May 29, 2025 • 7 mins
Mendte in the Morning talks to Laura Curran about the new Jake Tapper book and the decline of Joe Biden.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's talk to Laura Kerr, political commentator and former NASA
County executive. I do want to get to the mayor's race.
But what about that. What about Jake Tapper coming out
now and saying that the cover up in the White
House may be a bigger scandal than Watergate.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Well, I don't disagree with that assessment. And I just
read the book. I just finished it the other day.
It is I have to say, it's a good read.
It's a total page turner. I read it very quickly,
and I mean, if, however you feel about politics, I
think this is a very It was so consequential what
they did. If you're not a fan of Donald Trump
(00:39):
and you saw Biden and we all, as we all did,
whether we wanted to talk about it or not, we
all saw what we saw at home with our grandparents,
with our great grandparents.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
And for the Democratic Party for all that time to insist, oh,
it's fine, nothing to see here, folks, was such a disservice.
Not just to the party, that's one thing, but to
the country. And now we have a president thanks I
think in large part to that, who a lot of
people feel is a threat to democracy, is a threat
(01:12):
to the country is wreaking well, you know, we'll be
wreaking havoc. So I'm glad that Jake Tapper wrote it.
I know there's some cynical people who were like, Will,
what didn't you say that before? It's an excellent question.
I hope somebody asks him that. But they took the
story seriously. He and his co author, they did a
ton of reporting, and it's a pretty damning portrait of
(01:35):
enabling someone who was clearly not up to the job.
And it's troubling because the consequences were so dire, you know,
the election that was on the balance.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yeah, there has to be some type of investigation beyond
this book, and I hope that investigation. I don't know
what the criminality would be, but for a group of
people to hide this and basically run the country when
they were didn't go through a information process, and they
did not they were not elected, there has to be
a crime in there somewhere. And so, yeah, I know
(02:07):
they're talking about hearings, but I hope that the FBI
or Homeland Security investigates this because this, I believe can
never can never happen again.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Laura, I don't know if it rises to the level
of crime. I don't know. I don't see that, but
you know, I guess if there's a process, there's a process.
But what I will say is this is a warning
we have seen in history of this amazing species of ours.
Enabling of a leader who is not able, or is
corrupt or is cruel. We have seen this movie too
(02:39):
many times. And so we live in this beautiful democracy
and we have to you know, there has to be accountability.
There cannot be appeacement. This is not a monarchy where
we all have to say the emperor is fully dressed.
So if you if you see something, say something, it's
not just about the person that you love or feels
(03:01):
or whose career you're concerned with furthering, therefore sometimes furthering
your own career as well. That kind of enablement. You
have to be willing to call things as you see them,
because this is much more than just one person. It's
much more than just one party.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Frankly, well, I don't know about that because in the past,
we didn't have this kind of mental decline where some
of the people in the White House were calling him
the zombie in chief. We never had that. We had
FDR who was and we had JFK who and we
had at the very end, we had Reagan who was
starting to suffer from Alzheimer's but still was pretty sharpened
speeches and at press conferences. So it wasn't exactly the
(03:39):
same thing.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Well I'm not really No, I'm not talking about I'm
not talking about you know, presidents who were ill and
people sort of enable it. I'm talking about like serious
consequences of history when when leaders who are not able
are are enabled and the consequences that can happen.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
But this is different. He wasn't running the county. This
is different. So other people running the country that we
didn't elect. Yes, there are people that enabled other people
in the past, not like this, And I really believe
this couldn't happen again. And we all knew it. Everybody
knew it, and we were lied to. We were lied
to by the administration, and we were lied to by
(04:19):
the same people who are now uncovering it.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
And so do you have a similar thing now in
the White House where you have a president where he
has basically picked people who are fiercely loyal to him,
And I imagine there is a lot of the same
kind of enabling. But underneath, I'm sure a lot of
people are saying, what's going on. I mean the chaos
with the tariffs up.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
That's much different, and you know it's much different. You
can't make a comparison. You can't make that kind of
comparison to any other president, and certainly not the current president.
They he could not do the job, he was mentally incompetent.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Every situation is different. I'm talking about enabling rit large.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Well, of course you want to talk about that. Of
course you want to talk about that people, because it's
a different topic. It's different than this. You can't admit
to that that this is different. This is abhorrent. This
is much different than all those other cases.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
And I'm not even debating this is like, I don't
know why you're framing this as a debate. What I'm
saying is enabling is never good and so just be careful.
Take this as a cautionary tale. Look at the consequences,
whether you're whatever your political leanings are, this is not
a good outcome.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Yeah, I'm not debating. It's a false equivalence though, That's
what I'm saying. This is a false equivalence. Nothing like
this has ever happened before, and nothing like this can
happen again. And to compare it to other people and
to say, yeah, they enable all the time, not like this,
not like this, not like we didn't have it. We
had a guy that was so bad that they were
(05:53):
afraid to put him out in public sometimes. And that's
what we've learned from the book. I just started, by
the way, listening to it, I ride home, and I
agree with you.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Yeah, he's a wonderful degree. And I like the way
when Jack Tapper read Jake Tapper reads it, he's sort
of just a little bit of the voices of like
Obama or Biden. Yeah, he just does it subtly, but
it's pretty good. I mean, I love these kinds of books.
Another one that I loved political book Game Change from
about the two thousand and eight. Sure, so juicy with
(06:23):
you know all the John Edwards and Sarah Palin and
all you know all that, all those characters.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
No, that was wonderful, and they made that into a
movie if you remember too. No, there's these political intrigue
books are are tremendous, and this one was important. And
to your point earlier about Jake Tapper, I will say
he's done a maya culpa and even apologized to some
people he took on in the air. So you know,
I appreciate that he's out in front of this and
taking the incoming.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Absolutely, and it was a risk to write this. And
you know, I mean that gives me some gives me
a lot of respect. I always say to my kid,
it's never too late to do the right thing.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Yeah, very well said, Well, thank you so much, Laura.
I wasn't trying to debate you. I just am so
incensed by this, and I really don't think there's an
equivalence in history.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Yeah, and you know, just look at look at the
history of the twentieth century in Europe and you'll see
what I'm talking about. You gotta be you just you
cannot give into appeasement. That's my point.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Laura, current political commentator and former NASA County executive. Thanks
a lot. Talk to you next week, Okay, Chow
Let's talk to Laura Kerr, political commentator and former NASA
County executive. I do want to get to the mayor's race.
But what about that. What about Jake Tapper coming out
now and saying that the cover up in the White
House may be a bigger scandal than Watergate.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Well, I don't disagree with that assessment. And I just
read the book. I just finished it the other day.
It is I have to say, it's a good read.
It's a total page turner. I read it very quickly,
and I mean, if, however you feel about politics, I
think this is a very It was so consequential what
they did. If you're not a fan of Donald Trump
(00:39):
and you saw Biden and we all, as we all did,
whether we wanted to talk about it or not, we
all saw what we saw at home with our grandparents,
with our great grandparents.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
And for the Democratic Party for all that time to insist, oh,
it's fine, nothing to see here, folks, was such a disservice.
Not just to the party, that's one thing, but to
the country. And now we have a president thanks I
think in large part to that, who a lot of
people feel is a threat to democracy, is a threat
(01:12):
to the country is wreaking well, you know, we'll be
wreaking havoc. So I'm glad that Jake Tapper wrote it.
I know there's some cynical people who were like, Will,
what didn't you say that before? It's an excellent question.
I hope somebody asks him that. But they took the
story seriously. He and his co author, they did a
ton of reporting, and it's a pretty damning portrait of
(01:35):
enabling someone who was clearly not up to the job.
And it's troubling because the consequences were so dire, you know,
the election that was on the balance.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yeah, there has to be some type of investigation beyond
this book, and I hope that investigation. I don't know
what the criminality would be, but for a group of
people to hide this and basically run the country when
they were didn't go through a information process, and they
did not they were not elected, there has to be
a crime in there somewhere. And so, yeah, I know
(02:07):
they're talking about hearings, but I hope that the FBI
or Homeland Security investigates this because this, I believe can
never can never happen again.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Laura, I don't know if it rises to the level
of crime. I don't know. I don't see that, but
you know, I guess if there's a process, there's a process.
But what I will say is this is a warning
we have seen in history of this amazing species of ours.
Enabling of a leader who is not able, or is
corrupt or is cruel. We have seen this movie too
(02:39):
many times. And so we live in this beautiful democracy
and we have to you know, there has to be accountability.
There cannot be appeacement. This is not a monarchy where
we all have to say the emperor is fully dressed.
So if you if you see something, say something, it's
not just about the person that you love or feels
(03:01):
or whose career you're concerned with furthering, therefore sometimes furthering
your own career as well. That kind of enablement. You
have to be willing to call things as you see them,
because this is much more than just one person. It's
much more than just one party.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Frankly, well, I don't know about that because in the past,
we didn't have this kind of mental decline where some
of the people in the White House were calling him
the zombie in chief. We never had that. We had
FDR who was and we had JFK who and we
had at the very end, we had Reagan who was
starting to suffer from Alzheimer's but still was pretty sharpened
speeches and at press conferences. So it wasn't exactly the
(03:39):
same thing.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Well I'm not really No, I'm not talking about I'm
not talking about you know, presidents who were ill and
people sort of enable it. I'm talking about like serious
consequences of history when when leaders who are not able
are are enabled and the consequences that can happen.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
But this is different. He wasn't running the county. This
is different. So other people running the country that we
didn't elect. Yes, there are people that enabled other people
in the past, not like this, And I really believe
this couldn't happen again. And we all knew it. Everybody
knew it, and we were lied to. We were lied
to by the administration, and we were lied to by
(04:19):
the same people who are now uncovering it.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
And so do you have a similar thing now in
the White House where you have a president where he
has basically picked people who are fiercely loyal to him,
And I imagine there is a lot of the same
kind of enabling. But underneath, I'm sure a lot of
people are saying, what's going on. I mean the chaos
with the tariffs up.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
That's much different, and you know it's much different. You
can't make a comparison. You can't make that kind of
comparison to any other president, and certainly not the current president.
They he could not do the job, he was mentally incompetent.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Every situation is different. I'm talking about enabling rit large.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Well, of course you want to talk about that. Of
course you want to talk about that people, because it's
a different topic. It's different than this. You can't admit
to that that this is different. This is abhorrent. This
is much different than all those other cases.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
And I'm not even debating this is like, I don't
know why you're framing this as a debate. What I'm
saying is enabling is never good and so just be careful.
Take this as a cautionary tale. Look at the consequences,
whether you're whatever your political leanings are, this is not
a good outcome.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Yeah, I'm not debating. It's a false equivalence though, That's
what I'm saying. This is a false equivalence. Nothing like
this has ever happened before, and nothing like this can
happen again. And to compare it to other people and
to say, yeah, they enable all the time, not like this,
not like this, not like we didn't have it. We
had a guy that was so bad that they were
(05:53):
afraid to put him out in public sometimes. And that's
what we've learned from the book. I just started, by
the way, listening to it, I ride home, and I
agree with you.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Yeah, he's a wonderful degree. And I like the way
when Jack Tapper read Jake Tapper reads it, he's sort
of just a little bit of the voices of like
Obama or Biden. Yeah, he just does it subtly, but
it's pretty good. I mean, I love these kinds of books.
Another one that I loved political book Game Change from
about the two thousand and eight. Sure, so juicy with
(06:23):
you know all the John Edwards and Sarah Palin and
all you know all that, all those characters.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
No, that was wonderful, and they made that into a
movie if you remember too. No, there's these political intrigue
books are are tremendous, and this one was important. And
to your point earlier about Jake Tapper, I will say
he's done a maya culpa and even apologized to some
people he took on in the air. So you know,
I appreciate that he's out in front of this and
taking the incoming.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Absolutely, and it was a risk to write this. And
you know, I mean that gives me some gives me
a lot of respect. I always say to my kid,
it's never too late to do the right thing.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Yeah, very well said, Well, thank you so much, Laura.
I wasn't trying to debate you. I just am so
incensed by this, and I really don't think there's an
equivalence in history.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Yeah, and you know, just look at look at the
history of the twentieth century in Europe and you'll see
what I'm talking about. You gotta be you just you
cannot give into appeasement. That's my point.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Laura, current political commentator and former NASA County executive. Thanks
a lot. Talk to you next week, Okay, Chow
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