Speaker 1: Total and utter disaster.
Speaker 2: Democrats now calling for replacing Joe Biden, calling an operation
Speaker 2: Replace Sleepy Joe. Dems are now scrambling with just one
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty days to go, and the White House
Speaker 2: is trying to spend the worst performance in president's debate
Speaker 2: history as quote, Joe has a cold. That's right, It's
Speaker 2: just a cold, folks, coming from NBC News Biden Trump
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four debate. Well, the President had a cold,
Speaker 2: but don't worry. Biden tested negative for COVID. Quote sources say.
Speaker 2: Two sources familiar with the situation confirming to see it
Speaker 2: in or NBC News that President Joe Biden has a cold.
Speaker 2: Biden was a minister of COVID tests, which was negative.
Speaker 2: Three sources confirm. Yeh, that's why Biden sounded horse throughout
Speaker 2: the debate. That is exactly how they're going to try
Speaker 2: to spend this. So really it was totally fine to
Speaker 2: see here, right, how bad was this debate? Democrats afterwards
Speaker 2: coming out and the first person you heard from on CNN,
Speaker 2: John King, put it this way.
Speaker 3: It's into the debate and it continues right now. It
Speaker 3: involves party strategists, it involves elected officials. It involves fundraisers,
Speaker 3: and they're having conversations about the president's performance, which they
Speaker 3: think was dismal, which they think will hurt other people
Speaker 3: down the party in the ticket, and they're having conversations
Speaker 3: about what they should do about it. Some of those
Speaker 3: conversations include should we go to the White House and
Speaker 3: ask the president's step aside or other of the conversations
Speaker 3: are about should prominent Democrats go public with that call
Speaker 3: because they feel this debate was so terrible.
Speaker 4: They do say in moments in the debate.
Speaker 3: Later the president got better and got his footing, but
Speaker 3: then at the end, even his closing statement was a
Speaker 3: little halting the contrast between the two candidates. Let me
Speaker 3: be clear, none of them and a lot of Republicans
Speaker 3: don't think Donald Trump had a great night.
Speaker 4: Donald Trump broke.
Speaker 3: The fact check machine more than I can count tonight.
Speaker 3: That will be on the record we go forward. He
Speaker 3: refused to answer some very specific and direct questions about
Speaker 3: his conduct about January.
Speaker 4: Sixth and what all, So that will be dealt with
Speaker 4: out there. And sometimes there's a parallel.
Speaker 3: Universe between the political elites and the American people. Be
Speaker 3: nice to see what the voters say, but I can.
Speaker 4: Tell you it started minutes in.
Speaker 3: It started with the first couple of answers, and it
Speaker 3: has continued throughout the night from oh my god, Oh
Speaker 3: my god, Oh my god, to what do we do
Speaker 3: about this? And it involves very senior people in the
Speaker 3: Democratic Party, including elected officials, saying we have a problem,
Speaker 3: and just.
Speaker 1: We have a problem.
Speaker 2: Joe Biden in one of those moments was this where
Speaker 2: it looked like he blew a fuse on national TV.
Speaker 2: And yes, Democrats have been lying to telling you, oh,
Speaker 2: Joe Biden's fine. The White House, Saggie's as sharp as ever,
Speaker 2: runs circles around his staff in an entire week to
Speaker 2: plan for this at Camp David. And this is the
Speaker 2: Joe Biden that showed up, and they want you to
Speaker 2: believe it was just because he had a cold. Listen
Speaker 2: to this.
Speaker 5: Get sure that we continue to suppend in our healthcare system,
Speaker 5: making sure that we're able to make every single solitary
Speaker 5: person are eligible for what I've been able to do
Speaker 5: with the with the COVID, I excuse me, with dealing
Speaker 5: with everything we have to do with Look if we
Speaker 5: finally beat medicare.
Speaker 4: Thank you, President Bob Biden. President Trump, He's right.
Speaker 6: He did beat medicare, beat it to death. And he's
Speaker 6: destroying medicare because all of these people are coming in,
Speaker 6: they're putting them on Medicare, They're putting them on social Security.
Speaker 6: They're going to destroy social Security. This man is going
Speaker 6: to single handedly destroy social Security. These millions and millions
Speaker 6: of people coming in, they're trying to put them on
Speaker 6: Social Security. He will wipe out social Security. He will
Speaker 6: wipe out Medicare.
Speaker 1: Now, if you want to debate, you know just how
Speaker 1: bad that moment was.
Speaker 2: You know that it looked like a man who completely
Speaker 2: lost his train of thought, didn't know where he was,
Speaker 2: didn't know what he was talking about, and then brought
Speaker 2: up Medicare. Now, Donald Trump there could have gone after
Speaker 2: him saying what are you doing? Do you even know
Speaker 2: where you are? He didn't. He went in on Medicare
Speaker 2: and used a smart line there. But there was also
Speaker 2: another part in the debate, and it was a moment
Speaker 2: when the slurring of the words and the cognitive decline
Speaker 2: of Joe Biden was very evident to everyone watching. This
Speaker 2: is the disaster that John King just mentioned, and listen
Speaker 2: to how the President responded to this.
Speaker 5: Across the border illegally. That's better than when he left office.
Speaker 5: And I'm going to continue to move until we get
Speaker 5: the total band on, the total initiative relative to what
Speaker 5: we're gonna do with more border patrol and more a
Speaker 5: cybum officers.
Speaker 6: I really don't know what he said at the end
Speaker 6: of this, and I don't think he knows what he
Speaker 6: said either.
Speaker 1: Look, I don't think he knows what he said either.
Speaker 2: It was a great way of handling it, and then
Speaker 2: immediately the president moved on to the border, which is
Speaker 2: exactly what he should have done, is to move on
Speaker 2: very quickly from that and just be like, I don't
Speaker 2: think he knows what he's saying, but he said it,
Speaker 2: and the fact that he didn't harp on it, I
Speaker 2: actually think was even more damning. See him in after
Speaker 2: the debate and they were the host, right, so they're
Speaker 2: losing their minds. Here is what Aaron Burnett had to
Speaker 2: say on Joe Biden's debate.
Speaker 7: He goes through six days of preparation a campaign, and
Speaker 7: they know the rules more than a week, okay, and
Speaker 7: so more than a week they know the rules. He
Speaker 7: practices with the mics. He knows every one of these
Speaker 7: questions is coming, and yet he couldn't fill the time.
Speaker 7: Now that I just want to, let's see what the
Speaker 7: White House is saying. Sourceus goes to the White House
Speaker 7: are saying he had a cold, wasn't feeling well. I mean,
Speaker 7: as you expect, that came out early on in the debate.
Speaker 7: But what accounts for someone with so much experience, doing
Speaker 7: so much preparation, and this.
Speaker 3: Thing the outcome honestly, the questor and answers itself, he
Speaker 3: wasn't capable of doing any better than he did.
Speaker 2: Aaron Burnett, former colleague of mine when I was at CNN.
Speaker 2: She's angry.
Speaker 1: Do you hear that?
Speaker 2: She's like, he goes through six days of preparation of
Speaker 2: Camp David. They know the rules, he practices with the mics.
Speaker 2: He knows every one of these questions is coming, which
Speaker 2: by the way, that screams like, well, will you guys
Speaker 2: give him the questions?
Speaker 1: And yet he couldn't fill the time.
Speaker 2: He couldn't fill the time on Social Security, they looked
Speaker 2: like you got another like eighty two seconds, man, eighty
Speaker 2: four seconds? Another question about African Americans, like you got
Speaker 2: another minute?
Speaker 1: You like you want to keep talking.
Speaker 2: Mister president, you can't fill two minutes of time about
Speaker 2: two extremely important issues. How is that even possible? How
Speaker 2: is it even possible that you can't fill the time.
Speaker 2: And yet here we are, and this is the conversation
Speaker 2: that wasn't all that was said on CNN about this
Speaker 2: as well? And again I'm playing CNN because they were
Speaker 2: the host of debate and CNN is carrying water for
Speaker 2: Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: Listen some of them.
Speaker 8: He said, he's the only president in a while who
Speaker 8: didn't have any troops dying anywhere in the world.
Speaker 9: Troops have, of course, died on his watch.
Speaker 8: He said, He's put in a fifteen dollars per shot
Speaker 8: cap on insulin and Medicare.
Speaker 9: It's a thirty five dollars a month cap.
Speaker 8: He said, It's a two hundred dollars cap on overall
Speaker 8: drug spending in Medicare. It's two thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 8: He said the border now has fewer crossings than when
Speaker 8: Trump was in office. That's generally not true, he said,
Speaker 8: or at least strongly suggested. Unemployment was that fifteen percent
Speaker 8: when he took office, it was actually six point four.
Speaker 8: He said, Trump's want Trump wants to get rid of
Speaker 8: Social Security. Trump doesn't. He said, billionaires pay eight point
Speaker 8: two percent in taxes.
Speaker 9: It's much higher.
Speaker 8: He said Trump told Americans to inject bleach amid COVID.
Speaker 8: We know Trump made foolish comments about scientists studying disinfectant injection,
Speaker 8: but didn't frame it as advice to people.
Speaker 9: And Biden said the Border Patrol endorsed him.
Speaker 8: No, it's union supported the border bill he'd supported, never
Speaker 8: endorsed him himself.
Speaker 2: Again fact checking. This is CNN fact checking Joe Biden.
Speaker 2: I like rapture alert. Now it's not really a rapture alert.
Speaker 2: You need to understand why they're doing this. Okay, why
Speaker 2: why this conversation's happening. It's because they want to replace him,
Speaker 2: and so now they have to do this to replace him.
Speaker 2: CNN watching it. I said this when I was watching
Speaker 2: it right away with Cinder Cruz and and and one
Speaker 2: of the things that I was as I was watching
Speaker 2: it was like, this is like watching a funeral of
Speaker 2: someone who's still alive.
Speaker 1: A great example of it was.
Speaker 4: This there there is no two ways about it.
Speaker 1: That was not a good debate for Joe Biden.
Speaker 4: Man. That was painful.
Speaker 10: I love Joe Biden. I worked for Joe Biden. He
Speaker 10: didn't do well at all. He did not do well
Speaker 10: at all, and he looked, Yeah, I'll give you the analysis.
Speaker 10: You kind of have the old man versus the con
Speaker 10: and I can walk you through how I'm supposed to
Speaker 10: see it and say it, but I'm just want to
Speaker 10: speak from our heart. I love that guy as a
Speaker 10: good man. He loves his country. He's doing the best
Speaker 10: that he can. But he had a test to meet
Speaker 10: tonight to restore confidence of the country and of the base, and.
Speaker 9: He failed to do that.
Speaker 10: And I think there's a lot of people who are
Speaker 10: going to want to see him.
Speaker 4: Consider taking a different course.
Speaker 10: Now we're still far from our convention, and there is
Speaker 10: time for this party to figure out a different way
Speaker 10: for it, if you will allow us to do that.
Speaker 10: But that was not what we needed from Joe Biden.
Speaker 10: And it's personally painful for a lot of people. It's
Speaker 10: not just panic, it's pain for what we saw at night.
Speaker 1: It's a funeral, y'all. Like this is a funeral.
Speaker 2: You're witnessing the Democratic Party saying we're going to throw
Speaker 2: you out now. By the way, if you want to,
Speaker 2: you know who's thrilled tonight. It's got to be Gavin Newsom.
Speaker 2: Gavin Newsom was asked because he thinks he could be
Speaker 2: the guy. Listen to Gavin Newsom quickly.
Speaker 11: Are you going to be the next Democratic nomineed?
Speaker 4: No, we are nominee as Joe Biden.
Speaker 3: I'm looking forward to voting for him in November.
Speaker 4: He's going to be our num because.
Speaker 12: You know that everyone we're talking about you as a
Speaker 12: possible nominia.
Speaker 1: Thanks, he said, Oh, I appreciate that.
Speaker 2: That is below the CNN debate headquarters tonight, this reporter
Speaker 2: asking Gavin Newsom, are you going to be the next
Speaker 2: Democratic nominee? That's his answer while he was glowing and
Speaker 2: grinning from ear to ear. Let's also talk about America's
Speaker 2: reaction to all this. Forget CNN for a second. What
Speaker 2: did America say who won the debate? With debate watchers
Speaker 2: and a CNN poll that was conducted tonight right after
Speaker 2: the debate, their poll number says this, you ready, this
Speaker 2: is unbelievable. Who won the first debate? Donald Trump sixty
Speaker 2: seven percent, Joe Biden thirty three percent. Now there's thirty
Speaker 2: three percent of the country that are hardcore Democrats they
Speaker 2: talk to that we're not gonna admit that Donald Trump won. Right,
Speaker 2: they're partisan hacks. They're not going to ever admit that
Speaker 2: Donald Trump won. And that's the way that thirty three
Speaker 2: percent comes fromp the sixty seven percent of the public
Speaker 2: that says Donald Trump won. That is the number that
Speaker 2: everybody right now should in fact be talking about, because
Speaker 2: this number is truly incredible. Scott Jennings over at CNN
Speaker 2: also when he was asked about this, like how bad
Speaker 2: this is?
Speaker 13: Listen told for weeks weeks by Democrats who say, oh,
Speaker 13: in private meetings, I've seen Joe Biden do cartwheels and
Speaker 13: handstands while doing trigonometry while solving all the nation's problems.
Speaker 13: We now know that every single person who said that
Speaker 13: has been lying to the America people.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of Democrats who've been lying to
Speaker 2: each and every one of us. It's a point that
Speaker 2: I said during the debate with Center Cruz, and you're
Speaker 2: gonna hear that our conversation in a moment. But this
Speaker 2: is a everybody that went on stage, okay, everybody that
Speaker 2: went on TV, everybody that went out there defending Joe
Speaker 2: Biden until tonight when clearly the lights were out, nobody
Speaker 2: was home, and Joe Biden's head, they were all lying
Speaker 2: to you like, oh, he's in great and everything's wonderful,
Speaker 2: everything's amazing, and look, you can't like, you can't tell
Speaker 2: people that what they saw tonight was not what they
Speaker 2: saw tonight, like they saw a man that was completely lost.
Speaker 2: And that's the reason why in that moment, I think,
Speaker 2: I really do. I think the point of the night
Speaker 2: that was the biggest line of all that won Joe
Speaker 2: Biden a seat to the exit ramp of the Democratic
Speaker 2: Party and one Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: The entire night was this moment.
Speaker 5: Continue to move until we get the total ban on
Speaker 5: the total initiative relative to what we're gonna do with
Speaker 5: more border patrol and more a cybum officers.
Speaker 6: President Trump, I really don't know what he said at
Speaker 6: the end of this, and I don't think he knows
Speaker 6: what he said either.
Speaker 2: I don't think he knows what he said either. And
Speaker 2: did you notice that he didn't fight back?
Speaker 14: Right?
Speaker 2: Did you notice what was said? He didn't fight back.
Speaker 2: Quaeren mccaskell hardcore Lefty On with Rachel Maddout a night
Speaker 2: on MSNBC for their coverage. Listen to what she said.
Speaker 12: Well, first, the easy part, Donald Trump is a liar,
Speaker 12: a flawed character, mean, a jerk, very unlikable, and that
Speaker 12: was obvious tonight. Now the horn and heartbreaking part. I
Speaker 12: have been a surrogate for some presidential candidates in my time.
Speaker 12: I know what the job is after a debate of
Speaker 12: a surrogate. I've never wanted to be a surrogate more
Speaker 12: than I do right now, because when you're a surrogate
Speaker 12: you have to focus on the positives. But I have
Speaker 12: said very clearly and very plainly on this network, and
Speaker 12: my job now is to be really honest. Joe Biden
Speaker 12: had one thing he had to do tonight and he
Speaker 12: didn't do it. He had one thing he had to accomplish,
Speaker 12: and that was reassure America that he was up to
Speaker 12: the job at his age, and he failed at that tonight.
Speaker 12: Now does that mean that my phone blowing up with
Speaker 12: senators and campaign operatives and donors, big donors from all
Speaker 12: over the country. Does that mean that Joe Biden is
Speaker 12: not going to be the candidate? I don't know that.
Speaker 12: I think we'll know a lot more in a few
Speaker 12: weeks how this plays out, how the polling plays out.
Speaker 12: But I think a couple of things are going on
Speaker 12: right now. I think I'm not the only one whose
Speaker 12: heart is breaking right now. There's a lot of people
Speaker 12: who watch this tonight and felt terribly for Joe Biden.
Speaker 12: And you know, you have to ask, how did.
Speaker 9: We get here?
Speaker 12: How do we get to the point that we're spending
Speaker 12: a whole lot of time talking about the vice president
Speaker 12: tonight instead of talking about the president. And I don't
Speaker 12: know how the rest of this story is written. I
Speaker 12: don't know if things can be done to fix this.
Speaker 12: They might, and you know, Trump is so terrible that
Speaker 12: this might heal itself. But based on what I'm hearing
Speaker 12: from a lot of people, and some of them are
Speaker 12: people that are in high elective offices in this country,
Speaker 12: and you might guess where they serve, there is a
Speaker 12: lot of more than hand ringing tonight.
Speaker 1: I did more than hand ringing.
Speaker 2: She's either referring to Chuck Shimmer and Kama Harris are
Speaker 2: both folks. She's making it clear in the statement she
Speaker 2: just made.
Speaker 1: And again, who won the debate?
Speaker 2: Seeing it on TV, having to tell you, yes, Donald
Speaker 2: Trump beat the crap out of Joe Biden.
Speaker 4: Who won the debate?
Speaker 15: We asked debate watchers in our instant poll and the
Speaker 15: answer is a resounding Donald Trump did. Sixty seven percent
Speaker 15: of debate watchers in our poll say Donald Trump won
Speaker 15: the debate tonight. Joe Biden thirty three percent say he
Speaker 15: won the debate tonight. Now, this group of debate watchers,
Speaker 15: they told us who they thought would win the debate
Speaker 15: going into it, before the debate, and take a look
Speaker 15: at how that changed over time. Fifty five percent thought
Speaker 15: before the debate that Donald Trump would win the debate.
Speaker 15: Forty five percent thought Joe Biden would win the debate.
Speaker 2: There is no way to get out of what everyone
Speaker 2: just witnessed tonight. There's no way to get around just
Speaker 2: how bad this is. Joe bat Biden. You can you
Speaker 2: can say all you want. Okay, you can. You can
Speaker 2: say all that you want that he had a cold.
Speaker 2: And by the way, the first lady looking at Joe Biden,
Speaker 2: this is what they said.
Speaker 1: They're after party. It's just listen to this.
Speaker 16: Joe, you did such a great job. You answered every question.
Speaker 16: Can you know, let me ask the crowd.
Speaker 14: What did Trump do?
Speaker 2: Maybe she's going to be the candidate now Joe Biden's
Speaker 2: out there at their party there after party in Atlanta,
Speaker 2: and you've got the first lady who's saying, you answered
Speaker 2: every question, you knew the facts, and what did what
Speaker 2: did Donald Trump do?
Speaker 1: He lied?
Speaker 2: I mean, there's there in a room not realizing they're
Speaker 2: at a funeral. They're at a funeral for him, Like
Speaker 2: that's it, Chuck. By the way, Chuck Todd at NBC
Speaker 2: News describing it this way, even though they're saying on
Speaker 2: stage right now, oh no, everything's fine.
Speaker 13: You know.
Speaker 17: One of the things was, would either candidate look like
Speaker 17: the caricature that the other campaign has been trying to
Speaker 17: paint of him? And at the end of the day,
Speaker 17: Joe Biden looks like the caricature that conservative media has
Speaker 17: been painting. And there were no clips tonight, right this
Speaker 17: was you saw it before your eyes. Look, I don't
Speaker 17: want to just tell you what I think here, Tom.
Speaker 17: I've been talking to a lot of leaders in the
Speaker 17: Democratic Party, elected coalition leaders. There's a full on panic
Speaker 17: about this performance, not like, oh, this is recoverable. It
Speaker 17: is more of a okay, he's got a step aside.
Speaker 17: There's a lot of that chatter.
Speaker 4: This is about as bad.
Speaker 17: Of a performance in order to do that, Biden could
Speaker 17: have delivered.
Speaker 4: If his goal was.
Speaker 17: To try to sort of calm the waters among Democrats.
Speaker 4: I mean, look the.
Speaker 2: This is chick tod saying this at MSNBC Mark Levin,
Speaker 2: who's a dear friend of mine and a mentor. He said,
Speaker 2: think of all the public people who've intentionally lied to
Speaker 2: the American people. Think of all the public people, all
Speaker 2: the elected officials, everybody around the president who just straight
Speaker 2: up lied to you and told you that this guy
Speaker 2: was in great shape. Who's running the country. That's the
Speaker 2: other question, like who is running the country? Who's running
Speaker 2: the country. I want to bring in Senator Ted Cruz.
Speaker 2: We did an instant response to this, and I want
Speaker 2: you to hear our conversation.
Speaker 1: Center.
Speaker 2: I want to get to some of the highlights. But
Speaker 2: even before we get to the debate, I think the
Speaker 2: most shocking part is what happened directly after the debate.
Speaker 2: This was the first thing that America heard on CNN,
Speaker 2: the host of the debate.
Speaker 3: It's into the debate and it continues right now. It
Speaker 3: involves party strategists, it involves elected officials, it involves fundraisers,
Speaker 3: and they're having conversations about the president's performance, which they
Speaker 3: think was dismal, which they think will hurt other people
Speaker 3: down the party in the ticket, and they're having conversations
Speaker 3: about what they should do about it.
Speaker 4: Some of those conversations include.
Speaker 3: Should we go to the White House and ask the
Speaker 3: president's step aside? Or other of the conversations are about
Speaker 3: should prominent Democrats go public with that call because they
Speaker 3: feel this debate was so terrible.
Speaker 4: They do say in moments in the debate.
Speaker 3: Later the president got better and got his footing, but
Speaker 3: then at the end, even his closing statement was a
Speaker 3: little halting the contrast between the two candidates. Let me
Speaker 3: be clear, none of them and a lot of Republicans
Speaker 3: don't think Donald Trump had a great night. Trump broke
Speaker 3: the fact check machine more than I can count tonight.
Speaker 3: That will be on the record as we go forward.
Speaker 3: He refused to answer some very specific and direct questions
Speaker 3: about his conduct about January sixth and what all. So
Speaker 3: that will be dealt with out there. And sometimes there's
Speaker 3: a parallel universe between the political elites and the American people.
Speaker 3: Be nice to see what the voters say, but I
Speaker 3: can tell you it started minutes in. It started with
Speaker 3: the first couple of answers, and it has continued throughout
Speaker 3: the night from oh my god, Oh my god, Oh
Speaker 3: my god, to what do we do about this? And
Speaker 3: it involves very senior people in the Democratic Party, including
Speaker 3: elected officials, saying we have a problem.
Speaker 1: And just we have a problem.
Speaker 2: They're moving actively right now to replace Joe Biden, saying
Speaker 2: we've got time before the convention, which is exactly what
Speaker 2: you predicted on this show nine months ago.
Speaker 18: Well, let me say what you played just there. I
Speaker 18: agree with half of it, and I disagree with half
Speaker 18: of it. What I do agree with is that Joe
Speaker 18: Biden did unbelievably badly. That the degree of dementia he
Speaker 18: is facing right now now, it is escalated to a
Speaker 18: point that it is unrecognizable. And I think there are
Speaker 18: a great many Democrats who are looking at this saying
Speaker 18: we cannot nominate this man. He is not capable. He
Speaker 18: doesn't know what's going on. In a second, we're going
Speaker 18: to play a couple of clips that show that. But
Speaker 18: it was I will say, as badly as I thought
Speaker 18: Joe Biden was going to do, he did worse. It
Speaker 18: was stunning. I've never seen a debate performance this bad.
Speaker 18: But the part I disagree of what you just played
Speaker 18: is I think Donald Trump had hands down his best
Speaker 18: debate performance he has ever had in his life. Look,
Speaker 18: I've stood on that stage with Donald Trump about a
Speaker 18: dozen times, and I've seen him and sometimes he said
Speaker 18: good debates. Sometimes he's had less than good debates. Tonight
Speaker 18: he did exactly what earlier this morning, you and I
Speaker 18: did a special podcast preparing for this debate, and what
Speaker 18: you and I talked about that Trump needed to do
Speaker 18: is be calm, be measured, be under control, not interrupt
Speaker 18: Joe Biden, let him hang himself, give him the airtime
Speaker 18: to talk. And Trump did that spectacularly. He was restrained,
Speaker 18: even as Biden was saying ridiculous things. He was restrained,
Speaker 18: he was calmed, he was matter of fact. He prosecuted
Speaker 18: the case, and Biden couldn't handle it. Biden repeatedly, what
Speaker 18: was screaming, You're a liar, You're lying. You could I mean,
Speaker 18: he was there were moments. Look, it's clear we talked
Speaker 18: before about the meds. They had him on meds. They
Speaker 18: put him on different meds from the State of the Union.
Speaker 18: He was not nearly as amped up as he was
Speaker 18: at the State of the Union. But when Trump poked
Speaker 18: him and he got angry, Biden couldn't respond other than
Speaker 18: just screaming, liar, liar, liar. And he returned to the
Speaker 18: State of the Union, old man on his front porch screaming,
Speaker 18: get off my front port. She had moments like that,
Speaker 18: But that's not even the dominant takeaway. The dominant takeaway
Speaker 18: is this is a man who doesn't know what's going
Speaker 18: on here.
Speaker 14: I want to play the clip early in the day
Speaker 14: bait where he just.
Speaker 18: Completely loses his train of thought, and this is the
Speaker 18: answer at which I think people all over the country said, Uh, oh,
Speaker 18: this guy's just not there.
Speaker 14: Give a listen.
Speaker 5: I s could be with dealing with everything we have
Speaker 5: to do with Uh look, if we finally beat medicare.
Speaker 2: We finally beat medicare. I mean Donald Trump's response was quote,
Speaker 2: I don't I really don't know what he said at
Speaker 2: the end of that sentence. I don't think he knows
Speaker 2: what he said either, And Joe Biden dishes so.
Speaker 18: Ben he actually didn't say that in response to that comment.
Speaker 18: That was in response to a statement later that he
Speaker 18: said that was completely incoherent. This was the first one,
Speaker 18: and Biden gets lost and and Trump counters with what
Speaker 18: he counters to, that is and by the way, the
Speaker 18: question had nothing to do with medicare. Like the word
Speaker 18: medicare comes completely out of left field. It's the only
Speaker 18: thing he mentioned. He's just like, we finally beat medicare.
Speaker 18: And then Trump cames and said, well, he said at
Speaker 18: the end, he beat medicare, he beat it to death.
Speaker 18: Give a listen to Trump's response. Play the next clip.
Speaker 5: All those things we need to do, childcare, eldercare, making
Speaker 5: sure that we continue to suppend strength in our healthcare system,
Speaker 5: making sure that we're able to make every single solitary
Speaker 5: person eligible for what I've been able to do with
Speaker 5: the UH, with the COVID, I sculd be with dealing
Speaker 5: with everything we have to do with Look, if we
Speaker 5: finally beat medicare.
Speaker 4: Thank you, President Biden.
Speaker 6: President Trump, Well, he's right, he did beat medicare, beat
Speaker 6: it to death. And he's destroying Medicare because all of
Speaker 6: these people are coming in, they're putting them on Medicare,
Speaker 6: They're putting them on.
Speaker 2: I mean, you hear that. He just stopped. Didn't know
Speaker 2: what he was doing. And if you look at the
Speaker 2: look on his face. Senator Joe Biden actually looked lost
Speaker 2: and was looking around like what.
Speaker 1: Am I doing? Am I?
Speaker 18: His brain was frozen. It short circuited throughout the time.
Speaker 18: I'll tell you Joe Biden did badly when he wasn't talking.
Speaker 18: When he wasn't talking, the look on his face was
Speaker 18: a look of confusion. Listen, anyone who's ever dealt with
Speaker 18: with an elderly parent, an elderly grandparent who's dealing with
Speaker 18: the loss of their faculties knows that look. My grandmother Miabuela,
Speaker 18: whom I love, she had Alzheimer's. I've seen, I've seen
Speaker 18: what happens. It was clear he didn't know what was
Speaker 18: going on. He was just confused. And even his most
Speaker 18: passionate defenders, they can't defend them all right, Maria Shriver.
Speaker 1: I just saw this. Kene Kennedy, Yeah, I just saw this.
Speaker 18: Democrat Democrat Royalty. Let me read you what she just
Speaker 18: tweeted moments ago. Quote, I love Joe Biden. I know
Speaker 18: he's a good man. I know his heart is good.
Speaker 18: I know is dedicated to our country and is surrounded
Speaker 18: by good people. Tonight was heartbreaking in many ways. This
Speaker 18: is a big political moment. There's panic in the Democratic Party.
Speaker 18: It's going to be a long night. The Democrats have
Speaker 18: lost Maria Shriver, that's a problem.
Speaker 1: Well, and listen to Abbi Phillips.
Speaker 2: Abby Phillips saying this on CNN as well in the
Speaker 2: moments afterwards. This is how she described how bad it
Speaker 2: was for Joe Biden.
Speaker 11: And just to co sign what John is saying. I mean,
Speaker 11: the panic that I am hearing from Democrats is not
Speaker 11: like anything that I have heard in this campaign so far,
Speaker 11: and a lot of it has to do with First
Speaker 11: of all, there was a deep frustration about Trump's lies.
Speaker 9: I mean, he lied a lot tonight.
Speaker 11: But the problem for Biden was that Trump was able
Speaker 11: to take sometimes incredible falsehoods and turn them into some
Speaker 11: kind of argument, whereas Biden's answers were in a lot
Speaker 11: of cases not coherent, deeply problematic, that he was not
Speaker 11: able to take pretty straightforward answers and answer them to.
Speaker 14: The that's CNN.
Speaker 18: That is CNN who's saying the Democrats are panicking, and
Speaker 18: Biden's answers where in a lot of cases not go here,
Speaker 18: all right, play Van Jones, Van Jones, this is the
Speaker 18: hard left here. He's on CNN. Listen, here's what Van
Speaker 18: Jones had to say.
Speaker 10: I was painful. I love Joe Biden. I worked for
Speaker 10: Joe Biden. He didn't do well at all. He did
Speaker 10: not do well at all.
Speaker 2: It's like a funeral. It's like you're watching a funeral
Speaker 2: in real time on CNN. And this is their instant reaction.
Speaker 2: These are the first voices that America heard after the debate.
Speaker 2: Drudge Report, for example, which used to be pretty conservative center,
Speaker 2: now they really hate Donald Trump. Their headline right now
Speaker 2: is operation Replace Biden, dim scramble with one hundred and
Speaker 2: thirty days to go debate catastrophe, Which brings me back
Speaker 2: to let's go back to nine months ago. Nine months ago,
Speaker 2: September the eighteenth, You and I had this conversation.
Speaker 1: And by the way, there were a lot in the
Speaker 1: media and there were a lot.
Speaker 2: Of other people in Washington that said you and I
Speaker 2: were crazy for having this conversation.
Speaker 1: So let's play the clip.
Speaker 18: So here's the scenario that I think is perhaps most
Speaker 18: likely and most dangerous. In August of twenty twenty four,
Speaker 18: the Democrat Kingmakers jettison Joe Biden and parachute in Michelle Obama, and.
Speaker 14: I want you to pause and reflect on it.
Speaker 2: So I'm pausing, and I'm reflecting, as we said, and
Speaker 2: so is everybody else listening.
Speaker 4: Right now.
Speaker 14: I view this as a very serious danger.
Speaker 1: I'm smiling right now because it terrifies me. And I
Speaker 1: also could totally see this happening.
Speaker 18: So, Michelle Obama, number one, you don't infuriate African American women,
Speaker 18: which is a critical part of the constituency that Democrats
Speaker 18: are relying on to win. But number two, you avoid
Speaker 18: the problem if you pick from any of the four.
Speaker 18: The other three are pissed because they're all, to some
Speaker 18: extent peers, they're rivals, they're all jabbin knives at each other.
Speaker 18: Michelle Obama, because she was first Lady, has the ability
Speaker 18: to kind of parachute in above all four and say, hey,
Speaker 18: we're not picking among any of you. You guys can
Speaker 18: all fight it out next time. You're all going to
Speaker 18: be on the same level. We're coming. This is the
Speaker 18: Obamas saving the day, and I think in terms of
Speaker 18: a solution that unifies Democrats, there ain't nothing like that.
Speaker 18: I also think Michelle is not all that eager to
Speaker 18: run for president, but to parachute in in August of
Speaker 18: twenty four, a couple of months before the presidency, and
Speaker 18: suddenly wake up and be president.
Speaker 1: Not a bad gig.
Speaker 14: It's not a bad gig at all. Now, would she
Speaker 14: do it? I don't know.
Speaker 18: I've met Miche, but I don't know her personally in
Speaker 18: any meaningful way. I don't know if she would do it.
Speaker 18: I do think Barack Obama is already running the Biden administration.
Speaker 18: I think he is already the puppet master behind this
Speaker 18: Biden White House. I don't think Joe Biden is the
Speaker 18: decision maker. And so when I see the media turning
Speaker 18: on Joe Biden right now, I think the odds of
Speaker 18: Michelle Obama parachuting in in August of twenty twenty four
Speaker 18: have risen dramatically, and that ought to scare the hell
Speaker 18: out anyone who who is unhappy about the direction this
Speaker 18: country is going and doesn't want us to go even
Speaker 18: crazier in an even worse direct.
Speaker 2: September eighteenth, center of twenty twenty three, we had this discussion,
Speaker 2: and even right now on MSN dot com, the headline
Speaker 2: is we beat Medicare Biden. Freese's mid answer before being
Speaker 2: bailed out by moderator and then they go on to
Speaker 2: talk about that was a total disaster by the sitting
Speaker 2: president and Democrats are running to replace Joe Biden, so
Speaker 2: they're not even having the conversation behind closed doors. They're
Speaker 2: having it out on national TV right now and in
Speaker 2: the news.
Speaker 18: Well, and Ben, what you've just played is I think
Speaker 18: as good a promo for this podcast as you possibly
Speaker 18: could have.
Speaker 14: What we are facing right now.
Speaker 18: We predicted on this podcast nine months ago in September
Speaker 18: of twenty twenty three. We were among the very first
Speaker 18: voices to do that. At the time, it made a
Speaker 18: bunch of headlines. And you're right, people thought we were
Speaker 18: batcrap crazy. Let's be clear, they thought I was bat
Speaker 18: crap crazy. I shouldn't say we had stick you into that.
Speaker 18: You were there while I was making that prediction, and
Speaker 18: they were like, cruise has lost as mind. And by
Speaker 18: the way, in terms of predictions, we also at the
Speaker 18: outset of COVID laid out all of the evidence that
Speaker 18: COVID originated in the Chinese lab in Wuhan. When CNN
Speaker 18: and ABC, CBSNBC were suppressing that news, when Facebook and
Speaker 18: Twitter were suppressing that news, we were laying out thevidence.
Speaker 18: Then and this morning before the debate, our analysis of
Speaker 18: the debate, I predicted, unequivocally, Donald Trump is going to
Speaker 18: kick Joe Biden's ass. That was my prediction. That is
Speaker 18: exactly what happened. It was the title of the show.
Speaker 18: And there were not a lot of people predicting that,
Speaker 18: But I number one thought Biden would do terribly. But
Speaker 18: number two, if Trump could remain controlled, and he did that,
Speaker 18: he did that in an excellent way. I'm going to
Speaker 18: call President Trump tomorrow and tell him it's the best
Speaker 18: debate he's ever done, and I've been there for a
Speaker 18: lot of them. He was measured, he was controlled, he
Speaker 18: was fact based, he laid out the case. Even his
Speaker 18: response on medicare, let's take the one we just played.
Speaker 18: It would be easy to be starky and say, okay,
Speaker 18: this guy is like that answer is incoherent. What Trump
Speaker 18: did was even better. There said, I mean, look, he
Speaker 18: said he actually did beat medicare, which was obviously a
Speaker 18: weird brain short circuit. And he said the reason he
Speaker 18: beat medicare is because he's let millions and millions of
Speaker 18: legal immigrants into this country. He's putting them all in Medicare,
Speaker 18: which is going to bankrupt Medicare. And that was a
Speaker 18: major message that Trump is hitting, is that the invasion
Speaker 18: on our southern border is also bankrupting Medicare and social Security.
Speaker 18: I think that was a smart decision to lean in
Speaker 18: on that. Joe Biden had no answer. He had no
Speaker 18: response all night long. As Trump laid out the case
Speaker 18: you caused the inflation, Joe Biden had no response to that.
Speaker 18: As Trump laid out the people who are being murdered
Speaker 18: all across this country from criminals and insane asylums. When
Speaker 18: Trump would say, look, Venezuela is emptying their jails and
Speaker 18: sending US murderers and rapists and child molesters and lunatics,
Speaker 18: you saw Joe Biden just looking confused. He had no response,
Speaker 18: He didn't dispute it. He had nothing to say in response.
Speaker 18: On foreign policy, and we talked about this again in
Speaker 18: this morning's podcast, Joe Biden just said, well, if Trump's
Speaker 18: president Putin will invade all of Ukraine and all of Europe,
Speaker 18: and Trump is like, what utter crap? When I was president,
Speaker 18: Russia didn't invade one square inch of territory anywhere on
Speaker 18: planet Earth. And by the way he did under Barack
Speaker 18: Obama and he did under Joe Biden. You are so
Speaker 18: weak that that's why Putin invaded and it. Trump did
Speaker 18: an excellent job of prosecuting the case, and Biden was
Speaker 18: utterly incapable of responding. And I think you are seeing
Speaker 18: seeing Democrats freaking out.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 18: I believe there are two things. Well, let me say
Speaker 18: to a couple of things. Number one, let me tell
Speaker 18: you why I believe it'll be Michelle Obama because you're
Speaker 18: going to see today and tomorrow all sorts of discussion.
Speaker 18: You're gonna hear Gavin Newsome, You're gonna hear all sorts
Speaker 18: of other names.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this one. I think, if they
Speaker 1: do it, what's the pitch?
Speaker 2: Because it's gonna start with Barack Obama, who was just
Speaker 2: leading Joe Biden off stage, remember, and everybody saw it
Speaker 2: like he was an elderly old man at old folks home.
Speaker 2: And I'm not saying that to be mean. I'm just
Speaker 2: being honest about it. And clearly he witnessed how bad
Speaker 2: it was. Then does is he the guy that has
Speaker 2: to look at Michelle Night going I'd do it, but
Speaker 2: I can I've already been president for eight years.
Speaker 1: It has to be you, honey.
Speaker 18: Well, let me break it to two pieces. Let me
Speaker 18: tell you why it has to be Michelle. It has
Speaker 18: to be Michelle because of Kamala Harris. Kamala Harris is
Speaker 18: the VP. If you push Joe Biden aside, Kamala's.
Speaker 14: Next in line.
Speaker 18: The people who say we want Gavin Newsom. You know
Speaker 18: what if the Democrat Party pushes an African American woman
Speaker 18: aside and replaces her with a white guy, their party implodes.
Speaker 18: They cannot do it. They are bean counters and they
Speaker 18: are faced. It's actually what forced Joe Biden to pick
Speaker 18: Kamala in the first place. He backed himself into it.
Speaker 18: He doesn't like Kamala. And the problem Democrats are having
Speaker 18: that now is they're looking at Joe Biden. They're saying,
Speaker 18: oh my goodness, this guy cannot be our nominee. And
Speaker 18: they look at Kamala and they recognize she's a terrible nominee.
Speaker 18: And if she's the nominee, they know they'll lose. And
Speaker 18: so their problem is the only person on planet Earth
Speaker 18: who can push Kamala Harris aside is Michelle Obama, another
Speaker 18: African American woman who stands on a different footing as
Speaker 18: a former first Lady. Now, what are the impediments that
Speaker 18: stop it? The impediments are twofold number one, Michelle says no,
Speaker 18: number two. Joe Biden says no. On the Michelle says no.
Speaker 18: I think you're gonna have Barrock coming to her. I
Speaker 18: think you're gonna have a lot of Democrat kingmakers coming
Speaker 18: to her. And the pitch is gonna be Michelle, you
Speaker 18: need to save America. Michelle, We need you, Michelle. If
Speaker 18: you do not step forward, Donald Trump is going to
Speaker 18: be president. Michelle, you are the only person on planet
Speaker 18: Earth that can save the world from a Donald Trump presidency.
Speaker 14: And listen.
Speaker 18: People perceive Michelle Obama as somewhat nonpartisan because she was
Speaker 18: a first late in first Ladies kind of stay out
Speaker 18: of politics. I think she is more radical than Barack is.
Speaker 18: I think she is an ideologue. I think she is
Speaker 18: a leftist. You remember when when Barack Obama was running
Speaker 18: and she talked about his getting elected was the first
Speaker 18: most time in her life she was proud of her country.
Speaker 18: I think she embraces hardcore leftism, but a lot of
Speaker 18: people don't know that. And so the pitch to her
Speaker 18: is going to be Save America. And then the pitch
Speaker 18: to Joe Biden. She's got to say yes number one.
Speaker 18: And then too, Joe Biden has got to agree to
Speaker 18: step aside. And I think you're going to see in
Speaker 18: the coming days. You know, you played my prediction from
Speaker 18: September of twenty twenty three. The only thing I might
Speaker 18: have gotten wrong is I said that this would happen
Speaker 18: in August of twenty twenty four. It may be July
Speaker 18: of twenty twenty four. I may have been a month
Speaker 18: off in the timing. Because this debate I think changed
Speaker 18: the fundamental terrain.
Speaker 2: Let's also talk about there was two moments that I
Speaker 2: think really speak to the demise of the cognitive clin
Speaker 2: of Joe Biden. And it was subtle but significant, and
Speaker 2: I want to get your reaction to it. There was
Speaker 2: one moment when he was asked about social Security and
Speaker 2: he gave a very very short answer and then the
Speaker 2: moderators looked at him like what you doing? You still
Speaker 2: have I think they said eighty four seconds left or
Speaker 2: something like that. There was another time he was talking
Speaker 2: about African American voters, African American community, and African American issues.
Speaker 2: And they're like, sir, you still have like another minute
Speaker 2: and xmber of seconds, sixty four seconds left.
Speaker 1: He couldn't even.
Speaker 18: By the way, he spent eight days at Camp David
Speaker 18: preparing and he could not fill the two minutes with
Speaker 18: it a the.
Speaker 2: Two minutes on two vitally important issues like social Security.
Speaker 2: Any politician should be able to fill for two minutes.
Speaker 2: In fact, you should be able to fill.
Speaker 18: These were not subtle, These were not gotcha's, These were
Speaker 18: obvious questions. He had nothing to say. He was scared.
Speaker 18: He was a deer in the headlights.
Speaker 2: So you said, deer in headlights. Let's go to the
Speaker 2: next conversation that's being had right now. And I'm sure
Speaker 2: it's being had at the White House, at the EOB,
Speaker 2: at the campaign headquarters. Who goes to the president first
Speaker 2: and says step down? And then you're also dealing with
Speaker 2: every guy that's ever very stubborn though like he can
Speaker 2: just can't he just look at him say I'm not
Speaker 2: gonna do it.
Speaker 18: He is absolutely stubborn. I think it is BARACKO Bob.
Speaker 18: I think it is Nancy Pelosi. I think it is
Speaker 18: Chuck Schumer. I think it is every leader in the
Speaker 18: Democrat Party. It's not Kamala Harris Kamo is not allowed
Speaker 18: in the room, but I think it is. And they
Speaker 18: go to him and they're pitch to him. They say, Joe,
Speaker 18: you were an historic president, you saved America from Donald Trump.
Speaker 18: You wanted to be the next FDR. I think they
Speaker 18: will they will appeal to his vanity and say you
Speaker 18: are the next to FDR. You are consequential right now.
Speaker 18: If you stay in the race, you risk undoing your
Speaker 18: entire legacy and giving that legacy going down in history
Speaker 18: as the man who made Donald Trump president. If you
Speaker 18: stay in this race, it will be your fault that
Speaker 18: Trump is president. I think they'll appeal to his vanity
Speaker 18: and look that that is. I think to Joe bideny
Speaker 18: really powerful pitch. Look you look at the debate tonight.
Speaker 18: He said things. At one point, he said, during Trump's presidency,
Speaker 18: we had a thousand trillionaire. By the way, there are
Speaker 18: no trillionaires on planet Earth. At another point, he said,
Speaker 18: during Donald Trump, we had fifty percent unemployment.
Speaker 14: No, that is wildly wrong.
Speaker 18: At another part, he said, he created Joe Biden created
Speaker 18: hundreds of millions of jobs. Mind you, there three hundred
Speaker 18: and thirty million Americans, and apparently he's created hundreds of
Speaker 18: millions of jobs, so more more jobs than there are
Speaker 18: working Americans. Like it is, every answer was a problem.
Speaker 18: At another point, he said, the Border Patrol endorsed me.
Speaker 14: Let's be clear.
Speaker 18: The Border Patrol Union immediately tweeted out to be clear,
Speaker 18: we have never and will never endorse Biden at every stage.
Speaker 18: And what's interesting, he was also trying to insult Trump. Yeah,
Speaker 18: and Trump didn't take the bait. Yeah, and he was smart.
Speaker 18: It was really at actually when Trump poked Biden, Biden
Speaker 18: freaked out. He couldn't not take the bait. And so
Speaker 18: the contrast, and I'll say something else. You mentioned African
Speaker 18: American votes. Trump's number are surging in the black community,
Speaker 18: and I think tonight he made a very hard pitch
Speaker 18: for black voters, and his most significant pitch. He had
Speaker 18: a lot of points about how bad Trump, how bad
Speaker 18: Biden has been for the African American community, talked about inflation,
Speaker 18: how it's hammering black families. But then he also tied
Speaker 18: it to illegal immigration, and he said, look that the
Speaker 18: millions and millions of ill immigrants that are coming into
Speaker 18: this country, they're taking jobs from black Americans. That is
Speaker 18: a powerful argument. That is an argument. And by the way,
Speaker 18: Biden had no response to that. It was silent. It
Speaker 18: was on the substance. Trump prosecuted the case and Biden
Speaker 18: crashed and burned. And in fact, the Wall Street Journal
Speaker 18: just sent out their key takeaway, their story that they
Speaker 18: wrote tonight, and it's now ten forty seven pm, and
Speaker 18: their headline is Biden crashed in first debate with Trump.
Speaker 18: That's not an editorial, that's the news headline in the
Speaker 18: Wall Street Journal because it is just a objectively if
Speaker 18: you watch the Hennenburg explode, you don't say Zeppelin landed tonight.
Speaker 2: Now, well, let's also talk about those that have been lying.
Speaker 2: The media center has been lying, congressmen have been lying,
Speaker 2: staff members have been lying. They've been going on TV
Speaker 2: telling you that Joe Biden can run circles around me.
Speaker 2: The White House Press Secretary saying over and over again
Speaker 2: saying there's no cognitive decline here, saying that he's in
Speaker 2: perfect health. This guy is is a beast. He's you know,
Speaker 2: he's jacked up aviator Joe. Now they're all actually having
Speaker 2: to admit they're wrong, But no one's gonna I think
Speaker 2: call them accountable for that. They're just gonna run out
Speaker 2: there and say, clearly, it's time for him to step aside,
Speaker 2: step aside, step aside, which is also weird because if
Speaker 2: you're not cognitive, you don't have the cognitibility to be
Speaker 2: president in the future. Right, and they're saying he can't
Speaker 2: be the president come January again, then when does the
Speaker 2: twenty fifth and does that even come up? Because you're
Speaker 2: admitting that he's basically incapacitated.
Speaker 18: Now, Yeah, listen, we have seen reporters and we've seen
Speaker 18: Democrats lying about Joe's mental capacity for a long time,
Speaker 18: and nobody fair and objective who watched tonight could conclude
Speaker 18: anything other than this is a man who is seriously
Speaker 18: mentally diminished.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 18: It's interesting Andrew Yang, who you remember, ran for president
Speaker 18: against Joe in twenty twenty, he tweeted out tonight quote, look,
Speaker 18: I debated Joe seven times in twenty twenty.
Speaker 14: He's a different guy.
Speaker 18: In twenty twenty four, hashtag swap Joe out that that's
Speaker 18: from one of the alternative one of the other candidates
Speaker 18: who ran against twenty twenty, from a prominent Democrat. Two
Speaker 18: of the top trends that were trending tonight right after
Speaker 18: the debate were dementia and Michelle Obama. Now that's bad news.
Speaker 18: I's if that's what's what is And all right, I
Speaker 18: want to wrap up tonight's pod with this. I'm going
Speaker 18: to do something I have rarely, if ever done. I
Speaker 18: may never have done this before. I'm going to praise
Speaker 18: CNN this morning's debate. You and I both thought Jake
Speaker 18: Tapper and Dana Bash would do a terrible job. They
Speaker 18: both hate Donald Trump, they both have become hard partisans.
Speaker 18: CNN did an excellent job tonight with this debate. Jake
Speaker 18: Tapper and Dana Bash. That was the best debate moderation
Speaker 18: they have ever done. They ask good questions, they asked
Speaker 18: substantive questions. They didn't make the debate about them. One
Speaker 18: of the interesting things no one is debating about the
Speaker 18: moderators bad debate moderators. When Chris Wallace debated moderated, the
Speaker 18: whole debate was about him because he wanted to be
Speaker 18: right in the center of the show. When Candy Crowley
Speaker 18: from CNN was the moderator between Obama and Mitt Romney,
Speaker 18: she made it all about her. Jake and they ask
Speaker 18: good questions, they moved subjects along. They would press the candidates,
Speaker 18: but not in a jerky way. They just say, I
Speaker 18: asked you the following question. You have another sixty seconds
Speaker 18: to answer it. When they didn't get their questions answered,
Speaker 18: that's a perfectly reasonable thing for a debate moderator to do.
Speaker 18: I've been in multiple debates that each of them have moderated.
Speaker 18: I think they both were incredibly sensitive to everyone laying
Speaker 18: out the facts that they have shown wild bias, and
Speaker 18: tonight tonight they didn't, and they did an excellent job,
Speaker 18: and I think that was a service to the country.
Speaker 2: I have to ask you one other question, because everyone's
Speaker 2: asking it in their head right now, what is the
Speaker 2: hold on a second?
Speaker 10: Ben?
Speaker 18: You didn't respond to that, and since you're a former
Speaker 18: employee of CNN, I'm not gonna let you bet. Ben,
Speaker 18: you have sixty two seconds. The question is do you
Speaker 18: think Jake and Danna did a good job.
Speaker 2: I think they did a decent job. And here's why
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna get them as much cur as you did.
Speaker 1: You ready for this, all right, but I'm gonna make
Speaker 1: you answer it.
Speaker 14: I'm not gonna let you wiggle away.
Speaker 1: For Here's what I'll say.
Speaker 2: I think they were in as much shock as we were, going,
Speaker 2: Holy crap, I'm watching an incapacitated president of the United
Speaker 2: States of America. And they were caught so off guard.
Speaker 2: They said, just stick to the script, just stick the script,
Speaker 2: Just stick the script, like it was a default mode.
Speaker 2: Because it was such a glaring disaster with Biden that
Speaker 2: no one, no, none of the moderators were honestly paying
Speaker 2: attention to Donald Trump.
Speaker 14: Yes, but.
Speaker 18: Jake and Dana were more measured than I've ever seen them.
Speaker 18: They were deliberately controlled. They knew that half the country
Speaker 18: viewed them as wild eyed partisans. Look, we played this
Speaker 18: morning Jake analogizing Trump to Adolf Hitler. Yes, and I
Speaker 18: still believe that to I think he believes it. But
Speaker 18: tonight that didn't come out. And so if we're going
Speaker 18: to criticize him when when he's not doing a good job,
Speaker 18: I will say, I.
Speaker 1: Think think that they did their job.
Speaker 2: Think the biggest political train wreck in American history, and
Speaker 2: they were in it and it was like, I don't
Speaker 2: know what to do.
Speaker 1: How do you triage this? And so they got rid
Speaker 1: of some of that.
Speaker 2: I think if Joe Biden would have showed up jacked
Speaker 2: up like you did at the say of the Union.
Speaker 2: I think it would have been a complete different debate
Speaker 2: from the moderator standpoint. But I think they saw what
Speaker 2: everybody else saw, which was we have a present that
Speaker 2: is incapacitated and the whole world is watching it now
Speaker 2: and no one can stop it. There was no one
Speaker 2: to step in and lead him off the stage like
Speaker 2: Barack Obama did two weeks ago, Which brings me back
Speaker 2: to that question that everyone's asking, how quickly will we
Speaker 2: find out if the conversations with Joe Biden are going
Speaker 2: to work to get him to step aside?
Speaker 1: Number one? Okay?
Speaker 2: And number two, how quickly do Democrats have to fall
Speaker 2: back in line and stick with this guy if he
Speaker 2: doesn't decide to step down? And those are the two
Speaker 2: most important questions.
Speaker 1: Maybe the entire.
Speaker 18: Night, three weeks, twenty one days, this happens or doesn't happen.
Speaker 14: In three weeks.
Speaker 18: I think you're gonna have massive chaos following this debate.
Speaker 18: You're gonna have massive panic. People are gonna go to
Speaker 18: Michelle Obama, people are going to go to Joe Biden.
Speaker 18: I don't think given the train wreck that happened tonight.
Speaker 18: I don't think they'll wait until after the Democrat Convention.
Speaker 18: I think they feel a panic right now. I think
Speaker 18: they're gonna want Michelle Obama to be the keynote speaker
Speaker 18: at the Democrat Convention, not Joe Biden. So I think
Speaker 18: we have twenty one days for this to play out.
Speaker 18: And look over the course of the last year, I've
Speaker 18: handicapped this. I initially laid it out as a possibility,
Speaker 18: then shifted as the Democrats and the media we're starting
Speaker 18: to get nervous about Joe Biden. I shifted to about
Speaker 18: fifty percent. As we sit here today, I put the
Speaker 18: odds at north of eighty percent that Michelle Obama is
Speaker 18: the Democrat nominee on the ballot in November of this year.
Speaker 2: Make sure you share this podcast with your family and
Speaker 2: your friends, and I'll see you back here tomorrow morning.