Biden's Inner Circle and the Cost of Denial

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This whole story is just so tragic, and it really is.
I mean, I know everybody thinks their stories, what they
write about is Shakespearean, but there is just an element
of centuries old drama to this. The man who rises
to the top to save the nation from Donald Trump
and guarantees the reelection of Donald Trump by denying his

(00:22):
own fallibility.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
And his own hubris.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Hi everyone, I'm Kitty Kuric and this is next question.
On May fourteenth, I headed down to Washington, d C.
On the seven to twenty five am Regional Amtrak. Huh
nice sound effect. I was on my way to the
nation's capital to participate in a health conference that had

(00:53):
been organized by Axios, and since I was going to
be in the neighborhood, my producers reached out to Jake
Tapper of c and Alex Thompson of Axios to see
if we could sit down and discuss their explosive new book,
Original Sin. It's a deep dive into the decision made
by President Joe Biden to run for reelection and about

(01:14):
the people in the Biden inner circle who were behind it.
Alex Thompson, Jake Tapper, authors of Original Sin. Hi, guys,
how are you good?

Speaker 1 (01:24):
How are you doing good?

Speaker 2 (01:25):
To say him, It's great to see you both. After
the interview, when we jumped on the Essella heading home
later that afternoon, there was someone in my assigned seat.
That's someone was Joe Biden, mister Amtrak himself. How crazy
is that he had about five Secret Service agents with
him and was heading back to Wilmington, Delaware after meetings

(01:46):
in Washington. I've known Joe Biden for decades, and so
in between other passengers asking if they could take their
photos with him, he was incredibly gracious by the way.
I sat down next to him at it for a bit.
I can't share our conversation because someone in his detail
said this is all off the record, right, and I agreed.

(02:09):
But I did find him his usual affable self and
wrote to Jake that he was cogent and conversant. Jake responded,
not surprised. In fact, his assessment echoed what he and
Alex had reported in the early pages of their book.
As of early twenty twenty five. They wrote, Biden can, still,

(02:30):
of course, engage in a coherent conversation if he is
prepared and rested. He didn't need preparation to have mostly
small talk with me, but he was for sure coherent
and he didn't think I was Diane Sawyer. That following Sunday,
it was announced that Joe Biden has been diagnosed with
aggressive prostate cancer that has spread to his bones. The

(02:54):
speculation about some kind of cover up about his health
issues began again. But according to to experts I spoke to,
this is an unfair conclusion. We simply don't have enough information.
But original Sin may do nothing to allay those concerns. Now,
if you peruse social media regularly, you'll see a lot

(03:15):
of people raging about this book. Why now, and in
the view of some critics, why write it at all.
So that's what I started our conversation with when I
sat down to talk to Jake and Alex last Wednesday
in Washington. Reading the comments on social media this morning,
I was like.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
Never read the comments. Don't you know that you never
read the.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
I actually do. I don't know why, because I do
like to take the temperature of some people, and given
some of them are taken with a grain of salt,
but I like to see what people are saying, and
a lot of folks are really taking you to to tasks.
I want to read some of the comments from a
post on the New Yorkers Instagram about your book, not

(04:00):
look Back. Let's get working on fixing the future, get
a grip, Let's talk about the real issues and get
over Biden. What the hell? Slow news day, Jake? And yeah,
once again, let's not blame the Republicans at all. Maybe
Jake Tapper could get away from behind the desk and
investigate how journalists like himself don't hold Trump to account
and ask crappy questions. Okay, so you get the drift,

(04:23):
you guys, and good morning.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
By good to see you morning, Nice to see you.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
So you know, what would you say to those people
who are really giving you a hard time about looking
at this issue and Joe Biden's kind of cognitive ability
at this point?

Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yeah, So I have many thoughts. One of them is
I do cover President Trump with aggressive analysis every day,
two hours a day, and then every other Sunday. So
I mean I would suggest that that writer might want
to turn on CNN at five o'clock Eastern and see

(05:00):
because we do do that coverage. But beyond that is
what George Clooney said to me, said to me, and
Alex the other day when I talked to him at
the end of his play on Broadway, good Night and
Good Luck. Have you seen it?

Speaker 2 (05:13):
Yes? It has great right, Yeah, I thought it was
really good.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
So it's entirely said in nineteen fifty four except the
very end where he shows this montage of what television
has become since then. And in addition to I mean,
there's lots in that montage, but one of the you
see lies about the twenty twenty election from Republicans, and
then you see lies about Biden's acuity from Democrats. And
I asked him about the importance why he felt that
was important to include, and he said, it's about speaking

(05:36):
truth to power, no matter who's in power. But also,
how do you think we got Trump? That was Clooney's answer.
And I think Democrats need to reckon with this fact
that one of the reasons why even as Trump's pull
numbers go down, democrats pull numbers are not going up.
And I think the lies, the gas lighting that the
Biden White House and President Biden himself told the country

(05:59):
about his aque are and albatross not unlike what the
Iraq War was for Republicans, you know, more than a
decade ago.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
Do you think, Alex that the lack of transparency shown
by the Biden administration and about his health or mental condition,
do you think that is contributing to the low approval
ratings for Democrats. As Jake points out.

Speaker 3 (06:22):
Yeah, I think some voters feel gaslet by the Democratic
Party by saying that this guy could serve his name
in that he was. They were saying he was on
top of it, running circles around his aides at the time,
but also like this guy could serve another four years
till he was eighty six.

Speaker 4 (06:41):
I do think the.

Speaker 3 (06:43):
Democrats, according to voters I've talked to, like Democrats have
a credibility problem because they were insisting. And I'd say,
you know, also in response to those comments, I mean,
those are the same comments I got whenever I reported
on Biden's age going back to twenty twenty one and
especially starting in twenty twenty three, and you know, focus

(07:03):
on Trump and it's like, well, you know, first of all,
our job is not to necessarily meet vote like readers expectations.

Speaker 4 (07:13):
Our job is just to say, like, well, this is
what's happening.

Speaker 3 (07:16):
And if people don't like to read the truth, then
that's on them.

Speaker 2 (07:21):
The George Clooney fundraiser he did with Jeffrey Katzenberg and
Julia Roberts came. You described it in the summer of
twenty twenty four, write in Los Angeles. That seemed to
be a real aha moment obviously for George Clooney. Why
did you focus so much attention or why was that
anecdote Jake so important to include?

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Well, it was important to include because the op ed
that George Clooney wrote in The New York Times between
the debate and on June twenty seventh and Biden dropping
out in July twenty first, that op ed by George
Clooney was incredibly important and impactful. It just was here,
you have a very respected, very beloved Hollywood star and director,

(08:07):
big democratic donor.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
And serious personious person.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
His activism when it comes to Darthorn Sudan is incredibly respected.
And he comes forward and says, I love Joe Biden.
It's time for him to drop out and notes in
a line that Jeffrey Katzenberg wanted him to remove. The
Joe Biden that we all saw at the debate is
the Joe Biden I saw backstage at the fundraiser. I'm
paraphrasing when Joe Biden walks over to George Clooney and

(08:35):
doesn't recognize him, somebody that he's known for more than
fifteen years, somebody who is the co host of this
incredibly lucrative fundraiser, record breaking Democratic fundraiser, and somebody who's
one of the most recognizable faces in the world. That
was really really disturbing to everybody in that little clotch
who saw it happen, and Biden's behavior in general that

(08:57):
night behind the scenes was disturbing to President Obama. It
wasn't as bad on stage, but even people in the
audience there, Democratic congressman and Any Custer of New Hampshire,
a lot of Obama people like John Favreau, former director
of Speech Running, they were all very disturbed by what
they saw, and they all left that fundraiser thinking, oh

(09:18):
my god, this is not going to work.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
A lot of people were making excuses for Joe Biden's
sort of lack of being with it that day by
saying he had a grueling travel schedule.

Speaker 1 (09:29):
Good, he did have a grueling travel schedule. Presidents have
grueling travel schedules. That's part of the job.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
You write in the book Alex and your author's note
that you spoke to around two hundred people lawmakers, white
house staff, campaign insiders, but many of them opened up
to you only after the election. I think the word
after is pivotal here. How do you explain the fact
that so many people remained silent when it really mattered

(09:58):
and could have made a differ friends.

Speaker 3 (10:01):
I think it was a sincere in the case of
most of them. I think some people were just looking
out after their own self interest in keeping their jobs.
But I think for a decent number of people, it
was a sincere fear of Donald Trump winning and a
belief that going public with their concerns was only going

(10:23):
to have the effect of helping Trump. And if you
believe that he's an essential threat to democracy, you can
rationalize a lot. And I think it was a combination
of those two factors, and I.

Speaker 4 (10:37):
But not to let them completely off the hook.

Speaker 3 (10:39):
I think some people just were like, if he wins,
I get to keep my job, and we're doing the
right thing for the country. So I think it was
a combination of those things.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
Even now, very few people spoke on the record to
you all well, there were a lot of There were
a lot of anonymous sources.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
There are a lot of anonymous sources, but there are
a lot of is that it's very clear that we
spoke with you know, when you're reading certain stories, you know,
I mean, we wrote it as a narrative. We didn't
like as Bob Woodward does. We didn't write it as
according to three sources, according to two sources. But it's
pretty clear. I mean, almost everybody in the book we
spoke with. Anybody named, almost all of them we spoke with.

(11:20):
But yes, you're right, there are still people who are.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
Afraid why why do you think that is, Jake.

Speaker 1 (11:25):
They don't want to be seen as disloyal, they don't
want to be seen as helping Trump, which I mean,
it's still so part of the DNA. I mean my thesis,
and I can't speak for Alex, but I think you
agree that the Democrats really need to reckon with this.
In terms of twenty twenty eight, At some point some
Democratic presidential candidate is going to acknowledge that President Biden

(11:50):
his family in the inner circle were lying to people
about what was going on. But they haven't. They haven't
done that yet. And I'm guessing by the time this
podcast drops it, they will not have done it by then.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
Either, but they think they'll do it ever.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
Jase, Yes, I think they'll have to, and I think
because this is a really I mean, it's going to
be a progress. Politicians love to wait for the parade
and then run in front of it, but at some
point people are going to I mean, most people right
now don't know the George Clooney story, that Joe Biden
didn't recognize George Clooney, but I do think at some
point there's going to be some saturation of that, and

(12:23):
that's going to be shocking for people.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
For Democrats, Alex, I know that you made a speech
at this year's White House Correspondent Stinner because obviously the
role of the press in all this is going to
be paramount as people are really evaluating what happened and
why you said. Quote. President Biden's decline and its cover
up by the people around him is a reminder that

(12:46):
every White House, regardless of party, is capable of deception.
But being truth tellers also means telling the truth about ourselves.
We myself included mist a lot of this story, and
some people trust us less because of it. We bear
some responsibility for faith in the media being at such lows.

(13:07):
Can you talk about the forces that were at work
for members of either the White House Press Corps or
the press in general that prevented the story from getting
out there and getting in front of the American people,
You know.

Speaker 3 (13:21):
I think it depends on every reporter. And the reason
I even said the comments was it just to me
just internally, it felt odd to especially after Jake and
I reported the book, I realized even though I had
been aggressive in reporting it, I realized how much I
didn't know, and it just felt weird winning an award

(13:41):
for something that I thought was something we fell short on.
So I just felt like I had to say something.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
Now.

Speaker 3 (13:47):
As for the forces you're talking about, I mean, I
think it depends, you know. I think some reporters carried
the White House's water right. They wanted access, they wanted
like the people to reach turn their calls, you know.

Speaker 4 (14:01):
I think there is some of that.

Speaker 3 (14:02):
I think some people let probably their own like you know,
internal political biases like affect them. And I think some
people just believed their sources. I have like empathy and
sympathy where you know, people were not telling the truth.
And sometimes even like the press flags didn't even know

(14:24):
what the truth was because they didn't really have access
to the president and they were just being told they
were trusting their own bosses, and then they were telling
reporters what their bosses had told them, and the reporters
trusted them because a lot of reporting is based on trusts,
and so I think it was a combination of of

(14:45):
all of those things.

Speaker 4 (14:46):
But Washington journalism, you.

Speaker 3 (14:48):
Know, does have a tendency to have instances of groupthink,
and I think this was one instance of that.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
I'd like to that there were some psychological factors going
on to as reporters are actual human beings, and it's
very uncomfortable, I think, to talk about age or aging
and talk about sort of cognitive decline. I think we

(15:19):
have all experienced it, perhaps with older people in our lives,
our parents. It's like taking the car keys away from
your father. You'd like, don't want to deal with it
on some level. And every time people would mention it,
you know, like David Axelrod or rom Emmanuel, you know,
there was this backlash of sort of shame and trying

(15:44):
to make the people feel embarrassed for even bringing it up.
So I almost saw it as a microcosm of a larger,
just plain uncomfortable conversation. Do you see that at all?

Speaker 1 (16:00):
First of all, it's impossible for me, and I did
cover this a bit, his cognitive decline or his age,
but it's impossible, knowing then what I know now, to
not feel humility when I look back at my coverage.
And even though Alex broke a ton of great stories
about this, we knew a fraction a fraction of what

(16:21):
we know now and what readers will learn. There is
group think. I mean, I look back at my coverage
of the Iraq War, and I was skeptical of the
WMD claim, the weapons of mass destruction claim, but in
retrospect not skeptical enough. But then, yeah, there is this discomfort.
And there is also this legacy in this town where

(16:42):
age is treated differently than in any other business.

Speaker 2 (16:47):
You mean, in politics and politics in you.

Speaker 1 (16:51):
Know, there are very few. There are no eighty five
year old or eighty year old anchors on teav right
are no, well no, I'm sure I'll be put on
the ice flow long before that, but but there are
usually there is usually in any other institution sports, uh,
at corporate America. For sure, there's a board of trustees

(17:13):
that they have to uh or that they have to
deal with, and on and on, Hollywood. I mean, there
is somebody else making the decision in politics. In politics,
really it's just the voters. There's nobody, especially if you're
very powerful, like the President of the United States, there's
no one that can say it's really time for you
to hang it up. I mean, we see this day

(17:34):
in day out in this town.

Speaker 2 (17:36):
Well, look at Strom theremy strom Thurman.

Speaker 1 (17:38):
Look at kayuh what was it named Kid Granger? Kid Granger,
who was the chair of the House Appropriations Committee, Diane
and Feinstein, there's the longlist, Thad Cochrane, John Conyers, and
and there is and it's it's obviously worse with President Biden,
but there is an an infrastructure, a family staff, people

(18:01):
making money off of that politician that are doing.

Speaker 2 (18:04):
It ane empowering as that politician.

Speaker 1 (18:07):
And all you have to do is snooker the voters.
That's all you have to do. There are people in
Congress right now who are too old to be in Congress.
But even raising that issue is still in this town
seen as rude or partisan. If you're depending on the
party of the person you're saying it about.

Speaker 2 (18:28):
You know, you mentioned that you did try to cover
the story and concede you could have done more.

Speaker 1 (18:34):
But it's been a lot more. To be clear, I
could have done a ton.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
More, and we'll talk about that in a second. But
in September of twenty twenty, Jake, you interviewed Joe Biden.
You asked him point blank about his health. You said,
if you're elected, you would be the oldest president ever.
The American people have been lied to before by presidents
about the president's health. Fdr jfk Ronald Reagan. We don't
know still what happened with Donald Trump and his visit

(18:58):
to Walter Reid last year. Will you pledge that if
you're elected, you will be transparent about your health? What
did he say to you? Shake back?

Speaker 1 (19:08):
Then he interrupted, He interrupted the question to say yes
that he would. And that's actually the very end of
the book is that scene is him promising that he
would be fully transparent and to be honest. Like obviously
we had all seen him older in the twenty nineteen
twenty two en campaign. He seemed fine in that interview.

(19:30):
I only had one more interview with him in twenty twenty,
where he seemed like twenty years older but still functioning.
But what we learned in our reporting was that starting
in about twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, if not before after
the death of Bo, there were basically two Bidens. There
was Fine Salvagable, Fine on the stomp Joe Biden, and

(19:51):
then there was non functioning Biden. The non functioning Biden
is the one who couldn't remember the names of top aides,
who lost his train of thought in a way that
was disturbing. We all lose our train of thought, but
beyond just normal losing her train of thought, and a
Joe Biden who was adult, and that non functioning Biden,

(20:11):
who I did not see really in twenty nineteen twenty twenty,
started showing up more and more behind the scenes, really
in a pronounced way in twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four,
and that's what Alex and I learned. He was not
transparent about it. He violated that pledge to the American people,
and in fact, there was an infrastructure around him that
worked to hide it.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
I want to talk about that infrastructure in a moment,
but first, preparing for this interview, some people are pointing
to a conversation interview you had with Laura Trump in
twenty twenty, and she talked about Biden's mental acuity, and
I'm sure you remember this. You believed and said you
felt she was mocking his stutter. She said she didn't

(20:53):
even know he had a stutter, but was really talking
about his cognitive struggles. You dismissed her, Jake, I think
in a rather taciturn way, with all due respect, having
watched the interview looking back, would you have handled it differently?

Speaker 1 (21:09):
Of course, of course. I mean on a conversation about aging,
what Laura Trump said aged well and what I said
aged poorly one hundred percent. Now, she obviously saw the
non functioning Biden in a way that I had not
really seen at that point. She was right, I was wrong,

(21:31):
one hundred percent.

Speaker 3 (21:32):
I would also just want to add, like, the Joe
Biden of twenty twenty three is different than the Joe
Biden of twenty twenty and that clip is from twenty twenty, right,
I know it is, so I just wanted to add that, like,
there there was a much more pronounced decline beginning late
in the presidency.

Speaker 2 (21:56):
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(22:37):
or book your own free personalized fitting. I'm curious in
this bifurcated media environment that we all live in now
if you think, if you think about it, I don't

(22:58):
know why I'm psycho you guys, but I wonder if
the coverage on Fox, which was particularly cruel I think
towards Joe Biden, mocking his falling, making snarky comments about
when he seemed to be confused. I wondered if that
might have influenced you a bit, make you on a

(23:21):
human level not want to cover his decline because Fox
was doing it so mercilessly.

Speaker 3 (23:29):
I think there were definitely some people that didn't want
to give oxygen to people that were acting in bad faith.
I'd also say that there was there's a difference between
making a meme of him stumbling up the stairs of
Air Force one and reporting actually what people inside the

(23:50):
White House were feeling about his limitations, which is what
I was trying to do, Jake was trying to do,
and what we eventually were able to find the breakthrough
with this book. But yeah, I agree that, you know, Fox,
you know, some people in Fox are taking a big
victory lap now, But I do think and there are

(24:11):
some good reporters there and people that I like, but
you know, the fact is that they were not reporting
stuff inside the room about how people in the Biden
White House were feeling. And I just I think they
were aggressive on this issue. But I do think there
is a difference in those two things.

Speaker 2 (24:32):
The kind of reporting they were doing. And I'm curious
Jake to get your take on that.

Speaker 1 (24:38):
I actually don't look at Fox coverage that way. I
actually look at Fox coverage. I mean, I follow progressive
and I follow conservative media to see where the holes
are in my coverage. And Fox would report things and
I would say behind the scenes, I'd be like, is
that did that happen? Is that true? Why aren't we
reporting that? That's I don't look at Fox the way

(24:59):
that that it's being suggested. I did cover I know
this now because of all the challenges. I did cover
Biden's stumbling at the Air Force Academy commencement. I did
cover biden falling off. No, I didn't. I was off
the day for that he fell off his bike. But
the other one, there was another fall. What was the
other fall?

Speaker 4 (25:20):
Up the Air Force one?

Speaker 1 (25:22):
I've covered his falls, and I will say that, as
Alex said, there's a tremendous difference between looking at an image,
however important it was at the time, and however more
important it is in retrospect of Joe Biden falling and
saying something's going on here, right. There is a difference
between that and Alex and I talking to more than

(25:44):
two hundred mostly Democratic sources, almost all after the election
and saying, listen to what these Democrats are telling us
about how much worse it is behind the scenes.

Speaker 2 (25:55):
Right. But at the time, that could have signaled, hey,
I think something might be wrong here. I need to
dig more. And that's something that you have acknowledged.

Speaker 1 (26:03):
Yeah, but I yes, one hundred percent. I will say also, though,
one of the things that we have learned in our
reporting is that the Biden white House, led by the president,
first Lady and Hunter and also top aids, they were
lying not just to the media, they were lying not
just to the public. They were lying to other Democrats.

(26:23):
They were lying to donors, they were lying to cabinet secretaries,
they were lying to democratic lawmakers. We talked to one
Democrat and this is in the book, who said he
would call and he would be told he's fine, he's fine,
he's fine. And then after Biden dropped out, this Democrat
sat down with the President and the first Lady is
a very high ranking person but didn't want to be named,

(26:44):
and said he's not fucking fine. Jill had to pop
in and finish his sentences. As we saw in the
view not long ago, he's not fucking fine. So the
deceit was the main issue. But yes, journalists should have
been poking and priding most especially believe me, there's no

(27:04):
one that flagellates me more than me. And yes, of
course I could have done more, and I should have.

Speaker 3 (27:09):
I just want to just add one last point, which is,
you know, the media loves talking about itself.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
Oh yes, I know, and reading about it and.

Speaker 4 (27:18):
Reading about itself.

Speaker 3 (27:21):
But I just think it's important to say, like, yep,
media can't even organize a happy hour if you've ever
been in a newsroom, right, Like, they have trouble organizing that.
Like the people that did the cover up with the
people close to the president.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
Well let's talk about them, the enablers or the infrastructure
what you refer it as the polup bureau.

Speaker 1 (27:45):
Well, it's not our term. That's other people in the
administration came up with that term. But it's a good term.

Speaker 2 (27:49):
Yes, okay, Well whoever came up with it, It includes
Mike Donaldan, Steve Rochetti, and Bruce.

Speaker 1 (27:55):
Reid, mainly Donaldin and Rochette.

Speaker 2 (27:58):
Okay, tell us about why it's so important to understand
the role they played and the dynamics of that politbureau,
if you will.

Speaker 3 (28:09):
You had a group of true believers of that had
been with Biden for decades, that believed he had been
you know, I think we call him the book and
this was Jake's idea was sort of the theology of
Biden or the Biden theology, and they were the most
reverential followers of that theology, that he could always come back,

(28:34):
that he would, that everyone always counts him out, and.

Speaker 4 (28:38):
When you're surrounded by people.

Speaker 3 (28:41):
In some ways, they loved him too much and as
a result, they didn't like bringing him bad news. They
didn't like, you know, telling truth to power, but not
sometimes out of fear, because Biden did have like some
temperament temper and had some term of issues, but also
I think just like out of love for him. And

(29:02):
in some ways it's their representative of you know, like
any the representative of the.

Speaker 4 (29:08):
Darks of how loyal there's a dark side of loyalty.

Speaker 2 (29:12):
Do you think that they were afraid of losing their jobs?
I mean, how much it was affection for Biden and
how much was just job security?

Speaker 3 (29:20):
Yeah, putting a percentage on it is difficult, but it
was definitely both. And we report in the book that
Mike Donalan made several million dollars off this campaign, and
you know, ste Verschetti also deeply wanted to become chief
of staff. I don't think you can separate out their
self interests from those emotional feelings.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
But they were zealots, as Alex notes in this Theology
of Joe Biden, just like you can't count him out,
he can beat anything. The stuff about Biden the public likes,
you know, like the kid with the stutter, the guy
who had the horrible tragedy in his family when he
was newly elected, the the you know, the guy that
had two brain aneurysms and was told he might never

(30:02):
talk again, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, the stuff,
the get he calls it. Get up. That's what Biden
calls it. Get up. His dad always told him get up.
That part of him is a charming part of him,
It's an American part of him. But it also led
to the fact that he thought that at the end
of the day he was indispensable. Only he could beat Trump,
only he was the right man for the time to

(30:23):
face down Putin, And it led to a hubris. I mean,
this whole story is just so tragic, and it really is.
I mean, I know everybody thinks their stories, what they
write about is Shakespearean, but there is just an element
of centuries old drama to this. The man who rises
to the top to save the nation from Donald Trump

(30:46):
and guarantees the reelection of Donald Trump by denying his
own fallibility.

Speaker 2 (30:51):
And his own hubris, right, or doesn't recognize his own hubris,
I think, and I think that was part of Joe
Biden's appeal, is he seemed like a you know, a
regular Joe, right. But in some quarters it's also viewed
as he had a real chip on his shoulder too,
you know, he never quite felt embraced by sort of

(31:15):
the elite, the hyper intellectual sort of people within the
Democratic Party, at least that's what I've read.

Speaker 3 (31:23):
Yeah, I mean that chip had grown to the size
of a boulder by the time that he's he's older,
and you know, in some ways, and people around him
have told us, you know, the you know, Obama basically
choosing Hillary over him as his Busney successor in twenty
sixteen just made it even bigger, right, like he just

(31:44):
what he wanted credit.

Speaker 4 (31:46):
And you know, you talk to the.

Speaker 3 (31:48):
Biden people and you ask about like the age stuff,
you know, back in twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four,
and they would just be like all presidents get two terms,
you know, like as if it's like just it was
to him, he deserved it.

Speaker 2 (32:02):
And yet he did make that statement, flanked by Corey
Booker and Gretchen Whitmer.

Speaker 4 (32:08):
The bridge.

Speaker 2 (32:10):
You know who else was Kamala Harris, Yes, Kamala Harris.
How could I forget? And said I will be a
bridge to a new generation Now implicitly and explicitly, I
think that meant he was going to be a one
term president. But understandably, Jake, I'm sure he didn't want
to say that because he didn't want to be a
lame duck at the beginning of his presidency.

Speaker 1 (32:31):
Yeah, but everybody had the impression that he was going
to be a one termer. And one of the reasons
was even before the bridge was in December twenty nineteen,
before the primaries began, four different senior staffers to Biden,
to the Biden campaign did a what Ryan Lizza, the
reporter for Politico who reported this he thought was a
strategic leak, which was they called him and said he's

(32:56):
only going to be a one term president. It was
basically part of the selling point because they knew people
were concerned about Biden's age, so the idea was, Hey,
he's only going to be a one term president. He's
only going to be a one.

Speaker 2 (33:05):
Term president, which sounds very craven, doesn't it.

Speaker 1 (33:07):
Well, I mean, it just sounds like they were making
a promise that they weren't going to honor. But it
wasn't just like an impression. It was created by the
Biden campaign and by Biden himself. People thought that that
was going to happen, and then enough things happened, including
a less than horrible although still not good midterm election

(33:30):
in twenty twenty two, that he thought that's it, I'm
going to run again. And there was no process. There
were people behind the scenes, we haven't needed done in
the book of White House senior advisor saying like, what
are we doing here? There was a polster, John Anzelone saying,
I assume we're going to pull for this. We're going
to see, like what the vulnerabilities are, see if this
is actually a good idea running a second running a

(33:51):
second term. At the end of the second term, he
would be eighty six, right closer to ninety than eighty.
That's literally what they were proposing. They still argue to
this day he could have done It's crazy, but in
any case, and Anita told Angeloni, no, no, we're not
pulling for this. The decision has been made.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
So was Anita done part of the problem and her husband,
I know, yeah, Bob Bauer.

Speaker 3 (34:14):
I don't think anyone in that in our circle was
not part of the problem, right, And the fact is
that Nia Dune, even if she had private concerns, no
one got in the president's face and said this is
a bad idea.

Speaker 1 (34:25):
Now.

Speaker 3 (34:26):
I think some of that is on the president for
not creating a culture in which dissent was welcomed or embraced.
But also I think it's on the people in their circle,
who also, to your point earlier, had like a vested
self interest in keeping this going. So you know, they're
the true believers that believe he could have been president

(34:47):
eighty six. And there are people that had concerns and
they also never you know, as Jack was referring to
this other Democrat earlier who also told us, there's a
point when you have to Yes, it's the president's decision,
but there there's a point when you have to sit
your principal down and say you're not up for this,
and no one did that.

Speaker 2 (35:05):
I wonder, Jake, if you experienced what I did. I
saw him at an event and he seemed to be
very happy to see me. I've known him for probably
even longer than you have, Jake, because I'm older than
you are. But you know, I had long conversations with
him after Tim Russert's funeral. You know, I've just covered

(35:25):
him for a long time too. And he said I
miss you, And I said, if you miss me, let's
do let's sit down and do an interview. You can
spend more time with me, and he said great. And
then after he spoke, he came back to me and said,
I really want to do an interview with you. Well,
I thought, great, you know, and then I talked to
his press team Kareem Yeah, and then I talked to

(35:49):
some other people who were there. I wrote to Anita
Dunn the run around I got sending me to some
twenty six year old kid who runs digital for them.
It was borderline insulting first off, but secondly, it was
so clear that they had absolute zero intention of allowing

(36:10):
him to sit down to have a conversation with me.
Did you face similar frustrations?

Speaker 1 (36:17):
Look, the last time I had an interview with him
was in October twenty twenty two. He seemed super old.
It was only fifteen minutes they.

Speaker 2 (36:25):
Did fifteen minutes. I mean, how much can you talk
about him? Fifteen minutes?

Speaker 1 (36:28):
Not a lot. And it was obviously in the middle
of the day. It wasn't it wasn't in the evening,
and you know, you can't really that's not a good
You can't really do a good interview in fifteen minutes,
especially because he's rather long winded. And then it became clear.
I mean, look, this is the thing. We talked to
people in the White House, communications people in the White House,

(36:48):
and somebody told me that the interview he did with
me in twenty twenty two he could not have done
in twenty twenty three. A senior White House person told
me he was not capable of doing it in twenty
twenty three. Again, I wish I could tell you who
that was. It told me that it's a name, you know.
But I mean, there was just a behind the scenes
and acknowledgment of this, And that's part of that's why

(37:09):
we say it's a cover up, because if it wasn't
to cover up, what do you call that decision to
not let you do an interview with him, even though
he says he wants to or not forget me, I mean,
or not do a serious sit down with anyone other
than I mean, what interviews did he do in twenty
twenty three, twenty twenty four. Very few. In twenty twenty four,
it was only after he was fighting for his job

(37:30):
that he sat down with Sephanopoulos and Lester.

Speaker 2 (37:33):
And they did a lot of podcasts that were kind
of very friendly Shafy to talk about things like his
Irish herited sure, things like that, not about public policy.

Speaker 1 (37:45):
He did do a couple interviews that I have to
say were good. I mean, it wasn't like he was
not capable of ever doing it. His interview on John
Stewart in the spring of twenty twenty four was fine.
His interview with Howard Stern was interesting, although you know,
it wasn't like policy probing. It was like get to
know Joe Biden.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
What about the interviews he did with George and Lester,
those weren't exactly there.

Speaker 1 (38:05):
Were disasters, to be honest. I mean, and you know,
George asked him, have you seen the debate and his
answer was I don't think so.

Speaker 2 (38:15):
We'll talk about the debate in a moment, because you know,
you were moderating that well, I remember, yeah, yeah, I'm
sure you remember it well, but I want to ask
you about sort of the inner circle a little more.
What about Jill Biden's role in all this?

Speaker 4 (38:29):
I think it was.

Speaker 3 (38:32):
I think other people within the White House have called
her one of the most powerful first ladies in American history.
And it's remarkable also because she used to be a
reluctant political spouse. She has this anecdote in her memoir
where when Biden was considering running in two thousand and four,
she went through the sort of meeting with the consultants

(38:53):
wearing a bikini and a sharpie written no on her
stomach because she was like, we are not running for as.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
One does, so well, good on her right.

Speaker 3 (39:05):
She made her views clear, and you know, but that changes.
By twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, she is an
enthusiastic political spouse, and she sort of replaces Joe Biden's
sister of Val Biden, who had been the campaign manager
for some many of his campaigns. You know, Val Biden
is skeptical of him running for president because of the

(39:27):
toll it was going to take on the family, given
all of Hunter's problems and Ashley's problems, and what they've
been through with Bo's death, but Jill becomes sort of
a much more enthusiastic uh and pushing force. Her top aid,
who is mentioned along the book, you know, becomes a
deputy campaign manager on the twenty twenty campaign, eventually becomes

(39:50):
one of they, by the accounts of people inside the
White House, becomes one of the most powerful people in
the entire Biden administration. Is Jill Biden's top aid that
he had control over personnel. He is vetting people constantly
for loyalty. People referred to him as the loyalty Police.

Speaker 4 (40:08):
And you know, Joe and.

Speaker 3 (40:12):
Jill, I think they have this very like authentic love
for each other. But so if you have people whispering
in their ear this person's loyal, this person's not loyal,
it creates this culture of paranoia.

Speaker 2 (40:24):
Yes, you know, a lot of conversations I had with people,
both in the political world and outside it about Jill Biden.
And there's so much obvious speculation involved here and projection.
But so many people were like, how can she not
protect her husband?

Speaker 1 (40:44):
She thought she was She thought she was protecting her husband.
She thought she was protecting Hunter from a Republican president
who was going to prosecute him. She thought she was
protecting the country from Donald Trump.

Speaker 2 (40:58):
How big a factor was the Hunter stuff?

Speaker 1 (41:00):
I think it was considerable. I think Hunter was driving
the decision making for the family in a way that
people he was almost like a chief of staff of
the family.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
Does that strike you as pretty bizarre?

Speaker 1 (41:11):
It's bizarre because I think he is provably, demonstrably unethical, sleazy,
and prone to horrible decisions.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
I mean, tell me how you really feel well, I mean.

Speaker 1 (41:22):
I just look at the record. I mean he after
his brother died, he cheated on his wife with his
brother's widow and then got her addicted to crack. That's
just one thing I could say. I mean it there.
I don't have a lot of personal regard for him,
and just based on having nothing to do with I
barely have ever met him. I've met him like once

(41:44):
or twice. But I knew Bo Bo was a great,
upstanding guy.

Speaker 2 (41:49):
I knew him too.

Speaker 1 (41:50):
Really a real loss for the country too, not just
for his family, for the country. But Hunter is not
that And the idea of him drive the family car
as it were, is just really really questionable. But one
of the things we heard from somebody who is close
to the family. Shall we say is that denial is
a big part of the family ethos. There is a

(42:13):
you know, there's all of these my word. I'll give
you my word. As a Biden that's a thing that
President Biden likes to say. A less well known family
maxim is don't call fat people fat, which means don't
acknowledge ugly truths. I didn't make it up. It's not
a nice maxim. I don't use it. But that's don't
call fat people fat, and it means it means don't
acknowledge ugly truths. It means that's why they hid bo

(42:36):
Biden's illness. It's why they didn't really acknowledge Hunter's problems
until it was too late. And it's why they didn't,
in my view and Alex's view, acknowledged Joe Biden's problems
until the country saw them and said, oh my god.

Speaker 3 (42:52):
Well, and I'd say that, and there's still denile. One
thing I would just want to add about the Hunter
piece of it is, I don't think you can understand
why Hunter was so important if you don't understand that
Hunter is the only living person from the accident in
nineteen seventy two. Right, Bo, his wife, his daughter, they're

(43:12):
all dead. Hunters the last thing of this cataclysmic, searingtic,
traumatic part of Joe Biden's life, and he almost lost them,
right like a Hunter. He almost lost Hunter too, because
he was off the rails. And you know Hunter, I
think at times abuse that relationship, relationship, and there was

(43:37):
this feeling among Biden's aids that you know, if Biden
doesn't keep like Hunter would say something and say and
Joe was scared Hunter would commit suicide if he didn't
do what Hunter wanted.

Speaker 1 (43:49):
Or overdose accidentally. But yeah, that he would be driven
to I mean by Hunter. Biden has said this publicly
that he thought that the prosecutions of him were too
him to suicide or overdose to destroy his dad. And
that is our reporting suggests that that was one of

(44:10):
the main reasons for his deterioration.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
I was going to ask you about that, the stress
of Hunter situation, the tremendous grief over the loss of
Bo from glioblastoma. Do you think that those two huge
life events did contribute to his decline.

Speaker 3 (44:35):
That's what everyone around him has told us, is that
the Joe Biden of twenty fourteen is different than the
Joe Biden of twenty nineteen. In between Bo obviously died,
and then the Joe Biden twenty nineteen is not the
same as Joe Biden of late twenty twenty three. And
in that time Hunter was under prosecution from his dad's
own justice department and had a plea deal unravel and

(44:57):
then was headed towards a trial which was ended up
and being in the same month as that debate, a
trial that exposed the family started laundry to the entire world.

Speaker 1 (45:07):
Yeah, the three moments that people close to President Biden
have said just were utterly destroying of his psyche. Was
Bo dying in twenty fifteen. One aid to him described
it like pouring water on sand, just to watch psychically
what happened to Joe Biden. And then, as Alex just said,

(45:29):
the plea deal and then the guilty verdict, two of
the moments that were just like he in twenty twenty
three and twenty twenty four where he just seemed to
melt and lose it and we look, we're not unsympathetic
to that. It must have been horrible. You've lost a
wife and you've lost two children, and you think you're

(45:50):
going to lose a third. I can't imagine going through that.
It's absolutely devastating. But that is what happened to him
and why when he stepped on that stage, his attlement
was there for everybody to see because it had been
happening for at that point at least a couple of years.

Speaker 3 (46:11):
And I think, are you know, I think we both
have sympathy, and the people around him have sympathy, and
I think that also contributed to why people weren't willing
to get in his face and say tell him hard truth,
tell him hard truth, because like he's been through so
much and everything, which is true. But also it's I
think what some people in the arcycle laws side of

(46:34):
is it wasn't just about him.

Speaker 4 (46:36):
He was president.

Speaker 2 (46:44):
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(47:05):
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(47:28):
Did anybody at any point you guys say anything to
him like mister President or Joe or honey aka chill,
you know, are you really up up to this?

Speaker 1 (47:44):
That?

Speaker 2 (47:44):
Was there ever even a conversation about I.

Speaker 3 (47:46):
Mean, the closest is blinken second favorite say Tony blink
and ask them in twenty twenty three, are you sure? Basically,
basically you're going to be eighty six by the end
of the next term. You should you want to run?

Speaker 1 (48:01):
But it wasn't. I don't think you can.

Speaker 4 (48:03):
Yeah, it's gentle.

Speaker 1 (48:04):
I mean there were questions, you know, there were conversations
like that, but nothing never serious. Yeah, nothing like nothing
like what frankly, my wife would say if I were
losing it and it was time for me to retire
from reporting or TV or whatever. Like. I have a

(48:24):
very direct wife. It's one of the things that's great
about her. It's I recommend it. When you find a spouse,
Alex get one who's going to tell you the truth.
It's not always fun, but it's incredibly valuable. And yeah,
nothing like that.

Speaker 2 (48:36):
That's why I think everybody wonders about Jill Biden, like
did she was she enjoying the job too? I mean,
was it something beyond hunter? Was it something beyond protecting
her husband? Was there something that understandably? And I think
you can appreciate someone feeling this way, like I'm enjoying
this gig. I don't really want to give it up.

Speaker 1 (48:58):
It's a good gig.

Speaker 3 (49:00):
Some people referred to as she got Jackie oed that
she fell in love with the life of being first Lady.
They noted that she had three Vogue covers in four years,
which was as many as Michelle Obama had in eight years,
and that she did and Bernal her top aid. They

(49:22):
would they were planning in twenty twenty two, all the
things they were going to do, all the trips she
was going to do in the second term. They would
frequently say, we'll do that in the second term. So yeah,
I think there's also like she fell in love a
little bit with the life. According to people around her.
It's not like our opinion where it's the people that

(49:42):
we talked to That's what they said.

Speaker 1 (49:43):
Can I just say one other thing that does touch
on this, which is one of the reasons Barack Obama
President Obama did not support Joe Biden running for president
in twenty sixteen, is because he saw what happened to
him after bo died, and he saw that he wasn't
emotional only ready to do that. And so Biden Biden's

(50:06):
resentment towards Obama and David Pluff and David Axelron and
David Seamus, who was Obama's polster. These are three Davids
that Obama basically dispatched to say bad idea under president
in sixteen twenty sixteen. And you know there are other
reasons too. Of course, Hillary and Bernie had a lot
of the support sewed up already for various reasons. But

(50:30):
the anger and the resentment that Biden felt about that,
which he still feels to this day, that he wrote
about in his memoir. I think he says something like
the president was not supportive, not encouraging, and not encouraging,
which is it's a big thing to put in your
in your in your memoir that is so animating that

(50:52):
you're not on my team. I'm not going to listen
to you, And people would say, when people would say
to Barack Obama in twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four,
can't you say something to him, he's too old, he
would say, he's still mad at me about Hillary. That's
what Obama would say, He's still mad at me about Hillary.
He won't listen to me. So when you cross Joe

(51:13):
Biden in any way, even if it's calling a fat
person fat like it is.

Speaker 2 (51:19):
The penalty is a palty. Yeah, but you know that's
so funny, Jake. You must have read my mind because
that was going to be my next question about why
Barack Obama didn't step in And okay, he was mad
at him in twenty sixteen, but like somebody should have
put their big boy pants on and had a real
conversation with this guy. There was nobody in the Democratic Party. Nobody,

(51:43):
I mean, finally, Nancy Pelosi, I understand, you know, had
to come to Mamma commers conversation.

Speaker 1 (51:50):
Chesh Schemer was really the one who ultimately said you
shouldn't run.

Speaker 2 (51:54):
But I mean, doesn't it strike you as not exactly
profiles and courage that nobody could actually call a gathering
and you know, deal with the consequences of telling Joe
Biden that this was not good for the country or
his party.

Speaker 1 (52:12):
You started this interview reading these nasty notes on Instagrams.
It's no, no, no, I'm not I'm fine. But like,
imagine that times a million, because I mean, this is
just anonymous people on Instagram for a story that is
true that we just shared. You know, we're just sharing
an ugly fact of a story that at least as

(52:34):
of now, nobody has disputed. And that's nothing, but it's notable.
It's notable that there is that blowback. I don't question
your citing it, but imagine that coming from Democratic members
of Congress, Democratic senators, members of the administration cabinet secretaries
to the one person trying to say he shouldn't run

(52:55):
for reelection. David Ashrod says something in twenty twenty two
by it needs to think about whether or not he
should run. He gets an anvil dropped on his head.
Joe Biden calls him a prick. Dean Phillips runs against him,
says the President is a wonderful president, but he's too old.
Let's have a debate. Let's let's show the country like that.
I mean, his plan was to get Biden on a

(53:16):
debate stage, so what happened in June would happen in January.
But he has an anvil dropped on his head. He's
out of politics, he's a persona non grata, and on
and on and on. Chevn Hughes and Andy Laski from
The Wall Street Journal write a story in June bringing
some of these some of these issues to light, and
an anvil drops on them. They get destroyed on social media.

(53:40):
Senators come out and dispute them and attack them. Some
of the same senators who weeks later behind the scenes
would be like saying, Joe Biden, you should not run
for reelection, are on the record attacking those reporters. I mean,
it's not a small thing.

Speaker 3 (53:55):
I would say, your question to think is a really
good one. That's the reason we wrote the book was
because in our minds, the most important moment of the
entire election was Joe Biden decided to run for election
and the fact that no one stood up and they
sort of SlutWalk the party supwalk their way to there.

(54:16):
Even though I think we I think our reporting pretty
conclusively proves there were a lot of people that knew better.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
There seems to be, or seemed to be, a prevailing
sentiment within the Biden's circle that while he struggled with
some of the more performative tasks of the presidency like
press conferences, speeches, debates and I'm going to talk about
the debate, that he was still fully capable of doing

(54:45):
his job, that he was capable of running the country.
Does that narrative hold true? After all your reporting? Was
he capable of running the country And if he wasn't,
who was?

Speaker 3 (54:58):
I mean, members of his were worried told us anonymously
that they were worried if there was a crisis at
two am and how he'd be able to respond. And also,
you know, I do find this interesting. You know, as
we reported the book, a lot of people would concede, Okay, yes,
like he had to have meetings in the middle of

(55:19):
the day ten to four, Yes, like could he speak
not really? Yes, he was not, you know, as quick
on the stump as he was. Yes, he had trouble
moving and walking. But then at the end of the day,
But they said, like, but they're they're the hill they're

(55:41):
dying on is but his decision making was still the
same as it was twenty years ago.

Speaker 1 (55:47):
That's that's their argument today. That's the rebuttal to this book.

Speaker 2 (55:50):
And in fact, Chris Meeger, Joe Biden spokesperson, I'll just
read this while we're on the topic, said the former
president's team had not yet seen a copy of the
book and had not been consulted, and it's fact checking quote.
We are not going to respond to every bit of
this book, mister Meagher said. We continue to await anything
that shows where Joe Biden had to make a presidential decision,

(56:11):
or where national security was threatened, or where he was
unable to do his job. In fact, the evidence points
to the opposite. He was a very effective president.

Speaker 1 (56:22):
So whether or not he was an effective president's up
to the historians, and it's up to the American people.
They the American people, according to Poling, did not think
he was an effective president, but that's subjective. We have
two senators in the book, and their stories are significant
Democratic senators pro Biden senators. One of them is Senator

(56:43):
Mark Warner, who was at the time the chairman of
the Senate Intelligence Committee. Biden calls him shortly after October seventh,
twenty twenty three after the attack of Bi Famas on Israel,
because Warner is on a separate issue. Upset because it's
not just Warner, actually many members of the Senate very
upset because the Biden team is about to release eleven

(57:03):
Yemenis from Gitmo and send them to I think Oman
and there are a lot of Senators, Mark Warner among
them who think they're just going to go and join
the fight, whether with Hamas or Hazbola or the houthis Like,
this is a bad idea. Do not do this. So
he reaches out to Jake Sullivan, and the National Security Advisor,

(57:26):
Jake Sullivan has Biden call him. Mark Warner is shaken
by the conversation. He thinks that Biden doesn't really have
a grasp on what's what's going on and why he's concerned.
So that's one story. Another story takes place in June
twenty twenty four when Senator Michael Bennett of Colorado, a
Democrat pro Biden, goes to the White House for a

(57:49):
immigration event and Biden has a really weird moment in
that immigration event where neurologists told us it looked neurological
in nature. It's like a kind of like freezes and
then whispers into the microphone in a way that like
it's it's very off putting. I'll send you the I'll

(58:11):
send you the clip, but it's it's off putting, and
Bennett thinks to himself, this is why our immigration policy
is such a mess. Our president, I'm paraphrasing, but our
president is not capable of managing this issue. And in fact,
the Department of Phone Land Security thought that there was
going to be an order at the beginning of the

(58:32):
Biden administration to help with border security. It never comes,
and the border policy is something of a mess, like
millions of people across the border illegally. It's not clear
like what exactly the policy is. There really isn't anything
done to try to do to crack down on the
border until it becomes an obvious political liability in the

(58:53):
fall of twenty twenty three. So the assertion by the
Biden team that you can't point to any like effect
that his deterioration has had, which is interesting by the
way that they're not challenging the notion that a lot
of people have stories of deterioration is one that I

(59:14):
think those two senators that the very least would take
issue with and that's just what we know about, Like
we don't have subpoena power, you know. I'm sure there's
much more, but that's what we're able to find out.

Speaker 2 (59:24):
And that is a hard thing to gauge, right, especially
from the outside. He had several falls during his term,
and you report that his physician, doctor Kevin O'Connor, privately
said that if he had another batfall, a wheelchair might
be necessary, which has gotten a lot of attention. I'm
wondering if you could shed some light on what some

(59:44):
of the physical ailments were, because it's unclear. We sort
of wondered if he had neuropathy, you know, in his feet.
I know that. I think you mentioned he had some
spine issues. What was going on with Joe Biden physically?
What did your report find.

Speaker 3 (01:00:01):
There was significant degeneration of his mind, which may have
made it not just uh, you know, advise, but necessary
for him to use a wheelchair in a second term. Now,
the White House throughout twenty twenty four tried to uh
say that, you know, his halting walk was because when
he fractured his foot in twenty twenty, you know, he

(01:00:23):
didn't want to wear the walking boot that much and
as a result, so he was undone by his own vigor. Essentially,
it's like the is the spin and that just wasn't candid.
The doctor O'Connor at the time said that his foot
had heels as expected after ten weeks and when they

(01:00:44):
took the boot off, and if you look at the
it was there to see. If you wanted to read
between the lines on his medical evaluations that his you
know that he had significant spinal arthritis that would have
required him not to be in a wheelchair in order

(01:01:06):
to do the job.

Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
Just months before his fateful debate with the Trump, O'Connor
released a physical exam and wrote in a public memo
that the president quote continues to be fit for duty
and fully executes all of his responsibilities without any exemptions
or accommodations. Yet he never gave him a cognitive test.

(01:01:28):
And you note that these tests were pretty much standard
procedure for any one sixty five or over. In fact,
I think I need to call my doctor for you guys.
But why not? Why didn't he give him a cognitive test?

Speaker 1 (01:01:41):
Well, the official answer was that the president passes a
cognitive test every day with the job he does. That's
their official explanation, But there were people closer to the
White House or in the White who's the thought the
only reason to not give a test like that is
because you don't want to know the answer, you don't
want to have to release it. And in fact, at
the end of the book, doctor John Nathan Reiner, who

(01:02:01):
has been an advisor to the White House Physician's Board
for many many terms of various presidents, he had some
harsh words for vaguely phrased but harsh words for doctor O'Connor,
and also thinks that the White House Physician Letter, which
basically is not required by law and can be as

(01:02:22):
detailed as any White House wants it to be or not.
As you noted in my question about it in twenty twenty,
we still don't know why Trump went to Walter to
read back in twenty nineteen.

Speaker 2 (01:02:33):
Right, And also his medical reports back during his administration
was done by some doctor who said he weighed like
fifty pounds less than he actually does. I mean that
kind of thing, although I think he might be on
a GLP one right now, but some reports then is
that I mean.

Speaker 4 (01:02:50):
I wrote a story in the fall of twenty twenty three.

Speaker 3 (01:02:52):
Because I was on the politician age beat and like,
we know nothing. I mean, Donald Trump is the oldest
president ever inaugurated, older than Joe Biden was on Joe
Biden's day one, and we know nothing about his health.

Speaker 1 (01:03:05):
By the way, this is another argument for the people
who are like, well, why aren't you covering Trump? Why
aren't covering Trump? Like everything that Biden did sets a
precedent for future presidents to hide whatever they want to
hide and just say you didn't say anything to Joe
Biden about this, you know. Jonathan Ryner. Doctor Reiner thinks
that the White House physician should have to submit his

(01:03:27):
report under penalty of perjury. That's not the requirement now,
I mean honestly, right now, like a doctor could write
he is great and just hand the paper in and like,
there's no requirement for this.

Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
So interesting given how much transparency there seems to be
compared to past administrations. I remember doing a piece for
CNN back in the day, like in nineteen eighty. Believe
it or not, the Skyning physician named Ken Chris Bell,
who was at the University of Virginia where I went
to school, did a whole book on presidential health and

(01:04:00):
how it was covered up. Obviously the FDR wheelchair, but
the JFK and Addison's disease and the kind of steroids
he was taking. We know that Woodrow Wilson was being
propped up and basically his wife Edith was running the country.
I mean, you would think by now there would be
much more transparency about this, but still there's so much

(01:04:22):
that can be hidden.

Speaker 3 (01:04:23):
Right well, and that era, you know, in the eighties, nineties,
early two thousands, we had more information about presidential health.

Speaker 4 (01:04:30):
Than probably ever before.

Speaker 3 (01:04:32):
But to your point, you've seen a huge treat We
know less and less and less and less.

Speaker 2 (01:04:37):
It seems like you saw with Reagan and his Alzheimer's
disease for example, right, But it's just surprising to me.

Speaker 1 (01:04:44):
It's crazy, and I mean one of the reasons is
because everybody wants it. The people who make the laws
are partisans, and they want those laws to apply to
the other guy. They don't want it to apply to them.
I mean, right now, somebody could pass a law requiring
more forthrightness and transparency on health, it would go nowhere.
By the way, just like the efforts to band insider
trading by members of Congress, it would go nowhere. But

(01:05:06):
even if it went somewhere, the only way you could
get that passed, if it is if it was for
a one president from now. You could never have it
passed to apply to Donald Trump, you know what I mean,
just like in the world of Washington. That's how it is. Oh,
this law applies to me. No, no, no, we'll do it
for the next person. We'll do it for the next person.
But even then it won't pass.

Speaker 2 (01:05:25):
Right, And then I wonder to how you both reconcile
the fact that Democrats introduced resolutions in legislation pushing Trump
to undergo a psychiatric evaluation in the first term. We
have to, But those same Democrats were conspicuously silent. Yes,
I quotes because it is from your book about Biden
not taking a cognitive exam.

Speaker 3 (01:05:47):
I feeled Democrats the ones that have to reconcile that,
not us. I mean, I think the obvious answer, and
maybe they'll have a different answer. I think the obvious
answer is just partisanship.

Speaker 4 (01:05:56):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:05:57):
They introduced those bills because they want to hurt Donald Trump,
and if they had sincere fears about presidential health, they
would have reintroduced them during the Biden pretancy, but they didn't.

Speaker 1 (01:06:11):
It's so odd. But I mean, this is something that
I think everybody in this room probably feels. It's just
the oddness of partisanship, like because I just I've you know,
even when I was in a party, like when I
was a kid, Like, it's not something I am now
I'm independent, and I just don't even understand it. It's
just you. In order to be a partisan, you have
to be intellectually dishonest. You just have to be, like,

(01:06:33):
there's no other way to do it, it seems. And
the idea that somebody would talk about Donald Trump's fitness
and not say anything about Joe Biden's and vice versa,
seems just strange to me. There should be one set
of rules and everybody should follow them, and we should
know everything about the health of any president.

Speaker 2 (01:07:02):
If you want to get smarter every morning with a
breakdown of the news and fascinating takes on health and
wellness and pop culture, sign up for our daily newsletter
Wake Up Call by going to Katiecuric dot com. I

(01:07:23):
did want to ask you quickly about Robert Herr. You
mentioned David Axelroder, you know, being called a prick by
Joe Biden. You mentioned everybody who had the whole democratic
infrastructure come down on them, and the White House when
they said even suggested that he was not completely there.

(01:07:43):
And Special Counsel Robert her in twenty twenty three, as
you all write about, was appointed to investigate Joe Biden's
handling of classified documents. He found no grounds for criminal charges,
but his report included the damning conclusion that Biden was,
in hers word, a sympathetic, well meaning elderly man with
a poor memory. That just sent biden Land into a

(01:08:09):
complete panic, didn't it.

Speaker 3 (01:08:11):
I think even people inside the White House think that
that was because they intuitively knew it was true, like
they would make a political argument, this is like it's
obviously obviously it's biggest political liability. But I think their
reaction to it suggested an extra defensiveness that came from

(01:08:33):
they knew. As someone put it to me from the
White House, he said the thing.

Speaker 2 (01:08:39):
We were all he said the thing.

Speaker 3 (01:08:40):
He said the thing, and everyone was not allowed to
say the thing, and he said it, and that was
not allowed in that world. And I think as a result,
I mean, this is the point when I think, if
you want to give them sort of grace for being
you know, he has a few bend moments to be

(01:09:02):
sole great president.

Speaker 4 (01:09:03):
You know, innocence.

Speaker 3 (01:09:04):
This is the moment when you have your own Justice
Department come in and say come on. And their response
was to try to ruin him.

Speaker 1 (01:09:14):
Not just her. They painted Robert her as a you know,
partisan hack, which he was not. But they went after
Merrick Garland. They leaked to again to Politico that Garland
would not be invited back after Biden's reelection. They basically
fired him and date to come and Garland. By the

(01:09:36):
end of the Biden presidency comes to the conclusion that
even though he came on board to be an independent
attorney general with fear of favor for no one and
tried to do that job by appointing special counsel's independent
councils to investigate Trump and Hunter and the President himself,
that Biden didn't actually want that, he actually wanted protection

(01:09:59):
and Robert her we should not like it took him
months to find a job. The word got out, do
not hire Robert Herr and law firms and you know,
people looking for a corporate council. They got the hint.

Speaker 2 (01:10:15):
Kind of sounds Trump downright Trump esque.

Speaker 1 (01:10:18):
One percent. Yeah, although Trump obviously does it at a
much grander scale because everything with him is bigger. But yeah,
one hundred percent. The Robert Hurr who's he now has
a job, but he is, you know, like even if
you disagree with what he did, and he basically concluded
that Biden broke the law, but he was unprosecutable because
he seemed behind the scenes in that interview like a

(01:10:44):
very adult old man, except he put it much nicer.
And if you read the transcript of that interview, it's shocking.
It is interviewing a It's like interviewing some guy at
the bus station. It's just a guy who just is
talking and talking and talking. At one point, Robert Hurst
is he's trying to find out when this classified information

(01:11:05):
was shared with people who didn't have access to it,
shouldn't have had access to it, and when Biden was
no longer in office, this is in twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen.
Biden is unable to understand when that is He says
something like you have to understand during this period, Bo
is either deployed or dying. That wasn't true. Bo was
deployed I think in like two thousand and seven, two

(01:11:25):
thousand and eight, something like that, and Bo died in
twenty fifteen. Obviously no one thinks that Joe Biden, you
know that that's not an incredibly important date to him.
But to not know the twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen was
not when Bo died, that's very concerning. And when it

(01:11:46):
came out in the Her report, Biden portrayed it. And
I don't know if this is ignorance or lying, as
if Robert hurt had brought up Bo Bo's death, he hadn't,
he'd asked about this year twenty seventeen, two an eighteen.
It's really shocking. So Robert Hurr had this window into
what Joe Biden is like behind closed doors in a

(01:12:08):
way that nobody had gotten in years except for like
his inner circle, and he was shocked at what he saw,
and they tried to destroy him for it.

Speaker 2 (01:12:17):
Did you interview Robert Hurr during this time? Did you try?
Was he?

Speaker 1 (01:12:21):
Oh? At the time, he wouldn't talk to anybody. At
the time, Robert her wouldn't talk and in fact, he
wouldn't even rebutt it when Joe Biden said that in
February twenty twenty four. He wouldn't even allow anybody at
the Justice Department to say, that's not what happened. Robert
Hurr did not bring up bo dying because that's just
not what the DOJ does. And so he kind of

(01:12:42):
had to just sit there in self imposed misery, watching
his name be dragged through the mud, and people were
mad at him. People in his life were mad at him.
Why would you bring that up? That's so horrible. I
know a gold star mom, very conservative Republican, furious at
Robert Hurr. Why would he bring that up? He didn't, didn't.
But this is what this is what most white houses do.

(01:13:03):
This is certainly what the Biden Whitehouse does.

Speaker 2 (01:13:04):
A shame he couldn't defend himself and set the record straight.
But now this book is Let me ask you about
the not so great debate for Joe Biden. Anyway, Jake,
you're the moderator along with your colleague Dana Bash. You're
getting ready. I'm sure you're nervous. That's very stressful. I've
never moderated a debate.

Speaker 1 (01:13:23):
Huge oversun by the commission.

Speaker 2 (01:13:26):
But I can only imagine, like, so, you're ready to go.
What was your reaction and when did you know? I
watch it with a group of a very interesting group
of people, by the way, which I'll tell you later.
What was your reaction when you or when did you
realize that, oh my god, this is a disaster.

Speaker 1 (01:13:48):
The first that really there were two. The whole debate
was horrible for him, and I don't think it's hyperbole
to say it's the worst presidential debate performance ever by anyone.
In that first block, he starts out shaky but fine,
and then he has that answer where he just completely
loses his train of thought. He can't come up with

(01:14:09):
words for things, and he says, we finally beat medicare
I think he meant we finally beat COVID. I think
that's what he was saying, but who knows. And I said,
thank you, mister President, because as time was up, we
had these iPads so we could communicate with the control room.
And I wrote, holy smokes, I just because I didn't
know who was going to be back there reading it,

(01:14:30):
I would have said something else. You and I have
similar predilections for salty language, so but I couldn't believe it.
I couldn't. I I knew that this was going to
be a much bigger story than a bad debate. This was,
this was everything that the Republicans had been saying about him.

Speaker 2 (01:14:53):
And Dana passed you a note.

Speaker 1 (01:14:55):
Dana passed me a note saying he just lost the
He just lost the election. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:15:00):
But what was even weirder, Jake, was his reaction to
his performance afterwards.

Speaker 1 (01:15:06):
He didn't I don't think he had any idea.

Speaker 2 (01:15:08):
Right tell me about that. He came up to you guys, said, hi.

Speaker 1 (01:15:12):
Jill Biden. So Donald Trump just kind of storms off,
By the way, I have to say, considering how historically
awful Biden was, Donald Trump actually was very restrained on
that topic. Not on Biden himself after the fact, you mean, well, no,
during the debate. He wasn't restrained during the debate, but
on the topic of this man. Like you could imagine Joe,

(01:15:35):
you could imagine Donald Trump saying, can you believe that
this guy is running the country? He can't even he
can't even get out of sense.

Speaker 2 (01:15:43):
I think you're right about that. During the debate.

Speaker 1 (01:15:45):
During the debate, the only thing he said was I'm
not sure what he just said in that answer, And
I'm not sure that he knows either. That's it. That's
the only thing he said. I'm not saying it was
a restrained performance. But on that topic. So Donald Trump
leaves Joe Biden and Jill comes up, helped him down
from it, says to him, and well, she says, they

(01:16:06):
just come over and makes make small talk.

Speaker 2 (01:16:08):
But first she says to him, you did a great
job show. You answered all of their questions.

Speaker 1 (01:16:13):
She says, that's later, that's later that that's later that
night they go to a rally. After the debate, Jill
and Joe go to a rally and she, I think,
in retrospect regretted it, but she says, you did a
great job, Joe. You answered every question like he was
in third grade. I mean, it was so infanalizing.

Speaker 2 (01:16:36):
But this was later that. It was later that it
was talk about what he said to you and Dana.

Speaker 1 (01:16:40):
He comes over and he says something along the lines
of he's just kind of like trying to get us
to comment about how many lies Trump told and I, no,
you can't talk about it. I guess we'll go see.

Speaker 2 (01:16:53):
Was this was this on air?

Speaker 1 (01:16:55):
I don't. I don't think so. Yeah, I don't think so.
And if it was, it wasn't Mike, and if it was,
CNN didn't give it to me because I asked them.
I said, I'd love to know exactly what he said.
But and then by from memory, I didn't know what
to say. It was just so colossally horrible, and the
way that Joe Biden had to help him down from
the one foot or not even one step stage because

(01:17:18):
there was like some weird lighting and it might be
disorienting for a eighty one year old man. I didn't
know what to say. I was wearing Phillies cufflinks. It
was a middle of baseball season, and Joe is from
Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, outside Philly, so I showed him, you know,
one of these awkward moments. I'm just like, I got
Philly cufflinks.

Speaker 2 (01:17:34):
Yeah, you're a cousband other than that, missus Lincoln.

Speaker 1 (01:17:38):
Your husband, you know, just shat the bed in front
of the whole world. Did you like my Phillies cuflinks?
I didn't know what to say. I didn't say the
shit the bed stuff, but it was just it was
And then they wandered off, but.

Speaker 4 (01:17:49):
They didn't seem to know how.

Speaker 1 (01:17:50):
They didn't seem to have any idea or if or
they're just very practiced politicians and they knew not to
reveal it. But I kind of believe the former.

Speaker 2 (01:17:58):
And even his inner circle initially or ever, did not
say that it was a disaster, right. I mean, they
said he had a cold, right, And I think he
told you he had a cold to Jake according to
your book, and he.

Speaker 1 (01:18:13):
Said, sorry, sorry about my voice, I have a cold.

Speaker 2 (01:18:15):
Right, right. But they didn't seem to kind of level
with him after that. They were still spinning the polls
and acting like he was still in the in the game.

Speaker 3 (01:18:26):
They're very dismissive of all of the and they felt
that it was a complete overreaction, and I think part
of that, honestly, is revealing that the person they saw
on the debate stage was not that different than the
person they often saw behind the scenes. And you know,

(01:18:47):
there's been some discussion of like why we use the
word cover up, Well, it wasn't a cover up, then
why was it so shocking to so many people? And
it's because like that in a circle was and I
don't even know how conscious it was versus is just
they were like protecting their guy, but they were shielding
him from that part of Biden being the world seeing

(01:19:10):
seeing that.

Speaker 2 (01:19:11):
How long was it before he dropped out between the
debate and when he finally announced he wasn't running, It.

Speaker 1 (01:19:17):
Was a little over three weeks. It was June twenty
seventh of July twenty first, a little over three weeks.

Speaker 2 (01:19:21):
What did your reporting tell you about how Kamala Harris
walked that tight rope.

Speaker 1 (01:19:25):
She kept her head down. She kept her head down.
She did not want anyone to think that she was
in any way trying to push him out. She was very,
very mindful of that. And in fact, when there were
democratic you know, when there was an effort to shore
up support among Democratic senators and they and the White

(01:19:46):
House asked her to call some Democratic senators, the ones
that she did not have a good relationship with or
a strong relationship with. She declined because she didn't want
anybody to think, hey, guess who it is. You know
that she was in any way campaigning for it. We
use the term in the book that she was loyal
to a fault, and I think we mean it literally.

(01:20:08):
She was so loyal to him that she was part
of this problem.

Speaker 2 (01:20:14):
Well, it also cost her dearly when she said on
the view that I wouldn't do anything differently at a
time when people were looking for change. That wasn't an
answer that served her well.

Speaker 1 (01:20:26):
I think actually that yes, one hundred percent, and that
was probably her worst moment as a presidential candidate, and
by the way, not a horrible run, given she only
had a one hundred and seven days, right.

Speaker 2 (01:20:37):
I mean, I think she did a lot of things
really well West.

Speaker 1 (01:20:39):
She probably saved three or four Democratic Senate seats, probably
ten or twenty House seats. She brought things back to
you know, losing but within respectability, although she did lose
every battleground state. But I actually think, and this is
just my personal point of view, I actually think the
worst answer she gave to any question was at the
very end of the campaign, she didn an interview with

(01:21:02):
Halle Jackson of NBC News, and Hallie was pressing her
on like, basically, weren't you part of the cover up?
You know, do you regret it telling, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:21:12):
Part of the cover up of Joe Biden?

Speaker 1 (01:21:14):
Yeah, do you regret testifying on behalf of him? And
Vice President Harris said it was a bad debate, That's
what she said. It was a bad debate. If it
was just a bad debate. With all due respect, Vice
President Harris, you wouldn't have been the nominee. Like people
have bad debates, this was not that. I mean, it

(01:21:34):
was horrible, but this was a bad debate, was not
the problem.

Speaker 2 (01:21:38):
I'm cureous how you feel about this assertion, this belief
that Joe Biden still holds onto that he could have won.
He said recently, yes, I could have won in essence paraphrasing,
and he said he still got seven million fewer votes
in twenty twenty. A lot of people didn't show up
number one, number two. They're very close in those toss

(01:21:59):
ups dates. It wasn't a slam dunk.

Speaker 3 (01:22:02):
So what I mean, I think Joe Biden moll probably
to the end of his life, will believe that. And
I think that's part of sort of his resiliency and
belief in himself. And I also think acknowledging otherwise would
be too big of a thing to tell yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:22:24):
It's something you call what Biden. There's a phrase you
use in the book.

Speaker 1 (01:22:28):
We refer to the bidens, which is just the stuff
at all. That's the stuff that you and I saw
when we covered him, like in the nineties and the
aughts and stuff, just like long winded always made gaffes,
told a lot of FIBs, like all that stuff. That
made it difficult, by the way, for his staff to

(01:22:50):
see when that was actually symptomatic of something else aging,
if not something else more diagnosable. But yeah, that was
that was a real issue. One other thing on the
on the polling, his pollsters, his outside pollsters, Jeffrey Pollock,
Jeff Garon, Molly Murphy, never met with him, never talked

(01:23:11):
to him, wanted to never talk to him.

Speaker 2 (01:23:15):
And they fake polls.

Speaker 1 (01:23:17):
No, they were giving real polls to the campaign. And
then Mike Donaldin, who started his career as a polster
and ended up being a guy who went by his gut,
not data, would interpret them for President Biden. And this
was one of the things that when we talk about
Obama and Pelosi and Schumer and Hackeen, Jefferies wanting to

(01:23:37):
get through to Joe Biden what's going on out there,
they are constantly frustrated by the fact that Mike Donaldin
is in their view, not being straight with the president.
And to this day they say, oh, you know, it's
only a couple of points. There's only you know, no,
I mean, they're pollsters. And at the end, finally when
Schumer has the conversation with President Biden and Rehoboth and

(01:23:59):
he says, you're polsters think you have a five percent chance.
And I talked to one of the pollsters after I
found that out. It was reported by the New York
Times first, but it's also in this book, and one
of the posters said to me, it's probably more like
a one percent chance. I mean, like his numbers were awful,
they were getting worse, and there were two reasons they
were bad to begin with, inflation and concerns about his age.

(01:24:23):
And he had just put the age issue. There was
no improving it. Everybody saw the debate. Everybody knows what
that is. People might not understand tariff policy, but as
you noted, we all have parents, we all have grandparents,
we all are aging ourselves. We know what that is.
Everybody and so many people in the book, member of

(01:24:44):
Congress after member of Congress would see Joe Biden behind
the scenes and say, telling us privately after the fact,
he reminded of me of my dad, who died of
Parkinson's And as my husband often tells me, when I
complained about my age.

Speaker 2 (01:25:01):
You're never going to be any younger, you know. I mean,
it's it's not reversible, right.

Speaker 1 (01:25:06):
Right, And there was still one hundred and seven days
left and another debate. It wasn't going to get better.

Speaker 2 (01:25:11):
Fully understanding this falls into the category of kulda would
have should have? What might have happened if Joe Biden
had stepped down or announced he was only going to
be a one term president at a certain point in
time that the primary, some kind of primary process took place.
What do you think we would have seen in the

(01:25:32):
twenty twenty four election campaign and election.

Speaker 3 (01:25:36):
Yeah, I think you would have seen a ton of
people get in yeah, Pee Putaja. I mean I also
say that increasingly Democrats are actually acknowledging Hey, we would
have been better off. Amy Klobuchar said it to meet
the press law Sunday, Pee Pudajad said it, and a
ball places Iowa this week. Primelogia Paul has also said this.
You would have had a very robust primary. I mean,

(01:25:58):
so on the Biden people. You it would have been
divisive and the party would have been divided. I think
there is a little bit of overlearning the lessons from
twenty sixteen, where the divisive Hillary Bernie primary they feel,
you know, cost her the election. But you know, and
Jacob's mentioned this before, you know, one of the most

(01:26:18):
divisive primaries ever was two thousand and eight with Hillary
and Obama, and it actually ended up making Obama a
better candidate and it helped the party. So I think
there are a lot of people in the party. I
know there are all of people in the party that
believe it would have even Kamala Harris, who if you
look at the Electoral College margin two hundred and fifteen
thousand votes something like that.

Speaker 1 (01:26:39):
Like she would have been a better candidate if she won.

Speaker 3 (01:26:41):
You if she had gone through that primary process, if
she if she won to if.

Speaker 1 (01:26:45):
She spent her vice presidency, she wasn't doing the reps,
she wasn't doing interviews, she wasn't out.

Speaker 2 (01:26:50):
I think because he wasn't. She didn't want to overshadow him.
They didn't want him.

Speaker 1 (01:26:56):
There's a ton of reasons. It's not meant as an
accusatory statement, but she was she wasn't ready. I mean,
the theory of the case from a guy like David
Pluffu's quoted extensively in our book, you Obama's two thousand
and eight campaign manager and worked on the Harris campaign.
At the very end, was a robust primary system would
have produced a Democrat that could have beaten Donald Trump.
Poll suggested that Trump was beatable.

Speaker 2 (01:27:17):
It would have put the Democratic Party, in my view,
in better stead too, because it would have given exposure
to their bench. Right, people would have seen these future
Democratic leaders and they would have become more well known,
perhaps impressed some voters, and they just didn't have an opportunity.
So now people are like, who who for twenty twenty eight? Right,

(01:27:41):
I think that some names might have surfaced and some
real possibilities.

Speaker 1 (01:27:46):
So if the Democrats actually let a primary system happen,
if you think about it, they really haven't had a
competitive primary since Barack Obama ran in two thousand and eight,
which produced a stronger Barack Obama and a win campaign.
Twenty twelve, obviously he was the incumbent. In twenty sixteen,
the party leaned on the scales for Hillary and was

(01:28:06):
unfair to Bernie. Twenty twenty, the party came in and
made Joe Biden the nominee because they were so scared
of Bernie winning, and then twenty twenty four, we had
the fiasco that we write about. So they haven't really
had a competitive democratic party process, primary process where they've
actually let the voters make up their minds since two

(01:28:27):
thousand and eight. And I mean, it's one of the
reasons why I think some of the arguments about Donald
Trump being undemocratic or anti democratic and January sixth and
all that perfectly legitimate arguments. I'm not disputing them, but
I think it's one of the reasons why a lot
of voters don't find them particularly compelling because they've seen
what Democrats did to Bernie in sixteen and twenty and

(01:28:49):
what they did with Biden in twenty twenty four. It's
it's not exactly you know, small deed democracy.

Speaker 2 (01:28:58):
Final question, how will Joe Biden be remembered?

Speaker 3 (01:29:03):
I think I think is part of the problem with
that question, or I guess sort of honestly, it sort
of pains me to say, because the thing is, he
was the one that framed his presidency as a success
or failure based on whether or not Donald Trump came
back and he failed, and even people very close to

(01:29:28):
him see his presidency now, as you know, basically just
a presidency in between two Trump terums. I think that
doesn't mean that a lot of things he did, a
lot of people in administration he did, won't be remembered fondly,
you know, especially as like things get built and.

Speaker 2 (01:29:46):
So much of it is being undone.

Speaker 3 (01:29:49):
That's true too, And because Donald Trump won and you know, honestly,
it's that's why we sort of frame it as a
tragic story because I think his greatest virtue his resiliency
and not giving up, and at the end it became
a tragic flaw.

Speaker 1 (01:30:06):
It's tough to say from the perspective of six months
after the election what history will record. I will say,
if you look at the what we remember of presidencies
in the past, I mean, what are like the three
data points we know about Woodrow Wilson. One of them
is that he had a stroke and his wife kept
it from the country.

Speaker 2 (01:30:26):
And the League of Nations. I'm resegregating the comfrom right.

Speaker 1 (01:30:30):
It was a horrible racist and the League of Nations
and World War One. Yes, there are other things, but
it's one of the Maybe, like if you say there
are five points for each president, and that's a lot,
because you know, I don't think a lot of Americans
could tell me much about Calvin Coolidge or Warren G. Harding,
But I mean, I just think it's part of his legacy.
And it was unprecedented, dramatic, hideous, ugly, tragic, heartbreaking. Stephanopolis

(01:30:58):
called it after he interviewed Joe Biden heartbreaking. That's, you know,
just to put some pathos on it. The humanity we
all age father times undefeated, and here we had it
happen to this guy in front of all of us,
in enraging. I mean, I don't think that this gets
separated from his legacy. It is possible that some of

(01:31:19):
his legislative achievements are what he fought for when it
came to NATO also are part of it. But there's
no erasing this, however much they want to try.

Speaker 2 (01:31:28):
And this may put a stain on his legacy, I think,
and unquestionably, Alex Thompson and Jake Tapper so fun talking
to you all, I mean, obviously an incredibly serious topic
and an important book. Thank you both so much.

Speaker 1 (01:31:43):
Thank you Kay, so good to see you.

Speaker 2 (01:31:47):
So how do you all feel about Jake and Alex's
book Original Sin and covering the issues presented in this book.
We'd love to hear from you. Head to my YouTube
channel where you can watch the interview and leave a comment.
I'd love to know what you think. Thanks for listening everyone.

(01:32:07):
If you have a question for me, a subject you
want us to cover, or you want to share your
thoughts about how you navigate this crazy world, reach out
send me a DM on Instagram. I would love to
hear from you. Next Question is a production of iHeartMedia
and Katiekuric Media. The executive producers are Me, Katie Kuric,

(01:32:27):
and Courtney Ltz. Our supervising producer is Ryan Martz, and
our producers are Adriana Fazzio and Meredith Barnes. Julian Weller
composed our theme music. For more information about today's episode,
or to sign up for my newsletter, wake Up Call,
go to the description in the podcast app, or visit

(01:32:48):
us at Katiecuric dot com. You can also find me
on Instagram and all my social media channels. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hi everyone, it's
Katie Couric. You know I'm always on the go between

(01:33:08):
running my media company, hosting my podcast and of course
covering the news. And I know that to keep doing
what I love, I need to start caring for what
gets me there, my feet. That's why I decided to
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(01:33:29):
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