6/28/24: Presidential Debate Reaction: Panel STUNNED By Senile Biden
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Profound moment, I think, in American history. That was great. I feel great about the country. I don't know about you guys. That one's going down in the history books. I mean, the single takeaway, I wish we could sit here as people who like policy and who would like to get into the back and forth. And the profound truth is we just witnessed, I mean, one of the...

saddest political moments, like maybe the political death of Joe Biden and the absolute just shocking nature of his appearance, of his delivery. Even whenever we were trying to parse the substance crystal, the four of us, we just, we couldn't even get to what he was saying, incomprehensible, the coughing. He coughed a record five times in the first 30 seconds of the debate. And it

I mean, I'm just sitting here stunned. I don't know what else I can say. I mean, two words. Elder abuse. Yeah. It was painful to watch. Like, from the jump. It was painful. His voice, his face, his inability to maintain a single train of thought. It was horrendous. And like...

I mean, Trump is all over the place and said all kinds of things that I can't stand and lies and doesn't answer the question, whatever. But like you said, Sagar, I can't even get to like, oh, let's talk about their different stances on it. First of all, they don't really have that different stance on immigration or Israel or any number of other issues. But, you know, I would love to get into, oh, let's talk about Biden's antitrust. Let's talk about labor policy.

No one who watched this debate is going to get past the fact that he was so much worse than I think we've been expecting. We know that Biden is not where he was. We expected some problems in this debate. This was so far beyond what I anticipated. I don't know what to say. Yeah, it felt like he spent way too much time at Camp David. Mm-hmm.

rehearsing, like practicing. - With the statistics, did you notice that? - The statistics, he had-- - He had all these stats. - And he had a couple of what you could tell were supposed to be one-liners, but he only got through like half the line. I think I saw him heading over our neighborhood around 4:30 or so, so like he just kind of got into town if that was-- - Right, stepped off the plane and went straight there, yeah.

And he was just worn out, and his voice from the very beginning was awkward. So people are now, like, in the Democratic Party are thinking, it's funny, in the beginning of this, I said there are some, you know, decent number of grassroots Democrats who are kind of hoping that...

that he has such a poor performance tonight that it just forces him off the ticket. - That they have to pull him. - Not because they don't like Biden, but because they want to beat Trump. - So do you think this was that performance? - It was that performance. - If it was anything, it's this. I mean, that is the worst possible. - That is the worst moment of his life. - So we should know Emily will be joining us shortly. She's doing something else. We didn't kick Emily off the island. We love Emily. She wanted me to share with you. She also thought he looked old and terrible.

Well, she said old as fuck. Let's be honest. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's actually repeat what she said. She said he's old as fuck and she'll share more of her thoughts when she returns. Yeah, I mean, listen, going into this, I was like, it's going to be Biden. Right. Anyone who thinks they're going to pull him, you're delusional. It's going to be Joe Biden. Like, deal with it. We all need to live in the realm of reality. This is when it's hitting home. After this, I'm like, hmm. Yeah. Maybe. Maybe.

I'm very curious. I shouldn't say this because it will incentivize people to switch over to the mainstream coverage. I am actually curious what they're saying on MSNBC and CNN. Because I know the COPE, somebody tweeted out like, oh, I have two sources who say it has a cold. That doesn't come close to explaining

So the Biden campaign, Crystal, has called every mainstream reporter in the country and has gotten them to run the reporter. Two sources say he has a cold. And as I said, presumably when you have a cold, you take Sudafed or something with pseudo-event. We know what a cold looks like. It doesn't look like you're

brain melting in real time. The stone face, the open mouth gape. I mean, anybody who has an elderly person in their life has understood what we all just witnessed. It was horrifying almost from the very beginning. And just to give people a taste too, as you said, Crystal, too, of what the mainstream coverage was. Let's put F1, please, up on the screen just to give people an idea of how such an unmitigated disaster

This is from the AP, the AP, the most middle of the road mainstream. And this is what they put out on their newswire to their entire subscriber service. Quote, in the first half hour of the debate, a raspy Biden delivers rambling answers while Trump counters with energy and falsehoods. But even they have to say raspy Biden rambling answers. And they even have to acknowledge Trump's

Trump counters with energy. This is also where I have to eat my words. - And the falsehoods, he does fall. - Okay, yeah. - It was. - Politicians are talking. - Falsehoods all the way through. - All right. - And he's Trump. - He's Trump. But I will say this too, the rules unambiguously worked in the favor of Donald Trump. There's no question. - All of them. - I think that was one of the top five performances of his life, 'cause he just seemed like relatively normal. He had a few moments, you know, there's some stop the steal there at the end

the end, people aren't going to like that. Even on abortion, he was a little bit all over the place. But the whole point is we can't sit here and parse because the average person, and I want everybody at home to think about this, the average person in your life, your father, your sister, your cousin, the person who doesn't watch anything, but they did watch this, what are they going to take away? It ain't anything to do with late-term abortion. It is, oh my God,

What is going on in front of us? Go ahead, Crystal. - So Kyle texted me an update from MSNBC. He says they're waving the towel. Nicole Wallace said people will be talking about whether he should be in the race. - Wow. - Wow. - The MSNBC folks are probably talking to some of the same people, types of people in Washington that I'm talking to. And yes, they're absolutely completely panicked. People who have been involved in politics for decades

who two hours ago were saying, put your big boy pants on. Like he's the nominee. Stop wetting the bed. Stop wetting the bed. Like all this stuff. There's no mechanism. Some of them are still saying, look, so these are the different paths. Some are saying, something's got to give. This is insane. Like,

These are very sober centrist minded like Washington creatures. Some of them are saying something's got to give and we've got to. From the control room, they're telling us that CNN has called his performance, quote, dismal. Griffin saying, quote, CNN saying it's Job. I mean, this is just, it is unambiguous. And to a certain extent, look, not so much of a victory lap. Crystal, how many, and Ryan too, how?

How many recriminations have we all received over the last five years for pointing out- - We want our apologies. - I genuinely do want an apology. This was foisted upon the American people. And people in the White House, you should be ashamed of yourself. Jake Sullivan and all the other folks who see this stuff,

up close. We've been reporting it here day after day. G7 leaders, he's gotten worse. We have the public moments. But to see this up close, 90 minutes with no filter is insane. I mean, we're in 25th Amendment territory. Is this man alive? Like, what the fuck?

is happening. So I wanna hear what the other Washington, so you've got the one group that's- One group is saying, yeah, like- This is crazy. This can't go on, it has to change. The other group is saying, no, there's no way to get him off, but what we're gonna do is we're gonna focus on the House and Senate. Basically- Just give up? That's the idea? Just give up. I thought this was the end of democracy. That always works. And make the argument for Biden that he has a very good staff.

And that you want Democrats nominating the appointees. You want Democrats in control of these agencies. All right. And you're probably going to lose, but you can maybe win the House and Senate. Okay. And we went into this. Wait, isn't there a third group? No, that's basically it. That's it. Okay. Okay, I got it. There's none there. There's no just delusional. He was great.

No, there's none of that. I thought he was very strong. There's none of that. Absolutely zero of that. Got it. And before this, the normal Democratic Senate candidate, like a tester or a Jackie Rosen or something, was running about five to six points ahead of Biden already, which showed you that there isn't, and Democrats are heartened by this in the sense that they're like, oh, look,

The public likes Democrats. Right. They just don't like Biden. Yeah. It's like, well, but Biden is your nominee. Right. But that so they already had a five point gap before this. That could widen to something historic. You've never had a situation where the the candidates are kind of pulling back.

I mean, the House and Senate candidates are pulling the presidential ticket along. Usually they talk about coattails. Coattails. Yeah, it's the opposite dynamic. Barack Obama brings along all these people, right? No, it's incredible. I mean, tell me this, Ryan, from the people you're talking to in Washington, like,

What did they think of the state of his condition going into this? Because what I was thinking about is, you know, your rank and file Democratic House member, Senate member, even staffer. They don't really have access to him. We get these reports, you know, Jamie Harris. Oh, you should see him behind closed doors. He's a firecracker. But the reality is that based on the reporting.

his circle has gotten smaller and smaller and smaller. So the number of people who are even in a position to be aware that this is the reality now of what we're dealing with is actually probably pretty small. So just as we're viewing this with shock, and again, we were under no illusions about Biden's level of decline at this point.

But even for us, we thought, okay, he'll get the drug cocktail. He usually rises to the moment. He'll get something going. There's not one moment I could point to this in this debate and be like, oh, he did a good job there. Not one, right?

So for many of them, it has to come as equally of an eye-opening moment, if not more, because they were probably buying some of the delusions about the like, oh, behind closed doors, they say he's great. And also they think it doesn't matter that much because the administration is on autopilot. They don't deal directly with Biden. They have their handler that they deal with in the administration. If they want something, they know who to call. It's only Chuck Schumer who

The gears are turning in the way they're expecting them to turn. Right. As long as the gears turn and he's hopped up enough for the State of the Union debates, then they're like, all right, this is not ideal, but we'll go with it. But when you can't even get hopped up for the debate. David Axelrod, Obama's former communications director, he says on CNN, I think there was a sense of shock how he came out at the very beginning of the debate. Let's actually play. Let's play for people. This is F4, the beat Medicare moment. Yes.

It was from the very first word. First of all, the voice is bad. The look is bad. The walking on the stage is bad. Like everything is slow. He's having trouble whining. He is coughing. But this was the moment when we all looked at each other and we're like... If you want to roll the tape, you can actually go back and see that moment. All of us covered our mouths with absolute shock. All right, so play F4, the beat Medicare moment for us. Making sure that we're able to make every single solitary person...

eligible for what I've been able to do with the COVID, excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with, look, if we finally beat Medicare. Thank you, President Biden. President Trump?

He's right. He did beat Medicare. He beat it to death and he's destroying Medicare. We fully beat Medicare. That was it. After struggling around for what he was even talking about. I mean, Medicare had nothing to do with what the original question was. It just...

And there were many other moments that were similarly discomforting. I want to say, too, about Trump. One of the strengths that he had in this debate was he only a couple of times said something along the lines of he doesn't even know what he's saying, challenged him to the cognitive test. You can see there, though, at one point, Biden was delivering an equivalently incoherent old man answer. And Trump is just smirking and sitting there. But he didn't jump in.

on the bait. So this is where there was a level of discipline I haven't seen from Trump in a long time. And the rules helped him. He didn't jump in there, allowed Biden to hang himself. And I think I even said that. I was like, hey, I went back and found a tweet a couple of days ago. And I was like, hey, I don't think that these rules are gonna have Trump. And I go, but the alternative is that it will force Trump to sit back. And if Biden has an old man moment, the focus will 100% be on him. And I mean, he didn't just have an old man moment.

It was 90 minutes of just weird old man stuff already. Yeah, here we go. CNN's David Axelrod. There are going to be discussions on if he should continue. Van Jones, according to Mac, producer Mac, there's a lot of time until the convention if Biden will allow us to go to the front lines. I mean, we're in full-on freakout mode. We were talking, and actually, Ryan, this is the question I have for you. I said only Obama can bring this to an end. But do you think even Obama could bring this to an end? I think he could. And said, it's over, Joe. It's over. Also,

And we need to put responsibility on people who have it. People like Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, if they said something publicly right now,

it would change the equation. It would have opened it up to a real question. And there is nothing stopping Chuck Schumer or Hakeem Jeffries from going out and saying something. They're not even Obama, but they're significant players. What that would do is that would signal to their troops that they're allowed to talk about it openly as well. So these are grown adults who have agency, who have an opportunity to do something for their party right now that they know they ought to do

And they're probably not going to do it. They're probably going to say, well, he's the nominee. And we also should go back because there was, after the midterms, there was a whole lot of circling the wagons to make sure that a Gavin Newsom or whoever didn't jump in because the midterm performance was better than expected. That was successful.

Then you get to the primaries and first of all, there's just complete blackout of all the candidates who did challenge him. And then in certain states, they just literally did not hold primaries, right? There were no debates.

Florida, North Carolina, there were a number of places where they're just like, we're just literally not going to do a primary. And so, yeah, anyone who could have at any moment who had the knowledge of this is what we're dealing with could have spoken up, could have pushed in another direction, could have shed some light and reality here and instead chose this.

to go in a different direction and pretend and leak these anecdotes. Oh no, I have trouble keeping up with him. He is so energetic. How many times did KJP say that from the White House? Oh yeah. Yeah, absolutely. How many times? Like, I mean, these people are shameless liars. If you've had any exposure to him and you're out there doing the, oh, he's the real, he's the real spitfire behind the scenes. You guys wouldn't believe him and I can't keep up with him, blah, blah, blah. Like,

No one believed you and certainly now it is so clear. Not only are you lying, but by your own definition, you believe this is an existential election. You believe democracy is on the ballot and women's rights are on the ballot.

And you are risking all of that for your career. I mean, because they're afraid to speak out. They're afraid there'll be persona non grata in the Democratic Party. And so they all stay silent. They all close ranks. And this is what they and we in the whole country get for it. Also, the level of outrage we should all have now for them not allowing that primary to happen. You know, I mean, that was one of the most undemocratic. And in retrospect, too, with Biden, I said this to all of you privately. I mean, he will go down as one of the most selfish men in American history.

I mean, just complete the arrogance, the selfishness. That is true. Although at this point, I really, I feel more about it the way I came to feel about Dianne Feinstein, which is like, it's the people around her. You're right. Because she got to a point where she was so out of it. She didn't know that she was out of it. But he's not at that level. He's still there. Maybe. I mean, I think he is there enough where...

I don't know. And this is one of those where, again, I think everyone can tell, like, we're all, like, in a state of shock. The big question is, and this is the issue, I believe, he is such an arrogant man. And I've always said this, and the press corps friends always tell me this. People have said this about him. When he puts those aviators on, he believes he's 30 years younger. And knowing him, too, he's always the I'll show him president. The I'll show him guy. And he is a...

He's a toxic boss who does not want to hear any dissent and has surrounded himself with yes men who will bolster him on whatever it is. And there was just reporting about how everybody's afraid to say anything at all critical because they think they'll be excised from the inner circle and probably, you know, and for good reason, they believe that. He's had this same basic group around him for 40 years.

- Except people like Ted Coffin who are like, I'm too old, I can't do this anymore. - Right, yeah, the one who drops his pants. - His peer who's 10 years younger than him. - That's exactly right.

And so I think that he, I don't know that he realizes his decline. I'm not sure that he sees it. I don't think that he has that awareness. Well, okay, this is my big question. I can't wait to see what Joe Scarborough has to say tomorrow morning. And let's return to that. The media coverage of this. Wall Street Journal puts out that piece recently.

Behind closed doors, Biden is old and a mess behind the scenes. But you still had all those on the record quotes, like you said, Ryan, and senators, people like, oh, I can't keep up with him. And the level of freak out from the White House. And there's, Crystal, two weeks ago, they were calling us cheap fakes.

for playing that video of him at the G7. That's right. That was what, two weeks ago here? They're litigating whether we're uncomfortably clipping moments. Yeah, show me. That whole thing was a vindication of so much of the coverage. I mean, people can probably tell I'm angry because it's just at a certain point too, I also feel as you do. The media, the people around him, it has been an outrageous conspiracy to basically cover this up and to be in

compliance. At every moment, the evidence was there, canceling the major interviews, less press conferences than anybody in history, not allowing all of us to see how cooked our freaking president is. And then canceling the primary, dragging his ass up until election. I see here some reporting, they're like, look, the only way that Biden is gonna be able to come out is if Schumer, Pelosi, Bill Clinton, and Obama convince him to stand down. I don't have the confidence that they have.

that they would do that at this point. I think they're just, I don't know. And combined with his arrogance to actually convince him. Hi, I'm Katie Lowe's. And I'm Guillermo Diaz. And now we're back with another season of our podcast, Unpacking the Toolbox, where Guillermo and I will be rewatching the show. To officially unpack season three of Scandal. Unpredictable. You don't see it coming. It's a wild, wild ride. The twists and turns in season three. Mesmerizing. But also...

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Trump didn't have to do anything in this debate, but he played his hand properly. Very well. He was restrained. The rules definitely helped him because if he was too aggressive, it would have just felt mean. It would have just felt mean because you are beating up on this confused old man who can't even finish a sentence. And I think not having the crowd agree

help Trump and hurt Biden. Because I think Biden, if he'd have had the crowd, like his energy maybe goes up a little bit closer to a normal-ish area. That's a good point. Whereas Trump is already a little hopped. Like he gets the crowd and he's up here. That's true. That's a good point. And so with no crowd at all, Trump, and knowing his mic's going to get cut off,

Trump just has to stand there and like, you know, spew nonsense for two minutes and then let the guy fall all over himself. So what do you think about Sager's hypothetical here of is Obama, is Bill Clinton, is Nancy Pelosi, like, are they just going to bury their head in the sand and just kind of throw in the towel and say, well, I guess we're just going to lose the presidency and maybe we'll win the House and maybe the Senate. Is that...

Do you think that's most likely what's going to happen? We will get an answer to the question of whether they actually believe that democracy is on the ballot, because you had this split screen throughout the non-primary with Biden saying democracy is on the ballot and all of these Democratic candidates like Newsom and Whitmer planning for 2028. It's like, wait a minute.

There is no 2028. Right. If 2024 doesn't go your way. True. According to you. According to you, yes. And so because all of these different factions within the party have their own interests in 2028, that factors into whether they actually weigh in on 2024. A bunch of them—

believe that an open primary with Trump as a second term president leaving is an easier road for somebody like a Newsom to become president. But

But that assumes that there will be a 2028 presidential election, even though Trump won the presidency. So it's like, I guess you don't necessarily really believe that. What if he crushes 2020 up until then and he's got he's like Bill Clinton and he has a 60 percent approval rating and his vice president could be like, you know, that's exactly. Yeah. John Pergam becomes king of the United States. Apparently, Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC says, well, FDR was a good president and he couldn't even walk. Apparently.

- That's where we're at. - That's where we're at now. - That's the level of Copa we're at. - FDR was drooling out of his mouth and couldn't walk. And look, he was a great president, but not at that time. - Also, Joe Biden is no FDR, okay people? Let's just. - FDR has not proven himself for 12 years up until that point. - Before he was that old. - We're not asking Joe Biden to walk. Like if Joe Biden were in a wheelchair, fine. - No problem. - Yeah.

And giving speeches like FDR up until the very end. Right. I think it would have been okay. Fine, absolutely. I just don't know what the hell they're going to do at this point. Look, Biden has the LBJ choice. Biden has the choice. RFK is in the race, quite literally. At this time, he could see the writing on the wall. And he's like, an LBJ, smart man, the most ambitious, probably more ambitious than Joe Biden, looks himself in the mirror with his visor, says, that's it, boys.

I'm not gonna win. And he gives a speech and he says, I will not seek nor accept the nomination. Joe Biden has that choice. He's 68 days out. And this perhaps could have been the greatest political gift to him of all time. In that, they can just say, he could go down in history. And just be like, I'm good. But this is where I think his arrogance and also the rigged nature of the people around him

The bubble that he has built and also believing his own bullshit now for so many years is going to come back to bite him. And he will arrogantly walk himself now to what I mean at this point. Guys, what can we even think of what the electoral map is going to look like? Every single swing state is going to like this. RFK Jr. is going to be getting a lot. Yeah, RFK Jr. is going to get like 25%. The real debate, you know, he was basically debating with the other folks, was streaming consistently at 2 million.

There were millions. Watching RFK. Yeah, watching RFK. Right.

Because I bet a bunch of people were like, watch those two and were like, whoa. Right. Well, I can show the predicted for the betting markets. So F6, please. I was keeping track of this. I mean, this is, you know, in terms of betting markets, take a look at this. This was halfway through the debate. Joe Biden, I think, you know, 30 minutes or so into the debate, plunged, you know, to only 69% real in terms of the betting markets by 17% in terms of the odds that he would even be the presidential nominee. I'd have to check, but I guarantee you.

That's going to be less. I mean, Gavin Newsom is, by the way, in the spin room right now. To be a fly on the wall. Oh, my God. How can Gavin? What do you say? What do you say? All you do, you don't talk about Biden. You just talk about Trump. You talk about Trump's lies. I mean, election denial. I mean, that's the only move. That's your only move at this point. But that case that you're making, Sagar, that's the case that someone needs to make to Joe Biden of like your legacy if you –

graciously step aside. If you make good on your pledge to be the bridge to the next generation, and yes, we can talk about the CHIPS Act, we can talk about your infrastructure, we can talk about, hey, you did what we needed to do with the economy in COVID, can talk about labor, we can talk about antitrust, withdrawal from Afghanistan, genocide, we'll put that aside for the moment, but if you're making this case, maybe don't make that part of it.

But, you know, you step aside now. You look like a great leader. You look selfless. You pass the baton. And one thing that Ested Herndon over at the New York Times has been pointing out is like,

Joe Biden also kind of, not kind of, he really misled the American public too when he was running in 2020 because he didn't come out and say directly, I promise I will only be a one-term president. Very close. But he came very close to that. And there was a real assumption that was made of like, okay, this dude is old.

old, and we're worried about that. But he's gonna be there for four years, he's gonna set the ship right, it's gonna be normal again, he's gonna get Trump out of there, and then we'll move on to what's next. And immediately once he gets elected, of course, he's never gonna let go of the brass ring, and here we are. But that is the case that needs to be made to him, is if you stay and you hand the country back to Donald Trump, that is a totally different legacy than if you graciously step aside.

I mentioned the genocide part. I think that that is probably a fantasy that his legacy would be, you know, a glorious one no matter what he does at this point. But that is the case that needs to be made to him by Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, like whoever. But I think you're right, Ryan. I think everyone's self-interest in the Democratic Party is such that it renders them just like

careerists who really don't give a shit about the country. They don't believe what they say. And they don't give a shit about the country. That's exactly right. Because your point is such an important one that we're thinking about 2024. They're already lining up behind their horses for 2028. They're

already planning on like, oh, I'm going to be a Whitmer person and here's how I'm going to parlay that into my agency position. I'm going to be lined up for VP. I'm going to run for that Senate seat that opens up. I'm going to run for that governor's mansion that's going to open up when Whitmer makes the jump or whatever. That's what their plans are. And so it's no one has planned their political future around Joe Biden being out of this race. So no one outside of the entire American public

who has an interest in having decent presidential candidates, but these people who actually have influence, none of them has an interest. - And the way they think, yeah, let's say you're a Whitmer person. - Yeah. - And you think Whitmer's got a good shot in 28.

Now you're like, oh, what if Whitmer is not the 24-1? What if Newsom, like, it just gets the nod? That's right. Yeah. You go to the Pritzker people and you're like, we don't want, neither of us want Newsom to get it. Let's all make sure that Biden just goes down in flames. Holds on to it. That's right. We just need a Democratic elite to act like elites and just come in and end this shit.

for all of us. - But they don't do that. - Exactly, you're right. - There's no sense of social fabric. - In the 1960s, they actually did. They came together, the DNC and all them, they're like, "Lyndon, you're not gonna win, dude, it's over." And he said, "Okay." He believed them. And he was even a guy who was way more powerful than Biden. I mean, like you said, Ryan, Chuck Schumer, what are we doing here, dude? You're 73, you know? You need to know.

But what is the track record that we have? Schumer lies about Dianne Feinstein's age up until the day she dies, quite literally. Nancy Pelosi says- Pelosi had her freaking daughter as her nursemaid. As her handmaiden and basically just kept the thing over her mouth and was like, yeah, just don't talk. She's fine. Don't worry about it.

Remember whenever. And you're sexist. By the way, you're sexist. They turned it into a feminist thing. And that's the thing with Biden here now. They made us, they made us, called us ableist.

Say that we were making fun of a man with his ageism, the ableism. I mean, the level of rage that I feel right now for these people, just because it's just been years now of just sitting here and we just sit here and take it and take it and take it. And now for the dishonesty of the Nicole Wallaces of the world now floating, replacing Joe Biden or David Axelrod or any of these other people. And

for his own staff who viciously attacked anybody who tweeted out or accurately portrayed his complete inabilities. And they're either silenced or apparently there's some Democratic people who are crying on the phones right now through reporters. I mean,

they should be like, like if you really believe that this is such an important election that this is on you, this is on the people around who, who supported him and, or who propped him up. Right. There was a, there was a time where it could have mattered if people came forward. Now,

We might have broken into... Oh, we got Emily. Emily's coming in. Just keep talking. She'll come in. Yeah, go ahead. We might have a moment that we're at Brokeback Open again and people with courage have a chance to actually act on that. But the time was...

And like you said, there was a cost to speaking out and people would rather kind of live, would like rather live richly among the ruins of a wrecked party than see their party win because they're gonna be fine either way. A wrecked party and a dying empire. Yeah. The level of. Do you think, because the one,

Because the one person who has somewhat of an interest in Joe preserving a shred of his dignity is actually Barack Obama because he's looking not great right now having brought this man. Obama, Hillary and Biden. What the fuck, dude? Right, true. Yeah, wait, what? So he's got to be thinking like, I'm not looking great right now with like having, you know, foisted Joe on the public and backed him up and made the, because Barack Obama made this happen for him in the 2020 primary. Let's not forget.

So does he have the juice? Does he have the juice to make something happen here in the Democratic Party? He certainly has. He has the juice. Yeah. There is such a thing as force and power. Like, I think he could be forced out with enough pressure. You know, we...

We showed those word clouds before, by the way, Emily is here. Emily. Hi, Emily. It's magic. I just reappeared in the chair. Wow. We've just been talking about it. Manifested me. Everything seems okay. I feel really good about the state of the country. Yeah. But with Obama, I mean, it does seem like if he really decided to forcefully intervene, that would be like the one thing that could maybe...

shift things here. But the other thing I'm questioning too is right now everyone is having to live in the reality of like, holy shit, that was bad. How long before the spin takes hold and it's like...

Trump was lying and he said this bad thing and everyone's just not focused on the substance. And Biden had a cold. And seriously, how long before they can reconstruct all of the like artifice and Potemkin village of Biden competence that they had carefully constructed prior to this moment? I think they're making that decision right now. I think literally right now they're scrambling to try to figure out if they can put the cat back into the bag. Because I think if Joe Biden says, no way, I'm in it, Jack.

and I'm not going anywhere, Jack, then everyone will-- - The idea that you would-- - The idea that, Jack. - I was just, I had forgotten about this, but Megyn Kelly just showed this clip of Morning Joe saying, it was Mika saying,

Marjorie Taylor Greene might as well have just written this report on Biden's health. They said this just a few weeks ago. It's insane. It's insane. And so the only reason that everyone is now expressing surprise is because they feel like they can't get away with their lie anymore because everybody saw it crumble on national television. But we all saw Joe Biden after the Her report come out and say, I have no memory problems at a press conference in which he had several lapses in his memory. It was

It's like clearly not okay. We've known he's not okay. So if he tells his inner circle, whose friends are all scattered across corporate media, that he's going to do it, they'll find a way to make it work. Well, that experience with that report is what made me question because after that report came out,

Where he said basically, like, I can't charge this guy. The jury's going to be like, he's just a confused old man. You know, you can't put this man in front of a jury and he can't even remember when he was vice president. That was part of it. Couldn't remember when his own son died, right? That was the type of memory lapses that he was experiencing.

reportedly having. And there was a moment in the media when there were a bunch of pieces written. People were like, oh my goodness, this is really bad. Like Democrats need to do something about this. And then

Very quickly, the ranks closed again. And, you know, you had people out there saying things like that. I don't think they can get away with it this time, though. My inclination is they can't. I don't know. I would like to think so. It's one thing. To that point, I mean, it is one thing to see it in a report. Yeah, that's true. It's another thing to watch it yourself. Yeah. Right. And that does make it crazy.

quite under that, and especially coming on the heels of the G7 and the Klipsch-y amount of that, et cetera. I think there's a foreign, the foreign against case is this, is that first time, remember there was Andrea Mitchell, when Biden was losing in 2019 and early 2020, Andrea Mitchell has that segment and be like, we need to ask serious questions about Joe Biden's age. And then six months later, she's like, it was a stutter the whole time. I never said that before.

The reason why I think this one is substantively different is that there's actually very crazy high stakes now at this point where the national public is so much more coalesced around he is old that if they try to do a similar like walk back that they did before, that they would lose even more credibility. Look, even these shameless liars, we have to believe, have a line. But I also wouldn't put it past them.

I wouldn't pass Andrea Mitchell and all them to roll out the stutter. So I just don't know. Griffin says we've got a CNN clip to give us all a flavor. We haven't watched this so we can react to it live. Let's take a listen to how things are going over there. It involves party strategists. It involves elected officials. It involves fundraisers.

And they're having conversations about the president's performance, which they think was dismal, which they think will hurt other people down the party in the ticket. And they're having conversations about what they should do about it. Some of those conversations include, should we go to the White House and ask the president to step aside? Others are other of the conversations are about should prominent Democrats go public with that call because they feel this debate was so terrible. That's the first 10 minutes afterwards. That's right. That is.

That is interesting because he raises a good point because, again, we're not thinking about people doing the right thing for the country or whatever. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about self-interested political actors who have their own careers and paychecks in mind.

He's raising what I think is true, which is that, yes, Democrats are going to outperform Biden. But if you have that week of a candidate at the top of the ticket, it is going to drag down everybody's performance across the board. So if you're a Rosen in Nevada, if you're a tester in Montana, you're trying to get reelected, you're any number of congressional candidates around the country.

Suddenly you're going, this guy's a, this is a real problem for me personally. You could also, they could also rationalize it though by saying, okay, if it looks this obvious that Trump is going to win, then somebody like a tester or Rosen actually get benefits because from the voters who want to check on Trump because they think Trump, they kind of like Trump.

They prefer Trump to Biden, but they don't want him to have full control of Congress either. So you can see it. The divided Congress theory. Yeah, the old divided Congress theory. There is actually good evidence for that. Ticket splitting is so rare. I mean, there is some ticket splitting. But if you have a candidate at the top of the ticket who is not much of a drag,

It's going to be a problem forever. It's probably more of a drag than it is a benefit. They will have to defend him every day at every state fair. They'll have to defend him. That's right. Apparently we have a Joanne Reid clip. We've got to check in with Joy over at MSNBC from our producers. Let's go ahead and take a listen, guys. I, too, was on the phone throughout much of the debate with...

Obama, world people, with Democrats, with people who are political operatives, with campaign operatives. My phone really never stopped buzzing throughout. And the universal reaction was somewhere approaching panic. The people who were texting with me were very concerned about President Biden seeming extremely feeble.

seeming extremely weak. Extremely feeble. How good? It's bullshit that they're surprised by this. And how good is that? But you know what, Emily? I mean, I am surprised by how bad it was. That's true. Not to that level. And nobody gaslit the American public. We're not in Obama world and we don't spend time with the people who spend time with him every day. Right. Yeah, but I mean, the level, because here's the thing. I thought, listen, we still have a State of the Union.

- He was okay. - Yeah, he was fine. - But he was reading off a teleprompter. - Right. - And he had the audience. - And he had an audience. When he has to gather the words for himself, it's bad. And it was worse. I had low expectations. My expectations were on the floor. I thought he would at least have some moments on abortion or on January 6th or something.

that they could take and run with. And this was strong. There's not one moment, because when we were, you know, we were picking clips of like, all right, how do we want to represent this debate? And I had in my mind, like, oh, well, you know, we're going to show all the bad ones. If he has a good one, like we should show that.

What am I going to show? There's nothing to show. Zero. Zero. Is it his handicap? There's plenty of things Trump said that- Morals of an alley cat. Yeah, that's good. That was funny. Morals of an alley cat. Which also sounds like something that a 112-year-old would say. It's like in a fedora. Yeah, that guy's got the morals of an alley cat. Are you in the production of Annie? Like, what are you talking about? He's got the morals of an alley cat. See? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like-

What? All the chimney sweeps know. It's not like, okay, Trump looks like a connoisseur out there. He did. In comparison, but imagine it's Gavin Newsom up there on the station. Gavin Newsom could have picked Trump apart in that there was plenty to work with there on abortion, on stop the steal, on all kinds of things, right? That Trump is just

making up shit as he goes along. But he at least seemed like he will survive another four years, you know? And so in contrast, he looked absolutely, you know, incredible. And you didn't see any of that pushback. Any of the attempted pushback was so incoherent, you didn't even know what point Biden was trying to make in response to it. So yeah, I mean, the fact that you have CNN and

Van Jones. With their sources. Van Jones. Nick Kristoff. Axelrod. Joy Reid. Axelrod, Joy Reid, Nicole Wallace. Casey Hunt. Yeah, Casey Hunt over who cut off the Trump. Although I do want to say the CNN moderators were pretty good. They did a good job. But you know why? I was surprised by that. The reason why I think they were quote unquote good is they didn't really have to moderate.

modern. They didn't have to do anything. They just had to read the questions. How many other times do they're like, Mr. Biden, you have 88 seconds left. And he's like, after the, after the Medicare thing was horrible. And they're like, you have 37 seconds left, Mr. President Biden. And he just, it's like the complete blank stare, the,

There's a New York Times headline on your screen right now that's insane. Facing Trump's misleading attacks, Biden appears shaky at times. Just about captures it. Biden struggles as Trump blusters in a contentious... It was already... There's no both-siding this. It's a disaster. It was criminal for them not to have RFK Jr. on from the beginning. But after the debate, thinking about that decision, it changed history in a way. Because if...

RFK Jr. is able to be on there. Like you could imagine a huge number of people being like, you know what? Fine. I can't do either of these people. I'm with RFK. And that's a good point. And if he gets into the 30s, into the 20s or 30s, then it's game on. Then he replaces Biden, obviously.

- And imagine in the swing states. - Or Democrats then start getting behind him being like, look. - At least he's on the goddamn ballot, yeah, whatever. - At least you're not Trump. - He was with us on the environment. - At least you're not debating your handicap, like both of them were. - So zero chance Biden has a six handicap and no way Trump won those two club tournaments cleanly. - Wait, Crystal, can you ask Kyle? - I'm the new golfer. - Can you ask Kyle whether he believes that Biden has a six handicap?

- I don't have to ask Kyle, but I did talk to Kyle about this. He was like, "No fucking way." - So the one cogent thought Biden was able to get through was actually a false statistic of how to golf. - So we've consulted an expert. This is an official Breaking Points fact check, Chris. - Kyle's actually very good at golf. Kyle's legit at golf. I am a new golfer. - No fucking way. - No way Biden carries his own clubs for 18 holes either. - Oh yeah, that's right. - You're very good at golf.

driving a golf course. Yeah, no, for real. Don't get behind me. To Trump's credit, Trump didn't even pretend that he would carry his clubs. Yeah, no. No, he didn't. I trust the drunk guys of the golf course more than I trust Biden. He doesn't even drink. I'd be like, don't get behind the wall. So Kyle's official response, just so we can be technically accurate here was- We sent him a swing here. Yeah, I sent him Biden's swing, which Ryan had provided for the group as background. And he said six handicap and then four left.

thing about you. We need to get like Tiger Woods or somebody on here. Look, my big, big question, Ryan, actually, you'll know this. When does Congress come back into session? When are these guys going to be back in? They should be back on like on the 9th after the 4th of July. There we go, guys. So July 9th, when the

when the hordes of the reporters swarm on to Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, on Hakeem Jeffries, and all of those people walking down the hallways with every reporter in the country shoving their phone in their face. What are they gonna say? That's the big question. That's something else I wanna know tonight and control room if you have one of these clips, I'd love to see it too. But normally in these post debate specials, of course, you've got a whole laundry list of Democrats,

members of Congress, whoever, who want to come on and talk about how great Joe Biden just did. I wonder if they've got anyone who is willing to come on and say that right now.

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Let's talk about the Kate Bennington thing before we get to that. She's a former comms director. Yeah, literally at the White House. I think she only left a couple of months ago. So this is his- Let me go ahead and pull it up. And she was there, the whole 2020 campaign. She was one of the people who, even when he was really down and out, she was there by his

side and really believing in this guy. And what does she say now? I have a quote here. A quote, it was a really disappointing debate performance for Joe Biden. I don't think there's any other way to slice it. His biggest issue was to prove to the American people he had the energy, the stamina, and he didn't do that. I mean, that is his-

cut and dry as it gets. - Yeah. - And that's as nice as you can possibly be. - This is the speed doctor. - Yeah, that's a nice way to put it. - This is the lady who was paid to lie to the American public on Joe Biden's behalf. - The type of person who would ordinarily be on CNN talking about what a masterful job. - She might even have a CNN contributor. - He just did.

No, yeah, I think you're right. She does have a scene in the show. You know who else I want to hear from? Jen Psaki. I think her show's on Saturday. Oh, yeah. Let's hear it, lady. You know, how many times you take that damn podium and you tell us about how strong and virile and forceful he is. What did you know and when did you know? For real, we are in the truth and reconciliation phase. It's like, at what point are we should drag... I mean, this...

Trump may try and have this happen, but in a just world, they should be dragged forward. At what point did you first notice that the president was senile? At what point did you first notice he had dementia? Lloyd Austin, what are we doing here? Well, I was going to say, that's the commander in chief. Yeah, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Lloyd Austin was in the ICU. The people. Yes. Yes.

Lloyd was in Israel. He didn't notice that. Tony Blinken. If I'm the parent of somebody in the military right now, I am apoplectic. I am outraged. If my child is overseas right now. Deployed in Syria, you know, sitting in Oxford. Losing my mind. Iranian missiles. Being like, oh yeah, this is the man who's going to respond to that. Also, let's think about the geopolitical ramifications of this. If I'm Putin, I'm rolling every goddamn thing I have right now into Ukraine tomorrow.

Oh, and we wonder why. We wonder why Bibi just rolls over this guy. Oh, gee, I wonder. If I'm Bibi tomorrow, there's a new shipment of 500 pound bombs that are going through to Israel tonight. If I'm Bibi, I'm going to carpet bomb the shit out of Iraq tomorrow. What is this man going to do? What's he going to do? I would laugh in his face. Well, and Bibi wants Trump.

back in here. Yes, especially now. It would only help him politically. It would hurt Biden. He knows that Biden's not going to do anything. At this point, I can't even imagine. Guys, what are those meetings like between Yoav Galant, Bibi, and Biden? It's shocking. Already we knew it was bad. G7 leaders and others were leaking. They were like, oh my God, I can't believe it. We're the laughingstock of the world. Biden's probably calling him Golda Meir. If I was Taiwan, I would be freaking the fuck out.

I'm freaking the fuck out. I'm not kidding. No, no, no, you're right. I really am not. This is the time. This is the time to go. The DNC's in six, seven weeks, right? Democratic National Convention. We'll be there, yeah. We'll be on the ground. But I think it's fluid now. It's going to solidify one way or the other in the next couple of days. There's certainly a world in which, like a week from now, we're like,

Remember when there was a moment where Democrats were openly considering dumping Biden and now they're just- Yeah, we're living in reality. And now they're just back to the fantasy land that Biden is going to be their nominee. What do you put the odds at? Oh, God. I think the odds are probably pretty good that they just try to put this piece of pottery back together. I think so, too.

I have a statement from the campaign. Emotions. We have the first statement from the Biden campaign. Tonight, President Biden presented a positive and winning vision for the future of America. One in which every American has a fair shot at the American dream, blah, blah, blah. On the other side of the stage was Donald Trump, who offered a dark and a backwards window into what America would look like if he steps back in office.

a country that puts the interests of billionaires or working people, put three, a former president who not once but twice but three times failed to promise he would accept the results of a free and fair election. Trump's performance tonight reminded the American people why they fired him four years ago, reinforced just how high the stakes are this November for the future of our country. So that is the, I mean, look,

Ryan, maybe you're right. I think it'll just come back to, but Trump is bad. That's his, you know, that's it. Go ahead. So the uncommitted movement, they say, we all saw what just happened. We have 35 uncommitted delegates in case anyone wants to contest the convention to save lives and our democracy. So there are 35 delegates that were elected. How would they be able to contest though? Because Biden has the delegates, does he not?

So basically what you would be trying to get the other delegates to do is to be faithless towards Spidey. But in order to do that, you need people on the floor to say...

They try to do this to Trump. Right, right. You would have to have the leader of every... Right, you'd have to have the leader of every state movement be faithless, convince those people... Not necessarily the leaders. Isn't it? The delegation. Does this happen in the, like, rules? Is this, like, some rules committee shit that has happened? It's been decades since this has happened. That's the thing. I think it's literally... I think the 1960s might be the last time that something like that... Yeah, because they're, like, in most cases, they're instructed. Like, they don't really have a choice of who they can vote for. But...

The bylaws and the rules are always like, they're made by people, they can be changed by people. You can win a floor knife fight. What they're saying is that if anybody wants to try that the uncommitted delegates are available. They're ready.

I mean, Democrats still have superdelegates too, which can just do whatever they want. That's right. But that's like 700, 800 people. They've diminished their importance, but they still are a thing. So wouldn't that be the irony of ironies? Saved by the superdelegates? Wasn't that the justification for them? Superdelegates for Bernie? Wasn't that the actual justification that in a moment of... Populism. Like...

trouble for the nation, like they can be the wise ones or something. - Now's your chance, guys. - It was never real, but that was the actual-- - The irony is that was the justification. - That is really interesting. - Is the whole idea of the party decides and it puts itself above any individual candidate and protects its interests at the expense of somebody taking them over. Obama effectively destroyed that after, well, he destroyed it in a certain way and then took it over in his own image.

Trump basically did the same thing over on the RNC side. So we're actually seeing a consequence of like weak party structures. But also just the fact is it's of cowards that are in office. In the old days, the senators, Chuck Schumer has got nothing to lose. This man will be resigned to the trash heap of history. He'll be the Senate minority leader. And then when his term is up, he's gone. He'll be 80 years old. What do you have to lose at this point being like, Joe?

It's over, dude. I cannot back you. Pelosi too. How old is she? 83? She's older than Biden. What do you have to lose? It could be your last service to the country. Well, here's where that becomes even more important.

Typically a Chuck Schumer or Nancy Pelosi, what they would have to lose is access to the powerful people running the country, running the Democratic Party. It is clear to everybody right now that Joe Biden is not going to be, A, he's not really running things, even if his people are still in charge, but he's not long for the next decade.

He's not gonna be here that long. His post-presidency, however long it is, it's not going to be like one of the guys that hung around, like Obama, for example, young, still out there, Netflix, all that stuff. That's not happening. So they can afford to actually lose their access to the Bidens at this point because it's becoming a national disgrace. I think Joe Biden is gonna take so much heat after this.

- She should. - The Bidens are losing clout in Washington right now by the minute. Whether or not it comes back is a different question. That I'm genuinely curious about. - Does the fact that they're going to do the actual nomination remotely,

Is that? Actually, I was going to say, that's probably a good point because guess what? Then you can't organize behind the scenes. You can't scream. You can't protest. You can't organize on a different ballot. Try to scream. That's a good point. Yeah, it makes it harder for people. And it also shortens the time frame. Right. Because the whole thing with this, guys, is Ohio has some law about deadline as to when the candidate has to be nominated in order for it to get on the ballot. And most...

My understanding was that the Ohio report

Republicans who were in charge of the legislature there were like, oh, we'll actually change the law. And Democrats were like, we don't trust you. We're still going to do the nomination early and remotely. And at the time, it seems like, and I think this was the logic, it's like, oh, this will be a way to get our nomination done cleanly without having to worry about any protests over Palestine and the genocide in Gaza. And so, but now it also serves them, serves Joe in terms of speeding up the timeline and also...

making it more difficult to organize some sort of a floor coup. I don't know. Yeah. I was going to say, the only way is they have to stop the nomination on the first ballot. That becomes incredibly difficult because if he gets the nomination there on the first ballot, boom, I believe it goes forward and it gets ratified. I honestly think all of this is cope. I think this is all cope. It's on him now.

It's on the elites too. He has to drop out or he's gonna be the nominee. And that's it. If he decides to hang on, he will be the nominee. Yeah, that's right. He is the president. He is the one. He has the people. They rigged the debate, the primary for him, the Florida Democratic Party and others and multiple other large states that are pledged.

I mean, apparently, so our control room is cutting a clip right now. Gavin Newsom and Raphael Warnock were asked in the spin room to react. And Gavin was given the opportunity. Someone said, do you think President Biden should step aside? And he said, no. He said he was 100%. Yeah, I was going to say, what is he going to do? That would be next level. But I'm saying even like the...

I think they're clinging to it at least for now. - Yeah, for sure. - Gavin got to be kicking himself that he did not make a wrong move. - What is he doing? - 'Cause he would have been the nominee. - That's a Chris Christie miss. That's a Chris Christie 2012 level miss. Chris easily could have been the president. So could Gavin.

It's honestly, that's amusing. This is the person who had the best night. I think the person who had the best night in all of this isn't Trump, it's RFK Jr., truly. Yeah. Because the double hater thing is now going to be the theme of the election. Because, again, you have two guys talking about their freaking handicaps on the presidential debate stage, one of which can barely keep his eyelids open. Well, they're fighting over it. And it's like, guys, take this to the country club, please. Like, get it off the damn debate stage. And I just...

I think, you know, we've seen those numbers. Sometimes they're better for Trump. But the way when you add RFK Jr. and Jill Stein in, though, but the way if Biden clings to this and holds on, the way that some of those people might just totally go back to RFK. Because interestingly, Chris Darwalt pointed this out today. Some of the biggest movement has been –

away from RFK Jr. towards Biden in the last few weeks. And so, it's marginal obviously when the margins are where they are, but what if we see a reversal of that? And Democrats saying this is, if Biden clings to it, as Ryan was saying earlier, we could definitely see after this debate another 5%, another 10%, another 15% going to RFK Jr. That's devastating to both candidates. We don't know how it shakes out, but especially to Biden.

Brian's point earlier about how it really did change history to not have RFK on that stage is a very important one. Yes. Because I do think if he was there—

And people really are internalizing, oh, there's this other person out there. There's this other option who is younger than both of them. There's the same name as a guy who we've heard of. Yeah, I've heard of this guy before, right? He could become the direct competitor to Trump. Right. That would have been the consequence. Still a two-party system. That would have been the consequence. Could have been the opposite.

That still could happen. It still could happen. That still could happen, by the way. There's enough people out there who are like, I can't do this. But that's a lot of incentive actually for Democrats because no matter what Joe Biden does for the rest of this election, if he is the candidate, RFK Jr. is going to get a very healthy bump and that bump is going to help Trump at this point more than Biden. So that's more incentive for Democrats as they panic to the word that Joy Reid used. And think about this in those smoke-filled back rooms over the next couple of days. The math with RFK Jr. is insane.

That should give them the incentive to find someone else. Kamala has just appeared on CNN. Here's what she says. Joe Biden is extraordinarily strong. What we saw tonight is the president making a very clear contrast with Donald Trump. Yeah, that's true. Absolutely.

She, for the first time, she finally said something true. She says, yes, there was a slow start, but it was a strong thing. But time is a flat circle. Oh, God, he looks orange. Time is also the moment in time that we're in. And she didn't just fall out of the company tree. I just...

But you know what? A strong contrast. But the fact that even she has to say it's a slow start. Oh, yeah, that's it. Exactly. When your own vice president tops Schiller, like you don't see that. It was a slow start. Slow middle. And slow finish. I've never, I've actually never heard someone who's doing the spin acknowledge any weakness. Good point. Any. That shows you how bad it is. She knew she had to say it. Let alone the vice president. Got off to a little rocky start, but he was great at the end.

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Let's play this game, though. Okay? Let's say, let's say Obama comes out and Bill Clinton, they all, all right, Joe. It's done. Joe drops. Is it Kamala? Is that who we get? No. A sensible Obama says, it's not you. It's not Kamala.

I think, you know who I think he picks? 'Cause you can't replace a black lady with a white guy. I go Gretchen Whitmer. That's what somebody said previously. I would take somebody like Gretchen Whitmer, Michigan, and he needs to have it pre-selected. All the conversation needs to have already happened. The two of you need to step aside. You can make the case that, you know, whatever, she's the VP and-

We need to move on from the Biden-Harris ticket or whatever. The Whitmer-Harris. We go with Gretchen Whitmer. And somebody tweeted, I think we said it, Wes Moore is that with the governor of Maryland. So we need a black guy. Put him as the VP candidate so then we get all of our diversity here. You could keep Kamala as VP that way. If we're going to make a clean break, we make a clean break. They have to make a deal with her. They have to give her something. That's right. Secretary of State. Put her on the Supreme Court. There you go. Put her on.

Black woman on the Supreme Court. Her opinions would be amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They put her on the scotus. They make a deal with her of some kind. And they're like, look, we're going to take care of you, but it's Jover. Whitmer is stepping in. Yeah, maybe, I guess you could stick around. Impeach Alito. But that's the way it would have to happen. Impeach Alito, replace him. Because Obama is not stupid. You can't.

Apparently, okay, so we do have a video of Gavin Newsom and of Raphael Warnock being asked in the spin room about whether Joe Biden should step aside. So let's go ahead and take a listen to how they spun it. For the convention is that there is consternation among Democrats. Looks like David Axelrod suggested the Democrats should look at replacing Joe Biden on the ticket. Would you urge the president to reconsider moving forward? Absolutely not.

have his back 100% permanently. Never turn my back. And I don't know. That's a personal point of view. I do not know one Democrat that would do that. Why should voters maintain their confidence if you're not the right man? Listen, listen, I would be concerned if the president didn't have a record to run on. The fact of the matter is, this is a man who has passed his story

So he'd be concerned if it wasn't for the historic legislation. Gavin Newsom says I'm with him 100%. But, you know, the AP just flashed exactly what you just said, Crystal. Kamala Harris says Biden had a slow start in the debate. That was it. With a strong fit. Because I think everybody can even pick that up. I mean, did we ever see Mike Pence once say, yeah, Trump, he was a little bit off the rails.

But at the end of the day, he brought it home. Speaking of Soviet, Mike Pence would be like, and I want to just acknowledge that Donald J. Trump is the greatest debater that the world has ever seen. That's exactly what we need to do. I thank him for his confidence in me. That's a good one. That's shockingly good. Okay.

Okay, has there ever been a worse debate performance? No, this is the worst. This is worse than the Nixon flop swap, right? The only one that rivals is Lloyd Benson versus, I think, Dan Quayle when he said, I know Jack Kennedy. I served with Jack Kennedy. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy.

And I mean, that did genuinely storm. There are vice presidentials. It doesn't count. There are two. That might be the only one. There are two televised debates that are the most significant in American history. One is 1960 and one is this. This belongs in the absolutely 100 percent. This is the president of the United States melting on stage. He is the acting president. I'd say it's melting on stage. Donald Trump being the host of Celebrity Apprentice and debating Hillary Clinton was spectacular for many reasons. Insane. I still can't believe that.

- And those primary performances, let's not forget about what he did to Jeb and Marco. - Only Rosie O'Donnell. - Rand Paul is ugly. - Yeah, yeah. Why is Rand Paul even on this stage? - Legendary. No, but to bring it back, I actually think you're right. To rack my brain, I don't think there has ever been a worse performance by a president ever. I think it is hands down. - And more consequential because, Emily's right, it's one thing when you're a candidate

Yeah. This is the sitting president of the United States. And just from a cynical perspective, it is true that Republicans and the conservative media have taken some clips out of context to make Biden look worse than he would have looked in the full context. The parachute guy. But that's also part of how politics works. Your enemies, your adversaries are not going to treat you fairly.

So what this has done is that it has allowed them to clip stuff from here until November all day long, in context, out of context, it won't matter. And the public will be like,

Yep, I believe that. Well, and here's the thing is they were starting to get a little worried going into this debate because they realized they had done such an effective job of making everyone, you know, that word cloud we put up on the screen. Literally every demographic, every partisan identification says the number one they think of with Joe Biden is old. The expectations for him were so low, so low going in just as in

the union is so low going in that you had a real effort in conservative media this week to be like, I don't know, Joe Biden. Donald Trump, I think, even was like, I saw him with Paul Ryan. He did a great job. I think he's going to do a fantastic job. I had those thoughts myself because there were he had good.

- He had good moments in 2020, but it-- - Guys, all of us thought it. We've seen him do fine enough when the moment called for it. The State of the Union is our best example. Crystal, I think your point is the best here. He was reading off a teleprompter when he actually is required to use an iota of his brain.

He melts just like he does in the press conferences that we've seen at the G7 that we've seen in every spontaneous reaction. And so what we saw here is why they did not put him up for an interview with the Super Bowl. It is why they have stopped him from doing less presidential press conferences than any modern American president. When there is any iota of chaos or any of that involved that they can't control, he falls apart. And I cannot even imagine.

what these meetings are like, what we were talking about. And the Joe and Chief's situation room, I mean, it's just, it blows the mind. It's worse than we thought. It really is. I think I'm curious for your take on this. I think if Trump missed anything, it was the opportunity to kind of make fun of

Biden a little bit more. I don't think he should have. I think he did the best thing. When something is so bad, it's like when you're talking, it's hard to explain, but it's like when someone is so far gone, you have to show sympathy. And at the best, he's like Ryan debating you on weed. There you go. He has to show sympathy. Yeah, he just has to show sympathy for me.

I don't addle my brain with disgusting drugs. But the point is that when someone is that, it is an act of kindness and magnanimity to step back. And we saw that with Trump too. Did you remember? When he goes, this is childish. Let's not act childish. I was like, what? I was like, what upside down universe am I living in? We have the one moment where he made, we're Trump, this is F2 guys that I'm queuing up here.

where he did allude to the fact that Biden is incoherent. When he was president, he was taking, separating babies from their mothers, putting them in cages, making sure the families were separated. That's not the right way to go. What I've done since I've changed the law, what's happened? I've changed it in a way that now you're in a situation where there are 40% fewer people coming across the border illegally. It's better than when he left office.

And I'm going to continue to move until we get the total ban on the total initiative relative to what we're going to do with more border patrol and more asylum officers. President Trump?

I really don't know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don't think he knows what he said either. Look. He doesn't know what he said either. But in general, Chris, even that, I've seen Trump, I've seen him go after people. We remember the whole disabled thing. For a man of him to comport himself this way, I think even he understood in this moment, I almost need to be a secondary character. And what, you and I, all of us, we've been talking here for about an hour and 15 minutes.

We barely talked about Donald Trump's performance because that's not the story. And I think Trump, the showman, he understood that in that moment. He could have actually, he probably could have lost the moment. He probably could have gone in on Biden. A different Trump goes in, almost makes him feel bad, makes us feel bad. Yeah, that's the thing is it just would have felt mean. Like what he did there, that was fine. Yes. That was...

That was it. We didn't need you to lay out for us that this was going terribly for Joe Biden and he's incoherent and senile and can't formulate a sentence. We could see that. Like, I think if he had really gone in on that, yeah, it would have felt too mean. I don't know that it really would change anything because ultimately the story is Biden. But yeah, Trump smartly

made sure to step back for once and, you know, let Biden have the headlines out of this debate. If you watch Trump's face, like you watch Trump's face just as Biden starts talking in the very beginning, he's like, yeah, yeah. Doing like double and triple takes. And I'm sure he was just like, oh, wow, this is going to be an easy night. Because it wasn't just the incoherence.

or the inability to formulate a thought. It was the look. It was the voice. It was the total package. Like stumbling a little? Yeah. And I mean, in that, you know. Apparently Jill Biden had to leave him off the stage. Like she had to lead him down the stairs. Oh, come on. We were,

For the good of the country, step up if you love your husband. What are we doing here? Because what they always said about that infamous Nixon-Kennedy, the flop sweat debate, is that people who listen on the radio actually thought Nixon had won. But because it was televised and he was sweating and the way he looks, nobody on the radio or TV or

There was no medium in which anyone was thinking Trump won. Maybe Telegraph. Which is how Biden gets his news. If you read the transcript, you'd still just be like, what the fuck? Medicare? I bet that most people don't even think Trump won.

Like, they think he won by default. Yeah. Objectively, he won. But that's what we're saying. But really, Biden lost. Yeah, exactly. I mean, he- I don't even know what Trump said. He hung himself. Bingo. I didn't even think or pay attention to what Trump was saying. I'm just like, I can't believe it. He said Joe Biden was a bad Palestinian.

- That was funny. - That was an interesting one. - He's a Palestinian, but he's not even a good one. - He's a weak one. - Not even they like him, he's weak. - He's a weak Palestinian. Palestinians apparently is floor now. But yeah, it was just-- - But was he trying to be nice to Palestinians that like--

Lots of Palestinians are strong or something? Ryan, you're thinking too deeply. I don't know. It's just, yeah. That was a new one. It was new. We've got a question here from our locals chat for our premium subscribers. Shout out, by the way, breakingpoints.com to support us. And they say, what is the drop dead date, no pun intended, for replacing Biden? So what? We've got six weeks.

It will be the longest six weeks in American political history. Because he doesn't actually need to be on the Ohio ballot anyway because he's not going to win Ohio. But basically you have to be on every ballot that matters and gets you to 270. You have to be on enough state ballots where you can win 270 plus votes and that's

Really? Late August, early September. I'm looking. DNC virtually nominate Biden, Harris. But even then, it's tough because of the Electoral College. So if you're only on, you can get 270. But in states, for example, if you're a Democrat, it's a bunch of red states. Yeah. No, no. 270 where you can plausibly win is what I mean. They need to replace him before the convention so that they can get on the ballot and all, which they're already all on the ballot.

on all 50 and they can run if they were going to do it. Convention starts the 19th. When's the virtual thing they're talking about? So it says they haven't confirmed, according to this ABC News article, they haven't confirmed a date when the virtual nomination will happen, but it has to be before the August 7th Ohio ballot deadline. And now that's going to be... So it's like a month. That could also become now more scandalous than it was before.

Because if they come out, nobody was paying attention to this online thing. Except us. Except this show. Except this show. And all weirdos watching us. Those people were paying attention. But the country was not. So now all of a sudden if you have a headline that says Democrats to rush nomination of Biden two weeks before election, people are going, oh, geez. This looks corrupt. True. Have Republicans changed it yet?

the date for the Ohio ballot thing. I'm not sure. No, theirs is in July though. So they'll be fine. Theirs is like July 19th. No, no, no. I mean, did the Republicans in Ohio change the law like they said they would? I don't know actually. I'm not sure. But like I said, it doesn't matter because he's not going to win Ohio. Right. All right.

All right, here's a question from a fellow 500 from of our premium subscribers Could this be the moment for third parties and I think that actually might be the most fascinating part of our discussion tonight I think Ryan's point about how it really was something that changed the course of history to exclude RFK jr. From this debate you said something after Ryan made that point about how it would have felt like it was a two-man race not between Trump and Biden but between Trump and RFK jr. And if ever there were a moment in

for the third party, the plausible third party candidate to hit that lane. Well, I think it might have been tonight because they'll find a million different ways. If they replace Biden, I mean, they can find a candidate that's even better, that makes RFK Jr. less attractive to certain voters. So it could have been- Joe Manchin kicking himself, not taking that, no labels. Tonight could have been the night that the two party system was dealt a significant, the most significant blow

The alternative is that Biden hangs on, RFK's still on the ballot, and he wins like 32% of the vote. That would be insane. That would actually blow up the entire system. Well, those are Perot numbers. He could do better than that. Yeah, I mean, if you win a third of the popular vote in this country, it's game over. I mean, you created something, regardless of whether you want to or not. Except it really doesn't create a... Yeah.

A three-party system, you just get a new two-party system. True. Yeah, but I mean, in a certain way, that's what's always happened. Right, exactly. With higher third parties, you absorb and destroy. And the wigs go away. Right. You get the Republicans, Democrats. Yeah. It's not as if all of a sudden you have a multi-party system. I don't know. I just, I think there are enough people who are still so locked in to just like, you know, he's the president, he's the Democrat, he's not Trump. You know, I...

RFK Jr. will benefit.

But I'm skeptical that you will have enough people that will go to him, especially if he continues to be shut out of mainstream forums, et cetera, to actually challenge. But who the hell knows? I think it's harder to shut him out going forward, too. I think so, too. I can tell you one thing's for sure. If Biden is the Democratic nominee, there ain't no way in hell they're doing that second debate in September. That shit is not happening. No way. It's actually COVID and he needs 10 weeks of isolation. But they're only announcing

during the debate. That's right. They're like, oh, we're so sorry. What if he's down by 10? Yeah. Then they do what you suggest and they're just like, well, hopefully the Senate and the House will cross our fingers and look forward to 2028. I think Biden will do it and I think he will be down by 10 because Biden is so arrogant. He'll be like, we're going to show him this time, Jack. He's going to come back. In his mind, he's not, unless there's a full court. They're not going to do it. No, but I'm saying hypothetically, what does that do to the ballots?

I don't know. I don't know.

I saw a funny, I saw an interesting question here. Someone said, I can't find it. Oh, here we go. Putting conspiracy hat on, was this debate pushed by Dems to embarrass Biden? I don't trust them enough to do that. It just was the de facto result. Ryan, you said that from the beginning. You were like, some people are actually cheering him from do terrible. Right. I was like, yeah, right. I don't think that's why they did it. But yeah, definitely a lot of Democrats sitting around the country were like, this is our last chance to save the party and save the country and save democracy.

But if Biden completely implodes on stage and they got their wish, like they got the performance that in a small D democratic system would lead to him stepping down. And it's a real test of

whether there are any democratic veins still kind of running through that body or not. Because democracy is not just like running through the traps of procedural elections. It's like actual, actually can the will of a public be expressed through the various systems of pressure you have? I'm so cynical, I don't think so. No, I don't think so either. I think he will run. I think he's arrogant. And I don't think Obama, Schumer, or any of those people have the courage to tell him that it's time to go. Yeah. And I think we are.

- It's, wow. - Yeah, and it's amazing to contemplate. Nobody wants him to run and be on the ballot, yet he will be on the ballot. - Yeah, and that is not new, by the way.

The American people, the Democratic Party. How many polls do we cover? Majority Democrat. We want options. We do not want to just go with Joe Biden. We would at least like to have some choices. And what did the Democratic Party do in response? How about we literally cancel primaries?

How about that? How about we do that? Because democracy is on the ballot, guys. Yeah. They lost a bunch of mayoral races in Florida. Did you follow that story? Yes, because they canceled the primary. They canceled the primary and then Republicans were like, oh, wait, I'm mayor of this town? Right. This Democratic town now? Right, because people didn't show up for the – yeah, I mean –

There have been so many criminal acts along the way that in retrospect, which we called out here on the show live, and we're like, this is not going to look good. This is going to be bad. This could be a bad precedent. What about this primary? What about this? Ridicule after ridicule, people just move on, and they thought they could bluff their way, and this is the result they got. So any closing remarks? What do you guys think?

Emily? God bless America. We beat Medicare. We finally beat Medicare. Thank goodness. By the way. That's it. That was an insane moment. By the way. He goes, by the way. And he also had 37 seconds left. And she was like, do you want me to finish? By the way.

I mean, it's funny, but it's not funny. That's actually what I wanted to close with. I'm laughing a lot because it's so preposterous, but it's dark. Yeah. This is dark. I mean, everything about it. That we got to this place, that this is where we are as a country, these two dudes, this guy who can't, I mean...

And your point about it being such a test of is there even a shred of democracy, actual democracy still operational? Because, I mean, if you polled American people right now after watching that debate, what percentage of them would be like, yes, Joe Biden all the way. This is the guy. Maybe 5%. And they're all 80 years old. Yeah.

They know better. Oh, you think so? Yeah. They're like, you know what? I'm in my golden years. Come join us. How many elderly people have you talked to who say, like, I couldn't do the job. I wouldn't want to do the job. Like, I know what I feel like right now. Yeah. All right. Last thoughts, Ryan? Well, Democrats had said privately, you know, it's good that this is so early so that if he botches it terribly, we can recover. So I guess we're going to find out if that genius plan is going to work out. All right.

There we go. I think I've said everything. I got nothing else left to say. We'll see. They either pull him or they don't. I hope for the sake of the country they do. I don't think that they will. By the way, everybody, thank you so much to our premium subscribers who we took questions from. And if you can help support all of our election work, we are going to be on the ground at the DNC with a live reaction, which-

Pretty happy that we booked our hotels and all flights and everything. Made the investment, which we were able to do thanks to our premium subscribers. If you can help us out, we can put that up there, breakingpoints.com. We deeply appreciate you.

Yeah, there's the man himself. Become a member at BreakingPoints.com. Support our work, and you'll continue to see more of this. If there is a second debate, we'll be here. If there is a DNC where Joe Biden is nominated, we'll be here, or we'll be there. And if they nominate somebody else, we'll be there as well. Yeah, and it's going to be interesting as hell to see how the media plays this, how Democrats play this over the coming days and weeks. What a day. What a day in American history. We'll be here to follow it.

Hi, I'm Katie Lowes. And I'm Guillermo Diaz. And we're the hosts of Unpacking the Toolbox, the Scandal Rewatch podcast where we're talking about all the best moments of the show. Mesmerizing. But also, we get to hang out with all of our old Scandal friends like Bellamy Young, Scott Foley, Tony Goldwyn, Debbie Allen, Kerry Washington. Well, suit up, gladiators. Grab your big old glass of wine and prepare yourselves for an even more behind-the-scenes Scandal.

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Meet the real woman behind the tabloid headlines in a personal podcast that delves into the life of the notorious Tori Spelling as she takes us through the ups and downs of her sometimes glamorous, sometimes chaotic life in marriage. I just filed for divorce. Whoa. I said the words that I've said like in my head for like 16 years.

Listen to Misspelling on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Angie Martinez, and on my podcast, I like to talk to everyone from Hall of Fame athletes to iconic musicians about getting real on some of the complications and challenges of real life.

I had the best dad and I had the best memories and the greatest experience. And that's all I want for my kids as long as they can have that. Listen to Angie Martinez IRL on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Criminalia. I'm Maria Tremarcki.

And I'm Holly Frey. Together, we invite you into the dark corridors of history and true crime. For each season, we explore a new theme, from poisoners to stalkers, art thieves to snake oil salesmen. And tune in at the end of each episode as we indulge in cocktails and mocktails inspired by each story. Listen to Criminalia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Get emotional with me, Radhi Devlukia, in my new podcast, A Really Good Cry. We're going to be talking with some of my best friends. I didn't know we were going to go there on this. People that I admire. When we say listen to your body, really tune in to what's going on. Authors of books that have changed my life. Now you're talking about sympathy.

Which is different than empathy, right? Never forget, it's okay to cry as long as you make it a really good one. Listen to A Really Good Cry with Radhi Devlukia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.