Speaker 1: We have arrived at a terrible moment in American politics.
Speaker 1: There are two hundred and sixty six days until America decides.
Speaker 1: It is February thirteenth, Valentine's Day Eve, and this is
Speaker 1: my warning. John Berman is CNN's superb morning anchor, and
Speaker 1: he asked a question of CNN analysts Bacary Sellers, who's
Speaker 1: a very smart guy.
Speaker 2: Here's the question, Pacary, if this campaign becomes Trump versus Biden,
Speaker 2: and if it devolves into something like old versus dangerous.
Speaker 2: If Democrats say Donald Trump is dangerous, Republicans say Joe
Speaker 2: Biden is old, is that a race that Democrats would
Speaker 2: be confident about.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the question for a minute before we
Speaker 1: get into Bacary Seller's answer. The question is completely logical.
Speaker 1: In fact, if you look at the race and you
Speaker 1: read all of the news coverage about it. What John
Speaker 1: Berman has asked is exactly where most of DC's conventional
Speaker 1: wisdom lays, which is, the race will be a choice
Speaker 1: for the American people between a candidate they think is
Speaker 1: too old and one they worry about is too dangerous.
Speaker 1: That's the race old versus dangerous. Except that's not what
Speaker 1: the race will be about. The thing about presidential politics
Speaker 1: is most times you don't get from point A to
Speaker 1: B in a straight line. You have to tack to
Speaker 1: get there. You have to move on the obliques, on
Speaker 1: the angles. And so when you look at an issue
Speaker 1: like this old versus dangerous, there's a higher face card
Speaker 1: that develops out of that contrast that is not a
Speaker 1: good one for the Democrats. And that is what we
Speaker 1: must talk about today, lest we go over the cliff
Speaker 1: like political lemmings. Here's the important thing to understand. How
Speaker 1: is it that Donald Trump came to power? And what
Speaker 1: was it that Republicans believed about Barack Obama's presidency in
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen when Trump came down the escalator at Trump Tower.
Speaker 1: What millions and millions of Republicans believed across the country.
Speaker 1: Was it that Barack Obama had failed? They believed he succeeded.
Speaker 1: Barack Obama had set out to transform America, and they
Speaker 1: believed he did exactly that and he wrecked it. But
Speaker 1: they believed he didn't do it alone. They believed he
Speaker 1: did it with the help of a complicit, effeckless, corrupt,
Speaker 1: accommodationist Republican in Congress. This is why the Republican establishment
Speaker 1: is hated so much by the Republican base. Now, let's
Speaker 1: go back to that twenty fifteen election, and specifically to
Speaker 1: the Jet Bush campaign. What Jet Bush believed looking in
Speaker 1: the mirror was that after eight years of progressive politics
Speaker 1: and Barack Obama, what the Republican Party wanted was a smart, capable,
Speaker 1: accomplished conservative governor. That's not what they wanted. What they
Speaker 1: wanted was strength to offset the weakness that they felt
Speaker 1: was endemic to the Republican establishment. And the strength and
Speaker 1: the toughness that they looked for was the phony toughness
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump, who was able to climb in the
Speaker 1: race because he emasculated Jet Bush. He defenestrated him, He
Speaker 1: made him look weak, He made all of them look weak,
Speaker 1: Little Marco attacking Ted Cruz's father and wife and then
Speaker 1: watching Ted Cruz genuflect to him at each instance. Trump
Speaker 1: feeds on weakness, and Trump's strength has been the image
Speaker 1: within his base that he is the strong leader. His
Speaker 1: campaign is a classical authoritarian strong man campaign. Now, let
Speaker 1: me be clear, Donald Trump is completely, utterly and absolutely dangerous.
Speaker 1: He is unhinged. He is an accused criminal. There is
Speaker 1: no comparison whatsoever between the characters of President Biden and
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. But elections aren't fair, and so the contrast
Speaker 1: that has come to be is one between decrepitude and
Speaker 1: sinility and strength and vigor, the strong man versus the
Speaker 1: one who can't communicate strength versus weakness. And here's the
Speaker 1: problem for Democrats, and thus here's the problem for America.
Speaker 1: There has never, ever, ever been a presidential election where
Speaker 1: the candidate defined as weak and infirmed or disabled in
Speaker 1: any way has ever won. The candidate perceived as weak
Speaker 1: always and I mean always loses the presidential race in
Speaker 1: American politics. The race that must be run against Donald
Speaker 1: Trump buyers that Trump be defined as crazy, unhinged, but
Speaker 1: also weak and also dangerous. He must be all of
Speaker 1: those things. He must be attacked from a position of strength.
Speaker 1: And this is what is so worrying about this moment
Speaker 1: in time. A year ago, as Jonathan Martin of Politico reports,
Speaker 1: Democrats talked all the time about how worried they were
Speaker 1: about Biden. And what emerged from that is the dumbest
Speaker 1: and I mean fucking dumbest piece of conventional wisdom. Maybe ever.
Speaker 1: It was the idea that if in Washington, the obvious
Speaker 1: was talked about truthfully, directly and with candor. It would
Speaker 1: somehow help Donald Trump, as if the American people hadn't
Speaker 1: made the judgment on their own. Eighty six percent of
Speaker 1: the country doesn't want the rematch between President Biden and
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. Yet the political establishment, which includes the media,
Speaker 1: is foisting it on them, jamming it down their throats.
Speaker 1: And so what the media gets wrong about this is
Speaker 1: what Macary Sellers gets wrong about it. There's nobody in
Speaker 1: the country who thinks Joe Biden, because of his age,
Speaker 1: is the wisest man in a nation of three hundred
Speaker 1: and forty million people. This is delusional. Joe Biden is
Speaker 1: not to most accomplished grandpa quote unquote in American history.
Speaker 1: He's not, and that's not what the campaign should be
Speaker 1: built on. Or this is a smart guy, but this
Speaker 1: isn't real and where this leads is too disaster. Let's
Speaker 1: watch his answer.
Speaker 2: But Gary, if this campaign becomes Trump versus Biden, and
Speaker 2: if it devolves into something like old versus dangerous, if
Speaker 2: Democrats say Donald Trump is dangerous, Republicans say Joe Biden
Speaker 2: is old, is that a race that Democrats would be
Speaker 2: confident about man.
Speaker 3: That was the weakest if I've ever heard you use
Speaker 3: John There's no there's no need for the words. If
Speaker 3: this is this is Joe Biden versus Donald Trump, point
Speaker 3: blank period. So yes, I think the Democrats, I mean
Speaker 3: we we are proverbial bedwinners. Right, So anytime somebody says
Speaker 3: something harsh about about the president, or he mistakes the
Speaker 3: president of Egypt for representing Mexico, we just we just
Speaker 3: wring our hands.
Speaker 1: I mean, we go clutch our pearls.
Speaker 3: We just go absolutely nuts. Look, our candidate is the
Speaker 3: president of the United States. He's old, he's eighty, But
Speaker 3: this eighty year old man has accomplished more than any
Speaker 3: other grandfather in the history of the United States of America. Like,
Speaker 3: he's actually performed the task. Well, he's gotten bipartisan legislation through.
Speaker 3: And the alternative is someone who's dangerous. I mean, let's
Speaker 3: embrace what it is. I don't know why the White
Speaker 3: House is afraid of it. Embrace it. He's old, but look,
Speaker 3: he's better than the alternative. And that alternative is somebody
Speaker 3: dangerous who has ninety one felony accounts, who owe by
Speaker 3: the way, who wants to talk about other people's families.
Speaker 3: But he has five kids by three baby mamas. I mean,
Speaker 3: let's actually have this discussion on the merits, and I
Speaker 3: believe we would win that election.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be clear and tell you how Joe
Speaker 1: Biden wins. The fight must be brought to Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: The last thought the American people have walking into the
Speaker 1: voting both must be of Donald Trump. Yet Trump has
Speaker 1: reinvigorated his extremist movement. It's better organized, better funded, and
Speaker 1: better led than it has ever been. It has never
Speaker 1: posed more danger than it poses today. Donald Trump is
Speaker 1: ahead in the polls. Donald Trump is raising money handover fist,
Speaker 1: and Donald Trump is certain to be the Republican nominee.
Speaker 1: President Biden didn't appear on the Super Bowl. President of
Speaker 1: Biden doesn't appear in public very often. President Biden must
Speaker 1: be at the front of his campaign, and he must
Speaker 1: take the fight to the mag of movement. He must
Speaker 1: scorn Trump. He must mock him, He must diminish him,
Speaker 1: he must dismiss him, he must laugh at him, and
Speaker 1: he must lead the country in rebuking him. Presidential campaign
Speaker 1: or not. Entitlements earned because you did what you said
Speaker 1: you were going to do to get the job. Reelection
Speaker 1: is not a thank you cookie. The thank you the
Speaker 1: president gets his Air Force one and Marine one in
Speaker 1: Camp David in the White House and all the great
Speaker 1: shit that goes along with the job. Presidential elections are
Speaker 1: about the future, about what's next, and Donald Trump is
Speaker 1: attacking the pillars of global society and of America's way
Speaker 1: of life. He's assaulting the foundation. When the UN was formed,
Speaker 1: it was from the ashes of a war that killed
Speaker 1: almost one hundred million people. Our grandparents or great grandparents
Speaker 1: had the wisdom, judgment, the rectitude to build out of
Speaker 1: their imaginations. Enduring institutions, though not perfect, because they're run
Speaker 1: by people, have kept the peace and prevented World War three.
Speaker 1: And this is what Donald Trump is assaulting. This is
Speaker 1: what Donald Trump is trying to dismantle, and the result
Speaker 1: of it will be hundreds and hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 1: dead young Americans. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were
Speaker 1: terrible in their endurance and their cost in blood and treasure,
Speaker 1: but the casualties in those wars were not in the
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands or in the millions. Because that's what
Speaker 1: the casualty numbers will be in a global war. And
Speaker 1: anybody who tells you that America won't be part of
Speaker 1: a global war in the third decade of the twenty
Speaker 1: first century, that Donald Trump could keep us out, as
Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin, that his invitation rampaged across Europe, is crazy
Speaker 1: and they're lying to you. We have arrived at a
Speaker 1: terrible moment in American politics. We have arrived at a
Speaker 1: desperate and dangerous hour. And it's the job of the
Speaker 1: Biden campaign to tell the American people how it's going
Speaker 1: to end, how we're going to get out of it,
Speaker 1: how we're going to move on. And thus far the
Speaker 1: campaign is not measuring up because Donald Trump is on
Speaker 1: track to be the forty seventh president of the United States,
Speaker 1: and that, my friends, is a national catastrophe. The only
Speaker 1: thing about it is we have a lot of time
Speaker 1: to still do something about it, so we shut Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening to my political commentary. If you like
Speaker 1: what you heard today, please also consider subscribing to The
Speaker 1: Warning Daily newsletter on substack. Our democracy hangs in the balance.
Speaker 1: The twenty twenty four presidential election is the most consequential
Speaker 1: in America's history. It's not hyperbole. It's a fact. That
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