Speaker 1: What's up, everybody.
Speaker 2: Welcome to this latest edition of The Steph and A
Speaker 2: Smith Show, coming at you as I love to do
Speaker 2: it the very least three times a week over the
Speaker 2: digital airways of YouTube and of course iHeartRadio. As always,
Speaker 2: I like to pause for a moment to thank my subscribers,
Speaker 2: my listeners, my followers for supporting the show.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: When you consider the fact that we've.
Speaker 2: Had millions of downloads over iHeartRadio over the last few months,
Speaker 2: not to mention having an eclipsed one point twenty two
Speaker 2: million subscribers on YouTube, it's impossible for that to happen
Speaker 2: without your love and support for the show.
Speaker 1: I can't thank you enough.
Speaker 2: I appreciate it, and I'm sincerely grateful on behalf of
Speaker 2: myself and my staff. Keep the love coming, and I'm
Speaker 2: gonna keep on coming. Today's edition of The Stephen A.
Speaker 2: Smith Show will not include sports. It's somewhat of a
Speaker 2: special edition of The Stephen A. Smith Show because we're
Speaker 2: going to have on co authors of a book entitled
Speaker 2: Original Sin about President Joe Biden's his cognitive decline along
Speaker 2: with other things that occurred in the book. It's necessary
Speaker 2: to talk about this because obviously it's not just a
Speaker 2: New York Times, it's not just a bestseller, but it's
Speaker 2: also one of those situations that's the scuttle butt going
Speaker 2: on around the country outside the.
Speaker 1: World of sports.
Speaker 2: Of course, according to the book Original Sin, we had
Speaker 2: a president that didn't want to step away, whether it
Speaker 2: was due to pride, ego, the combination of both, along
Speaker 2: with other things. He didn't want to step away. He
Speaker 2: had people in a circle who did not want to
Speaker 2: step away. And according to this book, there was a
Speaker 2: genuine cover up that was taking place within the corridors
Speaker 2: of the most powerful house in a nation that our country,
Speaker 2: its democracy, one could easily argue, was being was on
Speaker 2: the verge of being compromised. And so when you take
Speaker 2: that into consideration, and you hear that, particularly when you
Speaker 2: hear President Trump being accused at every turn of being
Speaker 2: an existential threat to our democracy, and it turns out
Speaker 2: there were folks on the left who were willing to
Speaker 2: jeopardize our democracy, justifying it through their concerns about him
Speaker 2: an imminent administration or an impending administration, and they used
Speaker 2: that as an excuse to justify their actions. This book, obviously,
Speaker 2: as must read, it would explain why it's popular or
Speaker 2: it's already a bestseller.
Speaker 1: Why the co authors Jake Tapper.
Speaker 2: And Alex Thompson have been around the circuit promoting the book.
Speaker 2: It seems to be necessary intel for all of us
Speaker 2: to find out is it Does the book really tell
Speaker 2: us something we don't know?
Speaker 1: Or does the book just highlight what we all knew?
Speaker 2: But the Democratic Party worked a lead to make sure
Speaker 2: we didn't verbalize lest we.
Speaker 1: Wanted to pay a price for it.
Speaker 2: These all the things that I can't wait to talk
Speaker 2: to Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson about, and I'm about
Speaker 2: to do just that next right here on the Steven A.
Speaker 1: Smith Show. Backward more in a minute.
Speaker 2: All right, folks, I need you all to stop what
Speaker 2: you're doing and listen up. You know I love this
Speaker 2: time of year. Right the NBA playoffs are in full effect,
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Speaker 2: The New York Knicks return to Madison Square Garden for
Speaker 2: Game five of the Eastern Conference Finals tomorrow night, as
Speaker 2: they attempt to stay alive, do five games at least,
Speaker 2: so I'll give you my picks for Thursday night's game.
Speaker 1: Let's get to it.
Speaker 2: First up, will Jalen Brunton score more or less than
Speaker 2: thirty and a half points? Yes, he will because he
Speaker 2: has to. Playing it simple is do a die you
Speaker 2: wanna break up? Elimination. Next up, we'll call Anthony town
Speaker 2: score more or less than twenty and a half points?
Speaker 2: Are assuming he's healthy enough because that knee hurt.
Speaker 1: Okay, But if.
Speaker 2: He's healthy enough and he's on the court, yes he will.
Speaker 2: Why because he has to. It's the elimination time. Next
Speaker 2: will the paces Tyres Halliburton score more or less than
Speaker 2: twenty two and a half points. I'm actually gonna say
Speaker 2: less with this. I think that Halliburton the brother's skilled.
Speaker 2: He can ball, he's not overrated all of this stuff.
Speaker 2: But I don't think this night is going to be
Speaker 2: his night. I can see him getting eighteen to twenty,
Speaker 2: you know, probably ten assist something like that, but more
Speaker 2: than twenty two and a half points.
Speaker 1: You know, I think the Knicks gonna.
Speaker 2: Take him out in this game, and I think that
Speaker 2: Halliburton and them just gonna save their energy for Game
Speaker 2: six in Indiana.
Speaker 1: That's just me.
Speaker 2: Finally, Well, Pascal Siakam score more or less than twenty
Speaker 2: and a half points. I think he's going to because
Speaker 2: I don't think the Knicks have an answer for him.
Speaker 1: He can score from outside, he can go from.
Speaker 2: Inside, he can post you up, he can play with
Speaker 2: his back to the basket, he can play face in
Speaker 2: the basket.
Speaker 1: He's too diverse of.
Speaker 2: A weapon for the New York Knicks to control, and
Speaker 2: the neutralized to that degree.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna go with more on this.
Speaker 2: So let's recap more for Jaylen Brunton, more for Carl
Speaker 2: Anthony Towns, less for Tyreese Halliburton, and more for Pascal
Speaker 2: Siakam steven A Baby giving.
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Speaker 1: Welcome back to the steven A. Smith Show. And now
Speaker 1: wait to talk to my next guest.
Speaker 2: They are co authors of the book Original Sin, President
Speaker 2: Biden's Decline, It's cover up, and his disastrous choice to
Speaker 2: run again.
Speaker 1: Please, Welcome to The stephen A. Smith Show.
Speaker 2: CNN Lead Washington anchor Jake Tapper and Axios National political
Speaker 2: correspondent Alex Thompson Fellas.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Really really glad to have you
Speaker 1: both here.
Speaker 2: First order of business, how would you describe this book
Speaker 2: tour that you guys have been on, the questions, the
Speaker 2: kind of tenor that people have been throwing in you
Speaker 2: guys directions because of this book. Jake, I'll start with you.
Speaker 2: How has it been for you thus far?
Speaker 4: Well? I guess two. There's two different groups.
Speaker 3: There's the people who are interested in the book, which
Speaker 3: is selling well, and the people who come to our
Speaker 3: book events and ask questions about what we tried to
Speaker 3: get to, the what we tried to understand when we
Speaker 3: started this book project, which is what happened. How did
Speaker 3: the Joe Biden we all saw on the debate stage
Speaker 3: in June twenty twenty four, how did that person show up?
Speaker 3: Because it wasn't just obviously we all saw him aging
Speaker 3: through the years, but a lot of people didn't know
Speaker 3: he was actually that bad.
Speaker 4: So how did that happen? Who knew that it was
Speaker 4: that bad?
Speaker 3: Who was responsible for concealing how bad it was? That group,
Speaker 3: I think has been very responsive to the book, and
Speaker 3: the reviews have been very positive from the New York Times,
Speaker 3: the LA Times, Washington Post. Then separately, I would say
Speaker 3: there is a group of people in the political sphere,
Speaker 3: on the left and on the right who have.
Speaker 4: Tough questions about the book.
Speaker 3: From the left, it's why are you covering this and
Speaker 3: not Donald Trump?
Speaker 4: He's who you should be focusing on.
Speaker 3: And from the right, it's we knew all this, why
Speaker 3: are you just telling us now?
Speaker 4: It was a cover up in the media, was part
Speaker 4: of it.
Speaker 3: So I would say there's two different kind of responses,
Speaker 3: and we're just taking it all in and we're glad
Speaker 3: that the book's getting a response.
Speaker 2: Alex, what what has a long view most is has
Speaker 2: it been people asking why now, why you're not focusing
Speaker 2: on Trump?
Speaker 1: Or has it been about the soul the quote unquote
Speaker 1: cover up.
Speaker 2: That people have tried to surmise that you guys have
Speaker 2: been a part of.
Speaker 5: Honestly, none of it really surprises me because I covered
Speaker 5: Joe Biden every day for four years. I was also
Speaker 5: covering stuff about his age back in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 5: and then especially starting aggressively in twenty twenty three. And
Speaker 5: I have to tell you, the no you know what
Speaker 5: about Trump chorus was twenty times louder.
Speaker 4: I know it was for you too, when you know.
Speaker 5: You were talking about these these issues back in twenty
Speaker 5: twenty three as well.
Speaker 4: So that part doesn't bother me.
Speaker 5: And you know, I do think there's a difference between
Speaker 5: what some on the right we're doing and listen to me,
Speaker 5: and I think they have I think they are right
Speaker 5: to feel frustrated with the mainstream media's coverage of the
Speaker 5: Biden age issue.
Speaker 4: I mean I was frustrated by it too.
Speaker 5: I think Jakes often gets unfairly lumped into that big bucket.
Speaker 5: But I would say that there's a difference between covering
Speaker 5: you know, his often gaps, the way he walked, the stumbles,
Speaker 5: versus what was going on behind the scenes to try
Speaker 5: to shield that Biden. That Biden we saw on that
Speaker 5: debate stage, they were trying to shield up from the public,
Speaker 5: from the Democratic Party, in some cases from their own staff. So,
Speaker 5: you know, I think the point is that whenever you
Speaker 5: do some like tough reporting, especially stuff on something that's
Speaker 5: the sensitive, you just got.
Speaker 4: To be ready for the backlash. And that's fine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jake, I got to ask you, when, when when
Speaker 2: you listen to things that that people have been saying
Speaker 2: about this book in terms of what do you believe
Speaker 2: the book has revealed that people didn't know? What do
Speaker 2: you I mean, you covering politics the way that you
Speaker 2: have for so many years, What was it about this
Speaker 2: book that really alarmed you specifically that really came out
Speaker 2: in a book that people didn't realize?
Speaker 4: I think one of the things.
Speaker 3: So first of all, we started writing the book before
Speaker 3: we even had a publisher, before we even had a proposal.
Speaker 3: We started reporting it and Alex and I were both
Speaker 3: very surprised to find out that so many people who
Speaker 3: had not been willing to talk candidly about Joe Biden
Speaker 3: after the election suddenly were And we interviewed more than
Speaker 3: two hundred people, almost all of them Democratic insiders. Almost
Speaker 3: all of the interviews were after the election. And what
Speaker 3: this revealed, what this reporting revealed, was that his problem,
Speaker 3: there were like two Joe Biden's. There was the one
Speaker 3: that presented fine, that was okay in the twenty twenty debates,
Speaker 3: that was okay day in day out, generally speaking, seemed old,
Speaker 3: but seemed like okay, maybe he could do the job.
Speaker 3: And then there was the functioning Joe Biden, the one
Speaker 3: that just lost his way, lost his train of thought,
Speaker 3: He couldn't come up with names of top Aids, had
Speaker 3: difficulty with dates like even just like years.
Speaker 4: When did this happen?
Speaker 3: And that non functioning Joe Biden, we found out through
Speaker 3: our reporting, showed up as far back as twenty fifteen
Speaker 3: when he was vice president.
Speaker 4: After the death of his son bo One.
Speaker 3: Top Aid said that it was watching, it was watching
Speaker 3: what happened to him. His psyche was like watching a
Speaker 3: water port on sand, and that Joe Biden would show
Speaker 3: up every now and then twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, on
Speaker 3: the campaign trail twenty nineteen, twenty twenty. What we found
Speaker 3: out through our reporting is that the non functioning Joe
Speaker 3: Biden started really rearing his head much more behind the
Speaker 3: scenes in twenty twenty three twenty twenty four, when there
Speaker 3: was this aggressive campaign to limit his hours of work,
Speaker 3: to have him have teleprompters, even when he was behind
Speaker 3: the scenes doing a small forty person fifty person fundraiser,
Speaker 3: keeping him away from the cabinet, keeping him away from
Speaker 3: top Democrats in Congress. And the degree to which there
Speaker 3: was an actual narrative, there was an actual arc to
Speaker 3: his deterioration was fascinating and upsetting. And the degree to
Speaker 3: which people saw bits and pieces of it and nobody
Speaker 3: said anything, or very few people said it.
Speaker 4: I think that was alarming.
Speaker 3: And I do think, as Alex notes, the coverage of
Speaker 3: Joe Biden aging, stumbling, gaffs, et cetera.
Speaker 4: I did some of that. Alex did some of it,
Speaker 4: most most media did.
Speaker 3: Conservative media did more of it, and I'm not disparaging
Speaker 3: any of it, but that is different than the investigative
Speaker 3: journalism we did for this book, which reveals that it
Speaker 3: was much much worse than how it appeared in front
Speaker 3: of the cameras, and that suspicious is suspicions being confirmed
Speaker 3: is one way to term it, one way to describe it.
Speaker 3: But another way would be it's actually worse, worse than
Speaker 3: you think. It's not just he can't come up with
Speaker 3: the name of this random person, or he mistakes two
Speaker 3: different members of his cabinet. It's the middle of the
Speaker 3: day and he is having difficulty keeping a train of
Speaker 3: thought going in a private conversation.
Speaker 2: So with that being said, and I'll go to you
Speaker 2: on this one, Alex, the impetus. I understand what you
Speaker 2: discovered upon what you decided to write the book, and
Speaker 2: you're interviewing people, you investigate, you get this new material,
Speaker 2: you say, wait a minute, Dan, this is a lot
Speaker 2: worse than we thought it was. But I'm talking about
Speaker 2: the initial part that made you say I want to
Speaker 2: write a book about this.
Speaker 1: When did that moment arrive for you, guys? I'm interested
Speaker 1: in knowing that, Alex.
Speaker 5: November sixth, the day after the presidential election, because in
Speaker 5: some ways this book is answering the question of how
Speaker 5: Trump was able to come back and what the Democratic
Speaker 5: Party did to allow it.
Speaker 4: So literally, we.
Speaker 5: Started this book on November sixth, without a book deal,
Speaker 5: without any interviews, without any words written, and we turn
Speaker 5: it in now because we felt it was important for
Speaker 5: people that are trying to understand how we as a
Speaker 5: country ended up back with Trump with a second Trump term,
Speaker 5: that this is a key part of the story. We
Speaker 5: felt that Joe Biden running for reelection and the Democratic
Speaker 5: Party going along with it, even though many of them
Speaker 5: knew better, was one of the central reasons why Donald
Speaker 5: Trump was able to come back.
Speaker 2: Jake, when people look read this book, they watch you
Speaker 2: guys promoting this book. I haven't seen many hits coming
Speaker 2: in the direction of Alex but in fairness, I've seen
Speaker 2: issues coming your way.
Speaker 1: And I want to and I say any interest of finness.
Speaker 2: Because I want to make sure this is a podcast,
Speaker 2: is not national television. You don't have an eight minute segment,
Speaker 2: so I can say this. When I talked and dare
Speaker 2: I say applauded Megan Kelly and her conversation with you,
Speaker 2: It had nothing to do in the interest of fairness
Speaker 2: to you.
Speaker 1: It had nothing to.
Speaker 2: Do with how right or how wrong one side was
Speaker 2: or the other. My point was her articulate, Lady, how
Speaker 2: the right felt about this book about you in your
Speaker 2: role or lack thereof in the covering of the Body administration.
Speaker 1: I applauded her for articulating what the.
Speaker 2: Right was saying to your face, because we hear a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of people saying a bunch of stuff, but
Speaker 2: then they'll get in front of you and they won't
Speaker 2: articulate it, or they'll articulate it in such in a
Speaker 2: cervic fashion you don't even want to take them seriously
Speaker 2: because they're acting juvenile.
Speaker 1: But I thought it was a heated.
Speaker 2: Discussion, a very fruitful discussion between you and Megan Kelly,
Speaker 2: and that is what I was applading.
Speaker 1: So I want to make sure that I emphasized that
Speaker 1: to you.
Speaker 2: Having said that, I want to know, how do you
Speaker 2: feel about the attacks that have come your way in
Speaker 2: terms of seenior White House correspondent host on CNN been
Speaker 2: covering politics for decades.
Speaker 1: How in God's.
Speaker 2: Name did he not know these things prior to him
Speaker 2: writing this book? What do you say to people that
Speaker 2: have those kind of questions about you, Jake?
Speaker 3: At this moment, it's all fair and look, I mean
Speaker 3: I didn't go on Megan Kelly show thinking I was
Speaker 3: going on Kelly Clarkson's show, right, I mean I knew
Speaker 3: what I was getting myself into. I knew she was
Speaker 3: going to ask tough questions, and that was no surprise.
Speaker 3: I knew that conservatives have questions. I think, in some way,
Speaker 3: some of it is specific to me. Some of it
Speaker 3: is more than I am just an avatar for the
Speaker 3: legacy media, and I think a lot of people on
Speaker 3: the right feel understandably, hey, we were aware of this
Speaker 3: years ago, and you didn't cover it.
Speaker 1: You.
Speaker 3: Belittled it, and that's not and now you want plaudits
Speaker 3: for coming forward after Joe Biden's already out of office.
Speaker 4: And I completely understand that argument.
Speaker 3: I think some of it is specific to me, mainly
Speaker 3: because of one interview I did with Laura Trump The
Speaker 3: Like a few weeks before the.
Speaker 4: Twenty twenty election.
Speaker 3: And all I can say about that is pardon me
Speaker 3: that our reporting suggested that the cognitive decline started years ago,
Speaker 3: twenty fifteen, twenty seventeen. We point out specific moments twenty
Speaker 3: nineteen on the campaign trail. He can't come up with
Speaker 3: the name of his closest longest serving aide, Mike Donald.
Speaker 3: I did not see that. I saw him aging, I
Speaker 3: saw him fumbling. I did not see cognitive decline. In
Speaker 3: October twenty twenty, Laura Trump did what she said aged well,
Speaker 3: what I said, age poorly. You and I are similar
Speaker 3: in some ways, Stephen, in the sense that we live
Speaker 3: our lives, we live our reporting on air.
Speaker 4: Some of it ages well, some of the bit ages poorly.
Speaker 3: I don't have to bring up Nick Siriani and Jalen
Speaker 3: Hurts for you to know that there are a lot
Speaker 3: of Eagles fans out there who have receipts about you,
Speaker 3: and look, you make the best judgment you can in
Speaker 3: the moment, and if you're wrong, you're wrong. And that's
Speaker 3: what happened with me and Laura Trump. I will say
Speaker 3: that I was more aggressive asking.
Speaker 4: About a age.
Speaker 3: I asked then Vice President Biden as vice president if
Speaker 3: he would pledge to be transparent about his health in
Speaker 3: September twenty twenty. I asked him about voters thinking he
Speaker 3: was too old. In October twenty twenty two, and there
Speaker 3: are other moments I can point to here and there,
Speaker 3: but as a general admission, I think that there are
Speaker 3: very few people in legacy media who, knowing what we
Speaker 3: know now having reported this book, who were as aggressive
Speaker 3: on this topic as we should have been could have been.
Speaker 3: And I'm certainly including myself in this. I'm not including
Speaker 3: Alex But that said, this also was a cover up.
Speaker 4: This was the.
Speaker 3: Biden family and a small circle of aids that we're
Speaker 3: not only trying to present Joe Biden in his best
Speaker 3: possible self with teleprompters and only scheduling events between ten
Speaker 3: and four. For the most part, they weren't only lying
Speaker 3: to the media. They weren't only lying to the public.
Speaker 3: They were lying to cabinet secretaries, they were lying to donors,
Speaker 3: they were lying to Democratic officials, they were lying to
Speaker 3: members of the White House staff who were kept away
Speaker 3: from him. So that said, right, the media, including me,
Speaker 3: we should take our lumps one hundred percent. But I
Speaker 3: do think there is a larger issue here, or at
Speaker 3: least a parallel issue here, of a White House that
Speaker 3: was hiding stuff from the American people that was deleterious
Speaker 3: to the American people.
Speaker 2: The problem with that, and I agree with you, by
Speaker 2: the way, but the problem with that, Jake, is this,
Speaker 2: when we talk about it we allude to being dismissive
Speaker 2: in regards to concerns about Biden's cognitive health. They're not
Speaker 2: just looking at somebody like a Jake Tapper and saying, well,
Speaker 2: you know what, maybe he should have known because he's
Speaker 2: been covering the White House. You're considered an elite reporter.
Speaker 2: You do have connections. Nobody's a cue using you or
Speaker 2: being in the pockets or the body and administration or
Speaker 2: anything like that. I totally support you on that. But
Speaker 2: what I'm saying is I looked at Biden. I don't
Speaker 2: cover politics. Really, I looked at Biden. I said a
Speaker 2: year in advance, he ain't right. Something's not there. He's
Speaker 2: not gonna make it to the Democratic National Convention. The
Speaker 2: reason I bring something like that up is I totally
Speaker 2: understand the difference between noticing something with the human eye
Speaker 2: and being able to factually articulate that over the airwaves
Speaker 2: without finding yourself in trouble.
Speaker 1: I do understand that, we all understand that.
Speaker 2: The flip side to it, however, is people who said
Speaker 2: those things were getting excoriated by the likes of conventional
Speaker 2: media per se. Let some people say liberal media, whatever
Speaker 2: word they want to use. And that's where they look
Speaker 2: at somebody like yourself, Jake, and they say, whether it's
Speaker 2: Laura Trump or anybody else. It's one thing to not
Speaker 2: report on it more intensively and more extensively. It's another
Speaker 2: thing entirely to look at folks and to be dismissive
Speaker 2: of them because they had the temerity to point out
Speaker 2: something they believe you should have pointed out.
Speaker 1: What do you say to that.
Speaker 4: I don't disagree.
Speaker 3: I with the exception of the Laara Trump interview almost
Speaker 3: five years ago, I didn't do that. Once it became
Speaker 3: you know, when you get new information, most sane, rational
Speaker 3: people absorb it, and if it goes against what they
Speaker 3: thought before, they changed their mind. And I began changing
Speaker 3: my mind about President Biden and his acuity. I'd say
Speaker 3: around twenty twenty three, which is according to our reporting.
Speaker 3: There are three moments, according to top aids and people
Speaker 3: close to Biden, where there really was a deterioration. First
Speaker 3: was twenty fifteen when he had the horrible death of
Speaker 3: the sun Bow. Then in twenty twenty three when his
Speaker 3: son Hunter, who has been battling addiction and having legal troubles,
Speaker 3: his plea deal fell through. And then in the summer
Speaker 3: of twenty twenty four when Hunter was tried and convicted
Speaker 3: on gun charges. And what's significant about it is not
Speaker 3: just that Hunter was having legal trouble, but that Hunter
Speaker 3: was voicing his belief that Republicans were trying to drive
Speaker 3: him into relapse as a former crack addict, and that
Speaker 3: Republicans were trying to get him to kill himself. And
Speaker 3: poor Joe Biden, and I do feel sympathy for him
Speaker 3: in this, having lost his wife and daughter in that
Speaker 3: car accident in nineteen seventy two, having lost bo in
Speaker 3: twenty fifteen, thought he was going to lose a third son,
Speaker 3: maybe to suicide, maybe to overdose, and that really had
Speaker 3: a horrible effect on him. So my only point is
Speaker 3: I get it that people in the mainstream media were
Speaker 3: dismissive even after the election of twenty twenty.
Speaker 4: I don't think I was one of them.
Speaker 3: And in fact, after her report comes out where the
Speaker 3: Special Council says, I can't try this guy. He's not prosecutable.
Speaker 3: I can't get a conviction to a jury. He'll present
Speaker 3: just like a what's what's the language, well meaning man
Speaker 3: with the poor memory. Yeah, well, maybe elderly man with
Speaker 3: the poor memory. I can't convict him. There were a
Speaker 3: lot of reporters that were, like, you know, calling for
Speaker 3: Robert her to be hung in the town square. I
Speaker 3: was not among them. I thought that seems perfectly logical
Speaker 3: to me. So yeah, I mean again it again. Some
Speaker 3: mood's personal. The things I have said and done that
Speaker 3: I regret. Some of it is things that I did
Speaker 3: not say or do, but I'm being accused of it,
Speaker 3: and a lot of it I think is very understandable
Speaker 3: resentment and having been proven correct, but having been dismissed
Speaker 3: at the time.
Speaker 4: But I'm just here to say I didn't dismiss it
Speaker 4: at the time. I understand why people are mad about that.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 3: I mean, I didn't excoriate you. I thought you were
Speaker 3: right when you said it. I thought Bill Maher was
Speaker 3: right when he said it, and David Ignacious of the
Speaker 3: of the Washington Post was right when he said it.
Speaker 3: In Maureen Daoud, Now, you guys are commentators and I'm
Speaker 3: more of a traditional journalist. So I wasn't saying it
Speaker 3: like that. But I didn't disagree. I wasn't looking go
Speaker 3: on my show at the time. Maybe in retrospect I
Speaker 3: should have booked you. You know, that's something that we
Speaker 3: could we can talk about. But that said, I do
Speaker 3: think there's a difference between people who are commentators saying,
Speaker 3: look at what we're seeing, we see this, we see this,
Speaker 3: we see this, which you know I was running some
Speaker 3: of the same clips too, and the kind of investigative
Speaker 3: journalism that Alex and I did after the election to
Speaker 3: find out what was really going on, because it's it's
Speaker 3: far worse.
Speaker 4: It's far worse than it even looked in front of
Speaker 4: the cameras.
Speaker 5: You know, I do think that some people do make
Speaker 5: Jake into an avatar for the mainstream media. And what
Speaker 5: you said is right that the voters were ahead of
Speaker 5: where where elite media is. There's an old saying that
Speaker 5: Washington is the last to get the news. The voters
Speaker 5: were ahead of democratic elites. Democratic elites ignored them. Mainstream
Speaker 5: reporters also didn't cover it nearly as aggressively and to
Speaker 5: your point, some dismissively.
Speaker 4: But I will say I.
Speaker 5: Think Jake getting lumped in with the reporters that were
Speaker 5: hearing the Biden teams water just really isn't fair. I mean,
Speaker 5: while if he was part of some grand conspiracy. Why
Speaker 5: did he start booking me on his show when I
Speaker 5: was doing this aggressive reporting? And so you know, this
Speaker 5: book was Jake's idea, and I just think he is
Speaker 5: I think some of while he has acknowledged some of
Speaker 5: the commentary is in criticism is fair, I think some
Speaker 5: of it really isn't.
Speaker 2: First of all, Jake is absolutely right there's a difference
Speaker 2: between being a you know, more of a traditional reporter
Speaker 2: and being a commentator, even though we were usually comment
Speaker 2: reporters before we became commentator.
Speaker 1: As He's absolutely right.
Speaker 2: So nobody's going to dispute that there. But I wanted
Speaker 2: to go to you, Alex in regards to this. I
Speaker 2: want to know what heat have you taken and what
Speaker 2: would you classify as fair or unfair to you as
Speaker 2: a co author for this book, based on your personal experiences,
Speaker 2: not just you witnessing what Jake's going through, but you
Speaker 2: yourself as well.
Speaker 5: I mean, I would say you noted that I haven't
Speaker 5: taken as much heat during the book toward and that's true,
Speaker 5: but that's also because I took a lot of heat
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four whiles reporting
Speaker 5: this The White House basically said I was lying, said
Speaker 5: that my reporting was not true, you know, but they
Speaker 5: certainly trash talked me into my peers. It was definitely
Speaker 5: at times like a bit lonely, which again is sort
Speaker 5: of why I stand up for Jake here, because Jake
Speaker 5: had my back and thought my reporting was good, but
Speaker 5: not all reporters did. And I got, you know, the
Speaker 5: same as you did when you were talking about it,
Speaker 5: the amount of now do Trump?
Speaker 4: What about Trump?
Speaker 5: But I was just like, I'm talking to sources, They're
Speaker 5: saying this is true. So I think, you know, some
Speaker 5: of the heat and the hatred was backloaded, if that
Speaker 5: makes sense.
Speaker 3: And Steven, if I could just add one thing, the
Speaker 3: what we're going through is it's we expected this. We
Speaker 3: as Hyman Roth says, and the Godfather, this is the
Speaker 3: business we've chosen. We knew that, you know, there would
Speaker 3: be attacks from the left and the right because of
Speaker 3: this book. Although I mean, I think what's rewarding for
Speaker 3: us is that the degree to which the book has
Speaker 3: kind of changed the conversation where it's now just accepted
Speaker 3: among the Washington elite. Biden gend to run for reelection.
Speaker 3: Biben was addled and you know, the idea that he
Speaker 3: could have been president until January twenty twenty nine is insane.
Speaker 3: That's rewarding. The people I feel sorry for are not
Speaker 3: me and Alex. We're fine. This is you know, we
Speaker 3: get to talk to Stephen A.
Speaker 4: Smith.
Speaker 3: I mean, this isn't such a bad life. People we
Speaker 3: feel bad for are Robert Hurr, who, after he did
Speaker 3: his report was smeared by the White House. Attorney General
Speaker 3: Garland was smeared by the White House. Her couldn't find
Speaker 3: a job. He's got a wife and kids. I mean,
Speaker 3: he has a job now, but it took a month
Speaker 3: and months and months. Wall Street General reporters Any Lensky
Speaker 3: and Schevon Hughes, who did a story in June twenty
Speaker 3: twenty four out behind the scenes, Biden is showing sign
Speaker 3: of slipping, and that was you know, we end And
Speaker 3: I wouldn't call it easier.
Speaker 4: But it was after the election. It was easier to get.
Speaker 3: People to talk than Annie and Chavon their experience in
Speaker 3: May and June of twenty twenty four, and Annie and
Speaker 3: Shabon were garreted by the White House, who accused them
Speaker 3: of taking the orders from Robert Murdoch. They had Democratic
Speaker 3: senators attacking their reporting on Twitter. It had to have
Speaker 3: been traumatic. That is the stuff that those are the
Speaker 3: people who the attacks. I feel really bad for Dean Phillips,
Speaker 3: a Democratic congressman trying to get Democratic governors to run
Speaker 3: against Joe Biden because he saw what you saw, except
Speaker 3: even worse behind the scenes. And none of the Democratic
Speaker 3: governors would do it. And I mean, what the world
Speaker 3: might look like if they had. And Dean Phillips ran
Speaker 3: and the Democratic part he basically declared him persona and
Speaker 3: on granda, and there was a big effort to keep
Speaker 3: him off of ballots. He had to sue in the
Speaker 3: Wisconsin Supreme Court just to get on the ballot. For
Speaker 3: this is the party that's pro democracy. And so I mean,
Speaker 3: those are the people that I feel really bad for.
Speaker 4: And those are the people who are heroes in the book.
Speaker 1: Jake, you'll appreciate this. I got more questions. Don't go anywhere, Alex,
Speaker 1: don't go anywhere. I got bills to pay as the
Speaker 1: Steven A.
Speaker 2: Smith's show right here over the digital air YouTube and
Speaker 2: of course iHeartRadio will be back with more.
Speaker 1: In a minute.
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Speaker 2: to The steph Nick Smith showd right here with Jake
Speaker 2: Tapper and of course Alex Thompson from Axios. Jake, let
Speaker 2: me get back to you on this question before I
Speaker 2: get into a more comprehensive look at the Democratic Party
Speaker 2: itself in the role of media plays and what.
Speaker 1: Has been transpiring.
Speaker 2: If you talk to people want to write about this book,
Speaker 2: they say, it's Jake Tapper trying to ingratiate himself with
Speaker 2: the MAGA community because they need that audience. That's what
Speaker 2: they want. He's smart to do that, but that's what
Speaker 2: he's trying to do. Talk people on the left in
Speaker 2: all likelihood who feel betrayed by the book because oh
Speaker 2: my lord, it's calling out the bottom administration and what
Speaker 2: was transpiring at that time. They say this book is
Speaker 2: a money grab. What do you say to people on
Speaker 2: either side of the aisle who make those accusations about
Speaker 2: you at this particular moment in time.
Speaker 3: Now, our only agenda was to find out what happened.
Speaker 3: Our only agenda was to write this book. And look
Speaker 3: if somebody, if somebody on election day or the day
Speaker 3: after election day had announced, you know that Bob Wordward
Speaker 3: had announced he was going to write a book getting
Speaker 3: to the bottom of what had happened and behind the scenes,
Speaker 3: or if you know any other journalists whom I respect,
Speaker 3: were I would have gladly just waited and read it.
Speaker 3: But the truth of the matter is nobody was writing it.
Speaker 3: And Tony Morrison once said if somebody, if there's a
Speaker 3: book you want to read and no one's written it,
Speaker 3: you need to write it.
Speaker 4: And I take that advice.
Speaker 3: And I reached out to Alex kind of impulsively and
Speaker 3: just said, like, let's do this together because I admired
Speaker 3: his Biden connections, his Biden sources, I should say, not connections,
Speaker 3: and I had a feeling that as a team we
Speaker 3: could really do some good work. He also metabolistically is similar.
Speaker 3: We're similar, and you're you're part of this insane crew. Also,
Speaker 3: Stephen like.
Speaker 4: Just like work work, work, work, work, work work.
Speaker 3: So I mean, I had a feeling that we would
Speaker 3: we would work well together. And it's not about appealing
Speaker 3: to maga. I certainly you know, people say, why an't
Speaker 3: you covering Trump? I covered Trump two hours every day,
Speaker 3: five to seven on CNN, and Alex does the same
Speaker 3: for Axios. And I wouldn't say that our coverage is flattering.
Speaker 3: It's just it is what it is, critical analysis and
Speaker 3: news reporting. So that's not accurate in terms of the left.
Speaker 3: It's a money grab. I mean, that's not the case.
Speaker 3: It's not this is I don't I don't want to
Speaker 3: get into where my cunt money comes from. But I'm
Speaker 3: you know, CNN is my main job, and that's where
Speaker 3: my main source of being come by far.
Speaker 4: Very few people write book to make money.
Speaker 3: You write a book because you want to say something,
Speaker 3: you want to have a legacy, you want to uncover something,
Speaker 3: you have a message you want to get out there.
Speaker 3: I don't think people write books about Joe Biden to
Speaker 3: make money. We are gratified that people are buying this.
Speaker 3: But it's a good point, but I don't think. I mean,
Speaker 3: the idea that I would do this for money is
Speaker 3: It's just it's silly and not true.
Speaker 1: I'm just pulling the Jake tab. I'm just asking the
Speaker 1: questions that people want to go. He where we are.
Speaker 2: I got you, Alex, And this question is really for
Speaker 2: both of y'all. And I understand the position that y'all is,
Speaker 2: so if you can't answer it in this tricky I
Speaker 2: get it. But I'm throwing this out to both of
Speaker 2: y'all in a book you allude to essentially, because Boden
Speaker 2: and his days were ending like at four point thirty
Speaker 2: because it was tough for him to go to bed
Speaker 2: and you had other people.
Speaker 1: Essentially running the country.
Speaker 2: I think the number was five if I had read
Speaker 2: it correctly, I must ask, y'all what would have been
Speaker 2: worse people who were not elected to run this country
Speaker 2: basically circumventing our constitution and what have you and ultimately
Speaker 2: running the country or what we're looking at right now
Speaker 2: in y'all estimation, I'm talking about as reporters, as people
Speaker 2: that knowing the.
Speaker 1: System that we live in.
Speaker 2: If you have a system in place, or if you
Speaker 2: have an administration in place where the person that we
Speaker 2: elected is not doing anything because they're essentially incapacitated, even
Speaker 2: though that's not what you guys said or what folks
Speaker 2: think we're dealing with in this day and age, which
Speaker 2: is better for the country. I'm talking about that in
Speaker 2: terms of bypassing the process or going through the process
Speaker 2: and having what some people at least half of America
Speaker 2: may not want, or nearly half of America may not want.
Speaker 5: I mean, the way that you framed it, neither is ideal,
Speaker 5: which is why the Biden's decision to run for reelection
Speaker 5: was so reckless and risky given his age and the
Speaker 5: people around him, essentially making the country choose between some
Speaker 5: on that many considered an existential threat and you know,
Speaker 5: at some times like a maniac was how some people
Speaker 5: view him, and then a guy that clearly was not
Speaker 5: up to doing the.
Speaker 4: Job for more years. It was uh. And the way
Speaker 4: that the Democratic Party.
Speaker 5: Just went along with it and tell and the only
Speaker 5: reason they ever, like you know, became and pushed him
Speaker 5: out wasn't out of bravery.
Speaker 4: It was out of self preservation.
Speaker 5: And so you know, I do think though there are
Speaker 5: still tens of millions of Americans that would prefer Joe
Speaker 5: Biden at one hundred years old to what we are
Speaker 5: living in right now. And I think it's that's also
Speaker 5: part of the reason how they justified going along with
Speaker 5: this until it was too late. Alex talked to somebody
Speaker 5: before election day, and this is the one interview that's
Speaker 5: in the book that didn't happen after the book.
Speaker 4: Where well, just tell them, tell him about the about
Speaker 4: the person.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, this person basically articulated what you said,
Speaker 5: which is that all Joe Biden had to do was win.
Speaker 5: Then he only had to occasionally show proof of life
Speaker 5: and the people around him would run the country. And
Speaker 5: their justification was when you first of all, you're you're
Speaker 5: not bringing back Trump. And when people vote for president,
Speaker 5: they're also voting for the people around them, and a
Speaker 5: lot of some people in the Biden world, that is
Speaker 5: how they justified keeping this going. I'm just saying it's crazy.
Speaker 3: I mean, that was somebody who worked for the White
Speaker 3: House before the election, before Biden dropped out, saying like,
Speaker 3: it's no big deal, he just needs to show proof
Speaker 3: of life.
Speaker 4: That was the term proof of life. I mean, that's
Speaker 4: that's so offensive. And Stephen, and I say this with you.
Speaker 3: You've been on my show, We've talked about you possibly
Speaker 3: running for president. Yes, And like the idea that Biden
Speaker 3: thought only he could beat Trump and that he could
Speaker 3: be president for another four years. But both of those
Speaker 3: are not facts and they both seem odd to me.
Speaker 3: But the idea that he would deny the Democratic Party
Speaker 3: an opportunity to have a primary system that would produce
Speaker 3: among possible candidates, whether you or Gretchen Whitmer or Jos
Speaker 3: Shapiro or Gavin Newsom or whoever, that he would deny
Speaker 3: that to the party so that this small group of people,
Speaker 3: including him, and one cabinet secretary said to us that
Speaker 3: it was you know, at best, he was a senior
Speaker 3: member of a board that ran the country. Is it's
Speaker 3: anti democratic?
Speaker 4: Really? I mean truly? And I am.
Speaker 3: Surprised that more people who are thinking about running for
Speaker 3: president in twenty twenty eight. This is I'm not talking
Speaker 3: about you, so don't get mad, but that more are
Speaker 3: not talking about this.
Speaker 4: I'm talking about the senators and governors that more are
Speaker 4: not talking about this.
Speaker 3: You've been talking about this for a long time because
Speaker 3: it just seems like it's so obviously was what was
Speaker 3: a misdeed?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 2: I would ask this question though, because to me, it
Speaker 2: almost seems like we're letting the Democratic Party off the
Speaker 2: hook by looking at Biden and a few of his
Speaker 2: cohorts and saying, Okay, it was them. I'm thinking about
Speaker 2: Kamala Harris. You go if you're if you're Biden, you
Speaker 2: knew he was deficient. You let him go on that
Speaker 2: debate stage. June twenty seventh, he exposes himself. Little more
Speaker 2: than three weeks later, he backs out of the race.
Speaker 2: There's no time for a primary, so as a result,
Speaker 2: you automatically elevate Kamala Harris as the vice president to
Speaker 2: be the Democratic nominee. He assists in that regard by
Speaker 2: giving her his immediate endorsement the same day. But this
Speaker 2: is the same Kamala Harris who couldn't even make it
Speaker 2: to Iowa in twenty twenty, that wasn't that popular as
Speaker 2: the vice president, and nobody thought could would if she
Speaker 2: had to endure a primary, would have come out as
Speaker 2: the Democratic nominee for the presidency of the United States
Speaker 2: of America. So I'm like, it just seems a bit
Speaker 2: odd that we can look at Biden and a few
Speaker 2: individuals and stop there, as opposed to looking at the
Speaker 2: entire apparatus that is the Democratic Party and saying there's
Speaker 2: a lot of hands that were in the mix in
Speaker 2: this ordeal. Am I wrong in feeling that way?
Speaker 5: I mean, you can go back I roll the tape
Speaker 5: Democrat after Democrat saying he's as sharp as ever, he's
Speaker 5: in command, he's in control, he's sharp as ever, he's
Speaker 5: completely engaged, total confidence, And you are absolutely right.
Speaker 4: This is not just about Joe Biden and his aides.
Speaker 5: If you read you know, if people read the book,
Speaker 5: they will see story after story after story of Democratic
Speaker 5: senators and leaders seeing Biden behind closed doors privately having
Speaker 5: worries and then still publicly going out and.
Speaker 4: Saying he's fine.
Speaker 5: Democrats like to mock rightly, you know that Republican say
Speaker 5: one thing about Donald Trump privately and then go out
Speaker 5: and salute and say your leader publicly. Well, the Democrats
Speaker 5: are guilty of the exact same thing with Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: So would that be, as said Jake, when on many many.
Speaker 2: Occasions you've articulated the thoughts from the left saying they believe,
Speaker 2: they believe that Trump was an existential threat to our democracy,
Speaker 2: one could easily argue who's the greater threat him?
Speaker 3: Who?
Speaker 2: In this particular is this one a fair election? He
Speaker 2: won a popular vote, when the Electoral College orld, etcetera,
Speaker 2: et cetera, even though he didn't win a popular vote
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty. Is it him that's the biggest threat
Speaker 2: to our democracy? Or is it what the Democratic Party
Speaker 2: tried to pull off?
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I certainly think that what the Democratic Party did in
Speaker 3: so many ways was undemocratic, small de democratic, in hiding
Speaker 3: his true condition, in trying to make sure that there
Speaker 3: wasn't any sort of competitive primary, even to the degree
Speaker 3: that they made They tried to devalue the New Hampshire
Speaker 3: primary in the Iowa caucuses and made South Carolina first,
Speaker 3: just because they thought it would be less embarrassing for
Speaker 3: Joe Biden. I mean, there's so many things that the
Speaker 3: Democratic Party did to try to boost this man who
Speaker 3: was who so many voters, including Democratic voters, had serious
Speaker 3: concerns about, in terms of the degree to which Trump
Speaker 3: is an actual existential threat to democracy, which is not
Speaker 3: anything I've ever said, but something that that Democrats say.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think he's certainly pushing norms. I think
Speaker 3: he's certainly, you know, testing limits. It's you know, my
Speaker 3: job is to cover what he does and leave the
Speaker 3: commentary like that to others, whether it's a Democratic senator
Speaker 3: or you know, a never Trump Republican. But I certainly
Speaker 3: think that what I certainly see a lot of irony
Speaker 3: in the sense that the or hypocrisy in the sense
Speaker 3: that the Party of Democracy was actually, in so many
Speaker 3: ways trying to prevent the voters from having an actual
Speaker 3: choice and having all of the facts about the man
Speaker 3: that they were entrusting with the most powerful job in
Speaker 3: the world.
Speaker 1: And just for clarification purposes, just to our orders.
Speaker 2: I want to make sure everybody knows I certainly wasn't
Speaker 2: accusing you of saying that Trump was an existential threat
Speaker 2: to democracy.
Speaker 1: That was that was people doing. I just want to
Speaker 1: make sure that I was clearing that.
Speaker 2: But in light of what you just in light of
Speaker 2: what you just articulated, Jake Tapper, how does may I
Speaker 2: mean when people look at mainstream media again, regardless of
Speaker 2: what the truth may be in your investigation talking over
Speaker 2: two hundred people finding out the things that you found out,
Speaker 2: Regardless of that, people are still going to look at
Speaker 2: you being attached to mainstream media and bringing in the
Speaker 2: question whether or not mainstream media because of what your
Speaker 2: book revealed about the Democratic Party and whether or not
Speaker 2: they're ever going to recover for an election, meaning the
Speaker 2: midterms in twenty twenty, meaning the election in twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 2: The believability fact that the fact of authenticity that some
Speaker 2: would surmise that the Democratic Party once had in a
Speaker 2: palm of enhance, particularly in comparison to Trump, has now gone.
Speaker 1: By the wayside.
Speaker 2: Do you believe, based on what your book has reported
Speaker 2: with Alex Thompson that the Democratic party have severe concerns
Speaker 2: about its.
Speaker 1: Future in light of the information that was revealed.
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, I mean you've come on my show
Speaker 3: and said that you're concerned about the Democratic Party.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm somebody who wants there to be two,
Speaker 4: if not.
Speaker 3: More, fully functioning political parties where debates can be discussed
Speaker 3: and hashed out and it's on the level. And I
Speaker 3: mean I've seen you know. I didn't like what happened
Speaker 3: on January sixth, twenty twenty one. That was obviously very upsetting,
Speaker 3: very anti democratic, violently so. And I don't like what
Speaker 3: the Democrats did when it came to Joe Biden his limit,
Speaker 3: the limitations of his abilities. I do think that Democrats, obviously,
Speaker 3: their approval ratings are in the toilet, uh. And I
Speaker 3: think that one of the reasons they are is because
Speaker 3: Democrats just spent four years arguing that the border was fine,
Speaker 3: inflation was not a problem, and Joe Biden was up
Speaker 3: to the job. And I think that four years of
Speaker 3: that message was really harmful. I think there are other
Speaker 3: reasons too why Democrats have damaged themselves, not just Democrats,
Speaker 3: by the way, but institutions in general, the media, health organizations, universities,
Speaker 3: et cetera, having to do with the failure to acknowledge
Speaker 3: certain certain realities, whether it's having to do with riots
Speaker 3: after the George Floyd murder or having to do with
Speaker 3: COVID restrictions that you know, shutting down schools, uh and
Speaker 3: and on and on and on and on. I think
Speaker 3: there are a lot of reasons why there are crises
Speaker 3: in confidence in the news media, in Democratic Party, in institutions,
Speaker 3: and I think all that needs to be hashed out,
Speaker 3: acknowledged and discussed. I mean so, but in terms of
Speaker 3: the Democratic Party, it's tough to win elections if people
Speaker 3: don't have faith that you actually care about them or
Speaker 3: are listening to them. And I think the Biden deception
Speaker 3: is one of the reasons people have lost confidence.
Speaker 2: And I'm also wondering about it along the lines of
Speaker 2: that answer, Jake, I'm bloging dot because I wrote down
Speaker 2: a couple of things. I'm talking you know, the reporting
Speaker 2: on Biden's auto pen usage.
Speaker 1: I mean, people have brought that up.
Speaker 2: I'm thinking about people questioning the pardons that he executed.
Speaker 2: I'm thinking about him approven hundreds of billions spent between
Speaker 2: November sixth and January twentieth before he departed office, people
Speaker 2: are wondering who ran the country. All of these things
Speaker 2: are questions that they had before, but now the book has.
Speaker 1: Brought to a more illuminating light.
Speaker 2: And was that the goal was that one of the
Speaker 2: goals you two had in writing this book that to
Speaker 2: highlight and really bring a focus of microscopic focus on
Speaker 2: some of the decisions that were made before he walked
Speaker 2: out of office in light of what we've learned.
Speaker 5: I mean, we see this a developing story. This is
Speaker 5: the first draft and an ongoing story. I mean, if anything,
Speaker 5: we still have many more questions since we turned in
Speaker 5: the draft. And you know, I think the metaphor I
Speaker 5: uses you know, I think the Democratic Party just went
Speaker 5: through this tumultus four years and ended up, you know,
Speaker 5: more unpopular than they have been in decades. And I
Speaker 5: think our goal was to, you know, basically hold up
Speaker 5: a mirror and tell sort of as comprehensive a story.
Speaker 5: It's part of the reason why almost all of our
Speaker 5: sources are Democrats. We didn't rely on Republicans because Democrats,
Speaker 5: at least some of the honest ones, were doing a
Speaker 5: lot of soul searching after the election and so that
Speaker 5: was our goal.
Speaker 1: Alex, answer me this, give me a round about number.
Speaker 2: How many of those Democratic officials did you find to beyond.
Speaker 4: We talked to over.
Speaker 5: I would say, I would say the vast majority over
Speaker 5: at least over one hundred and fifty. I felt were
Speaker 5: much more candid than they were before, or they were
Speaker 5: finally felt free to.
Speaker 4: Talk without fear of retribution.
Speaker 3: Although I will say, Stephen and we never got somebody
Speaker 3: that said we should never have done this. I can't
Speaker 3: believe we did it. In retrospect. It was a mistake.
Speaker 3: How arrogant we were. I mean even you know, there
Speaker 3: was a top a to top boine House aid who
Speaker 3: acknowledged to me that this short ten fifteen minute interview
Speaker 3: I did with Joe Biden in October twenty twenty two
Speaker 3: he would not have been capable of doing in October
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three.
Speaker 4: That admission was stunning to me. But it did not come.
Speaker 3: With and we really made a mistake. We shouldn't have
Speaker 3: run him.
Speaker 4: What an error. I can't believe we did it. It didn't
Speaker 4: come with that.
Speaker 3: It came with you know, and but we thought that
Speaker 3: he would is the only one that could be Trump
Speaker 3: blah blah blah. So I think that most were telling
Speaker 3: the truth as much as they had come to terms
Speaker 3: with it themselves.
Speaker 4: But I do wonder where they will be.
Speaker 3: In a year, because, you know, I heard from one
Speaker 3: of the people that one of the Democrats I interviewed
Speaker 3: for the book, who gave me one of the most
Speaker 3: shocking revelations, And I checked in and how are you doing?
Speaker 3: And you know, they're they're upset, but they're not upset
Speaker 3: at us. They're not upset at the book. They're just
Speaker 3: upset that it happened. And now everybody has, everybody's talking
Speaker 3: about it. So I still think that there's there were
Speaker 3: I think they're still working through a lot, don't you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's gradations of honesty.
Speaker 2: Jake, you said in the Megan Kelly interview that the
Speaker 2: body of White House did not like you.
Speaker 1: Why was that?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So, I mean, first of all, I don't think that
Speaker 3: there's been a White House that has ever liked me Bush,
Speaker 3: Obama's ahead Trump by you know, I mean, I don't
Speaker 3: they never they never have. But I think specifically they thought.
Speaker 3: I think I think specifically they really started to dislike
Speaker 3: me after my coverage in August twenty twenty one of
Speaker 3: the calamitous withdrawal from Afghanistan, which you know, I've written
Speaker 3: a book about Afghanistan. I've been to Afghanistan twice. It's
Speaker 3: a topic I care about a great deal.
Speaker 4: I had done a two.
Speaker 3: Hour documentary interviewing almost all the commanders who served there,
Speaker 3: and I knew a lot about the subject and was
Speaker 3: really shocked at how incredibly poorly the planning had been.
Speaker 3: An incredibly cavalier the President was with the decision. So
Speaker 3: I think that that's probably when they started to dislike
Speaker 3: me the most. And you know, but again, like I'm not,
Speaker 3: I'm not here to have any White House like me.
Speaker 3: The best I can hope for is they tolerate me,
Speaker 3: I you know, and the same with Alex. I assume
Speaker 3: that was also one of the reasons that that I
Speaker 3: was interested in booking Alex on my show and also
Speaker 3: teaming up with him, is because the way that the
Speaker 3: Biden White House treated him reminded me of the way
Speaker 3: that the Obama White House treated me, which was they
Speaker 3: respected what I did, but hated my guts.
Speaker 2: You know, as I read, as I talk to you
Speaker 2: guys about this book, and I see the kind of
Speaker 2: things that are being said about you. One of the
Speaker 2: things that I had to ask is looking at you
Speaker 2: and looking back and what you said you apologized to
Speaker 2: Laura Trump. I'm wondering, did you ever feel compelled while
Speaker 2: researching this book? Is that I don't want to use
Speaker 2: the word apology. I want to ask instead, do you
Speaker 2: believe there's a level of fairness, that there's a level
Speaker 2: of contrition that you should feel when it comes to
Speaker 2: the whole magarite itself in terms of how they perceived
Speaker 2: whether it was CNN, MSNBC or anybody that wasn't a
Speaker 2: conservative network was covering them, and how the.
Speaker 1: Perception was that the left was left off the hook.
Speaker 2: How do you feel about it when people talk about
Speaker 2: it in that light in terms of whatever emotions emanate
Speaker 2: from you in regards to those kind of feelings from
Speaker 2: folks on the right.
Speaker 4: It's a complicated question.
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 3: The answer is that I understand and have been saying
Speaker 3: for a long time. I understood specific grievances that President
Speaker 3: Trump had with the media or with whatever I mean.
Speaker 4: Back in the.
Speaker 3: Early days of twenty seventeen, when BuzzFeed printed the Steel
Speaker 3: Down Caia, which was full of nonsensical, outlandish charges, I
Speaker 3: said on air, like I understand why. I mean, you
Speaker 3: can google it. I mean, people covered it at the time.
Speaker 3: But you know, I understand why he's frustrated. I would
Speaker 3: be too that I didn't think it was responsible to
Speaker 3: publish the Steele dossier. And you know, I can't say
Speaker 3: that I have a blemish free record on anything. I mean,
Speaker 3: I look back at Iraq and the weapons of mass destruction,
Speaker 3: and I was skeptical then, but I wish I had
Speaker 3: been more skeptical. I wish I had been more brave
Speaker 3: about it. But as a general rule, I mean, I
Speaker 3: don't I look at the way I covered, you know,
Speaker 3: the president. Some of the trials of the president, I
Speaker 3: thought were you know, I think it's I think it
Speaker 3: is problematic when people run for prosecutor and promise to
Speaker 3: go after a specific politician. And both Letitia James, the
Speaker 3: Attorney General of New York, and Alvin Bragg, the District
Speaker 3: Attorney New York, both of them did that, And that
Speaker 3: to me is problematic because you're not saying this is
Speaker 3: the offense and we need to bring justice to this perpetrator.
Speaker 3: You're saying, I'm going to go after him, and I
Speaker 3: think that there was a degree to which that was
Speaker 3: tolerated by the media ri at large. I mean I
Speaker 3: did note it at the time, but like and when
Speaker 3: Trump does the same thing when he's the president, so
Speaker 3: it's also a different degree. People perceive it as more problematic.
Speaker 3: If the question is, in general, do I think that
Speaker 3: there is a liberal bias to the media, The answer
Speaker 3: is yes sometimes. I mean sometimes I do think that
Speaker 3: there is an unfair bias. But I think there are
Speaker 3: all sorts of unfair biases. It depends on the reporter,
Speaker 3: the outlet, the time, the experience, the context. I think
Speaker 3: that there's a bias against people who.
Speaker 4: You know, who are in poverty.
Speaker 3: There is not enough coverage of poverty because because not
Speaker 3: that most reporters are rich or not, but just there
Speaker 3: isn't enough coverage of it, and that's a bias. I
Speaker 3: think sociologically there are biases. They're probably you know, they're
Speaker 3: probably percentage wise. Maybe journalists don't own guns as much
Speaker 3: as the average American populist does. I think there are
Speaker 3: all sorts of biases. But as a general note, do
Speaker 3: I think the media should be Do I understand why
Speaker 3: conservatives complain? I do sometimes not every time, but sometimes absolutely.
Speaker 2: Alex Oompson showed up the White House Correspondent's dinner and
Speaker 2: basically you were awarded that night, and you took the
Speaker 2: liberty of talking to the media and basically saying that
Speaker 2: the media bear is so responsibility as to why the
Speaker 2: faith in the institution itself is at an.
Speaker 1: All time low.
Speaker 2: I want to know what role did the research of
Speaker 2: this book play in your willingness to go out front
Speaker 2: and say what you said, as opposed to you feeling
Speaker 2: this way long before the book came out.
Speaker 1: Could you talk about it that a second.
Speaker 5: I certainly felt that way before the book came out.
Speaker 5: I think reporters too often are defensive to criticism and
Speaker 5: blame the lack of trust on, you know, attacks from
Speaker 5: conservatives and liberals. That's part of it, from disinformation, But
Speaker 5: I often felt that there was not enough self reflection.
Speaker 5: Now the book definitely played a huge part, because it
Speaker 5: also made me realize how much I had also missed
Speaker 5: of this story even as I was aggressive on it,
Speaker 5: and I felt not only and then I also realized
Speaker 5: like not only had I missed, but like a lot
Speaker 5: of us missed, And I thought it felt even stranger
Speaker 5: to win an award for covering for my coverage of
Speaker 5: you know, the Biden Biden's decline when I knew all
Speaker 5: the reporting we had in this book, like I was
Speaker 5: winning an award for something that I felt that we
Speaker 5: fell short on. And so that was what gave me,
Speaker 5: gave me the courage even though I was pretty terrified
Speaker 5: to do it.
Speaker 2: Are you guys mindful of the possibility that this book
Speaker 2: shines a light on what media overall as an institution
Speaker 2: hasn't been doing in terms of being up and on
Speaker 2: top of the information in real time as opposed to
Speaker 2: coming forward in the aftermath of everything that's transpired. In
Speaker 2: other words, this book came out after the election. There
Speaker 2: are people that have looked at Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson.
Speaker 1: They say, we.
Speaker 2: Appreciate the book, We appreciate the information in the book,
Speaker 2: but there we would have liked to have known this
Speaker 2: before the election. It would have been nice. That's not
Speaker 2: your fault, I get it. I'm not blaming y'all, but
Speaker 2: I'm just saying people would ask that question, and as
Speaker 2: a result, for the critics out there against the fourth
Speaker 2: the state, which is the media, for those out there
Speaker 2: who don't know, they would use this as fuel to
Speaker 2: point a more skeptical and cynical eye at the media
Speaker 2: moving forward, which feeds right into Trump's lines about fake news,
Speaker 2: fake news, fake news.
Speaker 1: Have y'all thought about that at all? And if so,
Speaker 1: what kind of thoughts do you have? I'll go to
Speaker 1: you frustrate.
Speaker 4: I mean, definitely, I definitely we've thought about it.
Speaker 3: But the bottom line is this, and if people don't
Speaker 3: believe us, they don't believe us, And there really isn't
Speaker 3: much we can say, but metabolistically, as journalists, the way
Speaker 3: that Alex and I are wired is to break news
Speaker 3: as soon as we can before anybody else can do it.
Speaker 3: If we had known, if either one of us had
Speaker 3: known that Joe Biden did not recognize George Clooney at
Speaker 3: that LA fundraiser in June twenty twenty four, and that
Speaker 3: shocked Clooney to his core and shocked others in that
Speaker 3: circle who saw it, and that that was the reason
Speaker 3: why Clooney wrote the op ed He wrote after the debate,
Speaker 3: I mean I would have I would have given a
Speaker 3: finger to break that story, like at the like literally
Speaker 3: I would have given a finger to break that story
Speaker 3: at the time. That is such a big scoop, That
Speaker 3: is a huge story.
Speaker 2: But Jake, do you respect the fact that there are
Speaker 2: people who would look at CNN, whether it's it's the
Speaker 2: entire network or it's the entire what they label as
Speaker 2: leftist media, and they would challenge that, they would say
Speaker 2: they don't believe that you would have done that.
Speaker 1: What do you say to that.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's there's nothing I can say except I
Speaker 3: would have. I mean, you know, look, there is a
Speaker 3: lot of mistrust in the media, in the legacy media.
Speaker 3: There's a reason for that. Some of it is our
Speaker 3: own fault, the legacy media. Some of it is the
Speaker 3: fault of political operators on the left and the right
Speaker 3: who don't want anybody to believe things that are being
Speaker 3: said negative.
Speaker 4: About their side. Yeah, there are entire.
Speaker 1: Institutions, they are biggest culprits.
Speaker 4: And there are you.
Speaker 3: Know, people whose job it is literally to so distrust
Speaker 3: in the media for whatever reason, whether left right center.
Speaker 3: You know that that is their job. There are entire
Speaker 3: industries around making sure that people do not believe.
Speaker 4: Things that Alex or that I say on TV.
Speaker 3: But that said, all I can control is my part
Speaker 3: of it, which is the part that owns up to
Speaker 3: when we don't cover something good enough, well enough, tries
Speaker 3: to get to the bottom of stories, tries to be
Speaker 3: fair as a fallible human being.
Speaker 4: All I can do is that.
Speaker 3: And I understand that there are people who are just
Speaker 3: never going to believe it. There are people who think
Speaker 3: that Fox News is too left wing and they turn
Speaker 3: on onn or Newsmax or whatever.
Speaker 4: I mean.
Speaker 3: That's why we live in a democracy with a choice
Speaker 3: of media outlets. All I can say is that I
Speaker 3: do try my hardest. Most journalists I know try their
Speaker 3: hardest to be fair and accurate. But there are also
Speaker 3: competing pressures getting a story out as soon as possible,
Speaker 3: breaking news, having people watch, having people read, having people click,
Speaker 3: and you know, the media makes mistakes and we are
Speaker 3: responsible for some of this distrust.
Speaker 2: Alex, you heard what Jake just said. You're co author
Speaker 2: of this book. You showed up at the White House
Speaker 2: Correspondence then you said what you said. What kind of
Speaker 2: impact or better word would be reaction from your contemporaries
Speaker 2: have you received and do you anticipate receiving moving forward in.
Speaker 1: Light of the of of of this book.
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 5: Well, say you know, right after I made the speech
Speaker 5: at the dinner, Uh, Jake. Jake called me and was
Speaker 5: like basically gave me that you know at a boy,
Speaker 5: which I really appreciated.
Speaker 4: Oh you great contemporaries. You know, some contemporaries didn't like it.
Speaker 4: Thought it was you know, it's it's uh sanctimonies. Yeah, sanctimonious. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so you know.
Speaker 5: But honestly, it was like one of those things where
Speaker 5: and it's one of those things in life where I
Speaker 5: felt like I had to say, I'm thinking that people
Speaker 5: weren't gonna like it, just because I would have felt
Speaker 5: odd if I hadn't.
Speaker 4: But you pointed the finger at yourself.
Speaker 3: You didn't just say this is a room full of
Speaker 3: people who didn't cover this well enough.
Speaker 4: You said none of us covered this well enough, which
Speaker 4: I think is it's just undeniably true.
Speaker 3: Which is not to say that all these sources were
Speaker 3: there right for the pluck and and we were ignoring them.
Speaker 4: They were not.
Speaker 3: They would not talk to us until in this depth
Speaker 3: of candor, until after the election. But that's also not
Speaker 3: to say that it couldn't have been done. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's all a hypothetical now, but this was a calamity.
Speaker 3: It was playing out in front of everybody to see,
Speaker 3: and it's just hard to imagine that more could not
Speaker 3: have been done.
Speaker 2: That's all, well, I totally I totally get that, and
Speaker 2: I think people feel that way. But because you guys
Speaker 2: are the co authors of this book, I think they're
Speaker 2: looking at both of you and they're saying instead of saying,
Speaker 2: is more we could have done this, saying is more
Speaker 2: you should? You guys could have done that. That's how
Speaker 2: they're doing this right now. You see what's going on
Speaker 2: out there. And so with that being said, Jake, one
Speaker 2: of the things we've all had to report on is that,
Speaker 2: particularly since the election, not necessarily with your show.
Speaker 1: I don't know the number.
Speaker 2: I don't have that in front of me, but across
Speaker 2: the broad of legacy media per se, the ratings have
Speaker 2: dipped and people have questioned whether or not the media
Speaker 2: is ever going to recover from some of the things
Speaker 2: that were not reported, some of the things that were.
Speaker 1: Not said, et cetera, et cetera. How mindful are you
Speaker 1: of that?
Speaker 2: And are you fearful that things are going to get
Speaker 2: worse before they get better or is that not a
Speaker 2: concern of yours?
Speaker 1: At all.
Speaker 3: I think that the issue of declining ratings, which is
Speaker 3: an industry wide issue, not just news on TV. It's
Speaker 3: on radio, it's on websites, it's on newspapers and magazines,
Speaker 3: is a tectonic shift that bigger brains than mine are
Speaker 3: trying to figure out how to adapt to. People like
Speaker 3: you or Megan Kelly or others running your businesses in
Speaker 3: your way are definitely represent the present and future of media.
Speaker 3: I think the question is how do more traditional brands
Speaker 3: and people who do what Alex and I do, how
Speaker 3: do we fit into that space. I think that's more
Speaker 3: the issue. Certainly, you know, media news missteps doesn't help,
Speaker 3: But I think the issue is more people who are
Speaker 3: cutting chords, people who are on their phones, people who
Speaker 3: are watching streamers instead of netwinstead of broadcast television. I
Speaker 3: think that is more of the shift, and that is
Speaker 3: something that I'm very mindful of.
Speaker 4: It's something that I'm mindful of.
Speaker 3: When I write a book, I am mindful of the
Speaker 3: fact that I am competing not just with other authors,
Speaker 3: I am competing with words with friends, I am competing
Speaker 3: with Netflix. I am complete because I know that they're
Speaker 3: you know, probably like a core of the people reading
Speaker 3: the book or reading the book on their phones or iPads,
Speaker 3: and that's part of this shift. That is something that
Speaker 3: I'm mindful of and think about all the time with
Speaker 3: my team in terms of like, come on, guys, uh,
Speaker 3: we need better visuals or come on, guys, what's like
Speaker 3: what are we trying to say here? We need to
Speaker 3: grab attention, We need people to understand why this is important.
Speaker 3: And so I think it's more it's a larger it's
Speaker 3: a larger issue one that's confronting everybody that's presumably that's
Speaker 3: producing any sort of content, whether Amazon you know, streaming series,
Speaker 3: whether there it's a Reacher or PBS you know, Masterpiece
Speaker 3: theater or whatever. We're all trying to figure out how
Speaker 3: do we get to where people are on their streaming
Speaker 3: services at home and on their phones.
Speaker 2: Got you listen? I know you guys got to go.
Speaker 2: I have to go as well. You promised me an hour.
Speaker 2: You gave me an hour. I could have talked to
Speaker 2: you about this book for another hour, and Jake, I
Speaker 2: could have talked to you for a lot longer than
Speaker 2: that about the whole industry in and of itself. But Loosten,
Speaker 2: thanks for your time. I really enjoyed the conversation. I
Speaker 2: appreciate y'all staying on board and answering all my questions.
Speaker 1: Alex is a pleasure to meet you, Jake. I've seen
Speaker 1: before you. I have not other than watching.
Speaker 4: To keep back on my show, Stephen, because I got
Speaker 4: some I'm coming.
Speaker 1: I'm not running.
Speaker 4: I got tough questions for you.
Speaker 1: I'm not running.
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I'm not running because I'm not running.
Speaker 2: Because I'm not running. That's why I'm not running. Okay,
Speaker 2: thanks a lot man, Take it easy, Jake Tapper, Alex
Speaker 2: Thompson authors co author's Original Sin. It's available wherever you
Speaker 2: buy your books. Thanks Gods, take care of yourself. Coming up,
Speaker 2: I'll give you my thoughts on what we just heard.
Speaker 2: That's next right here in the Stephennix Smith Show.
Speaker 1: Don't go away. Welcome back to stephen Ate Smith Show.
Speaker 2: We just heard from Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, co
Speaker 2: authors of the book Original Sin. Now I want to
Speaker 2: take a moment to share my thoughts on the conversation.
Speaker 2: This isn't some gotcha moment. I'm trying to catch somebody
Speaker 2: in a litor whatever. I'm gonna ask the questions of
Speaker 2: people want to ask. I saw Jake Tappers and Alex
Speaker 2: Thompson's interview with Megan Kelly. Obviously, she leans heavily to
Speaker 2: the right, and she had her issues with Jake Tapper,
Speaker 2: which I thought were astutely and adroitly done by her.
Speaker 1: Kudos to her. I'm a little bit different.
Speaker 2: I'm more curious than anything else because this is a
Speaker 2: lane I'm venturing into, not a lane that I've lived
Speaker 2: in for decades.
Speaker 1: And I thought that the.
Speaker 2: Questions that needed to be asked were asked, and I
Speaker 2: thought that he answered them. I think there's a lot
Speaker 2: for Jake Tapper to be concerned about from the standpoint.
Speaker 1: That he's a co author of this book, and there's
Speaker 1: a lot of cynics and critics out there.
Speaker 2: Who believe that he had to have known more before
Speaker 2: the election, as opposed to learning all of this after
Speaker 2: the election.
Speaker 1: He had an answer for that.
Speaker 2: I think that legacy media as we know it to
Speaker 2: be is in a world of trouble because people believe
Speaker 2: that it has an agenda. He swears that's not the case,
Speaker 2: and that hasn't been the case. And had this been
Speaker 2: something that he was aware of prior to the election.
Speaker 2: You're damn right he would have reported it because it
Speaker 2: would have been good for him, It would have been
Speaker 2: good for the network, it would have been good for
Speaker 2: his career, it would have been good for the industry.
Speaker 2: Alex Thompson, we heard his speech at the White House
Speaker 2: Correspondence dinner from months ago, and he held the media accountable,
Speaker 2: talked about the media, included himself by the way, and
Speaker 2: how the media needed to do a better job. So
Speaker 2: what do we appeal from all of this. It's very
Speaker 2: very simple, do your damn job. That applies to me,
Speaker 2: That applies to Jake Tapper, that's applies to Alec Thompson,
Speaker 2: that applies to everybody in the media. It's not about
Speaker 2: friendship and it's not about making enemies. It's about getting
Speaker 2: as close to the facts as you can possibly get
Speaker 2: to and being honest, upfront and authentic as to where
Speaker 2: you stand and why with an audience. So even if
Speaker 2: they disagree with you, they at least know that you're
Speaker 2: true and authentic and as a result, you've expressed yourself.
Speaker 2: They can be cynical or critical about anything that you
Speaker 2: have to say, but if you're honest enough front and
Speaker 2: you stand on that and you're not taking sides, then
Speaker 2: you're good to go. However, having said all of that,
Speaker 2: there is no way to get around what I'm about
Speaker 2: to say when you consider this book Original Sin and
Speaker 2: what the members rather of the Body administration, along with
Speaker 2: other people in the political apparatus that is the Democratic Party,
Speaker 2: when you could take it to consideration, what several folks,
Speaker 2: if not many, were willing to do to conceal the
Speaker 2: cognitive decline that President Biden was enduring. Nobody comes out
Speaker 2: looking better than Donald Trump and the magar right.
Speaker 1: Because the things that they were.
Speaker 2: Saying, the things that they were accusing the left of
Speaker 2: the things that they were accusing legacy media of.
Speaker 1: Whether it's true or not, they look right. They look
Speaker 1: like they were on point, and you know what that means.
Speaker 1: You can look at it in two ways.
Speaker 2: You can look at it as a decline and the
Speaker 2: disintegration of our fourth estate, which is the media in
Speaker 2: this country. You can look at it that way, or
Speaker 2: you can look at it with a smile on your
Speaker 2: face like I am looking at it, which is this
Speaker 2: we got a two party system. Maybe it'll open the
Speaker 2: door for an independent party. Maybe, just maybe, if you're black.
Speaker 2: It doesn't automatically mean that you got a side with
Speaker 2: the Democratic Party all of a sudden. Now because there
Speaker 2: seems to have been corruption, we've accused.
Speaker 1: It of being on the right, we now know.
Speaker 2: Courtesy of this book, that it was on the left
Speaker 2: where you had a Democratic Party in a circumvent the
Speaker 2: democratic process in this country just to get their candidate
Speaker 2: in this side into office to keep them remaining in power.
Speaker 2: Since that is now a reality that has been articulated
Speaker 2: verbally and in a written word with this bestselling book
Speaker 2: Original Sin by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson of Axios,
Speaker 2: because that's now a matter of record, we.
Speaker 1: Get to look at things a little bit differently, and as.
Speaker 2: A result, that skeptical eye expands, and we're able to
Speaker 2: look at the left and the right with the cynicism
Speaker 2: and the skepticism both may deserve, which means, in order
Speaker 2: to get our vote, both parties have to work for it.
Speaker 2: You don't get to take it, advantage it, and take
Speaker 2: for granted anybody anymore.
Speaker 1: That in and of itself.
Speaker 2: Can steer us to a better path for the United
Speaker 2: States of America moving forward, And if that's what ends
Speaker 2: up happening.
Speaker 1: Even though the road to through that path was a
Speaker 1: bit rough. In the end, we'll all be better off
Speaker 1: for it.
Speaker 2: That's what I walk away from this interview with Jake
Speaker 2: Tapper and Alex Thompson Field.
Speaker 1: That's my perspective on it. Hopefully it'll be yours too.
Speaker 1: That's it for this edition of The Stephen A. Smith Show.
Speaker 2: I got a Conference Finals game in the National Basketball Association.
Speaker 2: The cover of tonight with the wilk Blahim City done
Speaker 2: in the Minnesota Timberwolves. So I will be back with
Speaker 2: y'all in a couple of days. Until then, this is
Speaker 2: the one and only Stephen A.
Speaker 1: Signing Off. Until then, Peace and love everybody. God bless you.