Part Of The Problem - Dave Smith - Joe Biden Drops Out Of The Race
Aired: 2024-07-23
Duration: 01:11:18


=== The Big Change in Town (14:27) ===

[00:00:06]  Oh, hi, everyone.
[00:00:07]  I've taken over the show because I'm here live before everyone else is, but it's nice to be with you as I take over the part of the problem podcast.
[00:00:14]  That was the big change.
[00:00:14]  There's a new sheriff in town.
[00:00:17]  That is the big change.
[00:00:18]  That would be news if we have to.
[00:00:21]  Welcome to your own show, Dave Smith.
[00:00:22]  It looks like we're live.
[00:00:23]  Well, thank you for having me.
[00:00:25]  What's up, everybody?
[00:00:26]  Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem as we listen.
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[00:00:34]  We have officially launched partoftheproblem.com.
[00:00:37]  This is where all of our episodes will be streaming from now on.
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[00:02:13]  All right, Rob.
[00:02:16]  If it's possible, I feel like I'm on the wrong side of the bed here.
[00:02:20]  Yeah, if we can switch me and Rob, if we know how to do that, I'm supposed to be on the other side.
[00:02:25]  This may not be that big of a deal for people listening, but it's pretty huge for us.
[00:02:31]  Yeah, I got OCD and it's throwing me off.
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[00:02:46]  So it's nice to be on a new site, totally independent.
[00:02:49]  And I hope as many fans as possible migrate over so that we don't have to worry about the tech overlords anymore.
[00:02:55]  Yeah.
[00:02:55]  Well, look, I mean, we've been saying for quite a while, right, that things are going to things are going to get crazy over the next few months.
[00:03:04]  And man, looking back at just the last, say, week, we weren't wrong about that.
[00:03:12]  And so who knows where things are going to get from here?
[00:03:15]  I will say that I think one of the safest predictions you could make right now is that it's not over yet.
[00:03:22]  It's not as if this is the craziness and now it's all just going to be smooth sailing.
[00:03:28]  So much has happened in the last 24 hours that there's almost so many different angles on it.
[00:03:34]  So let me just jump in and we'll try to hit everyone and try to hit, you know, what I, what I think or what you think, Rob is important to kind of understand about this moment because it is pretty crazy.
[00:03:47]  So first of all, Could Rob, if I had told you last Saturday that this was going to be a very bad week for Joe Biden, that would have seemed pretty, you would have been like, it seems like it's starting off pretty bad for Trump.
[00:04:04]  Well, no, it turns out that assassin's bullet missed Donald Trump and hit Joe Biden.
[00:04:10]  Personally, I think Kamala Harris hired that assassin to shoot off Donald Trump's ear, curve, and then hit Joe Biden.
[00:04:19]  Yeah, the big news from yesterday was that Joe Biden announced he's not running for that's how you have to say it.
[00:04:28]  Joe Biden?
[00:04:31]  Somebody announced that Joe Biden has dropped out of the race.
[00:04:38]  And then there was a letter almost like, okay, let's actually zoom back a little bit.
[00:04:47]  Just to go over kind of where we were till we got here.
[00:04:50]  Okay.
[00:04:51]  So a lot of people upset.
[00:04:53]  I got flooded with tweets yesterday.
[00:04:56]  People saying, you know, Dave called it, nailed the prediction.
[00:05:00]  You know, you said, because I've been saying for quite a while now that Joe Biden was not going to be the nominee from basically all year.
[00:05:07]  I've been saying that, maybe even more than the year.
[00:05:11]  I was saying that I was tweeting about it just recently before the debate happened.
[00:05:16]  And a bunch of people were telling me I was crazy, but I was pretty, I was, I was quite confident that I was that I was right about that.
[00:05:28]  And anyway, people were saying I got this prediction right or whatever.
[00:05:34]  Just to be clear, I predicted in 2019 that Joe Biden would not be the Democratic nominee because he was too senile at the time.
[00:05:47]  So I got that one wrong.
[00:05:48]  So, you know, give me credit for getting it right this time.
[00:05:51]  In hindsight, it seems like the easiest prediction to have made.
[00:05:55]  But in 2019, there was a real primary in the Democratic Party.
[00:06:02]  When I say real, I mean there were multiple people and they had debates and they had primary votes in states.
[00:06:08]  I don't mean in any way to suggest that obviously the DNC is the least democratic organization possibly in the world.
[00:06:16]  And so it's not a true democratic process, but there was, there were multiple candidates and there was, and, you know, at the time, I thought this, it was just too clear.
[00:06:25]  The cognitive decline was too big of an issue for them to be able to avoid it.
[00:06:29]  Now, they were able to get everybody else out of the race.
[00:06:33]  I think they tried to see if any of the other candidates would fly, and none of them did.
[00:06:39]  None of them did, including some of the ones who they are maybe going to be trying to fly right now, one who they're certainly going to try.
[00:06:48]  So that's where this started back in 2019 going into 2020.
[00:06:56]  Now, the media basically pretended there was no problem with Joe Biden's age for all of the year since then.
[00:07:05]  After his debate performance, the worst happened.
[00:07:10]  Now, we had always, me and you had talked about many times over the years about how that was kind of the excitement with Joe Biden is that every time he spoke, you were like, oh, this could be the one.
[00:07:21]  This could be the time where it all falls apart.
[00:07:24]  And the debate three weeks ago, that was the time.
[00:07:28]  It ended up happening on a moment that really, really mattered.
[00:07:32]  And it was such a catastrophic performance that the media just couldn't, they couldn't get past it anymore.
[00:07:38]  No one could pretend that the emperor still had clothes on.
[00:07:42]  So after that, immediately, there were calls for Joe Biden to leave the race.
[00:07:53]  And when I say immediately, I mean literally as soon as the debate ended, there were people right away in the post-debate panels on MSNBC and CNN.
[00:08:05]  It was this stark like drop of a dime flip where all of the people who just, if you can remember, as we bring up on the show, but it's important to remember, to remind people again, about four weeks ago, in the shortest propaganda campaign in human history, they rolled out the new term called cheap fakes.
[00:08:28]  Now, cheap fakes were kind of like deep fakes, you know, fake videos, except cheap fakes, you see, were real, but they were still fake, even though they were real.
[00:08:40]  Right, Rob, am I getting this right?
[00:08:41]  That cheap fakes were real videos of Joe Biden looking senile, but the entire corporate media, as well as the White House press briefing, wanted to let you know that that's still unfair, that that's still misleading.
[00:08:58]  You see, Joe Biden isn't really senile.
[00:09:01]  You just showed an out-of-context clip that, while real, made it look like he was senile.
[00:09:09]  But as we all know, Rob, this was just a right-wing talking point.
[00:09:12]  This was a week before the debate.
[00:09:14]  This is where everybody was.
[00:09:16]  Okay.
[00:09:16]  But once the debate happened, the term cheap fake disappeared immediately because nobody could pretend that everybody didn't witness what they just witnessed.
[00:09:26]  So immediately there were calls for Joe Biden to step down.
[00:09:31]  The Joe Biden, as a response to this, went to Camp David with his family members.
[00:09:37]  We were recording.
[00:09:38]  This is the week that I was recording from vacation.
[00:09:42]  Joe Biden went to Camp David with Hunter Biden, with Joe Biden.
[00:09:45]  They all talked about it and they made a decision.
[00:09:48]  And that decision was that Joe Biden is staying in the race, staying in the race.
[00:09:53]  Had a bad debate performance.
[00:09:54]  We're going to get it back.
[00:09:55]  As a response, the campaign started sending him out more often than he's ever been sent out, at least since 2019.
[00:10:03]  He did bad in every single subsequent interview.
[00:10:06]  It all went bad.
[00:10:07]  He was not able to put one performance together that pulled him back.
[00:10:12]  And it just got worse and worse and worse.
[00:10:14]  The big donors started all talking about how they were pulling their money from Joe Biden.
[00:10:23]  Then, of course, George Clooney wrote an op-ed.
[00:10:26]  Now, this was all kind of a wink and a nod to everybody that it was really Barack Obama because George Clooney is good friends with Barack Obama.
[00:10:33]  And that's why there was some significance there.
[00:10:36]  Last week, there's an assassination attempt on Donald Trump's life.
[00:10:40]  And essentially what was said was that now everything was in limbo.
[00:10:46]  The big donors were regrouping.
[00:10:48]  They weren't sure what to do.
[00:10:49]  They weren't sure, given all this craziness, what the next move should be.
[00:10:54]  Maybe they expected something different to happen that day.
[00:10:57]  Who knows?
[00:10:58]  But that's what happened.
[00:11:00]  And then a couple days later, and it really seemed like as the Republican National Convention was winding down, the decision was made that no, no, no, he's got to, he's got to leave.
[00:11:12]  Joe Biden, his fundraising numbers had, I was just reading earlier today, had dropped by 75%.
[00:11:21]  So front fundraising has imploded.
[00:11:24]  He then had meetings with congressional Democratic leaders who urged him to step down, urged him to step down.
[00:11:34]  He said no.
[00:11:35]  It was reported on Friday.
[00:11:39]  Initially, I saw it reported by Mark Halperin that Joe Biden was stepping down, that his letter of resignation, this is what Mark Halperin said, who he was the information he was getting from top Democratic officials,
[00:11:55]  was that his letter of resignation was already being drafted, that he was going to resign as president or resign from running for president for another four years, not resign from the presidency, but that he was going to bow out of the race and that he was going to endorse an open convention.
[00:12:15]  So he was not going to endorse Kamala Harris.
[00:12:17]  He was going to endorse an open convention.
[00:12:19]  This is what Mark Halperin reported on Friday, and he said that he's going to do it by the end of the weekend.
[00:12:27]  As the weekend went by, Joe Biden's campaign went out of their way on Saturday and Sunday to signal that this was not true, that they are not leaving the race.
[00:12:40]  Okay.
[00:12:41]  As we're recording this live, Rob, it is Monday afternoon.
[00:12:46]  As of yesterday, Sunday morning, on the big Sunday morning news shows, Joe Biden had campaign surrogates out there saying, get this out of your head.
[00:12:58]  Joe Biden is not stepping aside.
[00:13:01]  He is the nominee.
[00:13:02]  It's Biden versus Trump.
[00:13:04]  And so you better wrap your heads around that.
[00:13:06]  If you don't like Trump, Biden is the alternative.
[00:13:10]  And that's that.
[00:13:11]  This is what they were saying on the Sunday shows way back yesterday.
[00:13:17]  Yesterday morning.
[00:13:20]  Then that afternoon, hours later, from Joe Biden's Twitter account, a document is posted.
[00:13:33]  This document is not, it's like on a letterhead, but it's Joe Biden's personal letterhead.
[00:13:41]  It's not, there's no White House seal on it.
[00:13:44]  It's not from the president of the United States of America.
[00:13:47]  It's Joe Biden saying he's out.
[00:13:51]  He's out of the race.
[00:13:53]  And then in a subsequent tweet, he endorses Kamala Harris.
[00:13:58]  Now, I just wanted to get all of that timeline down so that when we talk about these things, you're not kind of lost in it, because it is very hard, particularly when so many different things are going on.
[00:14:12]  It is very difficult to appreciate how bizarre this is.
[00:14:19]  Like this is very, very bizarre.
[00:14:22]  This is historic.
[00:14:23]  There's been a few times.
[00:14:25]  I know Lyndon Johnson didn't seek reelection when he could have.
[00:14:30]  I believe Gerald Ford didn't seek reelection when he could have.

=== A Historic Presidential Exit (03:21) ===

[00:14:34]  And so it's not that it's never happened before, but it's a big deal.
[00:14:37]  And it's a really big deal when the president is telling you over and over again that he's not dropping out and then ends up dropping out just a few weeks before their convention.
[00:14:49]  Now, a lot of people, myself included, and I'm sorry, Rob, I'll give you a chance to jump in here, but I just wanted to kind of lay out what's happening.
[00:14:57]  But so a lot of people, myself included, have used the term coup on social media there.
[00:15:04]  And there's been a lot of, let's say, progressives who are jumping on that and going, oh, you don't even know what a coup is.
[00:15:12]  You don't even know what that means.
[00:15:13]  But let me just put it this way, okay?
[00:15:18]  Let's just say that this is all completely above board.
[00:15:24]  And it's just what I was laying out there.
[00:15:26]  Let's just say it was the pressure of the donors and the political class that got him to step down.
[00:15:35]  Okay, fine.
[00:15:36]  You can argue that that is technically not the literal definition of a coup, but in effect, it's pretty damn similar.
[00:15:42]  It's pretty damn similar.
[00:15:44]  They decide, look, obviously the Democratic primary was a big sham, but Joe Biden won it.
[00:15:51]  And none of them are objecting to the process of the primary.
[00:15:54]  It is, it technically should be Joe Biden's decision to make.
[00:15:58]  And he told you he made that decision over and over and over again.
[00:16:01]  So fine, if you want to argue that, you know, well, still, it's technically voluntary, even though it was forced upon him by the donor class and by political operatives.
[00:16:12]  Okay, fine.
[00:16:13]  So not a coup, but it sure does smell like one.
[00:16:15]  It sure is close.
[00:16:17]  But all I'm saying is that it, it is possible as of right now that what we just witnessed was a real deal coup.
[00:16:28]  Like, listen, Joe Biden still has not addressed the country.
[00:16:34]  We have no way of knowing that Joe Biden even made this decision.
[00:16:42]  Think about how crazy this is for a second.
[00:16:44]  Joe Biden didn't imagine the president of the United States of America is announcing weeks out from his convention that he's not running for reelection when he's already the nominee.
[00:17:01]  He's already won the primary.
[00:17:03]  He's weeks out.
[00:17:04]  He's announcing that he's not running after repeatedly telling the American people that he is, even as they've been asking these questions over the last few weeks, repeatedly telling them 1,000%, I'm running.
[00:17:16]  And you're telling me when the president of the United States of America has decided not to seek re-election, that that does not warrant a national address?
[00:17:26]  I know that Joe Biden struggles with speaking, but what are you telling me?
[00:17:31]  He can't, they can't edit together a three-minute video?
[00:17:36]  I mean, it doesn't have to be any more than that, but he couldn't just talk to the American people.
[00:17:41]  I'm sorry.
[00:17:43]  Give me whatever excuse you want.
[00:17:44]  He's got COVID.
[00:17:45]  Yeah, he's the president of the United States of America.
[00:17:47]  He's announcing that he's not seeking reelection.
[00:17:50]  That is not done on personal stationery.

=== Proton VPN Sponsor Segment (02:04) ===

[00:17:55]  You know what I'm saying?
[00:17:56]  Like we have no, there has been no evidence so far that demonstrates that Joe Biden is aware that this happened.
[00:18:07]  It's not clear that he, it's not clear that the same person who wrote that letter is the same person who endorsed Kamala Harris.
[00:18:16]  That much isn't clear.
[00:18:20]  It is shocking that this is the way it would be delivered.
[00:18:25]  And it just, particularly with how crazy everything else has been, it smells like something very fishy.
[00:18:32]  All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Proton VPN.
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[00:19:45]  All right, let's get back into the show.
[00:19:46]  I'm sorry, Rob, jump in with any thoughts that you have.
[00:19:49]  I love what you're putting down, and I love that we live in a world where Donald Trump was able to dodge a bullet and Joe Biden's sitting around at home going, how do I get back onto Twitter?

=== Questioning the National Address (04:53) ===

[00:19:59]  I didn't send that.
[00:20:00]  I'm still running.
[00:20:02]  Wait, how do I let them know?
[00:20:04]  Well, you know, could you, you know, think about, um, think about it like this, right?
[00:20:10]  Imagine if it was Joe Biden, imagine, you know, let's say, let's just say that what we've seen playing out in what we've seen playing out in the media is all correct, right?
[00:20:23]  So Joe Biden has been, you know, he's he's been battling with all of these people who are telling him he has to drop out, right?
[00:20:35]  And he's like, no, I'm not going to do it.
[00:20:37]  I won't do that.
[00:20:38]  I don't care what the polls say.
[00:20:39]  I don't care what the donors do.
[00:20:40]  I'm staying in this.
[00:20:41]  Imagine they had just done this and then presented it to him as a fait de compli.
[00:20:47]  It's done now.
[00:20:49]  What are you going to do now, old man?
[00:20:51]  Go unresign?
[00:20:53]  Go tell them, no, no, no, I'm getting back in the race.
[00:20:56]  Good luck.
[00:20:56]  You know what I mean?
[00:20:58]  And look, there have been things like this that there's a reason why there's a term fait de compli.
[00:21:03]  It's like you do something and then you present it to somebody and then you realize that your options are much more limited in this position than they were when you first started.
[00:21:12]  And I'm look, I'm just saying, I'm not saying that I know any of that for sure.
[00:21:16]  Essentially, what I'm saying is either way, the people who have been lecturing us about democracy for the last four years just subverted democracy in the most blatant way possible.
[00:21:30]  I mean, yes, don't get me wrong.
[00:21:31]  The guy is senile and evil and he deserves to go and all of that, but it really is something to see that this is the way you would get it.
[00:21:41]  You literally just, at best case scenario, strong-armed the president of the United States of America out of his reelection campaign.
[00:21:50]  That's pretty wild.
[00:21:51]  On that note of them screaming about preserving democracy, when the news started putting out, hey, there's information that he will be stepping down this weekend, it felt to me like what you were describing of, hey, if we put this out there that it's happening, maybe we can actually force it into reality and force his hand.
[00:22:08]  Now, if this, if someone just tweeted that and put that out on Biden's behalf, he's forced to step up and go, guys, it's incredible what just happened to me.
[00:22:18]  I'm going to go scorched earth on all my enemies who are trying to remove me from the democratic process.
[00:22:23]  And then think about who he's going up against.
[00:22:25]  Is he going up against Obama?
[00:22:27]  Is he going against the rich donor class?
[00:22:29]  And then now he's on the side of that people are actually subverting democracy.
[00:22:34]  Like, remember the last time when Donald Trump said, hey, this election was stolen?
[00:22:39]  And I think part of the process was, all right, even if it was stolen, we got to preserve the way this system works.
[00:22:45]  So you got to go graciously because we need the system to continue to exist.
[00:22:49]  Imagine if Biden actually steps up right now and goes, I did not tweet that.
[00:22:53]  They are forcing me out and I am running and I'm going scorched earth on all the individuals who are trying to do a coup on me.
[00:23:00]  What like just think about what that makes the Democratic Party look like over the last couple of years as they still also try and put together a campaign.
[00:23:08]  Look, I mean, the issue there is that just Joe Biden, the man, is not capable of delivering that argument.
[00:23:16]  You know what I mean?
[00:23:16]  Like he's just too like, like Joe Biden is so far gone that you'd almost, look, even if he came out and said that, I'd still have to turn around and go, there's a chance he just doesn't remember it.
[00:23:29]  I was about to say that.
[00:23:30]  There's a chance that all of this did happen.
[00:23:32]  And he's just like, what do you mean, I never resigned presidency?
[00:23:36]  Can you imagine his staff, by the way, getting up after him going, that never happened and going, nope, it happened and he doesn't remember.
[00:23:44]  Oh my God.
[00:23:45]  Well, look, here's the thing, right?
[00:23:47]  What ends up happening, okay?
[00:23:49]  So Joe Biden alluded vaguely in his resignation letter to the fact that he will be addressing the nation soon.
[00:24:02]  Now, I think he might have said this week or soon or something like that.
[00:24:06]  Now, he didn't address it yesterday.
[00:24:08]  The full day went by.
[00:24:09]  He hasn't addressed the nation today.
[00:24:12]  But here's what happened, right?
[00:24:14]  Immediately after that letter was written and then the endorsement, already what you had was money starts moving.
[00:24:24]  Funds start getting transferred from Joe Biden's campaign to Kamala Harris.
[00:24:29]  Endorsements for Kamala Harris start coming in.
[00:24:32]  Everybody, everybody in the corporate media, everyone in the political landscape accepts that Joe Biden has resigned, comes to terms with that and then decides what they're going to do here going forward.
[00:24:44]  And there is, okay, so, you know, I've I've read quite a bit about like color-coded revolutions and stuff like that, right?

=== Funds Shift to Harris (14:34) ===

[00:24:53]  So I could tell you, so in, for example, in the in Ukraine in 2014, right?
[00:24:59]  For those of you guys, I'm sure many of you have heard me talk about this before.
[00:25:03]  This is one of the major things that led to the war in Ukraine today was that essentially in 2010, the Ukrainians in a democratic election, which was, by the way, verified by the EU as well as other independent groups, everybody said it was a legitimate election.
[00:25:20]  Yanukovych was elected president.
[00:25:23]  Now, Yanukovych was not, despite what some people claim, he was not like a Putin of Vladimir.
[00:25:30]  He was not like a puppet of Vladimir Putin.
[00:25:32]  He was, he wanted Ukraine to essentially be neutral and friendly with all parties.
[00:25:40]  That was kind of his vision for Ukraine.
[00:25:42]  It was like, listen, we're not going to be in NATO.
[00:25:45]  We're not going to be in the Russian Federation.
[00:25:47]  We're going to be Ukraine, but we're going to be friendly with Russia and we're going to be friendly with the Europeans.
[00:25:53]  Like, we'll kind of, that's the best thing for Ukraine.
[00:25:55]  So however you feel about that.
[00:25:56]  And he initially wanted to join the European Union.
[00:26:00]  There was a mix of Vladimir Putin made it very tough for him if he wanted to join the European Union.
[00:26:07]  Like he was like, well, you won't be trading with us anymore if you join with them.
[00:26:10]  Then the European Union made the deal very tough to join the European Union.
[00:26:14]  And then Vladimir Putin said, well, here, come here and I'll offer you a sweetheart deal.
[00:26:18]  Like I'll give you the same loan that the IMF would give you, but with no strings attached.
[00:26:22]  And Yanukovych went, okay, we're going with Putin.
[00:26:25]  So essentially, he had decided not to join the European Union, but instead to work at an economic partnership with Russia.
[00:26:32]  And this was the bridge too far.
[00:26:35]  So the West orchestrated and backed a coup against Vladimir, against Yanukovych.
[00:26:44]  Now, the way this unfolded was that the National Endowment for Democracy and the USAID poured millions of dollars into the country.
[00:26:56]  They started up like a street protest movement.
[00:26:59]  They kept the thing going all winter long.
[00:27:03]  And they, you know, like there, there were these series of like escalations.
[00:27:08]  Also throughout this whole thing, you know, Victoria Newland and John McCain and Senator Murphy were all there saying, we're with you 100% and giving, you know, like kind of riling up the crowd to let them know America had their back.
[00:27:21]  But this was one of the key elements of the coup.
[00:27:25]  All right.
[00:27:26]  So at the very end of it, there was a deal that was brokered by the Europeans and the Yanukovych government and the protesters.
[00:27:37]  And basically what they said was they were like, look, Yanukovych has agreed to hold early elections.
[00:27:45]  Okay.
[00:27:45]  So like elections weren't scheduled for, I forget, like two more years or something like that.
[00:27:49]  And they were like, he'll hold elections in three months if the protesters and if the protesters back off and like the agreement was that Yanukovych would pull the police back if the protesters would also pull back.
[00:28:03]  So no need to protest anymore.
[00:28:04]  We're going to leave this up to democracy, right?
[00:28:06]  The old, like if democracy is good for anything, you'd think that's the example of what it's good for, right?
[00:28:12]  It's like, okay, you got two sides.
[00:28:14]  They're about to go to war.
[00:28:15]  So what do you want here?
[00:28:16]  You want to have a civil war or you want to have a big vote and we'll all agree to accept the results of the vote.
[00:28:22]  I'm not saying democracy is ever perfect, but if there's ever to be an argument for democracy, that's pretty much the situation where there would be an argument for it.
[00:28:32]  So Yanukovych agrees.
[00:28:34]  The protesters agree.
[00:28:36]  Yanukovych pulls his police forces back and the protesters moved in and seized all the government buildings.
[00:28:43]  So he held up his end of the deal.
[00:28:45]  They didn't hold up their end of the deal.
[00:28:46]  The protesters moved and seized all of the buildings.
[00:28:48]  Yanukovych ends up fleeing for his life.
[00:28:52]  Okay.
[00:28:52]  So Yanukovych flees for his life.
[00:28:56]  The next morning, Barack Obama and Joe Biden as his vice president recognize the new government as the legitimate government.
[00:29:06]  Now Yanukovych is in Russia.
[00:29:08]  He's getting on TV and going, hey, I'm the president.
[00:29:13]  What are you doing?
[00:29:14]  Just because I fled for my life doesn't mean I'm not the president anymore.
[00:29:18]  Like I was democratically elected according to the constitutional process of Ukraine.
[00:29:23]  I am the president of this country.
[00:29:25]  The point I'm making is that the U.S. recognizing the new government immediately put him behind where there was no chance of Yanukovych getting his government back.
[00:29:36]  It doesn't matter how dirty it was.
[00:29:39]  The fact that it's already been recognized now, it's in the same sense that, you know, they say possession is nine-tenths of the law.
[00:29:46]  And what they mean by that is like, if you have something, the law is going to like the burden of proof is on somebody else to prove that it's not yours.
[00:29:58]  Like if we're just walking down the street and I'm wearing a watch and you go get a cop and you go, hey, that guy's watch on his wrist, that's my watch.
[00:30:07]  And I go, no, it's not.
[00:30:09]  It's mine.
[00:30:10]  And there's no other information.
[00:30:11]  There's no other witnesses.
[00:30:12]  There's nothing else.
[00:30:14]  The cop's just going to be like, it's his.
[00:30:17]  I mean, he's wearing it.
[00:30:19]  He has possession of it.
[00:30:20]  So I don't know if you want to like take him to court or something like that, if you've got some evidence.
[00:30:23]  But all I see right now is a guy who has possession of this thing and someone else who doesn't have possession of it.
[00:30:28]  And it's kind of the same type of deal with that.
[00:30:31]  It's like, oh, you're saying this is really your government?
[00:30:33]  Well, the Obama administration just recognized that these guys who have possession of it, it's theirs.
[00:30:38]  Okay.
[00:30:38]  So now, so now good luck.
[00:30:40]  Now you're fighting from.
[00:30:41]  So what happens is immediately with Joe Biden, it's almost just assumed that he doesn't have possession of the thing anymore.
[00:30:49]  So everybody's already acknowledged that Joe Biden has dropped out.
[00:30:54]  So in order to convince everyone that you haven't, you're going up against possession, essentially.
[00:31:00]  You're like, ah, dude, it's already been decided.
[00:31:02]  Everyone's already come to terms with it.
[00:31:04]  Even your most hardcore supporters have already come to terms with the fact that, yeah, okay, I guess Joe Biden's gone.
[00:31:10]  And so I'm just saying, if they had just done this to him, it's perfect.
[00:31:17]  There's no way he could come back from this.
[00:31:19]  And then they could just do it and go, okay, you know, Rob, your thing where you said if Biden were to come out and be like, hey, they stole this from me, whippersnappers or whatever.
[00:31:27]  They'd be like, okay, go destroy your legacy.
[00:31:29]  And that'll be your guy.
[00:31:30]  And we'll tell everyone that you did agree to this.
[00:31:32]  And in fact, we saw you agree to this.
[00:31:34]  I got 20 staffers who will testify that they saw you agree to this.
[00:31:37]  Do you think anyone's going to believe you?
[00:31:40]  They don't even believe you remember yesterday.
[00:31:42]  By the way, you don't even believe that you remember yesterday.
[00:31:45]  If there was really a fight put up, there'd be some point where even in Joe Biden's mind, he was like, shit, did I do this?
[00:31:51]  I might have done this.
[00:31:53]  So anyway, that's where we're at.
[00:31:56]  One way or the other, we just witnessed either a coup or something very close to a coup.
[00:32:04]  Something that is in effect a coup.
[00:32:08]  Pretty wild.
[00:32:09]  Can we talk about the options?
[00:32:12]  Yes, let's get into the options.
[00:32:13]  Although I know Lewis has texted me a while back there to he said, engage with the chat, doggy.
[00:32:22]  So let me see if we got chat going.
[00:32:25]  Yeah, we got a big chat.
[00:32:26]  Yeah, if you guys go to partoftheproblem.com, you can get in there too.
[00:32:30]  Louis J. Gomez is in the chat.
[00:32:32]  He said, hey, guys, first stream.
[00:32:34]  Any feedback is appreciated.
[00:32:38]  We'll only get smoother.
[00:32:40]  I don't know if that means it hasn't been hasn't been smooth so far.
[00:32:43]  Been smooth on my end.
[00:32:45]  Okay, I see Mr. Falcon there said, I've had zero issues with the stream so far.
[00:32:50]  There you go, Mr. Falcon.
[00:32:51]  That's the type of positive energy I like.
[00:32:54]  Here, let me scroll through a little bit more here.
[00:32:56]  Sorry, guys, I'm just getting used to the new setup myself here.
[00:33:02]  All right.
[00:33:03]  Everybody's just talking about typing.
[00:33:05]  This guy's typing on your phone.
[00:33:07]  Oh, there.
[00:33:08]  Oh, it's this guy.
[00:33:09]  It's, I am Ralph Sutton.
[00:33:10]  All right.
[00:33:10]  Says it's working good on his phone.
[00:33:12]  All right, great.
[00:33:12]  Hope everybody's enjoying it so far.
[00:33:14]  This is this is cool having our own having our own thing here.
[00:33:19]  Oh, we're getting Hillary Clinton.
[00:33:22]  All right.
[00:33:22]  Well, we could get into that in a second.
[00:33:23]  All right, Rob, you, you alluded to it.
[00:33:25]  So yeah, let's get into what the options are.
[00:33:30]  Because, well, I mean, there's an obvious one so far, but we'll see.
[00:33:34]  Oh, by the way, it should, a couple other things that should be noted before we get into this.
[00:33:38]  But if you do remember back to that original Mark Halperin reporting and what he said, and look, I immediately like my ears perked up when Halperin was reporting this because Halperin is not at all the type of guy who I don't like him as a journalist or think he's particularly good.
[00:33:55]  I don't think he's the type of guy who's just making shit up.
[00:33:58]  Like I think if he's telling you I have sources at high levels in the Democratic Party saying this, then he probably does.
[00:34:06]  He reported that Joe Biden's letter was being drafted.
[00:34:10]  I mean, those were his words, that the resignation letter is being drafted and he will be pulling out of the race this weekend.
[00:34:17]  And he was right about that.
[00:34:19]  Okay.
[00:34:19]  So that lends some serious credibility to this reporting.
[00:34:23]  But he said Joe Biden's not going to endorse Kamala Harris.
[00:34:26]  And that's what the letter said also.
[00:34:29]  But then there was a subsequent tweet where he did endorse Kamala Harris.
[00:34:33]  Very, very notable is the fact that Barack Obama came out and specifically did not endorse Kamala Harris.
[00:34:41]  That he specifically said something about the delegates or the leadership picking the best candidate for the job.
[00:34:51]  So it is still very open as to what exactly is happening here.
[00:34:56]  Alex Jones has reported that it will be Hillary Clinton.
[00:34:59]  So take that for what it's worth.
[00:35:01]  But go ahead, Rob.
[00:35:02]  Any thoughts on who the candidate could or should be?
[00:35:05]  Hoping for Kamala because that will be the most fun.
[00:35:08]  I think she's the only person in the country dumber than Joe Biden.
[00:35:12]  I think people are going to watch her in action and go, wait, does this lady have dementia too?
[00:35:17]  Can we get Joe Biden back?
[00:35:19]  I don't think people quite understand how what is she going to run?
[00:35:22]  The Buses and Spaces cool campaign laffy emoji.
[00:35:27]  I mean, I've seen Kamala in action, and I can tell you she is more unlikable and dumber than Joe Biden with as a senile old man.
[00:35:35]  She does not have a chance, and I don't think that they're going to get to recall two Democratic candidates.
[00:35:40]  So I hope that they throw her up there purely because it's new.
[00:35:44]  It's original.
[00:35:46]  It's going to be a spectacle and it's going to be a fun disaster.
[00:35:49]  So let's make that the show.
[00:35:52]  What I'm rooting against, even though I understand why they might try Hillary Clinton again, because I think she might be able to put up stealable margins.
[00:36:01]  She does get to kind of show up as the adult in the room.
[00:36:04]  But does anyone want to watch that rerun?
[00:36:07]  We've already seen it.
[00:36:09]  It's not a fun show.
[00:36:10]  I don't need to be lectured by Hillary Clinton about democracy, even though she probably just was a part of the coup and trying to kill the other guy.
[00:36:17]  I just don't need, save me your old lady noble lectures.
[00:36:22]  And it's a boring show.
[00:36:24]  So I'm just hoping, and I think Hillary Clinton could win by a stealable margin or also just flame out because she's horribly unlikable.
[00:36:33]  And we watched her lose the last time.
[00:36:35]  And I don't know why her story would be more compelling this time around.
[00:36:39]  But personally, just from an entertainment standpoint, I think Kamala is a lot more fun.
[00:36:44]  And Hillary's really like, do I really have to watch this again?
[00:36:49]  Yeah.
[00:36:49]  Well, look, I mean, the argument for Hillary Clinton is that she beat Donald Trump by 3 million votes last time.
[00:36:56]  You know, now, okay, obviously the popular vote is not what determines the presidency.
[00:37:01]  And Donald Trump won the Electoral College, obviously.
[00:37:05]  But that's still a reasonably strong starting point to say, hey, I'm coming into this with 3 million more votes than this guy.
[00:37:14]  And, you know, the election in 2016 was close enough that if that election was just on, you know, Monday instead of Thursday, it might have gotten Hillary Clinton's way.
[00:37:26]  So there's no, I do also think that there's a lot of weaknesses that come with Hillary Clinton.
[00:37:32]  Looking at Kamala, Kamala Harris has to be the favorite right now.
[00:37:37]  She is the vice president.
[00:37:39]  She's already gotten a lot of endorsements.
[00:37:40]  Nancy Pelosi endorsed her today.
[00:37:44]  She's got Joe Biden's endorsement, I guess, whatever the hell that is, really.
[00:37:51]  But she's, look, as all of the, you know, all the hits are kind of coming up.
[00:38:03]  I don't know if you've seen like on social media all Kamala Harris's like kind of greatest, most idiotic little, you know, moments.
[00:38:12]  The more you look at her, you know, you could see it's kind of like a grass is greener type deal, where when you're dealing with the guy who's old and has senility, you're like, oh my God, could we just have someone who wasn't 90 and can't, you know what I mean, remember what happened this morning.
[00:38:30]  But then as you get over to Kamala Harris, you're like, ah, geez.
[00:38:36]  Geez.
[00:38:37]  Yeah, I don't think so.
[00:38:39]  And I just, I don't see, I, I, you know, I don't see that there's much of a difference in terms of the election with Kamala Harris versus Joe Biden.
[00:38:49]  I see no way that this woman can can beat Donald Trump.
[00:38:53]  You know, it just does not seem possible.
[00:38:56]  Well, I love, we've already pointed out the show, but we actually have the numbers on her likability and it's under 1% because she did try running before and we saw how disliked she was.
[00:39:06]  I still don't totally understand the campaign finance laws as to why she's the only one that can heroin all this money.
[00:39:12]  I'm almost calling bullshit on that, that they're saying that and it probably goes to the DNC or to some other.
[00:39:18]  I don't really think that it's possible that the $190 to $160 million that have been allocated to Biden's campaign then just gets left for Biden.

=== Doubts on Kamala's Viability (04:46) ===

[00:39:27]  I just don't believe that to be true.
[00:39:29]  Yeah, I'm not exactly sure.
[00:39:31]  I do believe that it's easier for her to take it because she's a part of the campaign already.
[00:39:36]  There might be something that makes it easier for her.
[00:39:38]  But yeah, I get your point.
[00:39:39]  All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Nevin Eyewear, my new favorite sunglass company.
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[00:40:54]  All right, let's get back into the show.
[00:40:55]  There was an MSNBC article on Saturday that Kamala took a terrible phone call with the donors where, and firstly, there's no reporting on who these powerful donors are or how our government actually works that the donors have this much control over who actually runs for president.
[00:41:12]  As they yell about democracy and preserving democracy, they also openly report that apparently there's a donor class that if is not on board with your presidency, then you need to step down because you're unwinnable.
[00:41:24]  So just take into fact that they will report right to you that there's an important donor class that dictates more of your choice.
[00:41:32]  Just dictated that the president of the United States step down.
[00:41:35]  With no reporting on who they are or why the process works that way.
[00:41:38]  With all that being said, Kamala apparently took a call with the donors.
[00:41:42]  I guess it was supposed to be to reassure them as they feel like Biden can't win and that they're not getting good information from the campaign.
[00:41:50]  And instead, because she has zero charisma, has no idea how to do this job and is completely incompetent, she got on to try and yell at the donors and say, hey, Joe's running and all of you have to get in line.
[00:42:02]  And they were like, no, that's the point is that we actually hold the power in the cards here and you're not going to yell at us because we're pulling out the rug.
[00:42:10]  That's the way it works is we actually have the power and we're pulling it away.
[00:42:13]  You don't just get to yell at us and then we go, oh, so it doesn't sound to me like she's off to a particularly strong start in apparently winning over this important donor class.
[00:42:23]  Well, look, she is just so talentless and unimpressive.
[00:42:31]  And I just don't see a way, you know, they're already trotting out that you're a racist if you don't support Kamala Harris.
[00:42:41]  There was, I think it was Mika Brzezinski was going off about how if you say Kamala rather than Kamala, that's racist.
[00:42:51]  Like this is like the type of shit they're going to try to bring out.
[00:42:55]  It's, I think there's zero chance of it working.
[00:42:59]  I mean, I just don't look, Barack Obama was the first black president.
[00:43:05]  I mean, half black, but you know, that's what he's known as.
[00:43:09]  He was an incredible talent.
[00:43:11]  He was an impressive person.
[00:43:16]  The idea that you're going to go in there and be like, I'm going to be the first black woman president when almost everybody knows.
[00:43:27]  It's not, look, nobody said that Barack Obama was the Democratic nominee just because he was black or something like that.
[00:43:37]  Because that just wasn't the case.
[00:43:38]  I mean, like, yeah, that was part of it.
[00:43:41]  for sure.
[00:43:42]  And the fact that, oh, this would be a historic thing to get the first black president.
[00:43:47]  And yes, that, that obviously like worked in his favor, but it's also because he, look, he gave one of the greatest convention speeches ever in 2004.
[00:43:56]  That's what put him on the map.
[00:43:58]  Or people are like, whoa, who's this guy?
[00:44:00]  He is really impressive.
[00:44:01]  And then he just out-campaigned Hillary Clinton in 2008.
[00:44:06]  And he just captured an energy and an enthusiasm that she couldn't dream of having.
[00:44:11]  Kamala Harris is nothing like that.

=== We Are Not Bigger Than History (04:50) ===

[00:44:14]  It's just nothing like that.
[00:44:15]  Kamala Harris ran for president, got soundly humiliated.
[00:44:20]  Tulsi Gabbard took her to the wood chipper.
[00:44:23]  She dropped out.
[00:44:25]  She got like 1%.
[00:44:26]  And then Joe Biden picked her so he could add an air of history, of historic, you know, groundbreaking events to his old man campaign.
[00:44:42]  That's what happened.
[00:44:43]  That's, and that's just not enough.
[00:44:46]  That's not enough to then run around there and start saying everybody's a racist and a sexist who doesn't like me.
[00:44:52]  You, you can already see the narratives that are being trotted out and how just doomed they are.
[00:45:01]  Like it's just like, oh, this is, this cannot work.
[00:45:05]  This is not, it, it's very interesting.
[00:45:10]  I think that living in the United States of America in modern times, there is this thing where in many ways, you know, as human beings living in the year 2024, we have conquered nature to such a degree that we almost feel like we're outside of it, even though we are still just a part of nature, right?
[00:45:38]  But I mean, down to like really little things like, look, think about the fact that there were, for the vast majority of human history, they did not have heating and air conditioning.
[00:45:53]  Okay.
[00:45:55]  So like what season it is really mattered.
[00:45:59]  Like you felt it when you were in the summer and you felt it when you were in the winter.
[00:46:04]  Like every minute of every day, there's this force that's bigger than you, which is nature or God or whatever you want to think of it as, that's bigger than you, that's more powerful than you.
[00:46:14]  And you are a pawn in that force's game.
[00:46:19]  You know, you're just here, but this thing is way more powerful than you.
[00:46:23]  Now, that is still true, but we, you only recognize it at certain times.
[00:46:30]  You know, if you've ever had like a real health emergency with someone in your family, it's almost like you get brought back into that realization, which is very easy to like avoid.
[00:46:47]  Cause I don't know, it's fucking summer right now, Rob.
[00:46:49]  It's like 90 degrees outside, but I'm in a hoodie because I keep it at freaking 64 in here because that's what I feel like doing.
[00:46:55]  You know what I mean?
[00:46:55]  Like I just, that's the amount of control we have.
[00:46:58]  It's something you take for granted, but you, it's just part of our life now.
[00:47:03]  Like that's, you know, this is something that would have been wild.
[00:47:07]  You know, like if you had gone back 300 years ago and showed someone that, it'd be like, that's insane.
[00:47:12]  When it's hot outside and you want it to be cold, you just get to play God.
[00:47:16]  You can play God with the, or play Jew with the weather, right?
[00:47:21]  Now, when someone, someone who you love gets sick, someone gets in a car accident, something like that happens, you're instantly thrown back into that.
[00:47:29]  Like, oh yeah, that's right.
[00:47:31]  I'm just this little small pawn inside of this gigantic force that is more powerful than me.
[00:47:38]  You know, you realize these things are completely out of your control and this can just happen to you.
[00:47:42]  Anyway, living in the United States of America, growing up as me and you did, being like 80s and 90s kids, it was very easy.
[00:47:52]  And in fact, some people even said we were living in the end of history.
[00:47:56]  It's almost like we've conquered all of these things.
[00:47:59]  You know, you start to feel like, and even conspiracy theorists sometimes can really like mess this stuff up where you start to feel like, well, like, look, there is this regime that is running things and they are deciding what happens here, you know?
[00:48:16]  But what you start to realize is that we're not bigger than history.
[00:48:20]  We're not outside of history, just like we're not bigger than nature.
[00:48:23]  We're not bigger than God.
[00:48:25]  We're still little pawns in this whole game.
[00:48:28]  And every now and then you get reminded of that.
[00:48:30]  But anyway, what we are living through here is history.
[00:48:34]  And I don't think this is as simple as, well, this is the latest regime's crafted narrative.
[00:48:41]  You know, there's, you'll see a lot of this on social media right now from all different corners of the internet where there's all types of conspiracy theories going on.
[00:48:53]  But a lot of times it seems like some of these conspiracy theories, whether they be Donald Trump wasn't really shot by a bullet, that was all staged just to make him look cool.

=== Stuck With Kamala Harris (05:28) ===

[00:49:04]  Or you know what's happening is that the regime actually was on Donald Trump's side the whole time.
[00:49:10]  And this is their expert play to switch everything and now get you to like him because they know he'll be good for business or, you know, it's not going to be Kamala Harris because they got this other plan laid out.
[00:49:21]  I got to tell you, I'm not trying to discount any conspiracy theory because there are real conspiracies out there and we live in wild times.
[00:49:29]  I think all of those conspiracies are coping mechanisms.
[00:49:33]  I don't think any of that's right.
[00:49:35]  I think that what's actually going on here is that the regime itself is also smaller than some of these forces and that we're just living through history here and that this has completely gotten away from them.
[00:49:49]  I think they have no, they're usually so good about message discipline.
[00:49:53]  I think they just don't even know what the fuck to do right now.
[00:49:56]  Like they're like, what the hell do we do?
[00:49:58]  What's the plan here?
[00:50:00]  Dustinoff Hillary Clinton?
[00:50:02]  Is that really our ace in the hole?
[00:50:04]  It's it look, I know Kamala Harris is terrible.
[00:50:07]  It is very, very debatable whether it's better to go with Hillary Clinton than her.
[00:50:13]  It's very debatable whether it's better to go with Gavin Newsom than her.
[00:50:17]  I suppose Gavin Newsom would be a little bit better, but the thing is that you got to take all of the factors into account.
[00:50:24]  So it's not as if you get to say, hey, if it's Hillary Clinton, we're not just rerunning 2016 because 2016 is eight years ago.
[00:50:37]  We're not rerunning that.
[00:50:38]  This is eight years later.
[00:50:40]  In order for Hillary Clinton to even get back in here, it would have to be so transparently obvious that she's this desperate for power that you're going to pull in another old person who's way too old to be doing this.
[00:50:55]  You're going to go find her, dust her off, who, by the way, now is just known as the biggest political loser of all time.
[00:51:04]  lost to Barack Obama, the junior senator, had to steal it to not lose to Bernie Sanders, the 90-year-old socialist, and then lost to the reality star, Donald Trump.
[00:51:18]  That's your ace in the hole?
[00:51:20]  The biggest political loser in modern American history?
[00:51:25]  That's what you go to?
[00:51:26]  That doesn't seem like that's so obviously the right move.
[00:51:29]  All right, Gavin Newsom, I guess, has like presidential hair and a presidential looking family.
[00:51:36]  But also, in order to get him in there, he's got a leapfrog over the first woman of color presidential candidate.
[00:51:48]  And so now you're the straight white guy who leaped over the first woman of color candidate.
[00:51:54]  And also you're the governor of California presiding over the collapse of the once richest state in the United States of America, which now has more poverty than any other state, which now has people fleeing by the hundreds of thousands.
[00:52:11]  I'm sorry, there's not some ace in the hole here.
[00:52:14]  And it is quite likely that they're just going to be stuck with Kamala Harris.
[00:52:18]  And it is going to be a disaster, a disaster for the Democrats.
[00:52:23]  So just maybe we can think of some other long shot options.
[00:52:28]  I mean, there's conversations of Governor Whitmer.
[00:52:32]  There's conversations of some Jewish guy who I'm not familiar with.
[00:52:36]  But like, who from the old guard could you see them dusting off?
[00:52:39]  Like, could they dust off?
[00:52:40]  I mean, Manchin, they've been floating his name.
[00:52:42]  He was, he stepped down from Senate, that guy, the coal guy.
[00:52:47]  I don't see him.
[00:52:48]  He already, by the way, said, like, I'm not interested in it.
[00:52:51]  And I believe him.
[00:52:52]  What about like a John Kerry?
[00:52:54]  Or I know he already won and lost, which makes him a little bit also unlikely.
[00:52:58]  But who else is kind of like the old timers that are a little slicker than the current bunch?
[00:53:02]  Or they're just none.
[00:53:05]  I mean, what?
[00:53:06]  Who are you going to pull out?
[00:53:06]  Al Gore?
[00:53:08]  I don't know, dude.
[00:53:09]  But you can't pull out the guy who lost 25 years ago.
[00:53:14]  You know what I mean?
[00:53:15]  Like, I don't know.
[00:53:16]  I think the reason why these are the names we've heard of is because these are the names we've heard of.
[00:53:21]  And it's just, I don't think there, I don't think there is another element to this master plan here.
[00:53:29]  Maybe there's something I'm missing.
[00:53:30]  I'll certainly be open to admitting it.
[00:53:33]  And a lot is happening in real time here.
[00:53:36]  So we'll see.
[00:53:37]  But what I will tell you is that I think the media, their attempt to spin this is going to be a lot of fun to watch.
[00:53:45]  All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Black Forest Supplements.
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[00:54:06]  But the FDA, our trustful government, they're trying to keep it away from us.
[00:54:11]  Why?
[00:54:11]  Because a healthy, strong population is harder to control.
[00:54:14]  The FDA is attempting to change the status of NMN supplements to be classified as a drug, which would allow pharmaceutical companies to control it.
[00:54:23]  This move is not based on the efficacy or safety of NMN, but is aimed at cornering the market and taking the supplements away from you.

=== NMN Supplement Game Changer (14:49) ===

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[00:54:41]  They agreed to an amazing buy two, get one free deal for our fans.
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[00:54:49]  Black Forest Supplements is ready to fight this.
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[00:54:55]  But who knows, there might come a day where the feds crack down on Black Forest Door trying to stop them from selling this life-changing supplements.
[00:55:02]  So we urge you guys to check out the link and grab some for yourself.
[00:55:05]  Go check them out at blackforestsupplements.com slash Dave.
[00:55:09]  That's blackforestsupplements.com slash Dave.
[00:55:13]  All right, let's get back into the show.
[00:55:14]  I don't know if you're here.
[00:55:15]  Can we play, I sent the Rachel Maddow video that we had from before.
[00:55:19]  Rebecca, do we have that ready to go?
[00:55:22]  What a day in history.
[00:55:23]  President Joe Biden making American history with an act of profound political and personal sacrifice.
[00:55:32]  Three and a half years into his presidency, President Joe Biden stepping down from his reelection bid in favor of his vice president, Kamala Harris.
[00:55:43]  I've been processing this for five hours already, and it still gives me chills to say it.
[00:55:50]  In the instant he announced it at 1.46 p.m. this afternoon, everything changed.
[00:55:55]  Everything changed.
[00:55:57]  The Democratic Party instantly ends its internal war, this emotional, intense, harrowing fight that has torn the party apart for the past three and a half weeks.
[00:56:08]  That is over in an instant.
[00:56:11]  The expectation among Democrats, which is being voiced more and more openly in recent days, the expectation that the Democratic Party was in for a historic wipeout in November, with not just the White House in danger, but the House and the Senate in danger as well.
[00:56:25]  That expectation evaporates also in an instant.
[00:56:30]  With President Biden voicing a strong and unequivocal endorsement of his vice president, Kamala Harris, with Vice President Harris confirming immediately that she is running, saying we have 107 days until election day.
[00:56:44]  Together we will fight and together we will win with no resulting about who it's just, is there no foresight for that you have to get back on the news in two days from now?
[00:56:57]  It's unbelievable.
[00:56:58]  Is this not the cult leader?
[00:56:59]  Like, you got to call for the end of the world in like 10 years, said at least he got 10 years until you get there and you have to regroup.
[00:57:07]  This is the cheap fake storyline where it's like, are you not going to be on the news in two days from now?
[00:57:11]  Yeah, it's the idea that it's such wishful thinking on her part that you snap your fingers and all of this goes away.
[00:57:20]  And now the Democrats are unified.
[00:57:23]  Lady, the Democrats are heading into a contested convention.
[00:57:27]  Back here in real life, that's what's happening.
[00:57:31]  Anyway, let's just keep playing a little bit more and then we'll break it all down.
[00:57:34]  Task at hand for that nominee and for the party.
[00:57:39]  The little scratchy papery sound you're hearing in the distance, that's every Democratic donor in the country writing the biggest check they have ever written in American politics.
[00:57:51]  In an instant, the old era is over and the new era is here.
[00:57:57]  It is go time.
[00:57:59]  Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in 2020 in an election in which Trump refused to accept the result and tried to stay in power by the use of violent force.
[00:58:09]  Trump has since been convicted of 34 felonies and is awaiting sentencing on those charges.
[00:58:14]  He's facing up to four years in prison.
[00:58:16]  He has been found liable for committing sexual assault.
[00:58:18]  He owes literally hundreds of millions of dollars in civil penalties for massive fraud at his business.
[00:58:25]  His business has been found criminally guilty of business fraud, and he owes hundreds of millions of dollars in a civil fraud case.
[00:58:35]  He is the subject of a felony RICO indictment in the state of Georgia.
[00:58:38]  He is also facing federal criminal charges.
[00:58:41]  He is now 78 years old and gives speeches of such rambling incoherence that even his most ardent superfans start wandering off or checking their phones by the time he starts talking about sharks and showerheads and how beautiful you would think he looks if he were to take his clothes off.
[00:59:00]  He just picked a 39-year-old running mate who most Americans do not know and who has basically no record in public service.
[00:59:08]  As people are Googling Donald Trump's new unknown running mate, the first thing most of them are learning about him is that he is deeply committed to a nationwide ban on abortion nationwide.
[00:59:18]  He is the protege of an eccentric, eccentric right-wing tech billionaire who is against women having the right to vote and who says he's against democracy.
[00:59:28]  The right-wing groups that have championed this guy for Trump's running mate.
[00:59:32]  Okay.
[00:59:32]  How just removed from reality this rant is.
[00:59:36]  This is just what they're wishing for.
[00:59:37]  Look, Joe Biden.
[00:59:38]  Okay, so let's take this piece by piece here.
[00:59:42]  Number one, Joe Biden made a heroic decision to do what's best for the country because he's just, you know, he recognized that this would be the best way to set up Kamala Harris.
[00:59:56]  And now in an instant, all of that is over and all of that is better.
[01:00:00]  And now all of a sudden, all the Democrats' worries are gone.
[01:00:03]  And now we're right back in the game and the money's going to be flowing in.
[01:00:06]  Okay.
[01:00:08]  Reality check.
[01:00:09]  First off, as I mentioned at the beginning of the show, Rachel Maddow, Miss TV journalist, you don't know that Joe Biden did anything.
[01:00:19]  Let's get real.
[01:00:20]  We don't know what level of involvement Joe Biden had in this.
[01:00:24]  Number two, even if like removing that, okay, let's say that's just not even the case.
[01:00:28]  Joe Biden absolutely wrote this letter and signed it and he absolutely endorsed Kamala Harris.
[01:00:32]  He did not do anything heroic here.
[01:00:35]  He handed her the worst possible situation to run in, right?
[01:00:41]  He literally hung on until the bitter end when there was no other option, when everyone forced him out at every single turn.
[01:00:49]  Look, Joe Biden had hinted at originally back in 2020, he had hinted at being a one-term president, which would have made sense, by the way, you know, given his age and the fact that he was already in severe decline back then to say, listen, I'm going to be a one-term president.
[01:01:06]  I'll be the transition from Donald Trump to whatever's next.
[01:01:09]  And okay.
[01:01:10]  If he had done that, then yeah, okay, you could brag that like he set his vice president up to be in this position.
[01:01:16]  But that's not what happened.
[01:01:17]  He insisted on continuing and his family pushed him toward doing that, even after he was so embarrassingly senile that even you guys had to admit it.
[01:01:28]  And you guys all pretended he wasn't for four years until you couldn't pretend anymore.
[01:01:33]  And then you threw him under the bus.
[01:01:34]  It was a mix of the donors and political operatives and pressure from the corporate media.
[01:01:40]  That's what got him to step out.
[01:01:41]  So you can't just rewrite that as if that didn't happen.
[01:01:45]  And also to the vast majority of people who pay attention at all, it's not as if, you know, you can see where Rachel Maddow loves the idea of snapping your fingers and we get a redo, but it's not as if the rest of us are going to forget that you were lying and pretending this wasn't.
[01:02:02]  You guys were pretending it wasn't a problem at all.
[01:02:05]  And you went from it's not a problem at all to it's such a big problem.
[01:02:10]  He's got to drop out of the race.
[01:02:13]  In the last month, that happened.
[01:02:17]  A month ago, not a problem at all.
[01:02:19]  Today, today, out.
[01:02:22]  You don't get to just say that hasn't happened.
[01:02:25]  And no, look, he has to run against someone like Donald Trump, who's a formidable political opponent, however you feel about him.
[01:02:34]  It's this is the worst way you could hand it to somebody to have to jump up there and like, hey, man, you got three weeks until your convention.
[01:02:42]  And then you got like a, after that, basically 100 days until the election.
[01:02:47]  That's a terrible way to start a presidential election.
[01:02:50]  Rob, there's a reason why Donald Trump has been out campaigning for many months already now.
[01:02:57]  There's a reason why they start campaigning a year before the election.
[01:03:03]  It's because it's advantageous to do so.
[01:03:06]  So no, you have not helped her.
[01:03:07]  You've put her in the worst situation to be to run against Donald Trump.
[01:03:12]  And then, of course, she still hasn't gotten the endorsement of Barack Obama, who really is the de facto leader of the Democratic Party.
[01:03:20]  No, it's not like she's put in some great situation.
[01:03:22]  And no, you don't get to snap your fingers and say it's all the, and then to pivot to Donald Trump said all these charges against him.
[01:03:30]  And look at JD Vance.
[01:03:32]  Like, this is what you had already.
[01:03:34]  It's not affecting anybody.
[01:03:36]  Nobody's buying this bullshit anymore.
[01:03:39]  So if nothing else, you can at least say at least day one, if this is day one of Kamala Harris's presidential campaign, this narrative, this propaganda is not going to fly.
[01:03:53]  I also, I love the, as a part of the propaganda, the pretending like Donald Trump is too old and that he says dumb things.
[01:04:01]  I trashed him extensively for the RNC.
[01:04:04]  I watched him.
[01:04:05]  I believe he was just out in Michigan and he's back in full force.
[01:04:08]  He was up there with all this.
[01:04:10]  He was back.
[01:04:11]  He was Donald Trump again.
[01:04:12]  He gave a great speech.
[01:04:13]  He made great points.
[01:04:14]  And then the other thing she's pulling up is all these court cases.
[01:04:18]  They all fell apart.
[01:04:19]  And it's what I said that they were going to create their own news.
[01:04:21]  I bet the New York City one where they said that he defrauded people.
[01:04:25]  I bet that one's going to go away as well.
[01:04:27]  It's amazing what they threw at Donald Trump that he survived and Joe Biden got taken down by a tweet.
[01:04:34]  Yeah.
[01:04:34]  It's well, listen, you know, even as you say that, right?
[01:04:38]  That's such a perfect way to say it.
[01:04:40]  And we could kind of wrap on this, but, you know, there is something about Donald Trump that is compelling.
[01:04:51]  And I'm not saying, I'm not telling you to vote for Donald Trump.
[01:04:54]  I'm not telling you I'm going to vote for Donald Trump.
[01:04:56]  But I will say that, look, what Tucker Carlson in his speech at the Republican National Convention, he talked about how Donald Trump getting shot was a transformative moment where he became the leader of the United States of America.
[01:05:15]  And leadership is a very interesting characteristic.
[01:05:23]  It's something that we all know.
[01:05:27]  It's something that as human beings, we all recognize.
[01:05:31]  It's something we need at many different stages of life.
[01:05:35]  I mean, that's like the way human beings work is that you need leaders.
[01:05:39]  This is every single human society and every single sector in every single human society has always naturally produced leaders.
[01:05:50]  We naturally produce hierarchies and we look to be, and then even leaders will look to other people to lead them in certain areas where they need leadership.
[01:06:00]  You know what I mean?
[01:06:01]  Like it's like, look, dude, if me or if you walk into a boxing gym tomorrow because you're like, I want to learn how to box, the first step is you get someone who knows boxing and you say, what do I do?
[01:06:16]  You tell me what to do.
[01:06:17]  That's it.
[01:06:19]  You tell me everything.
[01:06:20]  And they literally tell you every single thing.
[01:06:22]  Keep this hand up, light on your feet, this here, snap your jab.
[01:06:26]  You know what I mean?
[01:06:27]  Like it's, they tell you everything to do because they're going to lead you.
[01:06:29]  Leadership is an interesting quality.
[01:06:32]  One of the things that I thought when Tucker interviewed Vladimir Putin and you saw a lot of people express this kind of, I guess in a sense, an admiration for him.
[01:06:45]  And I don't think any of them were saying that Vladimir Putin's a really good guy or that we really wish Vladimir Putin was the president of the United States of America.
[01:06:52]  But there was something about him when you listened to him where it just felt like, oh, that feels like a leader.
[01:06:58]  That feels like he is actually a leader of his people.
[01:07:01]  And when we got Joe Biden as the president, you're like, yeah, we don't have a leader.
[01:07:05]  We got a guy who's pretending to be the president of the United States, but we don't have a leader.
[01:07:10]  There is something about Donald Trump having bullets whiz at him.
[01:07:15]  You know what I mean?
[01:07:16]  Like in this crazy situation, you just, your ear is, has, you know, just got hit with a bullet.
[01:07:22]  You don't even know necessarily if you're like, if you're hit in other areas, you don't know if there's more shooters or what, and you're throwing up your fist like fight.
[01:07:30]  There's something about that that is very like it is hardwired in us to respond to that.
[01:07:36]  And, you know, Tucker Carlson made the point.
[01:07:38]  He's like, oh, why didn't the crowd stampede?
[01:07:40]  Why didn't they run away?
[01:07:42]  Because they had a leader right there.
[01:07:43]  They had a tough leader.
[01:07:45]  And by the way, being tough is part of being a leader.
[01:07:49]  Like it's by definition, you're not a pussy if you're a leader.
[01:07:53]  You don't, you can't be a leader and be scared of a fist fight.
[01:07:56]  Like you're, you can't be both of those things.
[01:07:58]  You can either be the leader of men or you can be scared of a fist fight.
[01:08:01]  Can't be both.
[01:08:02]  It's got to be one or the other.
[01:08:03]  And there is something to your point where if you just think about what's been thrown at Donald Trump by the corporate media over the last eight years, like what's been thrown at him?
[01:08:19]  I'm talking through his entire presidency and through the entire four years or three plus years since he's been president.
[01:08:26]  It's just been relentless.
[01:08:28]  Anything you could imagine, whether it's he's a racist, he's a rapist, he's a Russian spy, he's an insurrectionist, he's a felon.
[01:08:37]  He's every single day.
[01:08:39]  They throw it at him and throw it.
[01:08:40]  And they were protecting Joe Biden that whole time.
[01:08:43]  They stopped protecting Joe Biden for one month and he's gone.
[01:08:51]  You know what I'm saying?
[01:08:52]  Like Donald Trump, there's something about that toughness factor that like Donald Trump has taken the most brutal treatment from the corporate media for eight years and he's still here and he's stronger than ever.
[01:09:05]  Joe Biden took it for a month and he's gone.
[01:09:08]  One of those men is a leader and the other one isn't.
[01:09:12]  I'm not saying you got to support him.
[01:09:13]  I'm not saying you have to want him to be your leader, but he qualifies as a leader and the other guy does not.
[01:09:20]  All right, listen, we're going to wrap up there.

=== Wrapping Up the Stream (01:56) ===

[01:09:22]  Our first ever stream on partoftheproblem.com.
[01:09:25]  And I'm looking over at the chat and people are saying it went pretty good.
[01:09:28]  Was that, how was it for you guys?
[01:09:29]  Was it smooth?
[01:09:30]  Listen, any problems we have, I promise you we will work tirelessly to address.
[01:09:35]  I'm very excited about this new platform.
[01:09:39]  And a big thank you to Louis J. Gomez and Ralph Sutton, who put in a ton of work to build this out for us.
[01:09:47]  And also a big thank you to Brian, who's our producer, who's been working tirelessly to make all of this all of this work.
[01:09:53]  Thank you to Rebecca for filling in today.
[01:09:55]  And of course, thank you to you, Rob, for always being the best damn co-host in the business.
[01:09:59]  Thank you, sir.
[01:10:00]  And if I can, porchtour.com, it was a terrific weekend out on the porch.
[01:10:04]  And then we got this weekend, Friday night in Memphis, Saturday in Botton Aqua, Tennessee.
[01:10:08]  Sunday, not a porch tour, but I'm thrilled to be at the Zane's Nashville opening for you and doing a live part of the problem.
[01:10:15]  Yes.
[01:10:17]  The stand-up show and the podcast are sold out.
[01:10:20]  We might be opening another show.
[01:10:22]  So I will find out for sure tonight, but we might be opening another stand-up show.
[01:10:28]  Typically speaking, I don't like early shows, but I find on Sunday people are drinking.
[01:10:33]  And at least out on the porch, 5 p.m. shows work great.
[01:10:36]  So that's where we have the six and the eight are sold out.
[01:10:40]  And then they were like, do you want to do a 4 p.m. or a 10 p.m.?
[01:10:43]  And I was like, 10 p.m., obviously.
[01:10:44]  And then they were like, I think 4 p.m. is better on Sunday.
[01:10:47]  But just in my stand-up comic brain, I'm like, no, we're night creatures.
[01:10:51]  4 p.m. seems crazy.
[01:10:52]  Then you're like, all right, I'll do it if everyone agrees to start drinking at noon.
[01:10:55]  How about that?
[01:10:56]  Is that a fair deal?
[01:10:57]  All right.
[01:10:58]  That's Gankfest energy.
[01:10:59]  And then the following weekend, I got Santa Barbara, somewhere like Hawthorne, LA, Aguanga, and then more Porch Store dates coming at you.
[01:11:07]  So porchstore.com.
[01:11:08]  Porchstore.com.
[01:11:09]  And, of course, comicdavesmith.com for all of me and Rob's dates together.
[01:11:12]  We got a bunch more coming up this year.
[01:11:14]  Partoftheproblem.com, comicdave Smith.com.
[01:11:17]  Catch you guys next time.
[01:11:18]  Peace.