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June 28, 2024 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
01:14:54
20240628_biden-vs-trump-debate-the-uncensored-verdict
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Time Text
A Debacle for Biden 00:04:19
Don't even open your mouth.
You don't have no reason to talk.
Vinny, shut up.
I'm a big fan of you.
Do me a favor.
Shut up, a big fan of you.
Okay, well, yo, but hold on.
I'm a big fan of you, so I don't want you to die.
I feel like you're a big going up.
You're turning.
You say turning red, Vinny.
Somebody like you to say America deserved 9-11 is time.
You shouldn't be on this fucking panel.
President Joe Biden had just one simple job in last night's debate to convince America that he's fit to serve.
The bar was set at ankle height, but the president tripped straight over him.
He faltered.
He mumbled.
He lost.
And his race must surely now be over for the good of democracy and his country.
There were so many toe-curling incidents in last night's debate.
We'll analyze and dissect them in detail.
But the defining moment, the moment they're calling the kill shot, was this.
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 this sentence.
I don't think he knows what he said either.
I don't think anyone did.
Well, for possibly the first time ever in a TV event starring Donald Trump, no one's talking about Donald Trump today.
And for the first time ever, that will suit him just fine.
Republicans briefed for weeks that President Biden will be on drugs for this debate.
But if you took anything at all last night, it was surely valiant.
For all the spin about cheap fakes and Biden's secret vigor, this was a chance for the American people to judge their president for themselves.
and to the palpable distress and dismay of Democrats everywhere, it was really all over in the first minute.
Well, how are you?
Great to be here.
Thank you.
$15 for an insulin shot as opposed to $400.
No senior has to pay more than $200 for any drug, all the drugs they can include beginning next year.
And the situation is making, and we're going to make that available to everybody, to all Americans.
So we're working to bring down the price around the kitchen table, and that's what we're going to get done.
I didn't understand a word of that, did you?
It couldn't really get much worse of Biden after that, but it, well, certainly didn't get any better.
It just carried on that way.
Trump was disciplined and measured by his own standards.
All he had to do was really let Biden fall into his own traps.
And his facial expressions alone were enough to win the contest.
Trump looked how we all felt at home watching, bewildered that the man standing opposite is the most powerful man in the world, the president of the United States, the leader of the free world.
Biden just looked bewildered.
There wasn't a great deal of substance or policy.
In fact, the most heated debate was about which of the two candidates is better at golf.
To do that, you have to be quite smart and you have to be able to hit the ball a long way.
And I do it.
He doesn't do it.
He can't hit a ball 50 yards.
He challenged me to a golf match.
He can't hit a ball 50 yards.
You can see he is six foot five and only 223 pounds or 2035 pounds.
I told you before I'm happy to play golf if you carry your own bag.
Think you can do it?
Let's not act like children.
President Trump, we're going to...
Let's not act like children.
The last thing we'd want is to see anyone out like children, right, Donald?
As I said this morning, if Biden's handicap at golf is six, then I'm the Archbishop of Canterbury.
But probably the biggest disaster of all for the president was his closing statement, which he's been locked away rehearsing, remember, for an entire week.
We've made significant progress from the debacle that was left by President Trump in his last term.
He wants to get away with, get rid of the ability of Medicare to for the ability for us to be able to negotiate drug prices with the big pharma companies.
Well, guess what?
We got it down to $35.
I'm going to make sure we do something about what we're doing on lead pipes and all the things that are causing health problems for people across the country.
We're going to continue to fight to bring down inflation and give people a break.
Thank you, President Biden.
Completely excruciating.
Media Pressure Mounts 00:15:06
I've never seen the switch on mainstream opinion flip so hard and so fast.
All of the attention is now shifting to whether the Democrats can replace Biden before November's election.
Otherwise, surely they're facing an absolute drubbing.
The simplest and most dignified way is for President Biden to stand down.
As a manner of honor, pride and integrity, and I believe he has all those qualities, he needs to make that decision and make it fast.
Another main event, it's time for the uncensored debate.
We're going to hear from all-star cast of characters over the next hour, from Carrie Lake to Harry Sisson, Kevin O'Leary, and more.
But first, I'll introduce our box office panel, podcaster and commentator Vinnie O'Shana, founder of The Young Turks, Cheng Uger, Trump's former lawyer, Jenna Ellis, and Twitch streamer, Hassan Piker.
Well, welcome to all of you.
Let me start with you, Cenk, because you and I have talked about this many times about Joe Biden's mental and physical ability to be fit to serve the most powerful and important office in the country.
As you were watching last night's debate, what was going through your mind?
I was right.
So as you know, I took an extraordinary step of running for president against Joe Biden in the Democratic primary, even though I'm not even a natural born citizen, because that's how desperate I was, our audience was.
We did a poll and we asked our paying members, should I run?
And now nine months ago, 76% of them said, for God's sake, run.
Do you know why?
Because it was obvious.
And what I took away from it, Piers, and what everyone should remember is how much Democratic leadership lied to you and how much everyone in mainstream media lied to you.
They said the emperor had clothes when it was obvious that he had no clothes.
They said that he was perfectly fine and he was a dynamo behind the scenes.
How preposterous.
We were right all along.
So the next time they tell you you got to vote for Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton in a primary because they're the only ones who can win, remember this preposterous lie.
Remember how terribly they deceived you into picking the weakest candidate, not the strongest candidate.
And Piers, every time I said, let's pick someone stronger so that we can beat Trump, they said, oh, you want, oh, so you like Trump, you want to help Trump.
No, you picked the strongest person so you can beat Trump.
And apparently they couldn't understand simple concepts like that.
But now the whole world has seen what we saw all along.
You know, Cheng, before we go to the other three, there are reports as we're talking now that Barack Obama has been having urgent conversations with Joe Biden to try and gently persuade him it may be time to give up.
But apparently Jill Biden is resisting, wants him to fight on.
Carmela Harris is enraged that her name is not in the conversation to potentially replace him.
People want to bypass her completely because she's even more unpopular than he is and move to somebody like Gavin Newsom or someone like that.
What is the playbook here?
Are we into unprecedented territory?
Because I don't think any incumbent president in American history who is seeking to be re-elected and hasn't stood down has ever been forced out.
There's no mechanism to actually force him out unless he voluntarily goes, is there?
Yeah, there is one mechanism, unfortunately, and it's the donors.
Because once the donors stop funding him, then he'll have no oxygen left.
Remember, for someone who's a populist like Bernie Sanders, their source of power is the people.
But for people like Biden who are establishment candidates, their source of power is money.
And once the money tap is turned off, then he's got no oxygen left.
So I don't care what Jill Biden thinks.
Are you like, who's insane enough to care what she thinks?
I don't care what Kamala Harris thinks.
I care about picking the strongest candidate against Trump.
Is democracy on the line or isn't it?
Is this the most important election of our lifetime or isn't it?
So now they're talking about, oh, whose personality should we care more about?
Whose feelings are more important?
None of your feelings are important.
What's important is that the American people be safe from Donald Trump.
And let's be honest, Democratic leadership has never cared about that.
And Piers, let's tell your audience why.
Because remember, almost everyone on Biden's team at the White House on his campaign at the Democratic National Committee, their jobs are tied to Joe Biden.
If there's a new candidate, they all get fired.
So they have been enormously, monstrously selfish saying, I don't care if the country burns as long as I get to keep my job.
They betrayed you greatly, and you should never listen to them again.
Okay, let me bring in some of the others.
Haset Pika, I mean, you'd have to be willfully negligent with regard to what you saw with your own eyes, wouldn't you, to watch that debate last night and not conclude, as so many Biden supporters and friends have publicly concluded, this is from people like Frank Bruni at the New York Times and others who've just come out and said, you've got to stand down.
Did you see anything last night that would allow you to construct an argument that he should continue and be the nominee?
Biden continuing?
Absolutely not.
But there's another glaringly obvious problem here.
Jank and I have had this conversation personally for years at this point, very publicly about Biden being ineligible to run and how he's going to lead to the downfall of the Democratic Party and potentially lose a pretty easy-to-win election against Donald Trump at this point.
And we were absolutely right.
And it was shocking that so many in the media who are now writing those articles that you're talking about were acting as though Biden was actually a dynamo behind the scenes.
I mean, there was literally an article I remember from an excerpt from a Jill Steinbook about how in order to soften the blow of Biden's age and how old and senile he is appearing on television, they were saying that he had really hard sex with his wife.
I mean, that's to the extent that these guys went to in order to try and manufacture this narrative.
And to anyone with eyes and ears to hear, they could see what Biden looked like, what Biden's performance looked like.
So I don't understand why it's so shocking to people.
David Axelrod said on CNN, I believe at this point, eight months ago, nine months ago, that, you know, Biden has to go.
Someone else has to come in and, you know, potentially win this race.
You have an election coming up right now where the down ballot races, where you have Democratic Party senators doing 10 points better than the top of the ticket, than Joe Biden in places like Nevada, in states like Arizona.
These are states that Biden has to win.
You have issues, especially post-October 7, with the supposed blue wall that's obviously destroyed.
You got Michigan, that's a potential problem for Joe Biden.
All of these swing states that the Democratic Party should be clearing up with like Reagan numbers right now are in contest.
Having said that, Donald Trump also had a phenomenally bad performance last night.
It's just that no one is going to talk about that because one guy was very clearly demented.
So when the other guy's talking about immigrants and how they're responsible for everything that is going on for an hour and 30 minutes straight, people didn't even have the time to make that assessment because they were so unimaginably shocked at the fact that the Democratic Party has basically put forward a cadaver and tried to push him over the finish line and are hoping that you don't notice.
Okay.
I'm going to come to your two panelists in a moment.
We're going to join right now by the Republican U.S. Senate candidate for Arizona, Carrie Lake.
Carrie, what did we watch last night?
A train wreck combined with the dumpster fire and a huge, massive victory for President Trump and really America first.
That's what it's about.
It's about putting our country first.
And we've watched for four years as Joe Biden has caused the most high levels of inflation that I've seen in my lifetime.
We've watched, and I'm not just going to blame Joe Biden.
The Democrat, the National Democrats have stood behind this guy.
And to act like last night, oh my goodness, finally they're just seeing for the first time there's problems with Joe Biden.
We've been seeing this for a long time, Pierce.
The American people have been seeing his decline for a long time.
And I think we need to all come together at this moment in history and recognize that we need to make a major, major change.
That debate performance was a debacle.
We cannot trust the National Democrats or the mainstream media.
None of them, especially not the guy I'm running against, Ruben Gallego.
He's been part and parcel, voted 100% of the time with Joe Biden.
And they've allowed him to spend four years destroying our country.
They haven't lifted a single finger.
And now after all the inflation, 20 million people invading our country, the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a terrorist attack October 7th, I could go on and on and on.
Now they're starting to criticize Biden.
I don't know.
I'm just not buying it.
I'm just thinking they're using the best way to do it.
Carry, though, to try to spin things.
Could you be careful what you wish for in the sense that what at the moment is obviously a spectacularly good day to be Donald Trump because nobody's talking about him other than by comparison to Biden?
He was a sort of whirlwind of dynamism and youthful vigor and energy.
But of course, Biden was so bad that there's now a concerted effort.
You can feel it from the mainstream media to Democrat supporters to donors and so on to try and force Joe Biden to give up.
If that was to happen and the Democrats were to parachute in a much younger, much more dynamic person, maybe somebody a lot younger than Donald Trump, could that actually be bad news in the longer term of this election race?
Well, first of all, I think the Democrats are stuck with Joe Biden.
I don't see a way out at this point.
You know, the money he's raised would have to stay with him.
They wouldn't be able to transfer that over.
And, you know, honestly, I don't think you can bring anybody in.
I mean, you could bring someone younger in.
They still have destructive policies, Pierce.
This isn't just Joe Biden.
It's the Democrat policies, which are not Democrat policies of yesteryear.
This is a new wave of socialism hinging on Marxism.
This is an open border, changing the entire demographics of our country.
This is a dead-end economy.
This is crime on the streets.
This is the indoctrination of our children.
No matter who you plug into that, it's still the policies of the Democrat Party that don't work for everyday Americans.
I think what we saw last night was America collectively coming together, saying, we want President Trump back in the White House.
He can turn this around, give us a great, strong economy, safe streets once again, a secure border, world peace.
Who doesn't want that?
There was fact-checking going on with both the candidates, and a lot of the statements that Donald Trump made were fact-checked to be untrue or exaggerated.
But so were many of Joe Biden's.
And although you say he's going to carry on with the ticket, surely if that was your candidate, you would want that candidate removed.
Isn't that exactly what's going to happen here?
I mean, you say it can't be done.
It can be done.
There's still five months to be election.
Why wouldn't they try and get rid of Biden now?
Well, if that were my candidate, I'd be switching parties right away and going to the party that wants to actually do something for the American people.
Let's remember that when President Trump, if not for the media, the entire country would have been behind him.
We had an incredible economy.
As I said, a secure border.
We didn't have people pouring across our border committing heinous crimes on the American people, you know, killing a mother of five children, leaving her dead and those five children to be orphans.
That was an illegal who came across our border because Joe Biden opened it up.
So if people who went into the debate last night wanting to vote for Joe Biden, I would say to them, come on over to the America First Party.
Let's put our country first.
Let's turn this thing around and bring back sanity.
Let's bring back a strong economy.
Let's bring back safety and security on our streets.
You don't have to be tied down to the Democrat Party anymore.
Let's just start putting our country first.
So when we do that, I think we're going to see a huge turnaround rather quickly here in America and prosperity and safety and security for all.
Carrie Lake, thank you very much for joining me.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Let's go back to the panel.
I want to talk to Jenna Ellis.
Now, Jenna, you're a former lawyer to Donald Trump.
You pleaded guilty in the election subversion case in Georgia in October.
You were the fourth of 19 co-defendants to plead guilty in a deal with prosecutors.
Trump, of course, has pleaded not guilty.
So that's the background to your appearance today.
Look, Trump, you know, it was Trump.
I mean, I just looked at them both.
I watched the whole debate from start to finish without any break.
And I just saw in Trump the same guy that I've known pretty much for 20 years, looking and behaving, frankly, the same way.
He's always behaved.
If anything, he was slightly less combative and confrontational than he normally is.
He was a bit more on message than he normally is.
He was fact-checked.
He did tell a number of untruths.
But when you've got an opponent like Joe Biden, if he continues to be the opponent, surely Donald Trump is just heading straight back to the White House, isn't he?
Well, I've said for a while that the first party that is willing to substitute either Trump or Biden is likely to be the victor because you have people on both sides that absolutely hate Donald Trump and absolutely hate Joe Biden.
And after last night, and Trump was clearly the winner just because he was able to be coherent and measured and show leadership, and that's a really low standard.
After last night, what you really saw, Piers, was the Washington corruption on full display because we have been lied to by the White House, by Democrats, by the media who have continued to prop up Joe Biden and say there's nothing wrong with him.
He's perfectly capable.
Of course, he's running the White House.
Kamala Harris herself in that very just shocking interview with Anderson Cooper right after couldn't even answer the question, his last question to her of whether this is the same Joe Biden that she sees every day, because she can't answer.
What is the response to that?
If she says yes, then that's really bad for her.
If she says no, then she's admitting that he is not fit for office.
The Challenge of Replacement 00:14:16
But on the same hand, if there is a replacement and I think that the Democrats are right to push for that, then I think that that ultimately does hurt Donald Trump in the long run.
And even Republican friends of mine and people who I worked with on the 2020 campaign, who've been there since 2016, don't support Donald Trump anymore and for very good reason.
And so if Joe Biden is replaced, then I think that this debate will have been a mistake for Donald Trump to have participated in because he may end up losing if they do replace Joe Biden.
And I think we have to remember that now in America, our entire election system is run by a two-party, ultimately corrupt system.
This isn't of the people, by the people, for the people that our founders intended.
This is a two-party system that needs each other, that feeds off each other, and is both thoroughly corrupt.
And I think that we all as Americans need to take a very hard look at our republic, the path forward, and ask ourselves, why were these the two candidates on the debate stage?
As an independent now, unaffiliated, I supported Governor DeSantis in the primary because I've seen the corruption out of the Trump side, and I have very serious concerns about him going back into the White House.
And I wish that the Republicans would have a long conversation about their convention, but I think that that is going to happen for the Democrats.
And they're wise to do that openly and publicly now.
But we have to remember they are the ones that have lied to us about Biden's mental capacity.
And there is another way to take him out.
If his cabinet members, a number of them, a sufficient number of the majority per the 25th Amendment, and it's not about unfit, it's not about policy, it's not about liking him or not, the term constitutionally is unable to fulfill his duty.
He clearly is unable.
If they stood up and actually said that, they could take him out.
Okay, let's bring in Vinny Ashan.
I want to play a little clip.
This is of Gavin Newsom speaking last night.
There is panic.
Do you think it's unfounded?
Well, I think it's unhelpful.
And I think it's unnecessary.
We've got to go in and got to keep our heads high.
And as I say, we've got to have the back of this president.
You don't turn your back because of one performance.
What kind of party does that?
It's been a masterclass.
15.6 million jobs.
That's eight times more than the last three Republican presidents combined.
The only thing the last three Republican presidents have in common is recessions.
Democrats deliver.
This president has delivered.
We need to deliver for him.
Now, Vinny, here's the thing.
Trump had a great night.
I mean, even the CNN poll, 67% of CNN viewers felt that Trump put in a better performance than 33% for Biden.
God knows who the 33% were.
But he obviously won the debate very comfortably just by just not doing very much particularly special.
But if they do get rid of Biden and they do parachute in somebody like Gavin Newsom, who's young, he's dynamic.
He's not afraid to get into the horses, into the lion's den.
He went on Fox News with Sean Hannante for an hour and acquitted himself very well.
He's eloquent.
He's sharp.
Yes, he's got a record that can be attacked.
But in terms of the visual optics, would that not concern you a bit as a Trump fan, as a Republican, that you might end up out of this victory with a far more difficult opponent to try and defeat in November?
Oh, I think, don't put anything past the Democrats.
The fact that Gavin Newsom can sit there and literally look at somebody in the face and say, Joe Biden's presidency has been a master class.
Gavin Newsom is one of the most disgusting snakes in the grass.
Just look at California, okay?
I even have to write this down.
Piers, highest taxes in the nation.
Thousands of businesses have left.
Mandatory vaccine bills.
Losing child custody over if your child doesn't transition.
$7 gas.
This is, and I'm telling you right now, Piers, it's scary as hell.
And I don't care what anybody says.
This has all been a plan.
Okay.
They moved the debates up early.
All right.
They didn't give him any, whatever he was on on the State of the Union, Piers, that 60 minutes, he was up.
They probably gave him adrenaline.
He was there.
He was in the moment.
This was the time where they put him up there like a sacrificial lamb.
They said, listen, Jill, we're not going to give Joe any drugs.
We're going to roll him out there.
He looked lost.
He had no idea what he's going to do.
I think the shift is going to happen 100%.
There is absolutely no way they're going to stay with him.
And that is going to be a huge challenge for the Republicans because all this, because we've had a case study, Piers.
We've had four years of Trump, and now we're going to have four years of Biden.
There is no debate.
There's no arguing.
The country is shit right now.
And I know Hassan said, you know, Trump was talking about the border and the illegals are the problem.
They are the problem, okay?
They are.
Carrie mentioned one story.
There's been four this week, four, of young girls getting raped and murders and people like that that say, oh, it's not really, it's not really a problem.
You say that because it's not happening to you or your family or your daughter or your mother, okay?
It is a problem.
And by the end of this four years, the number's probably going to be 18 million.
I don't know what you're talking about.
I live in California.
We are aware of that.
I know.
It's a hell of a position.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a whole lot of people.
California is a shit show.
It's a sinking.
Look at Japan.
Oh, yeah, it's sinking.
By the way, first of all, I don't respect any Nepal baby that thinks Twitch streaming is a job.
And Maria, I want the audience to know this guy, Hassan, has said in the past that America deserved 9-11.
So don't even talk.
Don't even open your mouth.
Don't even open your mouth.
You don't have no reason to talk.
Just shut up.
I'm a big child.
Just do me a favor to shut up.
Respectful.
I'm a big fan of you.
Okay, well, yo, but hold on.
I'm a big fan of you, so I don't want you to die.
I feel like you're a big one.
You're turning.
You say somebody like you to say America deserved 9-11, Hassan.
You shouldn't be on this fucking panel.
I'm sorry for my language, Piers.
He doesn't belong on your show.
That being said, Piers, it'll be a huge challenge.
Huge challenge for Democrats.
I think you've got Donald Trump right now and say, let's not be children.
Yeah, I think that's a very good call, Jennifer.
Yeah, I know.
I'm going to try and keep that.
Let's get back to play that shit.
You know what was interesting?
What was interesting?
Well, hang on, hang on.
What was interesting about last night, actually?
I'll bring Chenk back in here.
I thought I liked the format, actually, of the way CNN did this.
I thought Jake Tapper and Dana Bash did a very competent job.
But also, I like the format where there was no audience to manipulate, perhaps, or save a candidate for themselves or to overreact to try and drown out a particularly salient point.
And the mute button worked very well.
You could see both candidates trying to speak at various times when their mute button was on.
I don't know what you thought, but I actually thought it was a pretty good format for showing us what the reality was of these two candidates.
So, Piers, a lot of people are criticizing CNN now.
And in fact, they themselves this morning admitted that maybe we should have fact-checked Trump once or twice when he said like deranged things like, oh, there's post-birth abortions.
That doesn't make any sense at all.
But my answer would be, why?
Joe Biden should have told him.
Biden should have called him out on all those things, but he wasn't able to do it.
Hold on.
That's exactly what I'm getting to, Piers.
So, you know, when somebody says something so stupid like that, and like Trump says, oh, they let out all the mental institutions and the prisoners of countries.
The opponent has a responsibility to say, which countries?
Tell me which countries released all their prisoners and mental inmates, et cetera.
What are you talking about, post-birth abortion?
That doesn't even make any sense, you deranged lunatic.
So yeah, I'm not getting on Jake Tapper or Dana Bash.
The guy opposed to you is supposed to make those super obvious points.
Look, at this point, this conversation about whether Joe Biden's going to drop out is over.
He's definitely going to drop out.
The donors no longer think he's a good investment.
And think about this, Piers.
If he doesn't drop out, imagine what history is going to say about him.
That he put his monstrous ego, maybe an ego even larger than Donald Trump's, above the needs of the country, the party, the voters.
It's an unbearable thought.
He would become one of the great villains of American history.
And there's actually a really easy way to replace him.
All he has to do is say, I'm out.
And then we go back to a traditional convention where the delegates decide.
That's almost always how Americans are.
And by the way, by the way, I think anyway.
Yeah, we discussed it before, but two incumbent Democrat presidents since the end of World War II have both stood down in election year: Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson.
So there is a precedent here for this to happen.
It just hasn't happened where the incumbent president doesn't want to go.
Jenna, I want to bring you in just on one point, which is the behavior of Jill Biden after the debate.
Watch this.
Oh, you did such a great job.
You answered every question.
You know all about it.
And let me ask the crowd: what did Trump do?
God.
I mean, I found that pretty painful to watch.
She then led a child of four more years.
And the reason it's painful is she, she's Dr. Jill Biden.
This is her husband.
He's in front of, you know, maybe 100 million people in America alone, tens of millions more watching around the world, being utterly humiliated, clearly has onset dementia and is being dragged through an incredibly embarrassing, humiliating process of this debate, being mocked and laughed at around the world.
And rather than do what any normal spouse would do, I think, in that situation, which is be protective and save Joe Biden from himself, she seems even keener than he is for him to carry on and to perpetrate and continue to perpetrate the lie that there's nothing wrong here.
He answered every question.
Well, he didn't even understand most of the questions from what I could see.
What did you think about her as the first lady and her responsibility here?
Well, she's clearly married to power, not to Joe Biden personally.
And that's incredibly tragic.
I mean, I was watching this debate with my parents who have been happily married for almost 50 years.
And my mom was almost in tears looking at how frail and tragic of a figure Joe Biden was on stage.
We all said our heart went out to him.
I mean, I could sympathize with Van Jones on the panel after CNN moved to tears, saying he just looked terrible.
Everybody knows that he clearly is sick.
He is unable to fulfill his duties.
And yet, here is Jill Biden, the one person in his life that should be telling him, listen, you've got to step down, helping facilitate that, looking out for his best interest, not to mention the country as the first lady, but his own best interests.
And she's the one who's standing up, treating him like a child.
I mean, it was like she was in a preschool class and telling him as a toddler, you did a good job, little one.
I mean, it was so unbearably pathetic.
I'm telling you, this woman would prioritize this.
I've got four kids.
It's like when your four-year-old comes last in a race on Sports Day and you tell them he did a great, you did a great job.
That's really what it felt like to me.
It's an absolute obvious lie.
Everyone saw your kid come last, but you don't want them to be too upset.
And I've been really struck by the fact that the immediate, because I used to work at CNN for four years.
I was there on election nights in 2012 and stuff.
I have never seen a CNN panel react the way they did at the immediate end of that debate.
John King absolutely lacerated Biden's performance in a way I've never seen him do.
Van Jones, like you say, was sort of tearful.
David Axelrod pounded him, but they all did.
And I was really struck by, wow, we've got a clip of some of this.
Let's take a look.
We speak.
There is a deep, a wide, and a very aggressive panic in the Democratic Party.
It started minutes into the debate and it continues right now.
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?
Other of the conversations are about should prominent Democrats go public with that call because they feel this debate was so terrible.
They do say in moments in the debate later, the president got better and got his footing.
But then at the end, even his closing statement was a little halting.
The contrast between the two candidates.
It wasn't a little halting.
The end of that debate, the summary by Joe Biden was incomprehensible gibberish.
Well, joining me now is Joe Biden's former White House advisor, Mo Vella.
You know, Mo, I wrote a column for the New York Post, which is just going up now, where I said I genuinely felt very sad.
I've never interviewed Joe Biden, but I had a phone call once with him after his son Bo died.
It was a very moving and emotional conversation we had.
He was vice president at the time.
It was 10 years ago.
And I remember every word of that.
And he was somebody I just was very impressed by, actually, in the way he handled that call and the reasons that we had it.
When I watched Joe Biden last night, I didn't recognize that person.
He is not the person he used to be.
And I felt a real sense of sadness, as I would for any old person, clearly suffering now from some form of senile dementia, exposed on such a gigantic live television stage to utter humiliation.
I don't think it's something you feel jubilant about.
You just feel sadness for him and real discomfort.
I've got to say, from here in London, watching America's president basically self-imploding like that on a world stage was pretty scary.
Recognizing a Different Man 00:16:40
I mean, this is the guy with his finger on the nuclear button for America.
You as his former advisor, what were you thinking?
Well, I share your sentiment of sadness, Pierce, to be honest with you.
I was sad for a variety of reasons.
One, Joe Biden is somebody I love very dearly.
I know him quite well.
He and Dr. Biden are beautiful, beautiful human beings.
He has literally dedicated his entire adult life to this nation.
Arguably, he saved our democracy already once, but he has dedicated his life to public service in our country.
And you can't help but love this decent, beautiful, warm human being.
So it was sad for the reasons you stated.
I was also mad, Pierce, because I thought this was a political blunder, an absolute strategic mistake from his campaign to put him out there like that, whether he was feeling well or not, or whatever the reasons were, as you allude to possibly early onset, whatever.
It doesn't matter.
You don't put your candidate out there if you're not absolutely confident that they are ready to perform.
So I was angry.
But you know what?
I know him, Pierce.
And I'll tell you what I know about him.
He's decent, as I said before.
And I think he's going to meditate and I think he's going to reflect.
And I think he's going to surround himself with his family who he loves.
By the way, to Jenna, I appreciated how many things you said a while ago, Jenna.
And I want to say this to you, though.
It was sure nice to see a wife love their husband enough to be at the debate and to come out and actually kiss her husband and to love him.
And most wives, I hope all of your spouses, I'm a single gay man, but if I had a spouse, they sure the hell better defend me in my worst moments in life, because that's what I think love is about.
So you know what?
Mo, here's the problem.
I'm going to help him off the stage, though.
She had to help me.
Well, I'm about to.
I'm going to show that very clip, actually.
Let's watch that clip.
Now, you see, what you're seeing there is Dr. Biden guiding Joe Biden, the president, down literally two steps because she's worried he's going to fall over.
And only two weeks ago, we saw Barack Obama take his former vice president's hand and guide him off the stage at a fundraiser in LA.
And I actually tweeted at that time with that clip.
I posted on X that I thought this was just so awful to watch.
Why are the Democrats going to carry on allowing this to happen and stand by Biden as a candidate?
And an interesting series of things happened.
Bill Ackman, the billionaire hedge fund guy, sent me a long response in which he talked about it was obvious to him that Biden's mental and physical acuity now were just simply not up to the job of being president of the United States.
And he carried on explaining why age is relevant here and how he just doesn't think he can do the job anymore.
And we were talking all like this.
And then we had an enormous kickback from all sorts of people, led by Mark Cuban, who another billionaire business guy, who pounded into me and Bill Ackman and said that we were playing to the gallery, playing to our followers, that we were denying the reality, which is both Trump and Biden were equally frail and infirm and so on.
And I did message him today and I said, Mark, do you want to reevaluate what you tweeted us and the attack you made on us?
Because it turns out, if anything, we understated how bad this situation is.
And I think, Mo, the reality for the Democrats, surely, is if they go ahead with Joe Biden now as their nominee, then Donald Trump is going to win, I would say, extremely easily in November.
Whereas if they get rid of him, they have got a chance of getting somebody younger, more dynamic, who just might re-energize the whole Democrat election campaign.
You know, Pierce, here's where I come down on it.
I slept on it last night, and here's where I woke up feeling about it.
I know this gentleman.
I love him.
I respect him.
I appreciate what he's done for our country.
He has earned the respect and the right to go now and make his decision.
I really believe that he will reflect on this and he will do what is right for our country.
He's dedicated his whole life to this nation.
I cannot imagine that right now he's going to, at the very beautiful of this inflection point, not do what's right for our democracy and for our country.
So I'm scared because this is very clearly what I left last night.
When I went to bed, all I could think was old man versus con man.
Old man versus con man.
You've got the convicted felon who just lied for an hour and a half, unchecked.
By the way, Mo, here's the problem.
Here's the problem.
Joe Biden was also fact-checked last night.
And a lot of the stuff that came out of his mouth was total nonsense too.
Including, by the way, we saw Joe Biden literally try to convince the world that his golf handicap is six.
I am a 16 handicapper at golf.
I will hereby bet, I put this on X earlier, I'll bet $100,000 to a charity of Joe Biden's choice.
Not only will I beat him off my 16 handicap, so 10 worse than him, apparently, but not only will I beat him, I don't want any shots off him.
In fact, I'll give him a shot a hole and I will still beat him.
There is no way Joe Biden can even play golf these days, right?
So that was another whopper he told.
So when it comes to whoppers, most of what came out of Joe Biden's mouth was a load of old baloney.
Listen, I don't think he's as good as he's.
Or as he would call it malarkey.
As he would call it malarkey.
But Pierce, you know I have a lot of respect for you.
I was with you four years ago or three and a half years ago on election night.
Yeah.
I respect you, your incredible talent.
But listen, if anybody out there is worried about golf, right, when we have the Ukraine, or not the Ukraine, but Ukraine, we have the Israeli situation.
We're paying too much for eggs and a little bit more than we should for gas and so on and so forth.
These are the issues that people are worried about.
But actually, I think, Lamotte, here's the thing.
And I appreciate your comments.
And I feel the same about you.
I think you've been great when you have you come on.
But here's the point.
It's not about golf.
It's about Joe Biden lying about his golf handicap, about how good he is.
And it's also about the fact that actually you can't imagine him playing golf.
Bryson DeChamba, the U.S. Open champion of last week, has tweeted he'll put on the match, Biden-Trump at God.
Can you imagine them trying to play golf against each other?
So the point is, is Joe Biden fit mentally and physically to do the job?
I don't think anyone with half a brain can conclude after last night that he is.
It's very sad.
It's very sad, but actually very selfish if he continues to pretend he can.
Okay, so very quickly, I don't want to hog up any of your time, but one thing first.
Please, I love you so much.
Please be an equal opportunity criticizer because I am.
And I love that.
I've been very critical of Trump over the years, especially in the last two or three years.
I think last night, Trump definitely said loads of things that weren't true.
As he does, he embellished, he exaggerated, all those things.
But here's the thing, though.
No one today is talking about Donald Trump.
What they should have been talking about is Joe Biden, the president, holding Trump to account on a massive stage for all the lies he was telling.
And he couldn't do it.
So instead, everyone is talking about Biden's inability to hold him to account.
And that is why I'm sad and mad, Pierce, because I'm upset because the president deserved the opportunity to do that.
He clearly was not on his game last night.
He clearly, it was abysmal at best.
Okay.
And so I'm not going to come on your show and try to spin out of that because it's not possible.
No, listen, it's admissible.
It's been good to have you on the show.
I appreciate you joining me again.
Thank you very much.
Let's go back to the panel.
Cheng, let me ask you about this.
I mean, look, I can see people trying.
A lot of people in the Democrat Party like Biden.
I've read Thomas Friedman saying he cried last night, the New York Times columnist when he was watching it.
Frank Bruni was sort of tearing up.
Everyone's tearing up.
I don't really feel emotional, I'm afraid.
And I find it very hard to feel sympathy for Joe Biden.
I think it was very sad what we watched.
But I also think we're now at the stage where this is actually willfully selfish and harming to the Democrat Party, isn't it?
Yeah, so I only have one point that I have sympathy for Joe Biden on.
But first of all, these guys, I mean, look at the people in power, whether it's media or Democratic leadership.
They're all crying because, oh, their beloved Joe Biden didn't look good.
I mean, this guy just sent $20 billion to slaughter more Palestinian children.
I cry for them.
I don't cry for Joe Biden.
Joe Biden has taken corporate donations his entire life.
He used to be known as the senator from MBNA.
This guy is a classic corporate corrupt Democrat.
So I don't join any of this like, oh my God, he was such a good person.
And think about this.
This guy, and even if you disagree with me and you think, oh my God, no, I love establishment Democrats that sell us out to the donors.
Oh, you're so radical for saying things that are obviously true.
But think about this.
Even for those guys, he was willing to risk all of us, the Democratic voters, the Democratic Party, the entire country, just to satiate his ego.
Oh, I want to be a two-term president.
That's better for my legacy.
So he's an egomaniac that I have no sympathy for, except one thing.
Last night was elder abuse.
And it was elder abuse by the entire Democratic leadership, the DNC, and yes, sorry, but Jill Biden.
If Jill Biden wants to run for president, she should do it.
But I mean, there's no way that a loving spouse lets that happen.
No, I agree.
He thinks, oh, great, push him out there, push him out there.
We got this.
You don't have it.
This is absurd.
But the one piece of good news out of all this, Piers, is it's over.
We're going to get a new candidate, and hopefully, we're going to kick Donald Trump's out of the way.
Cheng, before I go to Hitler, before I go to Hassan, who would, just quickly, who would your preference be for who that person should be that could actually be the nominee and potentially beat Trump?
So the problem with the Democratic Party is that they never pick a populist in a populist time.
They keep picking the most establishment candidates there are when the American people keep telling you they don't want establishment candidates like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.
So they should pick a populist, but they won't.
Of course, the top candidate is Bernie Sanders and he would easily, easily beat Donald Trump.
Everybody actually knows that.
They just don't.
And let's be honest, the Democratic Party would rather have Donald Trump than Bernie Sanders.
So, but if you say, no, Bernie Sanders is too old or we can't have it, you can go to Rokana, you can go to Jamie Raskin.
Jamie Raskin is beloved by everyone in the Democratic Party.
He's incredibly smart, incredibly principled.
I mean, he would eviscerate Donald Trump in a debate.
Let's pick someone who can win and actually represent the people.
Okay, before I come to Hassan, actually, let me just get Vinny's reaction to that.
One name.
I'm afraid I'm going to disagree with Jake there.
Yeah, go on then.
Okay, Hassan, you respond.
Yeah.
Okay.
First of all, Big Gretsch.
That's it.
That's the method.
That's the movement.
Okay.
Put Mama Gretsch in office.
Okay.
She's popular.
She's in a pivotal state.
She would absolutely crush it.
You got, I don't like Gavin Newsom at all.
I think he has a lot of weaknesses.
I think he's horrible.
He's done an abysmal job refusing to fix the housing crisis in California that's obviously contributing to the homelessness crisis so that, you know, guys like Vinny can complain about how much of a shithole California is or whatever people talk about.
Like that would stick on a national level on Gavin Newsome.
Don't turn the rest of the country into California would be the attitude.
Another good guy, I think, another great guy, J.B. Pritzker, governor of Illinois.
We need a big boy in office.
We need a dynamo.
We need a guy with a kind heart.
You know, he could even, I'm not exactly a fan of him being a billionaire, but ultimately, you know, maybe we could have a real billionaire against Donald Trump's phony billionaire status.
Who knows?
Anyone would be better than Joe Biden at this point, even Hillary Clinton.
Well, I'll say that.
Okay, well, that's actually a good question.
That's interesting.
So just why I think for those who don't know who the Gretsch is, by the way, it's the Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer.
But I want to come to Vinny.
Hillary Clinton's name is being talked up here as potentially the unfinished business that she comes sweeping back and she does what she what she failed to do in 2016 and she actually beats him what are your thoughts about hillary returning You know what, Piers, I think she's absolutely, she's finished.
Hillary Clinton has no chance.
I think every single time she gets in front of a camera, it's hurting the Democratic Party.
I think she's the worst from her history with her and her husband.
It's just, it's abysmal.
Let's not even get into the Clinton Foundation and Epstein and her husband.
That's a whole different can of worms.
But I think it's funny how everybody on the left is so, you know, this whole failed presidency is because of Biden's age and his dementia, which he definitely has.
Whoever's going to come in, it's the Democratic Party's policies.
Plain and simple.
I don't give a damn who you put in there.
Gretsch, Bernie Sanders, communism.
You want socialism.
You want all that crap.
It's not going to fix anything.
That shit's going to keep going.
Say what you want.
Last night solidified it even more for the independents in the middle that are kind of on the fence.
I would much rather vote for the convicted felon than this poor old moron that they wheel out there now on purpose like a sacrificial lamb with no drugs and everything to now to turn.
You notice, Piers, every other debate, every CNN anchor, everybody that was moderating would cut Trump off.
They would yell.
They would stop.
Notice how they sat there.
Jay Tapper and Dana Bash, they were quiet.
They let everything pull out.
This was all on purpose.
And I think that Hillary Clinton's on the table.
I think Gavin Newsom for sure.
He was the only one there.
You notice that?
He had Gajel in his hair.
Listen, I've said for two years that I think Newsom is the one that could put up the best fight.
And I was persuaded when he went on Fox News into the heart of the enemy lair and sat there with Sean Hannity for an hour and acquitted himself very, very well.
I mean, Jenna, to bring you in here, I mean, who, Jenna, if you were if you were a Democrat right now, who would you think had the best chance of actually taking Trump on?
You know Trump very well.
You know his weaknesses, his strengths.
Who of all the Democrat names you've seen touted would you fear most potentially as being the one that could win it for the Democrats?
Well, I actually agree with what Sink said that we really need a populist on both sides that actually speaks to what the American people are concerned about.
And if the Democrats can put up someone who isn't so far extreme leftist establishment, then I think that they have a real chance of actually getting demonstrated.
And who is that person?
Republicans as well.
And I think that they should put up someone like an Andrew Yang.
They should have gone with RFK Jr.
I mean, he acquitted himself very well in the debate and neither side notice wanted him on stage.
I think he is going to rise in momentum after last night's debate.
And anyone realistically that the Democrats put up now, if it's not someone as far left as a Gretchen Whitmer, for example, has a real shot at winning.
But what I think the American people need to do is take a hard look at the lawsuits.
Incapable and Incoherent 00:15:29
We have a minimum because look at what she did during the COVID lockdowns.
Can you give me that?
Look at how she has.
So look at what she did during the COVID lockdowns.
Look at her position on extreme on abortion.
Look at how she has run her state as basically taking legislative power into the executive.
So she is, she, look, and look at her position on her position on abortion that she's going to extreme.
Abortion.
So her position on abortion that is so extreme is that she wants no limits at all, no restrictions.
And most of the country is not for that.
Even the Democrats themselves know that there needs to be some restrictions at least in third term.
No, that is absolutely true.
And I mean, feel free to fact check me on that if she's changed her position, but that's a good question.
That's not a real thing.
Every conversation that we have unfortunately revolves around hallucinations.
Former home state Colorado allows abortion until the day of birth.
That is the law in seven states right now, including California, where Gavin Newsom is the governor.
There is no cannibal in the country where you can have a third trimester abortion without a doctor giving you a medical exemption.
No, you still have to get a psychiatric evaluation.
And it doesn't matter whether a healthcare evaluation is still over.
Okay, you're a woman.
You're a woman.
You're a woman.
Have you ever been pregnant?
I have a question for you.
I don't know.
Have you?
Okay, my medical history is a process that is there.
But it's animating.
And so, I mean, have you ever been pregnant?
Because the point I'm making is how are you?
It is obviously irrelevant.
I've never been pregnant, but it seems like I understand it, Beth, as good as you do.
What's happening now?
No, you actually don't understand.
He's carrying a pregnancy for nine months.
So they can have a regular opening whether Hassan is pregnant.
No, we're women answering our question.
I just have some breaking news.
I had some breaking news for everyone.
The Biden campaign spokesperson, Seth Schuster, says that Biden will not be exiting the race.
There's no basis for that.
There's nothing that voters have indicated that they agree with that.
Senior White House correspondent at CNN, Kayla Taus, said on X. Not only does POTUS not plan to drop out, Biden remains committed incredibly to a second debate in September, an advisor tells me.
I cannot see that happening.
But we actually have now somebody joining us who is pro-Biden and thinks that he won last night.
It's the TikToker Harry Sisson.
Harry, you think Biden won last night?
One person.
Yeah, no, I did.
Definitely.
On the substance of the conversation, Biden won.
His policy is pragmatic.
It was logical.
And Donald Trump just lied the entire time, is incapable of telling the truth, is incapable of actually laying out policy.
He didn't talk about how he's going to make the American people's lives better.
He just said that January 6th didn't happen.
He talked about the election.
He said that overturning Roe was a great thing and forcing 10-year-old girls to give birth is a fantastic thing.
That was Donald Trump's debate.
So on the substance of the conversation, Joe Biden absolutely prevailed.
Right, but the problem you've got is I saw the CNN fact checkers on Joe Biden's public statements last night, and it was just untruth after untruth after untruth.
Oh, I'm not sitting here that Joe, I'm not sitting here telling you that Joe Biden tells the truth every single time he speaks or that he gets every single number right and every single statistic right.
He gets most of them wrong.
That's not true.
To compare Joe Biden's lies to Donald Trump's lies is laughable.
Trump told over 30,000 lies during his presidency, averaging around 20 a day.
And he showed that last night when he lied about every single thing he talked about.
Lying doesn't win debates.
Yeah, but the problem is, if you're going to use lying or misleading the public with statements against a candidate, you've got to make sure your own candidate speaks with unforked tongue.
I mean, Biden, barely a week goes by without him saying something which is immediately proven to be untrue.
I mean, only like two weeks ago, he was claiming that his uncle was shot down and eaten by cannibals.
None of that ever happened.
It wasn't shot down and he wasn't eaten by cannibals.
I mean, I just think that this idea that Trump's the only one whose statements can't be trusted is just not true.
Last night, again and again, listen, I'm not denying that Trump made a series of untrue statements.
He does that.
He barrels through and hopes that the big messages about the border and so on kick home.
And they probably do actually with many Americans.
But if Biden's going to play the lying card as a pro-Biden thing against Trump, he's got to tell the truth and get his numbers right.
He can't then have a fact check from CNN, which was painful to watch last night.
Went on and on and on.
Almost every statistic he came out with was completely wrong.
Yeah, but Pierce, I mean, let's be real here.
If you're lying, one sec, Vinny, you look like a relax, buddy.
If you're getting a number incorrect, right?
If you're getting a number incorrect.
Hold on.
That's like a barrel.
Seven years ago.
Hold on now.
I'm not done yet.
I'm not done yet.
Were you 10 years old, Harry?
What was that?
How old are you when Trump won?
10 years old?
Seven years ago?
You're 10 years ago.
You look like you're about to explode.
What the hell you're talking about?
Take a breather.
That's not a problem.
He's entitled to him.
Listen, listen, I know Hassan's a big fan of mine.
He was right to call you out for looking like you're about to explode.
It's okay.
No problem here.
Yeah.
You have to level up.
Get him, Harry.
And you, and what are you, like, 80?
Like, relax, buddy.
Take a breather.
You're okay, I promise.
It's okay.
That was all good.
Den, Den, yoga.
Yoga's good.
Biden was.
Can I just say it doesn't?
I don't actually care how old either of you are.
Let's get back to the real relief, which is I care about the age of the president because he looks like he's 180.
So, Harry, I'm just bringing you.
33% of people watching here apparently think Biden won.
I don't know.
Harry, hang on.
I don't know how anybody honestly can watch that debate and honestly conclude that Biden won.
You'd have to be so deeply embedded in the Democrat partisan tank that you can't crawl out long enough to see the wood for the trees.
So, first thing, I want to respond to your lie comment.
I think that, yeah, we want both candidates to be honest, but we have to weigh the lies here.
Like, if Joe Biden gets a statistic incorrect, that is vastly different than Donald Trump still pushing lies about January 6th and about the election.
So, that's first and foremost.
But, second of all, as I said, the substance of the conversation is what matters.
Trump can scream the loudest.
He can lie the most.
That doesn't mean you win a debate.
When Joe Biden's up there saying, like, you know what, my policy is pragmatic.
I want to give women their reproductive rights.
I want to continue to lower health care costs.
I want to expand healthcare for veterans more and more.
That's pragmatic policy.
That's logical.
But, Harry, the problem.
Okay, but Harry, here's the problem.
Harry, here's the problem.
He couldn't articulate his views in a way that anyone could really understand.
And secondly, and more crucially, in Trump, he has an opponent who tells a lot of untruths.
And what you want the president of the United States to do is to be quick-witted enough and sharp enough and intelligent enough to, every time he does that, leap on it and tell the American people why what he said was untrue.
Biden was simply incapable of doing any of that.
And that's what a lot of Democrats have said overnight.
Is the most problematic thing is not that he's old or anything.
It's that he was incapable of either articulating policy in a way that resonated or holding Trump to account.
And if you can't do that with a candidate like Trump, there's no hope.
Yeah, except Piers, if that was the method that Biden was.
Hang on, Sam.
I'll come to you in one second.
Harry responds to that.
Sorry.
All right.
What I was going to say is if that's the method that Biden was going to go with, then all of his answers would just be fact-checking Trump.
Every two minutes he asked, he has to be like, okay, Trump lied about this, this, this.
And that's not any way to win a voter over.
Biden, I would think it's more of the moderator's job to fact-check as opposed to Biden dedicating his entire debate to fact-checking.
Biden should be laying out the policy, which he did.
He seemed pretty coherent when he called out Donald Trump for assaulting and raping E. Gene Carroll and what did you think?
Okay, that's an excruciating moment when Joe Biden basically froze and mumbled his words and said complete gibberish.
And then Donald Trump just said, I don't think even he knows what he just said.
Let's just watch this clip and I'm going to ask you to explain to me what he said.
Dealing with everything we have to do with look if he doesn't care.
He doesn't like the military at all.
And he doesn't care about our veterans.
Nobody's been worse.
I had the highest approval rating for veterans taking care of the VA.
I mean, Harry, what was Biden saying there?
It's a very nice, selectively edited clip.
I like it.
Yeah, I don't think that every person ever is going to speak perfectly.
So highlighting Biden not speaking perfectly.
No, but I watched the whole thing, Harry.
I watched the whole thing.
I watched it the whole 90 minutes.
I don't come at this as on the left or right.
I'm not a member of either party.
I don't promote either party over the other.
I simply come at it as a journalist.
I didn't understand 90% of what Biden was saying.
I did understand Trump and understood that he was misleading me a lot of the time, but also understood on the big picture messaging, which he kept ramming down the viewers' throats about the chaos at the border, the state of the economy, particularly on black Americans and Latino Americans who are gravitating to Trump and so on and so on.
On those big picture messages, he was hitting home hard.
I don't know what Biden's messages were.
I don't know what he was talking about.
Pierce, did you not understand President Biden when he talked about how the PACT Act now has a million people signing up for it?
No, I'm getting not understanding.
I didn't know.
Do you not understand him when he talked about this?
No, because he spoke in this kind of weird, crunchy.
No, because he spoke in a weird.
I'd understood it.
If you had basically translated him in real time, I'd have understood it.
If Gavin Newsom had done the translation for us and articulated what Biden was trying to say, I'd have understood it.
But Biden spoke for 90 minutes in a croaky, monotone, drone-like manner that honestly, for most average viewers watching, was utterly incomprehensible.
And the problem he's got is that Trump sounded and looked exactly like he did in 2020 and 2016.
Like he's always done.
Oh, come on.
Yeah, he did.
He did not sound exactly like he did in 2020.
I promise you, go back and watch Trump in 2016.
Go back and watch Trump in 2016.
Compared to last night, it's the same guy.
You may not like him, but he's an embellisher and he'll tell lies, but he'll ram home the messages.
And one of his Trump cars, literally, is that he can hit home messaging in a way that resonates with people at home.
Yeah, it's certainly not the same guy when the Trump in 2024.
Okay, the Trump in 2024 is talking about boats sinking and like sharks and batteries and all that stuff.
And he's telling these insane lies about the election.
I mean, in 2020, he was claiming that China was bringing in bamboo ballots.
I mean, this is like your crazy uncle at Thanksgiving who's screaming in the corner.
This is not a presidential candidate.
This is a dude who just rambles incoherently on the debate stage as he did last night.
And do you believe, Harry, finally, do you believe in your heart that Joe Biden is the right person to lead the Democrats into the election in November?
And do you believe he can win?
He can win.
He's going to win.
And as Vice President Harris said, we don't let a 90-minute performance negate three and a half years of progress.
Biden's the only man who has beaten Donald Trump and he's going to do it again.
And I'm looking forward to convicted felon Donald Trump facing justice.
Why are you the only person I've heard in the last 24 hours who's not crying because the performance was so horrendous on the Democrat side?
I don't know.
You have to talk to the people that you're surrounded by.
No, no, no, Thomas Freeman might be Frank Bruni and all the Democrats.
All the Democrats supporting writers for the New York Times and so on.
Literally all of them, Van Jones has seen it.
They're all crying because it was so bad.
It brought tears to their eyes.
You appear to have watched a completely different debate.
You're happy.
You thought it was great.
He's going to win a triumphant victory.
No, he's not, Harry.
Wake up.
Yeah, I don't have the mentality of like, oh, something didn't go our way.
Now we have to pout and cry.
I have the mentality of, well, if something didn't go our way and that's the way it's perceived, let's get to work.
Get out there and get a clipboard and go get some signatures and go door to door.
Don't sit here and sit in our own sadness.
Let's get to work as opposed to writing in the New York Times that it didn't go the way we wanted it to.
Actually, I agree with you, actually.
That is the right response and I admire that attitude.
So thank you for joining me.
Harry, thank you very much.
Well, joining me now is the Republican National Committee spokeswoman, Elizabeth Pipper.
Who wants Trump to win?
I just want that to be clear.
Elizabeth, thank you very much for joining me.
I'd imagine you're extremely happy today.
No, I'm not extremely happy, actually.
I'm extremely happy for Donald Trump.
I think you'd agreed that he had a resounding win last night, but I'm actually really upset.
I'm upset for the country.
It was not a good night, obviously, for Joe Biden or the Democrat Party, but it wasn't a really good night at all for the American people.
We just had, I believe his name was Mo, a former Biden advisor.
I was listening to your show, and he said that this was a blunder, right?
A blunder on the part of his campaign to have him out there on the debate stage.
I'm wondering why it's a blunder to have him on the debate stage, but not a blunder to have him leading the country for the last almost four years.
It is a really sad time.
We're in unchartered territory.
It's almost like we are a ship in horrible waters without a captain.
And somehow it's the first time the American people are allowed in on that secret.
It's a horrible time in this country.
And I really can't believe that we're here.
You know, I almost believed you when you said you were sad there.
Pierce, I don't know if you know my story.
My parents are immigrants to this country.
I swear to you, this is genuinely a sad time for people like me.
No one wants this, right?
My mom was crying last night.
She's a supporter of President Trump.
This is a rough time.
Who wants to watch that?
It wasn't just Van Jones.
It was people around the world, by the way, who support this country and everything that it stands for.
No one wants to see the commander-in-chief of the United States of America embarrassed the way that he was last year.
I mean, look, listen, I felt sad too, actually.
And I agree with you about that.
I'm just, if I'm the Republican National Committee spokeswoman, I'm pretending to be sad on camera in interviews, but quietly, I'm doing a conga.
Well, I don't know how to congo, but no, genuinely, I'll have to be true sometime, never in my life.
But no, I am an American first, and this was a rough night.
I think anyone that watched it would agree with that.
But no, it's a great night for Donald Trump to prove himself, to prove to the American people that he is the obvious choice in November.
But that does not mean that we don't have to think about who has been leading this country the last nearly four years and who's going to lead it through November.
Who keeps you awake at night thinking they might replace Biden before the election?
Is there someone that you're just slightly apprehensive about?
You think actually that could cause us problems?
It's a good question.
That's all people talk about right for the last three and a half years.
Now we know they're actually serious about it.
I've heard Michelle Obama's name quite a bit.
I do not believe she would do it.
I believe she's incredibly popular, but I genuinely do not believe anyone could beat Donald Trump right now because as we know based on last night, it's not Joe Biden that's been leading this country.
The Fight Continues 00:03:23
It's actually just Democrat policies.
And the people clearly show that they don't want those policies anymore and they want Donald Trump back in the White House.
Have you spoken to President Trump today?
I have not spoken to him, but I've spoken to a lot of members of our team, obviously.
And how is the general mood?
It's a good day to work for Donald Trump.
It certainly is.
So you've all dried your tears long enough to celebrate.
Well, we don't cry over here.
But yeah, look, the fight continues, obviously.
I've worked for Donald Trump on and off since 2016.
So we know that there are good days and bad days, but the fight continues through November 5th, no matter what happens.
Will he do another debate?
I mean, there's a lot of speculation that he just won't bother.
Why would he?
I mean, one and done, right?
I mean, would he do another debate, particularly if there's a new nominee that's not Joe Biden, would he agree to maybe do a debate with someone like Gavin Newsom if he turns out to replace him?
I definitely think so.
Look, Donald Trump has said for months now that he would debate Joe Biden any place, anytime, anywhere.
And that's because he thinks the American people deserve it, right?
This is how our debate is.
Well, that's Joe Biden.
But what about if it wasn't Joe Biden?
What about somebody a lot younger and more dynamic?
Would he be as keen to expose himself potentially to a more difficult debate?
I do believe that he would be.
I think he'd be ready to take on whoever the Democrats choose to replace Joe Biden with.
Elizabeth Pitko, thank you very much indeed.
Thank you.
Let's go back to the panel.
Check, your response to, I mean, look, the Republicans, they're pretending to be sad.
Of course they're not sad.
They're absolutely jubilant because it couldn't have possibly gone any better.
I mean, every headline from the moment that debate was over is catastrophe for the Democrats.
Yeah, except there's one giant caveat to that, which swallows up what you're saying, Piers, which is that the night was so terrible for Biden that it wound up being terrible for Trump.
The reason is Biden can't continue.
They put out that lunatic statement that you read earlier in the show about how he's going to continue and how he's a dynamo and all that stuff.
No, the only person who believes that is your earlier guest, Harry, who apparently has lost his mind and wants Trump to win, right?
Like, if we keep Biden in the race, a Trump victory is guaranteed.
Look, when I said that Biden had a near zero chance of winning, everybody went crazy.
And you know, I said that six months ago, nine months ago.
Oh, that's nuts.
He's got a 55, 60%.
I'm like, you guys are living in an alternate reality.
It was always obvious how old he was.
It was always obvious that he couldn't do this.
And I want to thank whichever Democrat made the decision to put this before the convention.
Because thank God the debate was before the convention so we could pick someone else.
If you say at this point that we shouldn't pick a different candidate, you're saying I'm super happy to have Donald Trump as president and have him destroy this democracy.
It's a betrayal of the Democratic Party.
But right now, the RNC should be panicking, not celebrating, because they're going to get a new candidate.
And that new candidate is going to kick Trump's ass.
That debate turned out to be a disaster for both of the candidates.
Okay.
Vinny, I can see you not entirely agreeing with that assessment.
Well, because I'm just so curious, like, what threat to democracy?
Why didn't he do and burn the country down when he was the president?
Why?
Why didn't he?
All that Putin stuff, all that BS, it's all these Democrats.
Republicans Must Act 00:05:38
You guys all have Stockholm syndrome, okay?
You guys have all fallen in love with your abuser, and the abuser is the Democratic Party.
They don't give a shit about you.
They don't care.
They don't care.
Wheel out whoever you want.
It's going to be the same polities.
Everything that's happening right now is going to keep happening.
What's going to change?
You had Harry come on here.
Boy, what was he?
10 years old?
Eight years ago?
He's talking about like he's lived a life and he knows what's talking about.
And for us, for nobody to talk up, what's so good about Joe Biden?
What has Joe Biden done?
Can anybody give me one thing?
And don't say infrastructure.
It's absolute shit show.
And it's not him running the show as we saw yesterday.
Hold on.
It's the them.
I think Hassan wants to give you one thing, Hassan.
It's not even just one thing.
Here's the problem, okay?
I don't even like, I don't like Joe Biden.
He went from Jim Crow Joe to Genocide Joe, and he is a monstrous person for the most part, as are many American presidents.
Having said that, however, one of the key factors here is that the administration is competent.
I use the example of Twitter, right?
Twitter used to be run by liberal Jack Dorsey, right?
That's his name, I think.
I can't really remember.
And it wasn't exactly the greatest website.
It wasn't the best website.
It still had a litany of issues, right?
Still breaking people's brains, but at least it functioned.
And then Elon Musk took over, and we saw exactly what happened to Twitter.
It is now a right-wing shithole filled to the brim with gore porn and just the worst imaginable positions that you've ever heard and just open white supremacist Nazis getting hundreds of thousands of likes.
And that's basically the difference between at least like a Democratic administration, which does fill the agencies.
You have the NLRB doing phenomenal work.
You have Lena Khan doing phenomenal work at FTC.
You have the EPA at least relatively competent.
These are all issues that are going to become massive complications down the line when you have something like Project 2025 openly talking about abolishing the Department of Education, abolishing the EPA.
And that's precisely why people like Jenkin and myself, who are not exactly big fans of Joe Biden and haven't shied away from criticism, see the writing on the wall, see exactly how damaging someone like Donald Trump's second term is going to look like, and see how damaging Republican policies have become and how reactionary the Republican Party has become, even more reactionary than before.
I mean, look, I would also say that what that means is why we're going to be able to do that.
Hang on, hang on, don't talk at once.
I'll come to you.
Ah, son, I think you've hit on something though, which is it was not only Biden's inability to hold Trump to account for the lies he was telling, but also his inability to sell himself and what he's achieved.
Because there are achievements there.
Absolutely.
But actually, he's been capable.
Gavin Newsom in that one-minute clip I showed earlier was able to articulate better achievements by Biden than Biden's been able to do.
That's why Biden's approval rating is in the tank at like 37%.
Jen, I want to bring you in here for a kind of summary of where we are with this.
What do you think happens now?
Yeah, well, I mean, I think what's remarkable that we've seen in just the last 12 hours since the debate is that the Democrats are finally telling the truth.
And I give them credit for that.
Better late than never.
They are actually looking at their candidate and openly saying, guys, we've got to figure out a solution here.
And the Republicans are not doing that with Donald Trump.
And I would just like to say, as someone who, for a lot of personal cost, has stood up and told the truth about Donald Trump, I think that the Republicans need to do the same thing.
And if everyone in America was willing to actually stand up on both sides and tell the truth about both of these individuals, we would have better people running for office from the top all the way down.
And so this is about a power grab for both sides.
And so I think where we're at right now is that Donald Trump should be very concerned about the debate last night because the Democrats are going to replace Joe Biden and they're telling the truth about their candidate.
And that's going to be detrimental to his campaign.
Republicans aren't doing that right now.
There are definitely people that I've talked to even in the Republican Party.
I know the spokesperson isn't willing to admit it, that have very serious concerns about Donald Trump.
I would encourage everyone to go and read the letter that I wrote to the Colorado Bar about my concerns of Donald Trump because I was there and I saw all of it and I was willing to stand up and tell the truth and nobody in the Republican Party has been willing to stand up and say that.
That is a detriment to our country.
So I give the Democrats, just honestly, a lot of credit for actually saying this guy cannot continue to replace him with someone else.
And I think Michelle Obama actually is the one that I would say.
Well, she would be an amazing candidate, but she doesn't want to do it, apparently.
And look, you say you give them credit.
They haven't done it yet.
Let's wait and see because the big question now.
But they're saying, they're talking about it.
They're talking about it, which is definitely very unusual.
And it's a huge public pressure campaign.
Yeah, but remember.
I mean, it's a huge public pressure campaign.
But remember, I think what they should just do is tell Biden, hey, you've already agreed to step down.
And he'll probably think, oh, yeah, I did.
Thanks.
And he'll just go away.
That should be their plan.
Sadly, that is actually probably true.
And that is the problem right there in a nutshell.
Thank you to my panel.
Much appreciate it.
You've been with me a long time today, but it's a moment in history, I feel.
I feel like what's going to happen post this debate is historical.
And I'm glad you're all with me.
Thank you very much indeed.
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