Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio Good Evening,
Speaker 1: Live from New York. No audience, no moderators, no journalism.
Speaker 1: What you have just witnessed if you watch the first
Speaker 1: Biden Trump debate on CNN, which it marketed as the
Speaker 1: CNN Presidential Debate, what you have seen is a debate
Speaker 1: with three participants, Joe Biden versus the tag team of
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and CNN. The decision to not fact check
Speaker 1: the fire hose of lies that is Donald Trump, that
Speaker 1: is the entirety of his existence and the entirety of
Speaker 1: his campaign. The decision to not fact check any one
Speaker 1: of those lies by CNN was one of the most
Speaker 1: immoral decisions in the history of the free press in
Speaker 1: this country. Literally, I am suggesting that at some point
Speaker 1: tonight CNN should it will not go off the air
Speaker 1: in shame, fire everybody, seal off the buildings, make sure
Speaker 1: everybody's out, and burn the goddamn place to the ground.
Speaker 1: There was nothing in that entire coverage of that debate
Speaker 1: that suggested for a moment that the truth mattered. To CNN.
Speaker 1: They answered none of Trump's lies, even the one promise
Speaker 1: that was made that if Trump talked about the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty election and questioned the outcome. There would be pushback
Speaker 1: from Dana Bash and Jake Tapper did not come to pass.
Speaker 1: CNN had set the bar for itself about here. It
Speaker 1: didn't even make to the top of the table. As
Speaker 1: I warned in Wednesday's Countdown podcast, it was impairve that
Speaker 1: there be some fashion of fact checking. You could not
Speaker 1: simply allow what happened to Caitlin Collins at the town
Speaker 1: hall last year in twenty twenty three to happen again
Speaker 1: in a presidential debate. And yet that is exactly what
Speaker 1: CNN and its new boss, Mark Thompson allowed to happen tonight,
Speaker 1: and he and the political director David Shalian, and Jake
Speaker 1: Tapper and Dana Bash should at minimum be suspended or
Speaker 1: fired for journalistic malpractice at the highest level of failure
Speaker 1: in American media and journalistic history. It was an extraordinary event.
Speaker 1: CNN not just let Trump lie, They let him slander
Speaker 1: the president of the United States repeatedly. They let him
Speaker 1: lie about every aspect of his own presidency. They let
Speaker 1: him lie about his coup, they let him lie about
Speaker 1: January sixth, They let him lie about his goddamn golf scores.
Speaker 1: The list of lies exceeded, I think by Trump just
Speaker 1: in the approximately forty five minutes he would have been
Speaker 1: on camera in this first debate, exceeded the lies that
Speaker 1: he told against the Caitlyn Collins push back in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three in the town Hall, CNN broadcast live to
Speaker 1: great criticism. That broadcast looks like it deserves a Pulletzer,
Speaker 1: an Emmy, two Oscars, and a Grammy Award Compared to
Speaker 1: this in terms of the journalistic quality that was done
Speaker 1: by Kitlyn Collins, who simply tried to say the truth
Speaker 1: and tried to push back. Jake Tapper and Dana Bash
Speaker 1: sat there and read their questions off cards and did
Speaker 1: not do follow ups, and did not question Trump in
Speaker 1: the slightest and they let him lie. If Trump is
Speaker 1: reelected and this country goes fascist as Trump intends it
Speaker 1: to do, part of the responsibility is as of this
Speaker 1: night on the heads of CNN Jake Tapper and Dana Bash.
Speaker 1: It was an appalling performance. And as I speaking to here,
Speaker 1: I'm someone who was not only once the moderator, in
Speaker 1: effect the host or facilitator. To use the CNN term,
Speaker 1: tonight of a Democratic presidential primary debate in Chicago in
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven, So I have some idea of
Speaker 1: the preparation for these events. This wasn't some sort of
Speaker 1: accident that they didn't push back. This wasn't some sort
Speaker 1: of random occurrence in the heat of the on air broadcast,
Speaker 1: as I will stumble over a word, or as Joe
Speaker 1: Biden would stumble over a word tonight, or as Donald
Speaker 1: Trump stumble over about five hundred words tonight. These were
Speaker 1: not accidents. We prepared for this primary debate in two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven in Chicago, where I believe seven Democratic candidates,
Speaker 1: including President Obama, future President Biden, the Secretary of State
Speaker 1: at the time, Hillary Clinton, and five other candidates. I
Speaker 1: believe the total was eight. We had them all, and
Speaker 1: we began to prepare the questions, writing them out, memorizing them,
Speaker 1: deciding who should get which question. We started to do
Speaker 1: that a week beforehand. There were twenty five people involved
Speaker 1: in selecting what would be asked of the candidates in
Speaker 1: that format. In this format, an actual presidential debate, the
Speaker 1: first of only two scheduled in the entirety of this campaign,
Speaker 1: the earliest in the history of this country. In the
Speaker 1: most important election we have faced, certainly since the eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty four election in the middle of the Civil War.
Speaker 1: They planned this out. The decision was made by CNN,
Speaker 1: no fact checks, and if there are no facts, Donald
Speaker 1: Trump will win every time because he is a goddamned liar.
Speaker 1: I took notes as we went through of the Trump lies,
Speaker 1: and I don't think this is one third of what
Speaker 1: was said. He lied about COVID and the entire history
Speaker 1: of COVID under his misleadership, and CNN said nothing. He
Speaker 1: lied about everybody wanting Roe v. Wade overturned and the
Speaker 1: decisions about abortion sent back to the States, and CNN
Speaker 1: said nothing. He lied that the founding fathers somehow would
Speaker 1: have posed Roe v. Wade or would have demanded that
Speaker 1: it be decided by the States or by the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court the way the Supreme Court overturned it at his direction.
Speaker 1: He lied about that, and CNN said nothing. He lied
Speaker 1: about post birth abortion. Let's again remind everybody what post
Speaker 1: perth abortion actually means. Trump suggested that people in this country,
Speaker 1: doctors and mothers of newborn children due to incomplete abortions,
Speaker 1: that the mothers of the children and the doctors and
Speaker 1: other officials there murdered living infants who had just been born.
Speaker 1: There was no fact check. According to CNN, that's true.
Speaker 1: Jobs to illegal immigrants. Trump lied about that and CNN
Speaker 1: said nothing. Biden to destroy social security. Trump lied about that,
Speaker 1: and CNN said nothing. Trump at one point said he
Speaker 1: would not say something about the Border Guard's endorsement, and
Speaker 1: then he said it by saying he wouldn't say it.
Speaker 1: He lied about that. He lied about terrorists coming across
Speaker 1: the border and CNN said nothing. He ted lied about
Speaker 1: many American citizens being left in Afghanistan and CNN said nothing.
Speaker 1: He lied about how he was congratulated by Europe and
Speaker 1: NATO by demanding more money, and CNN said nothing about that.
Speaker 1: He lied about the ocean protecting us against a European war,
Speaker 1: which was last postulated, I believe, by Woodrow Wilson in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixteen, and CNN said nothing about that lie. He
Speaker 1: lied about getting NATO to pay and CNN said nothing.
Speaker 1: He lied about offering troops to Nancy Pelosi and CNN
Speaker 1: said nothing. He lied about how some unknown, unidentified they
Speaker 1: asked him to speak on January sixth, when the entirety
Speaker 1: of the January sixth public event was his idea and
Speaker 1: his scheme and his attempted coup. CNN could have, at
Speaker 1: that point simply said one of those idiot anchors Jake
Speaker 1: Tapper or Dana Bash should have said at that point,
Speaker 1: at minimum, to possibly save this debacle from going any further,
Speaker 1: could have just said, mister Trump, who's the they who
Speaker 1: asked you to speak? Just to follow him up once
Speaker 1: with a follow up question, to ask what it was
Speaker 1: he was saying, because these were a series of lies
Speaker 1: that went unquestioned. And Trump's villainy and Trump's role is
Speaker 1: the greatest criminal in American history is one thing. But
Speaker 1: tonight he has an accomplice. It's called CNN. Pelosi. He said,
Speaker 1: acknowledged that she asked for the troops. Trump lied about that.
Speaker 1: CNN said nothing about it. The January sixth evidence being destroyed,
Speaker 1: trumpled about that. CNN said nothing about that. He lied
Speaker 1: about Charlottesville. CNN said nothing about that. He lied about
Speaker 1: Biden somehow making up the Charlottesville story about good people
Speaker 1: on both sides. CNN didn't say anything about that. He
Speaker 1: lied that he didn't call the dead soldiers losers and suckers.
Speaker 1: He made up a number of people who said it
Speaker 1: was not true, and CNN didn't call him on that.
Speaker 1: He lied that Biden caused the inflation after COVID, and
Speaker 1: CNN didn't say anything about that. He lied that Biden
Speaker 1: had called Black's super predators, and despite an understandable dropped
Speaker 1: jaw from the President of the United States when that happened,
Speaker 1: CNN didn't say anything about that Trump lie. He lied
Speaker 1: about his environmental numbers, how he had the best environmental numbers. Ever,
Speaker 1: presumably he's talking about environmental numbers based on what the
Speaker 1: polluters liked. I'm sure he got those right, but in
Speaker 1: terms of environmental numbers, that was another lie CNN said
Speaker 1: nothing about. He lied about migrants taking jobs of minorities,
Speaker 1: Blacks and Hispanics in this country. CNN said nothing about that.
Speaker 1: He lied about Biden getting money from China and called
Speaker 1: him a Manchurian candidate, and CNN said nothing about that.
Speaker 1: He lied about Biden paying for hostages, and CNN said
Speaker 1: nothing about that. In point of fact, off the top
Speaker 1: of my head, I know what that was. That was
Speaker 1: the United States of America unfreezing frozen Iranian assets as
Speaker 1: part of a deal to get people back from that country.
Speaker 1: He lied about the country failing. He lied about acing
Speaker 1: a cognitive test. That's probably the thousandth time he's lied
Speaker 1: about that. The cognitive test, by the way, is the
Speaker 1: screening one to determine whether or not they need to
Speaker 1: put you in a straight jacket when you come in,
Speaker 1: and of course Trump needs to be in a straight jacket,
Speaker 1: and CNN said nothing about that lie. He lied about
Speaker 1: winning at golf, He lied about the golf tournaments. He
Speaker 1: lied about not being a supporter an inducer of political violence.
Speaker 1: Someone there should have said, had anybody thought about stochastic terrorism?
Speaker 1: Did anybody at CNN suggest that perhaps that should be said? No?
Speaker 1: Trump lied, and CNN said nothing in response. He lied
Speaker 1: about the police ushering in the coup members his stochastic terrorists.
Speaker 1: On January sixth, He lied about accepting the election results,
Speaker 1: and then later came back and explained how he was
Speaker 1: lying about accepting the election results this November, and CNN
Speaker 1: said nothing about that. He lied about why he had
Speaker 1: been indicted and who was responsible for being indicted. The answer,
Speaker 1: of course to that was he who was responsible for
Speaker 1: him being indicted by committing crimes? Andn said nothing about that.
Speaker 1: He lied about again the United States being a failing nation.
Speaker 1: He lied about fraud in the twenty twenty election. As
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, CNN had promised that of all the
Speaker 1: lies Trump could say, that would be the one they
Speaker 1: would not let him get away with, and Dana Bash
Speaker 1: and Jake Tapper let him get away with it. He
Speaker 1: lied about somehow going to Europe in his closing statement.
Speaker 1: Apparently the vets are supposed to go to Europe for treatment.
Speaker 1: It wasn't clear, and he lied, and CNN said nothing
Speaker 1: about it. And as I suggest, I believe the actual
Speaker 1: list is probably about three times as long as the
Speaker 1: one I've just read you. Those were the low lights
Speaker 1: in an extraordinary performance, and extraordinary meant in the worst
Speaker 1: possible way in that word could meet. The lies are
Speaker 1: on the record now, and the lies have been resonating
Speaker 1: through this country through social media for the last two
Speaker 1: hours because CNN did not do its job. I'm telling
Speaker 1: you this from personal ex experience. It's not an easy
Speaker 1: thing to sit there and try to run a television
Speaker 1: show while you are asking two presidential candidates or eight
Speaker 1: presidential candidates questions that are vital to the future and
Speaker 1: the security and the safety of this nation. It's not
Speaker 1: an easy task. It is not as difficult as those
Speaker 1: two idiots made it look tonight. And you can, in
Speaker 1: fact make a few moral judgments and judgments that are
Speaker 1: responsible to the American people, and judgments that are responsible
Speaker 1: to your oaths that you take internally in your own
Speaker 1: soul about what you're going to do if you get
Speaker 1: the big anchor job, Dana Bash, or if you get
Speaker 1: the big anchor job Jake Tapper, if you go Jake
Speaker 1: Tapper from being a guy who once went out with
Speaker 1: Monica Lewinsky, is the greatest and most famous thing in
Speaker 1: your resume to being the anchor or co anchor of
Speaker 1: a presidential debate. If you get that dream come true,
Speaker 1: where you go from running joke to the role of
Speaker 1: anchor of the first co anchor of the first presidential
Speaker 1: debate in the most important election in this country in
Speaker 1: at least the time since eighteen sixty four, probably in
Speaker 1: the whole of our history. If you go from that
Speaker 1: one laughingstock to this position of importance, you should take
Speaker 1: it goddamn seriously and not let a bastard intent on
Speaker 1: putting your network out of business putting you behind bars,
Speaker 1: putting in the rest of us who depose him and
Speaker 1: in some way have fought against him these last ten years.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump wants Jake Tapper in jail or at least unemployed,
Speaker 1: or at least in his employ servicing him as he
Speaker 1: turns the media of this nation into a bunch of
Speaker 1: nodding head dolls agreeing with him as fascism comes to
Speaker 1: the United States of America. And Jake Tapper and Dana
Speaker 1: Bash and the new CNN chief Robinson were too stupid
Speaker 1: to know, are too stupid to know that they were
Speaker 1: out there slitting their own throats and building their own gallows. Tonight,
Speaker 1: I want to give one piece of news that ordinarily
Speaker 1: would have been the lead story, and it may be
Speaker 1: the lead story going from this first debate. If debate
Speaker 1: is the right term. This is closer to another live
Speaker 1: town hall than anything else. It might have been described
Speaker 1: as Joe Biden according to several sources. It was first
Speaker 1: reported by NBC, who's quoting two unnamed sources, and then
Speaker 1: by the Associated Press. Joe Biden went through this debate
Speaker 1: despite the fact that he was diagnosed. If diagnosed is
Speaker 1: not too strong a term with it with a cold
Speaker 1: before this event, so that when he came out sounding
Speaker 1: as hoarse as he did, and sounding rehearsed and looking
Speaker 1: kind of blank at the beginning, and he did not
Speaker 1: really get started. Nobody will question that he did not
Speaker 1: get started for the first twenty or thirty minutes of this.
Speaker 1: He did leave a bad impression, there's no getting around that.
Speaker 1: But there is a mitigating factor that he had a cold.
Speaker 1: And as silly as that sounds, oh, he's going to
Speaker 1: blame it on having a cold. Let us remember that
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty it was absolutely the case that John F. Kennedy,
Speaker 1: who was a little known senator from Massachusetts, was elevated
Speaker 1: to basically equality with the sitting Vice President of the
Speaker 1: United States Nixon in the debates, the first debate when Nixon,
Speaker 1: who had had I believe it was it was not pneumonia,
Speaker 1: it was a staff infection. He'd been hospitalized. He looked
Speaker 1: gray as anything. They didn't make him up very well,
Speaker 1: and he came on television and he looked like death
Speaker 1: warmed over without the without the warmed over part, and
Speaker 1: he faced Kennedy robust, glowing, tanned, apparently on several medications,
Speaker 1: as it later turned out for his various diseases we
Speaker 1: did not know about if you talk about jacked up,
Speaker 1: but Kennedy came out of nowhere and was given at
Speaker 1: the end of that debate essentially equal status thereafter with
Speaker 1: Richard Nixon in the nineteen sixty campaign, because Richard Nixon
Speaker 1: had been hospitalized and looked bad on camera. So the
Speaker 1: idea that Joe Biden had a cold as a bad excuse,
Speaker 1: it rings kind of hollow. It can be the sort
Speaker 1: of thing that changes American history, especially if you combine
Speaker 1: that with the network doing the debate, violating every principle
Speaker 1: of journalism. And I'd add, if you want to go
Speaker 1: a little bit further than this, one of the great
Speaker 1: metaphors for failure, for decisive, career ending failure in the
Speaker 1: history of this country, in the history of the world
Speaker 1: for the last two hundred odd years is Napoleon losing
Speaker 1: at Waterloo. It's been in everything from long movies to
Speaker 1: two long movies to Abba songs. Waterloo. Napoleon apparently had
Speaker 1: a gastro intestinal attack on the morning of Waterloo. We
Speaker 1: can't discount this. The idea that Joe Biden had a
Speaker 1: cold tested negative for COVID by the way he had
Speaker 1: the test, and like the debate in twenty twenty, when
Speaker 1: Trump went on stage with an active COVID infection, told
Speaker 1: no one and exposed Biden to it. The COVID test
Speaker 1: was taken by President Biden and he tested negative and
Speaker 1: proceeded with the debate. History will judge whether or not
Speaker 1: that was a good decision or a bad one, but
Speaker 1: it was an honest one and it had consequences that
Speaker 1: Joe Biden will have to deal with, as the rest
Speaker 1: of us will for the rest of this campaign. I
Speaker 1: did want to start to review some of the things
Speaker 1: that were said and use some of the clips that
Speaker 1: we have gotten for you that I think exemplify what
Speaker 1: we saw both from the CNN failures and the unstopping,
Speaker 1: ceaseless sophistry and sophistry, or the highlights, the legitimate parts,
Speaker 1: the relatively honest parts of Donald Trump's performance, and then
Speaker 1: talk about what they mean and what the reaction would be.
Speaker 1: And remember that you and I, who have been living
Speaker 1: and breathing this for a year, two years, ten years,
Speaker 1: we have one viewpoint of this. Consider how many of
Speaker 1: the one hundred and ten, perhaps million people who watch
Speaker 1: this just now in some form, we're seeing these two
Speaker 1: men for the first time in the context of even
Speaker 1: beginning to think about who they're going to vote for,
Speaker 1: and what the impact would be not just of Joe
Speaker 1: Biden halting at the start and coughing at the start
Speaker 1: and being rehearsed at the start and having a cold,
Speaker 1: but what the effect would be of seeing Donald Trump
Speaker 1: for the first time doing what he did tonight. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that perhaps will resonate for those
Speaker 1: who were still watching by that point was Trump threatening
Speaker 1: Joe Biden, calling him a potential convicted felon, and saying
Speaker 1: that he was the innocent one and that if he
Speaker 1: became president again, yes, all of our worst fears are
Speaker 1: in fact accurate. He will try to prosecute Biden.
Speaker 2: Telling the Ukrainian people that we're going to want a
Speaker 2: billion dollars or you change the prosecutor. Otherwise you're not
Speaker 2: getting a billion dollars. If I ever said that, that's
Speaker 2: quid pro quo, that we're not going to do anything.
Speaker 2: We're not going to give you a billion dollars unless
Speaker 2: you change you prosecutor. Having to do with the son,
Speaker 2: this man is a criminal.
Speaker 3: This man you're lucky. You're lucky.
Speaker 1: I did nothing wrong.
Speaker 2: We'd have a system that was rigged and disgusting. I
Speaker 2: did nothing wrong.
Speaker 4: Thank you, President Trump, President Biden, you have said right.
Speaker 1: To you, sir.
Speaker 4: You well you want to respond, go ahead, I'll give
Speaker 4: you a minute to respond.
Speaker 5: The idea that I did anything wrong relative what you're
Speaker 5: talking about is outrageous.
Speaker 3: It's simply a lie. Number one.
Speaker 5: Number two, The idea that you have a right to
Speaker 5: seek retribution against any American just because your president is
Speaker 5: wrong is simply wrong.
Speaker 3: No president's ever spoken like that before.
Speaker 5: The idea that I did anything wrong relative what you're
Speaker 5: talking about is outrageous.
Speaker 3: It's simply a lie. Number one.
Speaker 5: Number two, The idea that you have a right to
Speaker 5: seek retribution against any American just because your president is.
Speaker 3: Wrong is simply wrong. No president's ever spoken like that before.
Speaker 3: No president in our history is spoken like that before.
Speaker 5: Number three, the crimes that you are still charged with,
Speaker 5: and think of all the civil pedaltis you have. How
Speaker 5: many billions of dollars do you own in civil penalties
Speaker 5: for molesting a woman in public, for doing a whole
Speaker 5: range of things, of having sex with a porn star,
Speaker 5: on the night while your wife was pregnant.
Speaker 3: What are you talking about? You have the morals of
Speaker 3: an alley cat. Give a minute, Sir, I didn't have
Speaker 3: sex with the porn star.
Speaker 1: Former president of the United States says, I didn't have
Speaker 1: sex with a porn star. Maybe they can make that
Speaker 1: into his epitaph. Donald Trump succeeded in what Donald Trump
Speaker 1: does best, bullshit people into their doom. He succeeded throughout
Speaker 1: the night. There is no getting around that. As bad
Speaker 1: an impact as Joe Biden and his cold and the
Speaker 1: initial halting nature of his performance tonight will have on
Speaker 1: his campaign, whether it measures as one to one millionth
Speaker 1: of a percent or it measures as five percent, it
Speaker 1: was matched by the fact that because again this format
Speaker 1: not only allowed Trump to concentrate on his lies and
Speaker 1: his performance, but there was no pushback. There was not
Speaker 1: going to be any pushback. The pushback could only come
Speaker 1: from Biden. He had to devote about half of what
Speaker 1: he was saying. Half of his time had to be
Speaker 1: devoted to doing the fact checking job that CNN should
Speaker 1: have done, as and again that CNN did even in
Speaker 1: its failure in the town hall with Caitlin Collins last year.
Speaker 1: But that look Trump throughout was sweating and sneering. Not
Speaker 1: only if that line of the night from Trump was
Speaker 1: not I didn't have sex with a porn star. He
Speaker 1: also had an infamous quote about how we had great
Speaker 1: H two oh at some point that environmentally we were
Speaker 1: better off under him, when he's just demanded a billion
Speaker 1: dollars from the nation's oil producers in exchange for rolling
Speaker 1: back all possible restrictions on them polluting the planet and
Speaker 1: taking this next five year period which we'll decide whether
Speaker 1: or not life survives on this planet, and selling it
Speaker 1: for one billion dollars so he can go to the
Speaker 1: White House instead of the Big House. There was a
Speaker 1: succession of these events. There was a succession of these comments.
Speaker 1: There was a succession of Trump failures and Trump revelations
Speaker 1: about who he is and what he intends to do.
Speaker 1: But I think we do need to look at what
Speaker 1: where we started, which was the President of the United
Speaker 1: States essentially getting lost within the first ten minutes of
Speaker 1: this having sounded rehearsed, having been coughing, and trying to
Speaker 1: explain the issue of improvements. It did not go well.
Speaker 1: You will see this clip again. There will be a
Speaker 1: need to explain this, and we will need to do
Speaker 1: or the president will need to do damage control about
Speaker 1: how this sounded.
Speaker 4: President Biden, I want to give you an opportunity to
Speaker 4: respond to this question about the national debt.
Speaker 5: He had the largest national debt of any president four
Speaker 5: year period. Number one, Number two, he got two trillion
Speaker 5: dollar tasks benefited the very wealthy. What I'm going to
Speaker 5: do is fix the taxes. And for example, we have
Speaker 5: one thousand trillionaires in America, I mean billionaires in America,
Speaker 5: and what's happening. They're in a situation where they in
Speaker 5: fact paid eight point two percent in taxes. If they
Speaker 5: just paid twenty four twenty five percent numbers, they'd raised
Speaker 5: five hundred million dollars billion dollars. I should say in
Speaker 5: a ten year period, we'd be able to write wipe
Speaker 5: out his debt. We'd be able to help make sure
Speaker 5: that all those things we need to do, childcare, elder care,
Speaker 5: making sure that we continue to suppreent it stand in
Speaker 5: our healthcare system, making sure that we're able to make
Speaker 5: every single solitary person eligible for what I've been able
Speaker 5: to do with the with the COVID, I was could
Speaker 5: be with dealing with everything we have to do with.
Speaker 3: Look if we finally beat.
Speaker 1: Medicare, and that's where that ended. And it ended in
Speaker 1: part because, as they said they would, they turned the
Speaker 1: microphones off. It's bad if you have to go out
Speaker 1: and do that kind of thing, a debate with a
Speaker 1: cold and with an hostile environment such as CNN created
Speaker 1: for its own purposes, and whatever the reasons were, it's
Speaker 1: a little worse when the microphone shuts off as you
Speaker 1: are beginning to explain. As I see that clip again,
Speaker 1: I think that the initial impact of where we thought
Speaker 1: we would be compared to say, the night of the
Speaker 1: State of the Union address, I think the initial impact
Speaker 1: was far worse than the clip looked like. The clip
Speaker 1: is a lack of success. The clip is a little
Speaker 1: bit lost in the number of details, all the good
Speaker 1: and good for the country that he's trying to get
Speaker 1: out over his own sense of I may have to
Speaker 1: cough again, as we saw him repeatedly bring his closed
Speaker 1: hand to his face to clear his throat and to cough.
Speaker 1: So I think again there will be an impact on this.
Speaker 1: But I believe the ship which was rocking on happily
Speaker 1: in the first twenty minutes of this debate steadied itself.
Speaker 1: As time went by for the President of the United States,
Speaker 1: and in fact, as people began to hear more of
Speaker 1: what Trump was saying and what he was planning, I
Speaker 1: think things got worse and worse. If this had been
Speaker 1: a twenty minute debate, there would have been no question
Speaker 1: that Trump would have come away with a complete triumph.
Speaker 1: It was not a twenty minute debate. It was an
Speaker 1: hour and a half, and I actually think that Biden
Speaker 1: managed to pull off at least a tie against Trump
Speaker 1: and his partner CNN. We have a further update. And
Speaker 1: it's ironic because one of the best people working in
Speaker 1: media today, who was in a Toronto newspaper. I don't
Speaker 1: think I got him a better job, but in twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen I repeatedly pumped his work. His name is Daniel Dale,
Speaker 1: and he's an excellent fact checker, and he is now
Speaker 1: with CNN and he has posted, along with his colleague
Speaker 1: Holmes Librand, a commentary essentially a full detailed analysis of
Speaker 1: the one fact check. Here it is. It should have
Speaker 1: been on CNN during the debate. In fact, it's just here.
Speaker 1: I'm holding it in my hand like I'm Lauren Bobert,
Speaker 1: CNN fact Check. Trump falsely claims Biden has used the
Speaker 1: term super predators. What he's done to the black population
Speaker 1: is horrible, Trump said, including the fact that for ten
Speaker 1: years he called them super predators in the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 1: We can't forget that. Facts first Trump claim is false.
Speaker 1: Biden never publicly deployed the phrase super predators or endorsed
Speaker 1: the criminological theory behind it, which held that there was
Speaker 1: a new breed of highly and remorseless, violent young offenders. Biden, however,
Speaker 1: did refer to predators on our streets who were beyond
Speaker 1: the pale while promoting the nineteen ninety four crime Bill.
Speaker 1: There is an extraordinary difference between that, because there are
Speaker 1: at any point in American history, there have been predators
Speaker 1: on our streets. I'm going to do the commentary here.
Speaker 1: That's why you're tuned in. I presume unless something has
Speaker 1: gone wrong with your YouTube experience and you're looking for
Speaker 1: well Lauren Bobert video. But if you would mind for
Speaker 1: a moment while I bring in somebody else's comment from Twitter.
Speaker 1: Ex Megan McCain, who has periodic bouts of common sense
Speaker 1: amid most of what she does, which is complaining about
Speaker 1: how the world has mistreated Meghan McCain. Meghan McCain said,
Speaker 1: this is the most stressful debate I've ever watched, and
Speaker 1: my parent was a nominee against Obama. I think we
Speaker 1: can for once hold hands with Megan McCain and say, yes,
Speaker 1: it was pretty damn stressful the failure of the CNN
Speaker 1: approach to this. And again, I don't want to claim
Speaker 1: that I am some sort of savant, because I suggested
Speaker 1: in the podcast on Wednesday that this was absolutely imperative
Speaker 1: that they not do what they announced just in passing
Speaker 1: that there would be no fact check. That's not some
Speaker 1: sort of extraordinary insight. That's not some sort of I'm
Speaker 1: the only person in the world who could have thought that.
Speaker 1: We saw just now for an hour and a half
Speaker 1: the consequences of not living up to journalistic responsibilities. For
Speaker 1: whatever reason, I've speculated before that CNN's new right wing
Speaker 1: ownership is preparing for a Trump presidency and it's trying
Speaker 1: to mitigate the damage he will do to them. As
Speaker 1: all the networks and all the news organizations have had
Speaker 1: the meeting, what do we do in the worst case
Speaker 1: scenario where Trump is president again and comes for us.
Speaker 1: What can we point to to save ourselves? It is
Speaker 1: presumably similar to what those who criticized Hitler in the
Speaker 1: German press in the twenties and thirties began to wonder
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty thirty one, in nineteen thirty two, and
Speaker 1: so perhaps and I don't know that this was behind
Speaker 1: the decisions by David Shalien and the new heads of
Speaker 1: CNN to do it tonight, but I do know that
Speaker 1: they've had these conversations. What can we do to at
Speaker 1: least show that we are not opposed to Trump, that
Speaker 1: this environment was behind the worst part of their abrogation,
Speaker 1: their failure to fact check when they pumped Trump or
Speaker 1: should have pumped Trump about January sixth, when they finally
Speaker 1: got around thirty nine minutes into this fiasco about some
Speaker 1: question about Trump's culpability, Trump's attempt to overthrow the government,
Speaker 1: Trump's attempt to bribe people into testifying that he won
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty, and Joe Biden did not his continuing lies,
Speaker 1: his continuing fostering of conspiracies, his continuing attempt to undermine
Speaker 1: the very concept of truth itself. They asked him about
Speaker 1: January sixth, and he simply did not answer about January sixth.
Speaker 1: He took it and changed it into a date that
Speaker 1: might have been something randomly picked out of a calendar.
Speaker 1: January sixth became to him December the seventeenth.
Speaker 3: I was recently in.
Speaker 5: France for in D Day, and I spoke all about
Speaker 5: those heroes that died. I went to the World War
Speaker 5: II cemetery, World War One cemetery, refused to go to.
Speaker 5: He was standing with his four star in general and
Speaker 5: he told me said, I don't want to go in
Speaker 5: there because they're a much a loser and suckers. My
Speaker 5: son was not a loser, was not a sucker.
Speaker 3: You're the sucker. You're the loser.
Speaker 4: President Trump.
Speaker 1: First of all, that was a made up quote. Suckers
Speaker 1: and losers. They made it up. It was in the
Speaker 1: third rate.
Speaker 2: Magazine that's failing, like many of these magazines.
Speaker 1: He made that up.
Speaker 3: He put it in commercials.
Speaker 1: We've notified him.
Speaker 2: We had nineteen people that said I didn't say it,
Speaker 2: And think of this, who would say, I'm at a
Speaker 2: cemetery or I'm talking about our veterans because nobody's taken
Speaker 2: better camp. So glad this came up, and he brought
Speaker 2: it up. There's nobody that's taken better care of our
Speaker 2: soldiers than I have to think that I would in
Speaker 2: front of generals and others say suckers and losers. We
Speaker 2: have nineteen people that said it was never said by me.
Speaker 3: It was made up by him, just like Russia. Russia.
Speaker 2: Russia was made up, just like the fifty one intelligence
Speaker 2: agents are made up.
Speaker 1: Just like the new thing with the.
Speaker 2: Sixteen economists are talking.
Speaker 3: It's the same thing.
Speaker 2: Fifty one intelligence agents said that the laptop was Russia disinformation.
Speaker 1: It wasn't.
Speaker 2: That came from his son Hunter. It wasn't Russia disinformation.
Speaker 2: He made up the suckers and losers. So he should
Speaker 2: apologize to me right now.
Speaker 5: Four star general standards side was on your staff who
Speaker 5: said you said it period?
Speaker 3: That's number one and number.
Speaker 5: Two the idea, the idea that I have to apologize
Speaker 5: to you for anything along the life. We've done more
Speaker 5: for veterans and any president has in American history.
Speaker 1: That was not the clip I intended to show you there,
Speaker 1: and that was entirely my fault. I arranged these eclipse
Speaker 1: and I got me out of order. They were in
Speaker 1: the correct order. However, this did emphasize a point that
Speaker 1: I made earlier that Trump brought to the table and
Speaker 1: was allowed to continue to use it throughout the ninety
Speaker 1: minutes by CNN, perhaps the maximum of his sophistry with
Speaker 1: the minimum insanity, until he started to get cooking and
Speaker 1: began to accuse, as I said, Joe Biden of being
Speaker 1: a criminal and promising or threatening to promise to prosecute him.
Speaker 1: And again the term was coined. The terms were coined
Speaker 1: by Brian Boitworth, great writer, political writer who's called it
Speaker 1: trump Nesia, in which the events of twenty twenty and
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, eighteen, and seventeen are turned into some sort
Speaker 1: of rosy glow because that's what Trump is selling. He
Speaker 1: also used several other terms which perhaps will skip here.
Speaker 1: But asked about January sixth, Trump simply applied sophistry. There
Speaker 1: was no January sixth, It was just a random date.
Speaker 1: It didn't happen. I wasn't home, the suit didn't come
Speaker 1: back from the cleaners. There was no answer to question,
Speaker 1: and CNN never followed up.
Speaker 4: Let's turn to the issue of democracy. Former President Trump,
Speaker 4: I want to ask you about January sixth, twenty twenty one.
Speaker 4: After you rallied your supporters that day, some of them
Speaker 4: stormed the capital to stop the constitutionally mandated counting of
Speaker 4: electoral votes. As president, you swore an oath to quote, preserve, protect,
Speaker 4: and defend unquote the Constitution. What do you say to
Speaker 4: voters who believe that you violated that oath through your
Speaker 4: actions and inaction on January sixth and worry that you'll
Speaker 4: do it again.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't think too many believe that. And let
Speaker 3: me tell you about January sixth.
Speaker 2: On January sixth, we had a great border, nobody coming through,
Speaker 2: very few. On January sixth, we were energy independent. On
Speaker 2: January sixth, we had the lowest taxes ever. We had
Speaker 2: the lowest regulations ever. On January sixth, we were respected
Speaker 2: all over the world. All over the world were respected.
Speaker 2: And then he comes in and we're now left at
Speaker 2: we're like a bunch of stupid people that what happened
Speaker 2: to the United States' reputation under this man's leadership is horrible,
Speaker 2: including weaponization, which I'm sure at some point you'll be
Speaker 2: talking about, where he goes after his political opponent because
Speaker 2: he can't beat him fair and square and.
Speaker 1: CNN never went back to it. You can put that
Speaker 1: on as the epitaph for American journalism and particularly about CNN.
Speaker 1: And that was thirty nine minutes into this. A man
Speaker 1: is trying to overthrow, overtake, and subsume the government of
Speaker 1: the United States to take office, because if he does
Speaker 1: not take office, he will miightly be put in a
Speaker 1: federal prison for the rest of his life. The man
Speaker 1: will do anything to make this happen so that he
Speaker 1: can avoid jail. The man will say anything. The man
Speaker 1: lives in a kind of fugue state in which none
Speaker 1: of you out there are actually real, and nothing he
Speaker 1: does has any consequences attached to it whatsoever. And CNN said, sure,
Speaker 1: we'll play by your rules. We won't follow it up.
Speaker 1: We ask about January sixth, and the next thing you
Speaker 1: start talking about the borders. January sixth was the equivalent
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump committing nine to eleven all over again
Speaker 1: on this country, or at least attempting to. And CNN
Speaker 1: waited until the debate was nearly half over to even
Speaker 1: approach it, and once having approached it, got away from
Speaker 1: it as quickly as possible without demanding an any kind
Speaker 1: of answer from Donald Trump. I keep going back to
Speaker 1: this because even now, an hour and forty five minutes
Speaker 1: after the debate, or excuse me, two hours and fifteen
Speaker 1: minutes after the debate started, I cannot believe that CNN
Speaker 1: actually went through with the idea that there would be
Speaker 1: no fact checking. In contrast to other debates, there were
Speaker 1: commercial breaks in which somebody should have run onto that
Speaker 1: stage with as the saying goes their hair on fire,
Speaker 1: saying my god, my god, what have we done. You
Speaker 1: need to start fact checking him. You need to stop
Speaker 1: promulgating his lies. We need to stop helping Donald Trump
Speaker 1: take over the government of the United States and turn
Speaker 1: it into another failed Trump property, and the rest of
Speaker 1: us become his contractors or his slaves, one who don't
Speaker 1: get paid and two who meet the fate of all slaves.
Speaker 1: There is another SEGM here that was repeated without any
Speaker 1: pushback from CNN. Another thing that I would bring up
Speaker 1: when we look about the impact or look into the
Speaker 1: impact this would have with people, the low information voters,
Speaker 1: the polsters, darlings this year, the deciders, the ones who
Speaker 1: voted differently in twenty sixteen and twenty twenty, the ones
Speaker 1: who were under the age of thirty five, other not
Speaker 1: necessarily undecided voters, but voters who were not attached already
Speaker 1: to one of the two parties or one of the
Speaker 1: two candidates. In looking at that, what did they see.
Speaker 1: This is what they saw from Donald Trump talking about
Speaker 1: Joe Biden in apocalyptic terms. And obviously we wish that
Speaker 1: this had been phrased in as strong language, with as
Speaker 1: strong a voice by the president. It was not to
Speaker 1: any great degree. He did hit it on a couple
Speaker 1: of occasions. But Trump said this, and again, no one
Speaker 1: in a position of responsibility pushed back.
Speaker 2: If he when's this election, our country doesn't have a chance,
Speaker 2: not even a chance of coming out of this rut.
Speaker 2: We probably won't have a country left anymore. That's how
Speaker 2: bad it is. He is the worst in history by far.
Speaker 4: Thank you, President TRYMP, President Biden.
Speaker 5: We're the most admired country in the world with the
Speaker 5: United States of America. There's nothing beyond our capacity. We
Speaker 5: are the finest military in the history of the world,
Speaker 5: the finest in the history of the world. No one
Speaker 5: thinks we're weak. No one wants to screw around with us.
Speaker 1: Nobody Two competing visions and CNN again did not ask
Speaker 1: any further questions about the vision in which the world
Speaker 1: is ending and only Trump can save it. And Trump
Speaker 1: has no other motive than wanting to help all of us.
Speaker 1: He's Joseph Stalin if he's not hit where he's Joseph Stalin.
Speaker 1: Only he has to get elected and then he'll be
Speaker 1: Joseph Stalin. And Jake Tapper, you helped Dana Bash, an
Speaker 1: unfortunate and extraordinarily ungifted individual. You helped. Honest to god,
Speaker 1: it would have been better if Katie Turr had been
Speaker 1: the moderator of this debate. And you can read into
Speaker 1: that anything you want if they tell you the debate
Speaker 1: does not change a single mind or a single vote.
Speaker 1: And this may be viewed entirely as a negative. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure it's entirely as a negative. It may be
Speaker 1: a wash. Ultimately, Morning Consult did research on this which
Speaker 1: I quoted yesterday, but the actual numbers are actually pretty
Speaker 1: relevant right now. They read this as few voters believe
Speaker 1: debates will change what they think about candidates or their
Speaker 1: vote choice. Shares of voters who said it was very
Speaker 1: likely they'll change whom they plan to vote for based
Speaker 1: on the debates all eleven percent eleven percent of one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty million viewers say, which could have been
Speaker 1: how many were expecting to watch, whether or not. That's
Speaker 1: the ultimate number between television and streaming and listening in
Speaker 1: some audio way online or actually in radio or in
Speaker 1: a live podcast, perhaps one hundred and twenty million. Ten
Speaker 1: percent of that is twelve million, So we are talking
Speaker 1: about thirteen million people willing to change their vote based
Speaker 1: on what they saw tonight. That's not a small few voters.
Speaker 1: That's eleven or twelve million people. That's enough to create
Speaker 1: a landslide if they all moved in one direction. The
Speaker 1: most important part of this was that twenty one percent
Speaker 1: of voters under the age of thirty five said they
Speaker 1: were in that group that would be willing to change
Speaker 1: or expected or thought it was very likely that they
Speaker 1: could change their vote after what happened tonight. Seventeen percent
Speaker 1: were in the group of voters between the ages of
Speaker 1: thirty five and forty four, so thirty eight percent of
Speaker 1: everybody in there between under the age of forty five
Speaker 1: is a potential switch after this. Among black voters, twenty
Speaker 1: one percent said they considered it very likely they'd changed
Speaker 1: their vote after this debate, again before the debate happened,
Speaker 1: and twenty seven percent of hispanic It's an extraordinary impact.
Speaker 1: And again I'll go back to where we started with
Speaker 1: the reference to nineteen sixty and Richard Nixon's hospitalization in
Speaker 1: the fact that he came out poorly made up and
Speaker 1: gaunt looking, and where the whole story of the five
Speaker 1: o'clock shadow, the Richard Nixon perpetual beard originated. He went
Speaker 1: on and did a debate in which he, because of
Speaker 1: his health, managed to elevate his opponent, the unknown junior
Speaker 1: senator from Massachusetts, to essentially the equivalency of a man
Speaker 1: who'd been, for good or ill, the vice president of
Speaker 1: the United States under one of its most popular presidents
Speaker 1: ever for a period of eight years. And he gave
Speaker 1: that away, that advantage away because of essentially bad makeup.
Speaker 1: A couple of questions before we get to one lighter
Speaker 1: bit of video from the debate itself. This is from
Speaker 1: Garrett NYC. Would be incredible to see you moderate other
Speaker 1: than you, who would be your ideal moderators, anybody but
Speaker 1: Annabash and Jake Tapper, literally anybody else in that studio.
Speaker 1: And I might add we could resume that debate with
Speaker 1: anybody who's ever worked in that studio previously having done
Speaker 1: a better job. That's Studio D on Techwood Drive in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: the ancestral home of Ted Turner's broadcasting station, Channel seventeen
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, which BEGAT Turner Broadcasting, which BEGAT CNN, which
Speaker 1: BEGAT TVs or TBS was originally Channel seventeen, but which
Speaker 1: BEGAT TNT and all the other properties under the Turner name.
Speaker 1: I used that studio in nineteen eighty two when I
Speaker 1: was with CNN Sports in my first job, and in
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen I anchored the baseball coverage for the postseason
Speaker 1: in that very studio. It's the size of three airplane hangars,
Speaker 1: and anybody who's ever worked there, including myself, Gary Sheffield
Speaker 1: and Pedro Martinez, would have been better moderators. The other thing.
Speaker 1: In the nineteen seventies and eighties, those studios were used
Speaker 1: for professional wrestling, not just professional wrestling, but the Georgia
Speaker 1: Wrestling Federation or whatever it was called local professional wrestling.
Speaker 1: They put bleachers in that thing and they had the
Speaker 1: wrestlers come in and sometimes you could hear them being
Speaker 1: slammed against the walls through the walls that adjoined the
Speaker 1: CNN newsroom, and any one of those wrestlers would have
Speaker 1: been better as moderators for this debate. Corneill waters, Why
Speaker 1: didn't he bring up Project twenty twenty five an important
Speaker 1: question and one I was going to raise later. One
Speaker 1: of the leaked for warnings about which topics were going
Speaker 1: to be addressed by President Biden and by Trump. One
Speaker 1: of the leaked hits, as I phrased them, was Biden
Speaker 1: pushing Project twenty twenty five. They saw how the John
Speaker 1: Oliver segment on Project twenty twenty five, which I've been
Speaker 1: harping on for several months, went viral five million views.
Speaker 1: They had their own website Biden does about Project twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five. They had QR codes. And then you're not
Speaker 1: expecting the President of the United States to suddenly pull
Speaker 1: a barcode out of his pocket and flash it at
Speaker 1: the camera, although why not there were no rules. CNN
Speaker 1: should have let him get away with that. They let
Speaker 1: Trump say that January sixth was about the border, and
Speaker 1: that Nancy Pelosi acknowledged that she wouldn't have troops that
Speaker 1: Trump didn't send. I don't know why this didn't come up.
Speaker 1: I imagine we're perhaps looking at a question of Joe
Speaker 1: Biden's advisors and the President himself deciding that in the
Speaker 1: hours before this debate, presumably as his cold and his
Speaker 1: hoarseness increased, that there would have been some need to
Speaker 1: drop a few of the packages along the way. Don't
Speaker 1: burden him with additional details like hitting Project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: There are, however, a lot of things that can I believe,
Speaker 1: be done between now and November fifth. I mentioned this before,
Speaker 1: and I saw it and was astonished by it because
Speaker 1: I was in ESPN at the time. I was politically aware,
Speaker 1: I knew what was going on in the world, and
Speaker 1: I had no memory of this whatsoever. To give you
Speaker 1: an idea of where we stand in terms of the
Speaker 1: polls relative to the actual election, there are two elections
Speaker 1: that were cited by the great journalists the Hall of
Speaker 1: Famer from The Atlantic and other publication, Jim Fallows who
Speaker 1: put these out I think earlier today, in nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 1: and I'll read what he put out the New York
Speaker 1: Times version of this. In a three way general election matchup,
Speaker 1: ross Perot has moved to a clear lead over both
Speaker 1: President Bush and Governor Bill Clinton in the latest Gallop poll,
Speaker 1: in a telephone poll of eight hundred and fifteen registered
Speaker 1: voters nationwide, conducted June fourth to June eighth. This is
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two. This is not fiction, This actually happened.
Speaker 1: This is actually in the New York Times. There's a screenshot.
Speaker 1: Mister Perrot was supported by thirty nine percent, Bush by
Speaker 1: thirty one, Clinton by twenty five. The margin of error
Speaker 1: was four percentage points. The man who was elected President
Speaker 1: of the United States in November of nineteen ninety two
Speaker 1: and went on to two popular and largely successful terms
Speaker 1: with controversy, controversy that produced greater affection for him than
Speaker 1: he had beforehand and circles back to Jake Tapper Biomonica Lewinsky,
Speaker 1: but will leave that alone this point. At this point
Speaker 1: in the election in nineteen ninety two, Bill Clinton, soon
Speaker 1: to be President of the United States, was in third
Speaker 1: place behind George H. W. Bush and Ross Fing Perrot,
Speaker 1: and also from Fallows. He reminded us that at this
Speaker 1: point in twenty twelve, all of the polls were essentially
Speaker 1: tied between President Barack Obama and who ran against him.
Speaker 1: In twenty twelve anybody remember anybody remember his vice president?
Speaker 1: Anybody Republicans who had met Romney? The Economist you gov
Speaker 1: poll of early July Obama forty three, Romney forty four.
Speaker 1: Reuter's ipsos Obama forty nine, Romney forty three. Also July
Speaker 1: June twenty eighth to July ninths Pew Research Obama fifty,
Speaker 1: Romney forty three looked pretty good. Washington Times, jay Z
Speaker 1: Analytics Romney forty two point eight, Obama forty two. ABC News,
Speaker 1: Washington Post had it forty seven forty seven. Funny there's
Speaker 1: no CNN poll here. Did they do them? A couple
Speaker 1: of other questions? Was there a question for either candidate
Speaker 1: that you thought was either unfair or a layup? I
Speaker 1: do think that in assessing the questions and how the
Speaker 1: candidates were expected to answer them, there was a slight
Speaker 1: imbalance here because it was believed by the moderators and
Speaker 1: by CNN going into this, that President Biden would have
Speaker 1: to give substantive answers that included truth. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump was able to say whatever came out of
Speaker 1: his ass and Bash and Tapper let him. I feel
Speaker 1: like they both missed the mark. New Newish rights to
Speaker 1: us appealing to younger and diverse voters. How should the
Speaker 1: candidates rethink their strategies. This is an extraordinarily important point.
Speaker 1: I hit it before slightly on the issue of what
Speaker 1: happens when people who are not exposed to this see
Speaker 1: a debate for the first time, and we saw the
Speaker 1: large numbers where a fifth or more of those minority
Speaker 1: group voters are willing to change their votes. At this point,
Speaker 1: they are very soft, and that is much more of
Speaker 1: a danger for Trump and the Trump campaign than it
Speaker 1: is for the president because so much support had shifted
Speaker 1: in the last few months towards Trump out of an
Speaker 1: understandable sense of frustration. I don't know how this will
Speaker 1: play in those communities. I am not of those communities,
Speaker 1: and I think it would be pretentious of me to
Speaker 1: say this is what they will say in the black
Speaker 1: community or the Hispanic community. I'm not Donald Trump. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to lie to you about what other groups
Speaker 1: that I am not a part of will respond to.
Speaker 1: But at some point, when the President was asked about
Speaker 1: the disappointment in those communities over inflation, over jobs, records,
Speaker 1: over other issues of American life, Joe Biden said they
Speaker 1: should be disappointed, and here's what we're going to try
Speaker 1: to do to fix it. There is at least, I
Speaker 1: would think, in ordinary circumstances, in some sort of generic
Speaker 1: group that has just been felt itself wronged and has
Speaker 1: been cited, recognized, seen on national television, I would think
Speaker 1: that a president of the United States saying you're right,
Speaker 1: we haven't done enough is such an extraordinary answer, especially
Speaker 1: in our times, especially with that monster standing across from him,
Speaker 1: a man who does nothing but lie. Here is someone
Speaker 1: who is assuming responsibility and saying we should do better.
Speaker 1: I think more of that from Joe Biden perhaps will
Speaker 1: provide a greater outcome for him and for the people
Speaker 1: that are in question here, the people who need that help,
Speaker 1: in those Hispanic and Black communities. Who is hosting the
Speaker 1: second debate, Marchandreff asks, if it happens, of course, Trump
Speaker 1: may just choose to stop while he's ahead. That is,
Speaker 1: presuming he is still ahead, because that's September tenth, which
Speaker 1: is as I suggested before, based on Bill Clinton's poll
Speaker 1: numbers from nineteen ninety two and Barack Obama's poll numbers
Speaker 1: from twenty twelve September tenth on ABC is several lifetimes
Speaker 1: from now. All right, We had one more clip that
Speaker 1: I wanted to make sure we got in, and I
Speaker 1: have a few other thoughts before we close this off.
Speaker 1: Towards the bottom of the out it is an extraordinary
Speaker 1: thing to contemplate how Donald Trump must see the rest
Speaker 1: of us and the world. I often think of those
Speaker 1: very popular in the eighties and nineties RoboCop style movies
Speaker 1: in which some sort of robot armed with artificial intelligence.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to worry about something else tonight, one
Speaker 1: of those robots is seen reading what he's looking at,
Speaker 1: and he gets a huge computer print out on the
Speaker 1: side that identifies that as a dog, and that as
Speaker 1: the president of the United States, and you see it
Speaker 1: in an on camera display inside the robot's mind. I
Speaker 1: tend to think of Trump in those terms. I've suggested
Speaker 1: it recently. I think this is finally the correct description
Speaker 1: of what's going on where he is. He's in a
Speaker 1: fugue state. I had the misfortune to have somebody very
Speaker 1: close to me actually go into a fugue state in
Speaker 1: which that person did not know and did not care
Speaker 1: that they had decided to take off all their clothes
Speaker 1: and go from one side of Manhattan to another in
Speaker 1: a uber at two o'clock in the morning with no
Speaker 1: fear and no worry whatsoever. That was a fugue state.
Speaker 1: That is that period of time in which you don't
Speaker 1: worry about what's going to happen because you have made
Speaker 1: this potentially fatal mistake, as this person did happily by accident.
Speaker 1: There was no harm to the person or to me.
Speaker 1: But I wonder about what is going on other than
Speaker 1: the mouse in the wheel getting stuck there. At some
Speaker 1: point when Trump is asked a question and comes back
Speaker 1: by boasting about how he did on again cognitive test
Speaker 1: given to you to determine whether or not you need
Speaker 1: a straight jacket, and then segues into how well he
Speaker 1: plays freaking golf.
Speaker 3: But I took two cognitive tests.
Speaker 2: I took physical exams every year, and you know we
Speaker 2: knock on wood wherever we may have wood that I'm
Speaker 2: in very good health. I just won two club championships,
Speaker 2: not even senior, two regular club championships. To do that,
Speaker 2: you have to be quite smart, and you have to
Speaker 2: be able to hit the ball a long way.
Speaker 3: And I do it. He doesn't do it. He can't
Speaker 3: hit a ball fifty yards. He challenged me to a
Speaker 3: golf match. He can't hit a ball fifty yards. I
Speaker 3: think I'm in very good shape.
Speaker 2: I feel that I'm as in good as shape as
Speaker 2: I was twenty five thirty years Actually I'm probably a
Speaker 2: little bit lighter, but I'm as good as shape as
Speaker 2: I was years ago.
Speaker 3: I feel very good.
Speaker 2: I feel the same.
Speaker 5: You can see he is six foot five and only
Speaker 5: two hundred and twenty thirty pounds.
Speaker 3: Thirty five pounds.
Speaker 5: Well you said six four two hundred, Well anyway, anyway,
Speaker 5: just take a look at what he says he is,
Speaker 5: and take a look at what he is.
Speaker 1: He got him at the end. He did get him
Speaker 1: at the end. A couple of more questions, and this
Speaker 1: is a great one via YouTube from a don't know
Speaker 1: the name of who sent this based on the way
Speaker 1: it's formatted, But can you get Keith to comment on
Speaker 1: some of the first headlines that have come out already
Speaker 1: post debate Sky News? Sky News which was I don't
Speaker 1: believe it still is a Murdoch property, but it is
Speaker 1: still a slanting right British based news organization. Biden's performance
Speaker 1: was quote really disappointing. Former aid Biden campaign admits he
Speaker 1: started off slow Trump versus Biden debate. Latest pauses and
Speaker 1: stuttering from Biden in first TV debate with Trump as
Speaker 1: team claims he has a cold. Obviously, if Trump claimed
Speaker 1: he had a cold, if Trump made up that he
Speaker 1: had a cold, most of the news organizations would simply
Speaker 1: state that it had been appeared that statement had appeared
Speaker 1: that Trump had a cold, that that was one of
Speaker 1: the eleventh or twelfth commandments on the Ten Commandments that
Speaker 1: broke as mel Brooks brought them down the side of
Speaker 1: the mountain. If you know the movie reference, if you don't,
Speaker 1: If Biden says it, it's a claim. If Trump says it,
Speaker 1: and it's preposterous and a lie, CNN says, who We're
Speaker 1: going to commercial break right now, we'll be back to
Speaker 1: do something, as Dana Bash said. Dana Bash said on
Speaker 1: the way out, one more question and then we'll wrap
Speaker 1: it up. Eight of Wand's asked, Keith, is it too
Speaker 1: late to replace Biden? The word replaced, The verb replace
Speaker 1: implies some kind of action in which he has no
Speaker 1: choice in the matter. It is too late to replace
Speaker 1: Joe Biden if he were to voluntarily step aside that's
Speaker 1: another series of questions and another series of complications that
Speaker 1: you did not ask. It has not happened in American history.
Speaker 1: But if Biden did not want to go, there is
Speaker 1: literally no way to take him off the ticket. And
Speaker 1: as to whether or not it would be wise, and
Speaker 1: again the sky News headlines the clips that you saw.
Speaker 1: The reality of what you saw at the beginning of
Speaker 1: this debate can't simply be erased from the world's memory.
Speaker 1: It was not a good start. I think the Biden
Speaker 1: campaign is smart to go in that direction, to say
Speaker 1: he did not start well, but did in fact finish
Speaker 1: up fairly strong and came to a tie given what
Speaker 1: was weighing against him. The fact that seeing and let
Speaker 1: Trump lie early, often and repeatedly, whether or not it
Speaker 1: would be wise is something else altogether, And what the
Speaker 1: impact of this debate will have on these numbers is
Speaker 1: something else all together. But as I examined back in,
Speaker 1: I believe it was late March when my friend Bob
Speaker 1: Costas made a couple of appearances suggesting that there was
Speaker 1: an urgent need to remove Joe Biden. This was before
Speaker 1: the State of the Union address, I pointed out, and
Speaker 1: it was pointed out by others. I don't claim exclusive
Speaker 1: knowledge on this either, that there is no process by
Speaker 1: which you can take the president of the United States
Speaker 1: and force him off the ticket. If he doesn't want
Speaker 1: to go, then you enable it to happen. And that's
Speaker 1: an entirely different set of circumstances. But also is it
Speaker 1: the right move to make, even under the most dire
Speaker 1: of circumstances, Even if you concluded from watching that debate
Speaker 1: that you had to get another candidate in there, who
Speaker 1: is that candidate going to be? All the polling of
Speaker 1: all the other Democrats against Donald Trump shows Trump winning
Speaker 1: by ten or more points. And you then have the
Speaker 1: entire question if somehow managed to force the president off
Speaker 1: the ticket, he would immediately become a lame duck. And
Speaker 1: what do you do about the vice president? If the
Speaker 1: vice president, if Kamala Harris is not your choice to
Speaker 1: replace Biden on some sort of force them off or
Speaker 1: even voluntarily leave, what do you do with the vice
Speaker 1: president of the United States, whose numbers against Biden against
Speaker 1: Trump rather would in fact be worse than Joe Biden's
Speaker 1: are And again they have been. Joe Biden's numbers have
Speaker 1: been growing to the point where it is a statistical
Speaker 1: tie going into this debate, the question again, is it
Speaker 1: too late to replace Biden? Legally, Yes, if he doesn't
Speaker 1: want to go, if he wanted to go, if he retired, certainly,
Speaker 1: But even this question needs to be raised in your mind,
Speaker 1: in my mind, and in the President's mind, and in
Speaker 1: everyone connected with democratic leadership tonight. Is it even under
Speaker 1: the most dire of circumstances and a droit move because
Speaker 1: of all of the other components, all the polling, which
Speaker 1: can be as I suggested before, based on where Bill
Speaker 1: Clinton was in nineteen ninety two, The polling is not
Speaker 1: only fungible and flexible, but it can completely mislead you
Speaker 1: as to what's going to happen. If Bill Clinton and
Speaker 1: the Democrats had looked at those polls and said, we've
Speaker 1: got to get somebody else in here, let's hurriedly nominate
Speaker 1: Tom Dashel, do you think he would have beaten Bush
Speaker 1: in the fall. The advantage that Bush would have had
Speaker 1: would have been double what he seemed to have had
Speaker 1: going against Clinton in nineteen ninety two. And there is
Speaker 1: the final part of that conundrum. If you take Joe
Speaker 1: Biden off the ballot or Joe Biden takes himself off
Speaker 1: the ballot. The man who is on the ballot, who
Speaker 1: has been president of the United States and gets the
Speaker 1: default support of anyone looking for someone with experience, he
Speaker 1: gets one hundred percent of that support would be Trump.
Speaker 1: Do you want that or would you rather have this man,
Speaker 1: Joe Biden, who, as we saw at the State of
Speaker 1: the Union, as we've seen in countless other speeches, and
Speaker 1: we've seen in countless other venues, can bring it better
Speaker 1: than Trump can, and is also an honest man and
Speaker 1: a good president, perhaps at points hinting as he would
Speaker 1: be judged historically a great president. Do you want him?
Speaker 1: Or do you want somebody who concedes the territory of
Speaker 1: who is seen as the incumbent? Do you want that
Speaker 1: to be seeded to Donald Trump? So it's not just
Speaker 1: a practical question, legal question or a political question. Is
Speaker 1: a question of strategy, and I think it would be
Speaker 1: bad strategy and failing strategy. In any event, the picture
Speaker 1: will change how much. It's hard to say. The numbers
Speaker 1: that were presumed after the Trump convictions, the numbers that
Speaker 1: were assumed that Biden would not gain anything, the initial
Speaker 1: polling numbers that suggested Biden had not gained anything from
Speaker 1: the Trump convictions, that Trump was the one who had
Speaker 1: gotten a slight bump. Those poll numbers turned out to
Speaker 1: be inaccurate. The surge by which Joe Biden has tied
Speaker 1: or pulled ahead and come close to swing in the
Speaker 1: swing states in which he moved ahead in two and
Speaker 1: got fifty percent closer in the other four key six
Speaker 1: swing states. That all happened as a result of the
Speaker 1: convictions of Donald Trump. It took a while, it went well.
Speaker 1: We'll see what happens at the end of this. We'll
Speaker 1: see what happens tomorrow. We'll see how the media takes it.
Speaker 1: But I would walk away with this. It is a
Speaker 1: terrifying thing to count the number of guardrails that have
Speaker 1: broken since Trump came down the escalator in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1: So many things that we thought were permanent and inviolable
Speaker 1: in the United States of America turned out to be
Speaker 1: paper mache, turned out to be fake sets. The most
Speaker 1: disappointing to me on a personal level, and perhaps the
Speaker 1: most impactful other than the idea that an entire party
Speaker 1: would become literal whores to Donald Trump simply to stay
Speaker 1: in power. The one next to that was illustrated again tonight.
Speaker 1: Somewhere along the line it was prophesied, and many of
Speaker 1: us heard it forty years ago, fifty years ago. That eventually,
Speaker 1: as television and other video and electronic communications completely surpassed
Speaker 1: the newspaper organizations with their rigid standards and their extraordinarily
Speaker 1: competitive relationships with one another. As that happened, as deadlines
Speaker 1: got tighter, as the news cycle dropped, from well, we're
Speaker 1: going to publish this story at eleven o'clock six hours
Speaker 1: from now two, We're going to publish this story as
Speaker 1: soon as you finished typing it. The predictions were made
Speaker 1: that so much of the journalism would drop out of journalism.
Speaker 1: I think we have seen the low point of that.
Speaker 1: I began to worry about this and to talk about
Speaker 1: it on my first MSNBC show in nineteen ninety eight, when,
Speaker 1: because the ratings were good, the networks, the news organizations
Speaker 1: of this country, we're willing to let a special prosecutor
Speaker 1: named Kenneth Starr do something as illegal as making public
Speaker 1: the secret videotaped grand jury testimony of the sitting president
Speaker 1: of the United States. That was what sent me fleeing
Speaker 1: back into sports because I didn't want to have anything
Speaker 1: more to do with it. Every time I brought it up,
Speaker 1: and every time I brought up the principal role of
Speaker 1: organizations like Fox News and Breitbart and the others of
Speaker 1: that time, every time I brought them up, every time
Speaker 1: I criticized the people who appeared on those networks are
Speaker 1: on those websites. I was accused of trying to be
Speaker 1: the left wing version of fill in the blank. I
Speaker 1: was accused of doing this for the ratings. This is
Speaker 1: why I did it tonight. Is why I did it
Speaker 1: in hopes of staving off the fiasco that we saw tonight.
Speaker 1: You cannot put a man whose profession is lying on
Speaker 1: national television in a debate for the most important job
Speaker 1: in the world, at the most important moment in the
Speaker 1: history of the world for at least the last eighty years.
Speaker 1: You cannot put a professional liar on television and never
Speaker 1: say you are not telling the truth. Fact Checking is
Speaker 1: the essential element of journalism. It's where you begin. Is
Speaker 1: it raining or is it not raining? All you have
Speaker 1: to do, Jake Tapper, all you have to do, Dana
Speaker 1: Bash is walk over to the window and get us
Speaker 1: an answer or if you can't get us the answer,
Speaker 1: if your IFV coord is not long enough, if you're
Speaker 1: not wearing a mobile mic, if you can't get over there,
Speaker 1: at least ask the guy who just said, not only
Speaker 1: is it raining, but it's raining up from the ground.
Speaker 1: You have to ask him why he has said this,
Speaker 1: what is his evidence? You have to fact check him.
Speaker 1: CNN failed, They should go out of business tomorrow. We'll
Speaker 1: be back with a new edition of a podcast on Tuesday.
Speaker 1: Thank you for being with us. I'm sorry the results
Speaker 1: are not better. I think I am repeating myself at
Speaker 1: this point, But damn you to hell, Jake Tapper, Damn
Speaker 1: you to hell, Dana Bash, Damn you to hell. CNN.
Speaker 1: You blew your job tonight, and may you never get
Speaker 1: the opportunity to do it again. Keith Oldruyman, thanks for
Speaker 1: being with us. Night Countdown with Keith Olderman is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.