so badly by Kamala Harrison Democrats.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know this is a point when like
Speaker 3: any any potential plausible deniability by like Democrats who had
Speaker 3: spent time with hip Biden goes out the window, because
Speaker 3: you know, you could, you could try to make an
Speaker 3: argument that they're just like they're doing their job and
Speaker 3: they're spinning, you know, they're spinning for him, and they're
Speaker 3: they're trying to you know, prop him up and make
Speaker 3: him the best you know Biden possible. But after her report,
Speaker 3: they they not only slime Robert Hurr, they slime Merrik Garland,
Speaker 3: the slim their own just department in order to try
Speaker 3: to save him, even though I just find it, even
Speaker 3: though they a lot of people in that White House,
Speaker 3: even if they won't admit it publicly, knew that Robert
Speaker 3: Hurr was right. They may object to him putting in
Speaker 3: the report, but they knew he was right, and they
Speaker 3: decided to try to destroy him.
Speaker 1: So George Clooney has mentioned a lot in the book
Speaker 1: because he does all these fundraisers and he's a very
Speaker 1: well known Democrat. Someone I never knew that was involved
Speaker 1: in the campaign was Steven Spielberg. I don't know if
Speaker 1: that was reported before, you guys, I never knew that before.
Speaker 1: Spielberg was cutting videos for Biden. So he had one
Speaker 1: on one time, significant one on one time with Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: Did anyone from his camp ever say something like George
Speaker 1: Clooney did.
Speaker 3: Not that I'm aware of, and we would have obviously
Speaker 3: put in the book if that was the case. But yes,
Speaker 3: you know they were trying because and we talked about
Speaker 3: this before, you know, like the Biden struggled with taped
Speaker 3: remarks and that's why they had to do all the
Speaker 3: jump cuts and everything right, and so you know, it
Speaker 3: got to the point of in some ways you could
Speaker 3: look at it like from the outset and you're like
Speaker 3: it got to the point when they were so desperate
Speaker 3: for him to improve that they had to bring in
Speaker 3: Steven Spielberg as a coach.
Speaker 1: Right, right. And I want to ask something about the
Speaker 1: media though, because obviously this is the for conservatives. The
Speaker 1: media angle is the angle because it was so obvious
Speaker 1: to conservatives, and you were a great reporting at it early.
Speaker 1: So this is not anything on you. But like Joe Scarborough,
Speaker 1: I know you were on a show I think yesterday
Speaker 1: the day before he'd I didn't just say Joe Biden
Speaker 1: is smart. He said he's the best he's ever been
Speaker 1: at eighty years old. Eighty one years old. That's not
Speaker 1: true of anybody. Like, it's just not true of anybody.
Speaker 1: You had the guy from the Atlantic who said it's
Speaker 1: a smear and a lie. Is there. I know that
Speaker 1: the media leans left, and I know that the media
Speaker 1: does even when they get the Iraq War wrong, or
Speaker 1: the financial crisis wrong, or these big, big, big stories
Speaker 1: completely incorrect, and a lot of people are kind of
Speaker 1: like hit have egg on their face. I think this
Speaker 1: time is different than those times like the Iraq war
Speaker 1: like the financial crisis, because the number one I guess
Speaker 1: victims of getting it wrong on victims, But the people
Speaker 1: who felt the hurt from getting it wrong were Democrats.
Speaker 1: When I feel like when Republicans are the ones hurt
Speaker 1: from a Median Ara getting it wrong, or small town
Speaker 1: America or wherever, it doesn't matter as much to them.
Speaker 1: And that's something that is completely off the mark.
Speaker 2: So you think that the media doesn't feel as guilty, they.
Speaker 1: Think more guilty now than they would.
Speaker 2: Oh oh, because they didn't when.
Speaker 1: The Iraq War happened and everyone got it completely wrong.
Speaker 1: No one quit their job and said, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I can't believe I'm such a bad reporter. This one
Speaker 1: there at least in there and saying, wow, we have
Speaker 1: to have a culpability moment, and they haven't, despite losing
Speaker 1: support in the public for a very long time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So what's the question exactly?
Speaker 1: So the question is is that is that is my
Speaker 1: assumption anywhere close to the mark, is that the people
Speaker 1: in the media are having a come to Jesus moment
Speaker 1: in some capacity because their readership leans left, their friends
Speaker 1: lean left, and they all want to know what, why,
Speaker 1: why they weren't more honest, is it like or and
Speaker 1: why aren't anyone. I just have a very tough time.
Speaker 1: I have a very tough time people like in the
Speaker 1: Atlantic saying it's a smear, it's a lie, and everyone
Speaker 1: in the media just refused to sit there and say
Speaker 1: what we saw, like they just took the White House's word.
Speaker 1: As as as Carbelanche.
Speaker 2: That's interesting.
Speaker 3: I haven't detected a huge I mean I think, you know,
Speaker 3: I think, uh, you know, I think it's too I
Speaker 3: haven't detected actually a huge sort of like you know,
Speaker 3: reckoning or being like I honestly still feel there's like
Speaker 3: a defensiveness. And I think it's because they can point
Speaker 3: back and like we were talking about age plenty and like.
Speaker 3: But the thing is they were often talking about age
Speaker 3: in a horse race sense, as like oh, the Poles
Speaker 3: say his age is a liability and then talk about whatever.
Speaker 3: But like that was so they were like we there
Speaker 3: was volume, but there wasn't excavation, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: So it still hasn't happened.
Speaker 3: I mean, I mean, I will, you know, for for
Speaker 3: what it's worth, and I know probably I know some conservatives,
Speaker 3: a lot of conservatives really don't like Jake Tapper. I
Speaker 3: wasn't going to bring that up, no, no, no, But I
Speaker 3: mean my co author, Jake Captor.
Speaker 2: I think it's to his credit.
Speaker 3: That he has been like on this issue, I should
Speaker 3: have done better, and I would.
Speaker 1: Love to know from Jake. Does he And I'll ask
Speaker 1: you the same question. Do you read any alternative media?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Of course, like who I just wanted curious.
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I listened to may Do, listen to Megan Kelly like
Speaker 3: fairly often, okay, obviously, like free Press, a free beacon.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to think.
Speaker 1: Like twitter Feed.
Speaker 2: I'm just joking twitter Feed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I don't know if you consider like
Speaker 3: even like commentary or like some of those guys or
Speaker 3: like yeah, Victor Scott Hansen or.
Speaker 1: Just I think it's important because people we feel like
Speaker 1: we're screaming into a void sometimes. So I think for
Speaker 1: conservitives to even know that you read something is really important.
Speaker 1: And I think that you're a really good journalist. I'm
Speaker 1: not blaming, I'm not saying you, but I think that
Speaker 1: I do feel that my last.
Speaker 3: They feel disrespected like and then and then like and
Speaker 3: I can understand how then they're like we were saying
Speaker 3: that he was having trouble, and then like two mainstream
Speaker 3: reporters come in and're.
Speaker 2: Like, well, we wrote a book about it.
Speaker 3: See, so I can understand like the skepticism. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean I think I think it's like really because
Speaker 3: the thing is that, like I think the mainstream, some
Speaker 3: mainstream reporters just do not recognize they're still in sort
Speaker 3: of denial about the power of alternative and that includes
Speaker 3: even sort of like you know, somewhat adjacent, which is
Speaker 3: like flagrant or like you know, obviously Rogan is the
Speaker 3: other famous be event, you know, Cleovonne and all those
Speaker 3: ones that.
Speaker 1: Well establish the media matters because it is a qualifying thing.
Speaker 1: Oftentimes alternative media just echoes or battles establishing media to themselves.
Speaker 1: That's why I think it's important that they know you
Speaker 1: even pay attention to them. So I know you've short
Speaker 1: on time, so I don't want to charge. There's one
Speaker 1: last question. I asked my Twitter followers to ask you,
Speaker 1: what's a question ask you? So this is the one
Speaker 1: that I got a lot we saw on a press
Speaker 1: meeting the President Biden received a question ahead of time
Speaker 1: from Courtney Sorban, was that the standard that he would
Speaker 1: get questions in the press ahead of time and who
Speaker 1: was in charge of giving him questions from the press
Speaker 1: ahead of time?
Speaker 2: So no, it's not standard.
Speaker 3: So what we'll tell you what happens is that, but
Speaker 3: they do, they do decide who gets a question, and
Speaker 3: then what the White House will do, the Press Office
Speaker 3: will do is then they'll go to the person, right,
Speaker 3: and they'll like sort of sidle up and they'll be
Speaker 3: very friendly and they're like, what are you thinking about asking?
Speaker 2: What do you think of?
Speaker 3: You know, and you know, most of the time reporters
Speaker 3: just like show like a little bit of leg but
Speaker 3: like not really And I think in that case it
Speaker 3: was probably just a case where and I don't know,
Speaker 3: but you know, sometimes I won't take that example out
Speaker 3: of it. I think sometimes reporters sort of said too much, right,
Speaker 3: But I think that was the exception to the rule.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 3: The bigger you, I think, to your reader's point, though,
Speaker 3: the bigger problem in my mind was pre selecting which
Speaker 3: reporters got the questions. And it wasn't like he did
Speaker 3: a ton anyway, but like I never got a question
Speaker 3: in four years, really never, And I don't think even
Speaker 3: I don't think Axios ever got a question, and when
Speaker 3: I was at Politico, I don't know if Politico ever
Speaker 3: got a question. So it was the pre selecting of
Speaker 3: reporters that I mean, they know enough about which reporters
Speaker 3: care about which issue, right, so they're like, we know
Speaker 3: this guy's interested in this, and we this is what
Speaker 3: we want to talk about. Right. So I think that
Speaker 3: was actually the way that they controlled you know, what
Speaker 3: he was going to be asked, more so than like
Speaker 3: the note card thing.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, Alex, this is the book of the year,
Speaker 1: right now. Congratulates all the good press you've got to
Speaker 1: all my listeners. Original Sin is a great It's a
Speaker 1: great read one to understand the humanity of certain people
Speaker 1: that seem so distant because they are the president and
Speaker 1: the president's family, and also to see really what it
Speaker 1: is like in political circles. The scene of John Fetterman
Speaker 1: screaming at his fellow senators was like jaw dropping. And
Speaker 1: I also got the audiobook as well to hear it
Speaker 1: when I was doing things and Jake Tapper doing voices
Speaker 1: accents is hilarious. So if you can't actually read and
Speaker 1: you want to listen to it, his accents of like
Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders and when I was very very funny.
Speaker 3: It is a great I haven't listened to the audiobook yet.
Speaker 3: I had no idea about the accents.
Speaker 1: Well he does accents for all the people. Oh it's
Speaker 1: really now, there are times there it's actually like I
Speaker 1: was like, this is actually really good, and I'm like, whoa,
Speaker 1: this is a rough New York accent right over here.
Speaker 1: But it is. It's really really good. Congratulations on it,
Speaker 1: and I highly recommend it to all my listeners. I
Speaker 1: think that it's definitely the book of the year so far.
Speaker 2: That really means a lot. Thank you very much for
Speaker 2: having me.
Speaker 1: That was Alex Thompson once again, of the great book
Speaker 1: Original Sin. I really did like it. I'm not just
Speaker 1: saying it because he was here, because I don't peddle
Speaker 1: other people's nonsense besides my own. But it was, it was.
Speaker 1: It was a really good book, and it really really
Speaker 1: really went into like the human interactions of senators and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, and I think he looked he gave
Speaker 1: us some good tidbits right there of interactions with people,
Speaker 1: especially on Jill Biden. I think that she's really the
Speaker 1: lady Macbeth figure in this entire thing. So I want
Speaker 1: to go into my question and answer. You can ask
Speaker 1: me a question on basically anything. Email me Ryan at
Speaker 1: Numbers Game Podcast dot com. That's Ryan at numbers Plural
Speaker 1: Numbers gamepodcast dot com. Send me a tweet, ask me
Speaker 1: a question, and I love to answer it. Someone asked
Speaker 1: me today, have you watched the Nancy Mace footage on
Speaker 1: the House floor this week? So if you guys do
Speaker 1: not know, Nancy Mace post a video of herself naked
Speaker 1: that I think someone else took without her permission, and
Speaker 1: she put into the Congressional record, which means it's there
Speaker 1: for like all time. That was wild, and no, I
Speaker 1: did not watch it. I didn't watch it because I've
Speaker 1: only met Nancy Mace one time before. It was in
Speaker 1: a private meeting with people. It wasn't on the record
Speaker 1: or anything like that. But it was really kind of crazy.
Speaker 1: And she was there with her then fiance, who I
Speaker 1: think she has accused of something horrible. I don't want
Speaker 1: to say that the accusation was. It was some kind
Speaker 1: of accusation. They have since broken up. And we get
Speaker 1: into the dinner table and Nancy is like talking a
Speaker 1: mile a minute and one of her first things that
Speaker 1: she says is she's like, oh, I'm down to just
Speaker 1: one glass of wine a day, to which her person
Speaker 1: who worked with her like went like this like like,
Speaker 1: not a no, I forget there's no camera. He not
Speaker 1: a no. He was like, she's not down to one
Speaker 1: glass a day. And then she's introducing her fiance and
Speaker 1: she's like, I thought that he was wealthy the first
Speaker 1: time I met him, and turns out that he's broke.
Speaker 1: And I was like what. I was like, Hi, my
Speaker 1: name is Ryan. We didn't gotten to that part yet.
Speaker 1: She was talking a mile a minute, and the context
Speaker 1: that we had a conversation with was great afterwards, but
Speaker 1: it was like started at an eleven and it worked
Speaker 1: its way down from there rather than work its way up.
Speaker 1: She was perfectly lovely, but very intense, and she seems
Speaker 1: to go through husband's fiances and staff very very quickly.
Speaker 1: I don't know what that's all about. I don't know
Speaker 1: why she seeks this much attention on many things, but
Speaker 1: she does. And I did not watch her include her
Speaker 1: naked photos in the congressional record because I have other
Speaker 1: things to do with my time. Anyway, that's my little
Speaker 1: Nancy May story. These congressional stories, my political run ends
Speaker 1: over time are pretty funny. I am like Forrest Gump.
Speaker 1: I am like a New York version of Forrest Gump.
Speaker 1: It's a different accent. Well, thank you guys again for
Speaker 1: listening for this episode. Have a happy Memorial Day. I
Speaker 1: hope you have had a great three day weekend, nice
Speaker 1: and relaxing. And come back on Thursday and listen to
Speaker 1: our next episode. Like and subscribe on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. If you're generous,
Speaker 1: and if you're feeling generous, and I hope you are,
Speaker 1: give us a five star review. Thank you so much,