4/27/23: Tucker Carlson Breaks Silence, Republican Debt Bill Barely Passes, China's Xi Pushes Zelensky Negotiations, Kamala's 2024 Kickoff, Disney Sues DeSantis, Nate Silver Out, Bernie Betrays Movement, Biden's High Chance of Death

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Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday. We have an amazing show for everybody today.

What do we have, Crystal, Indeed, we do many, many things that are breaking this morning. We've got domestic news, We've got international news. Taker Carlson releasing some comments, speaking out for the first time after being canned over at Fox News. We'll play those for you and react. We also have a bit of deat sealing drama. Kevin McCarthy able to survive the first test, was able to barely cobble together enough votes to pass through his debt ceiling

Low key not bad.

Look a big music guy. So I'm excited to talk to Anthony about it.

And yeah, mean well yeah, And I want to know his analysis of whether he thought the songs were good, because look, I'm not I like some Drake songs, but I'm not.

A huge Drake fam. I actually thought this was like better than many Drakes.

That's my thing is I'm not sophisticated enough.

I've barely listened to any at Also, I want to talk to somebody like him and be like, okay, like how much of a thing actually, because to me, you know, I'm a nobody got to.

Be freaking out though.

Yeah, it's going to be a great conversation. I also want to take a moment here. I want to say thank you so much to everybody who's been heeding our call for support. At this time, we shelled out the biggest expense in the history of Breaking Points for our new set. You guys are helping us. We have officially paid off the lights. We still have gote a bit way to go in terms.

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Yeah, and thank you, thank you, Thank you to those of you who've been signing up. It really like you guys are coming through as you always have, and we are just extremely grateful.

Yeah.

Absolutely, Okay, So let's get to Tucker Carlson pretty crazy dropped a new video at eighth one Eastern Standard time yesterday. Probably not a coincidence because it's the exact moment when his old show was going Liveiday okay air.

Yeah, oh yeah. That's certainly a little bit of a subtweet since has now garnered over twenty five million views. Here's what he had to say.

Notice, when you take a little time off is how unbelievably stupid most of the debates you see on television are. They're completely irrelevant, they mean nothing. In five years, we won't even remember that we had them, trust me as someone who's participated. And yet, at the same time, and this is the amazing thing, the undeniably big topics, the ones that will define our future, get virtually no discussion at all. War, civil liberties, emerging science, demographic change, corporate power,

It's been a long time.

Debates like that are not permitted in American media, Both political parties and their donors have reached consensus on what benefits them, and they actively collude to shut down any conversation about it. Suddenly, the United States looks very much like a one party state. That's a depressing realization, but it's not permanent. Our current orthodoxies won't last. They're brain dead, nobody actually believes them. Hardly anyone's life is improved by them.

True things prevail.

Where can you still find Americans saying true things? There aren't many places left, but there are some, and that's enough. As long as you can hear the words, there is hope.

See you soon. A couple of big takeaways there.

I think number one at the end I actually thought was the most significant. There are still some places where you can tell truth that could be a hint at his future. We know he's currently in the middle of a contract in broglio with Fox News as to whether he will we will even be allowed to see the man sometime in the next couple of years. As I understand, he was under contract is negotiating his way out of

I am hoping that in the.

Future we can move past that and actually get to something which is a genuine critique of some of the issues which he raised there in that I'm curious what you thought of the video.

I mean, I find the video kind of irritating for in two ways. First of all, it was mostly like a lot of you know, grandiose, not really saying much of anything. Another thing, like, dude, you're not a martyr. You called your boss the sea word. You're involved in like multiple potential multi billion dollar lawsuits. Imagine if you out there called your boss the sea word. Do you think you would have a job at the end of the day.

No way.

It's amazing that he survived this long.

But when you have, and there's some new reporting this morning about like the extent of how like out there the text messages that were revealed in the dominion lawsuit, not even the ones that were revealed publicly, but ones that were redacted that the company came to know about, like they were very concerned about what was in there. Apparently in there is where you know he called probably Suzanne Scott the C word. Again, this is his boss.

Yeah, it was a bit odd how that all went down.

I'm still not exactly sure why they would fire him over calling your boss a seaward and then it never even came out like you know, it's like something in your private text message.

But and apparently he wanted those texts too.

I think he got he got arrogant, and they felt like they needed to reclaim.

You know, this isn't the first time that they've fired they top rated up. Yeah, they did the Glutton back bill, O'Reilly. You know Megan Kelly.

It was a little bit different because she had kind of gotten crosswise with the Trump base and so her ratings had fallen off when they let her go. But she was still a gigantic talent and you know, extraordinarily talented person. So Fox is reasserting their dominance in this situation. Now, is Tucker going to be fine? Is he going to find of course, he's going to find an audience. Will he have the level of mainstream cultural impact and influence that he had at Fox?

Doubtful.

I don't know.

I actually don't know about that, because we have seen already is a massive crash Fox actually in the eight PM hour. I actually was just looking at it this morning, had their worst day since pre nine to eleven times in terms of the numbers at them.

So I mean it's a massive crash, right, yeah, on the hour.

It actually does show me too, which is they were able to make up their ground over O'Riley relatively quickly.

It took a couple of years.

It took a couple of.

Years for Tucker, but they had Hannity to come in there and have hold strong, but Hannity has degraded so much in terms of his content. I'll just be kind just leave it to the content and say that that is where he hasn't been able to make up the ground that it is making it very difficult for them on the Abbey Grosberg thing.

I have to be honest.

I mean, I just was looking at this new report that her lawyers confirmed she never actually even met Tucker while working for Fox News. Says that she never met him in person because he was taping the show from his personal studios in Maine and in Florida. The more that I'm looking at the lawsuit, she's accusing him, I

I'm putting all these these teams.

Are smaller than you think.

I mean, on a primetime show, like the core team of producers that you know, Abby what's her.

Name, Grosberg.

Grosberg would have been part of You're maybe like fifteen people. It's not a huge group, and so listen, I don't know, I mean, a way to see what comes out. But clearly there was enough here that Fox was getting concerned about that they felt like they needed to take some sort of action.

And it's also hard to parse, like, you know, we've.

Been heard of like one hundred different factors that were involved in this firing. Another issue, another thing was like they're made them a personal angle. Apparently Rupert Murdoch's ex fiance, you know, just after.

They break up, she thought that Tucker was like the Messiah or something, and he was kind.

Of freaked out by the way that she was talking about him, the way they were talking to each other. He breaks off the engagement. And then shortly thereafter Tucker's can so he's taking his ex fiance's favorite show off the air. So there's like a personal angle to this as well.

I don't know how.

All of these swirling factors come together to lead to this decision, but at least a lot of the reporting and the reporting in the Wall Street Journal, which I think we should take probably the most seriously indicates that the final straw was they just learned about some of these text messages just before the dominion suit for what the redacted ones, the ones that we haven't even seen yet, And that was kind of the piece where they are like, all right, we're done here.

Yeah, they were done because they found out that he couldn't stand them. I think the Glenn Beck analogy is an important one. Yeah, people don't know. Beck was fired actually at the height of his powers whenever he was such a rating powerhouse there. They thought he was getting too big for his bridges because he was starting a blaze dot com or he's trying to start alternative media. He's writing a bunch of books like Outside of Contract in Row. Drails finally was like, look, I don't care

Anything we've worked for similar people.

And these people are nuts, and you know, they're power hungry, and to them it's a personal project. They don't even think of it as a multiple business. So you know, was he a victim of that? I mean, was it the Ray app stuff? As I've talked about here before.

I do also think that to the extent that there is an ideological component here, like in the intro Republican party fight that is now started between Trump and DeSantis in particular, Tucker's on one side and Rupert Murdoch is on.

Yeah, his flag is fully planted on Santa fully DeSantis.

I mean, he told the Sants, according to Gabe Sherman's reporting that before twenty twenty, so before the election even happened, he had DeSantis and his wife to one of his estates and told him like Fox News and we are going to be with you, and you see that in their coverage. So here you have this very highly rated host who has a lot of sway culturally and with your audience, who is on the other side of that.

I mean that is a rub as well in.

Terms of the putting the business piece aside, because Fox News has always been at its core as well an ideological project, so I think that part is important here too. But yeah, it's interesting times is it is interesting.

I'm excited to see what happens next, at the very least just to see people lose it. I would love nothing more than to see very very low ratings on Fox and for them to have Listen.

I'm cheering for low ratings on every one of the cable networks because they're all poisoned.

I want to see these people go down so bad, so listen. You should always know. There's a tremendous amount of copium in all my analysis cable news. I do try my best. I try my best.

We'll see what happens.

I mean, we're partisans in terms of hearing for cable news as failure. No one should delude themselves about that.

Oh absolutely, Yeah, and you know, behind the scenes people, they've been trying to get me on Fox for quite a long time.

Basics at the beginning of the show.

One of the reasons you haven't seen me on the Talker Carlson Show or any show was because I just thought, you know, even if you know we he's.

My old boss and we were friends and all.

That is, I didn't feel like it was cool to participate in this corporate media project and you know, be necessarily a pawn in the Fox News ecosystem because it's outside of the talent itself. Whenever we're sitting here doing critiques of cable every single day. Yeah, you know, it just didn't square right to me. And especially because the format, it's like you're on their turf. You don't have same power.

So anyway, Yeah, when you watch those segments, you realize just the setup and the constraints of it, you're never going to have.

If I don't have enough time, then I'm not really there. Then I'm a pond right right, It's like you always have to think about it. Yeah, that's not to say that anybody went on was bad. You can always go on and make a point. I just always felt like it would have been hypocritical within the confines of the show.

There can be good reasons to do it if you have a certain project you want to get up to. I mean mainstream audience, no doubt about it. But in general, and just like a run of the mill, Hey, we come on and talk about X, Y or Z.

It's exactly that.

I'm good.

I think that's right.

All right, let's get to it.

Let's get to the latest with the dead ceiling, because this deadline is approaching faster than you may think. So the context here is that Kevin McCarthy had to really pull his caucus together and pass something through the House and an attempt to put pressure on Biden to try to negotiate. Now, if we breached the dead ceiling, it could be some sort of economic absolute catastrophe.

So the stakes are very high.

And as part of Kevin McCarthy's speakership deal with the holdouts, he agreed to some really eyewatering cuts and to you know, basically hold the country hostage in order to secure cuts that the House for dam caucus really wanted.

So he was able to succeed. Let's go and put this up on the screen.

This is a long way from being over but he got his bill through the House. There were four no votes. He could have afforded five no votes, so this was as close as he could possibly come.

And that's no accident.

By the way, they all trade off and figure out, like, Okay, who were going to be the no votes and who's going to take one for the team and actually go.

Along with it.

The no votes were all on the sort of for this right of the party. Gates, Buck, Biggs, and Burchett, all the more moderates ended up voting for it. Let's put this up on the screen. This is how he ended up securing some of the votes. So there were a lot of pieces that people across the ideological spectrum were concerned about. Initially, McCarthy had said, like, no, we're not going to make any changes to the bill.

You've got to accept it.

But then they did end up making changes to things like biofuel tax credits, work requirements for social safety net programs, and Inflation Production Act fund for a host of democratic priorities. Put this next piece up on the screen. This is why even though okay, there were no Republicans that voted for the Inflation Reduction Act in the House, I believe

And this is kind of bullshit.

This is what the Washington Post that says ethanol clean energy fuel drama over GOP debt limit deal. All the Iowa Republicans were very concerned about these Inflation Reduction Act provisions that boost ethanol as a theoretically clean energy source.

Now this is sort of a fiction.

In fact, it's a total fiction that ethanol is in fact a clean energy source.

But because Iowa has always.

Long been very important politically, it will be less so on the Democratic side, but continue to be on the Republican side. Korn is king in terms of our politics.

And so this is.

Basically like a corn group of eight GOP lawmakers from the Corn Belt on Tuesday objected to repealing the incentives in the IRA for ethanol and other biofuels that have flowed to their states since the passage of the Climate Law. You also had some concerns from Nancy Mace about the repeal of some of the other inflation Reduction Act provisions. She said, we have a manufacturer in South Carolina in my district that builds the conductors for wind energy to

Well, what had happened basically is he said, look, I'll give you guys whatever on the ethanol, but all of us know that this isn't going to pass. And what the reason was is he makes the case based on the analysis that I was talking about on our last show, is he was like, do you.

Want us to negotiate this deal or do you want Mitch McConnell to do it, because if you don't vote for this bill, then I have no authority to negotiate with President Biden, and then we will have no seat at the table and they're going to ram it down our throats.

So the House basically said, all right, well, we're going to try and keep our power.

We have the majority in this chamber.

It's one of the only places that we can still exercise power and extract at least some concessions should the time come. The thing is, too, is that what this does is it changes the negotiation dynamic. President Biden yesterday at the White House Joint Press Conference in the Rose Garden said I'm not going to negotiate with Kevin McCarthy about the debt limit. It's like, okay, well, I mean you could say that it's April twenty seventh, but let's put this up there on the screen in terms of

We don't know in July. Originally some people thought it might come.

In June because tax revenue was flat, but a lot of people pay their taxes late, so now that they did, we will likely push it to sometime more squarely in July.

So look, I think there will be.

A lot of standoff and a lot of posturing now that this is over. Who knows around Let's say, what do you want to say three weeks before something like that.

Then things will start to get interesting. That's when the Senate might get involved.

They might try and pass an amend what I've previously spoken about, a revenue vehicle, to try and add their own version of the debt ceiling.

We could have McConnell versus McCarthy stuff.

We could have conferences between the Senate GOP and the House GOP in terms of what they're willing to negotiate, and then they present a uni fied plan to President Biden's about this is like step one, and we still have like nineteen store steps.

And nobody knows what those nobody steps are, right, I mean, and step nineteen might be like literally off a cliff

That voted for it.

Of like, here's what they did to veterans benefits, here's what they did to X Y or Z program that brings jobs that are important to this district. So you can already see in the initial phases here how this is potentially really a very bad situation for Republicans politically. And also here's the other thing. In twenty twenty four, doming Joe Biden's the nominee. They want to be able to run against him as like people aren't happy about the.

Economy, inflation, et cetera.

You own this, and so we're running against you on the economy. If they're responsible for pushing the country off of a cliff, you no longer can just pin the economic blame on Joe Biden. Now things are a lot muddier. They're a lot messier, and in fact, you may lose out that debate altogether. People may think that, yeah, you know what, you guys aren't good stewards of the economy,

So you know, I think this is a.

Potentially number one, I mean, the most important thing on the On the content like this could be extremely damaging to an economy that's already on very shaky ground, and politically, it could also be a disaster for Republicans. They are really playing with fire here, even as they're able to get their initial first pass through.

Well, we do know from the twenty and eleven and twenty thirteen debt ceiling five if they did come back to hurt their Republicans, specifically the twenty thirteen government shutdown for John Bayner. They tried very hard try and get Obama to take the blame for it, and it certainly was the political boomerang, and it ultimately led to the end of the Bayner speakership. So recent history not that like it was literally ten years ago. We know that

Well that's true.

And if it does come to a bill where there are are real stakes, where it is going to be the real thing. You know, he barely was able to get this messaging bill through, I mean it only he could only afford to lose one more member, many of

But you know, I have I have no idea how this is going to be resolved, no clue.

When they don't, I don't think you will do that.

I mean, I think such an institutionalist is an institutionalist. We have the Budget Control Act of twenty eleven. People should go look it up if they're interested, which outlines the way that sequestration caps and all that stuff will work. Almost everybody I've spoken to says that, look, default, if it ends the same way, just because all the incentives go the same way, it'll probably end sometime in there.

But look, we have no clue. They really could Look, they could shoot the hostage and it could be like an economic catastrophe, and then who's going to blink first? Who nobody knows? All right, right, let's talk about Ukraine.

An extraordinary phone call happened yesterday President Shishingping and Zelenski of Ukraine speaking on the phone for the first time for over an hour. Extraordinary phone call let's go to put this up there on the screen. Very good analysis from the Financial Times. They say that Shishingping quote urged his Ukrainian counterpoint. This is according to the readout from the Chinese government to negotiate with Moscow. The first conversation

The reason why this is so important is it comes on the.

Heels crystal of the peace, a deal that had already been released by the Chinese government. The US government, of course, already shot that down. President Zelenski though, took it very seriously.

We're not saying this is just, but this not a core.

National interest, and we want to bring this thing to an end as soon as possible. The thing is, though, is that if you do look at the readout by Zelenski's office, it avoids any interest in negotiation and it says quote expresses hope for China's active participation in efforts to restore police but has dismissed the peace plan put forward by China in February and saying that there can be no peace without a restoration to nineteen ninety one borders.

I'm not saying that is it the way that a just peace would be, but I am only saying.

That, let's be realistic possibly about where we may end up before hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people are dead and you end up in a similar situation.

Anyways.

Yeah, So there were a couple of other things I thought we're noteworthy. First of all, the US admitted that we didn't know this call was going to happen, So once again Ukrainian's keeping us in the dark, even though we are, you know, backstopping this whole thing.

Might be the only time I'd say that's a good thing.

Yeah, But I liked the way they had this sort of like cope of like, although we're really glad it happened, want the Chinese to hear the ukraining point of view. It's like, are you really glad it happened? Because previously you were saying that if China was able to negotiate a ceasefire, you would be opposed to it and potentially try to block it. So I thought that was noteworthy. The other question is why now, Because Lenski's been seeking at least a call and preferably a visit from she

I thought it was important, just to be like, listen, is this real?

I don't know, because really, China is really shot themselves in the foot with this one saying quote some ex Soviet Union countries by saying that don't have effective status under international law. It's also not some guys, really the US or the Chinese ambassador to France. That is as listen, you know, if you ever spent any time in those countries as I have, probably nobody hates the Russians more than people like the Latvians.

And these Stonians. And there is nothing you could have said that would have pissed them off more than that.

So well, I mean you basically call them fake country, right, So you know, if you're a patriot in those countries, I think you're gonna feel some sort of way about that.

You certainly should. She fought for independence for like years and your you know, grandparents and other people were killed and sent to a gulag. I get it.

So the point is that the Chinese may have just taken the phone call to appease the Europeans, because, as we know, Emanuel Macron went over to Beijing. One of the main things he was trying to do was get China to engage in some sort of peace negotiation on the side of Moscow to pressure them to end the war. We know that the Germans were over there, the foreign Minister, the EU president a commissioner was over there as well. They have been heavily pressuring Beijing to take the phone call.

You know, people always forget.

That, But it's extremely tedious actually watching this because like a guy like Zelenski as Leon as guy.

Speaks speaks Russian.

But I don't know actually if any Chinese Foreign ministry officials speaks Ukrainian. But in some cases it can be like Ukrainian to Russian to China ease, and then it can come back, you know, on the phone call whenever these people speak, and usually they're reading from prepared statements, so it's not as serendipitous, I think as a lot of people think, you know, every time they say, oh, President Biden had a two hour long phone call, like so it was a one hour long phone call.

Yeah, half of his translation.

Yeah, it is still one hour.

You know, it's a significant, lengthy ish conversation here. But I think you're exactly right, and you know, China really

So that's always important to notice it.

Yes, so just keep all of that in mind as it goes.

But as as an act, it is still extraordinary. All diplomacy, in my opinion, is good. I hope that these people continue to talk. They're definitely getting a very different view. It also does show, you know, the Ukrainians, I've met some of them here in Washington, I think some of the most obnoxious people on earth. Like if you were one of those who says anything contrary to whatever their

They're dying. Not only that they dying, and we'll show you how much they are dying. They're running out of AMMO.

Their economy has been devastated. And also they know how the real world works and that, you know, beyond the posturing for a bunch of people in d C spec typically my neighborhood, who have more Ukrainian flags and American flags, that in reality is going to end one way, and they want to try and get to that point.

For us, they need us in a raw, raw modes.

We keep giving them as many bullets as possible, but for the rest of the world, they're singing a very different tune.

Look, they don't have the luxury of just putting up like a flag in solidarity.

And calling it a day.

They're living with the reality of the horrors of war, and they're not stupid. They see the same assessments that you know, we were able to see thanks to Lease the show basically like this is very likely headed to a grinding, brutal stalemate. So any chance to you know, improve position, achieve some potential talks. I mean, this is

At the same time, as I just referenced, there has been a brand new information out of those leaked documents that the Washington Post has only now come around to telling us. Really interesting is in that crystal First. You know, we got to make sure that we know the identity of the leaker weeks ago, and we hunt first. Yeah, witch hunt first, and then the news second. Let's put that aside. They're the only ones with the docks. As

To the world.

I probably would too, sever devastating losses, and you don't necessarily, of course, want the enemy to know how badly you're doing. Russia also has suffered tens of thousands of casual hundreds of thousands possibly of casualties.

Nobody knows what the actual figure is. But what do we learn from that?

A it's not even close to the number that not only the Kiev government has been giving us, but the American Kiev propagandists in Washington. They're saying, look at how few the losses are the ratios they're doing so well well. This entire Washington Post article is using the PEG of these leaked documents to underscore how difficult the Ukrainians are having a time to draft men between the ages of

Yeah, it was crazy, but World War One very similar.

I've actually personally visited the grave sites of fifteen sixteen year olds who were killed in the British Army in France. The point is is that, you know, whenever things get really existential, that's whenever you see anyone the very young and the very old begin to fight and die in the in the conflict. And it also does show you and really raises questions around the Spring Offensive. Now, I think we've all learned enough lessons about predicting how the Spring offensive can go.

Who doos did very well last time.

It blew all apart all expectations. Clearly, you know, Bachmutz still has not fallen.

They're throwing an extraordinary amount of man and materiel. But you can understumate the toll.

You know.

That's like saying, you know, that's like saying in nineteen fifteen, it's like, well the line is held in Verdun. I'm like, yeah, but you know, one hundred and fifty thousand.

People are dead, So is it a victory or not? Yeah, I don't know.

You know, there were some extraordinary details in this report. You know, we previously talked about how Russia had just passed a new law to make it more difficult to avoid the draft there with these like e draft notices that you know, you're assumed to have been served with your draft notice and you were barred from leaving the country, and if you don't show up then you're subject to all sorts of you know, you can't take down a

So I think this just you know.

It underscores the horse and the human toll and the number of people who are being fed into a meat grinder here. And there's nothing to say about it other than it's awful.

It's awful, it certainly is, and also big development here in terms of our politics. Governor Ron DeSantis giving an interview while he was abroad in Tokyo to nik let's go and put this up there on the screen with a direct quote about what he said around Ukraine. Quote the Europeans really need to do more on Ukraine. I mean, this is their continent. The US has provided for security for them, and yes, Poland there's some stuff that they are doing and that should be appreciated. But Germany they're

And Ukraine.

This is proof is going to be a huge dividing line between the two. I also want to say this, does the Santis really mean it? I don't know, I mean.

Does Trump really mean and I don't know does Trump.

Really mean it? I don't know.

I mean it's one of those where look with Trump, I mean, the guy had John Bolton in office with DeSantis, he had a very different tune when he was in Congress.

He tells Tucker one thing, the next thing.

You know, he's singing the Neo Kon tune in his Peers Morgan interview, where is he?

You know?

Is he going to answer more to his billionaire donor buddies who were super pissed at him for his previous comments on Ukraine. I view him very much as a very politically calculated person. Trump, I think isn't politically calculated. I think he just doesn't know what he thinks about anything.

He's just like a very in the moment you're at player, Yeah.

You're so listen on both of them, who the hell knows? But on rhetoric alone, and we have no idea on substance until we can't judge it on its face, it will be a dividing line in twenty twenty four. Yeah, and I think that's important. I think it's important for people to get a choice.

Yeah, I think that's right.

And I mean the question is always like how much is foreign policy? You got a factor into people's votes. The conflict, I think for a lot of people, feels very distant right now, even though you know it looms over everything. And obviously we cover it a lot here because it is really important and possibly even existential. But I think the other thing you can see from these comments is it won't be as much of a dividing line in the Republican primary as it might have been.

See yes, yeah, I know, in terms of what the fights between them are, but look on the politics on the substance alone.

There's no getting around it. This is a big, big deal. How it will actually manifest Who the hell knows?

Yep, all right, you guys are going to enjoy this a lot. Our eloquent vice president had some thoughts on the moment and the time and the moment that.

We wanted to share with all of you. Take a listen.

So I think it's very important, as you have heard from so many incredible leaders for us at every moment in time, and certainly this one, to see the moment in time in which we exist and are present, and to be able to contextualize it, to understand where we exist in the history and in the moment as it relates not only to the past but the future.

What does that mean?

Where does she come up with this? Like where is this coming from? Is it a speech writer?

You know, like what's happening inside your brain that makes you think that this is eloquent or impactful?

It's I mean, Marshall nailed it.

I always have to go to Marshall's analysis, which is like she's trying so hard to like be profound, but has just nothing really to say. So it ends up like this And this is far from the first style. Is that anyone there are you know, anyone can have an instance where there's sort of rambles going on in nonsense words. But this happens all the time, this one in front of the cameras It's like, what are you even saying right now? The word salad is absolutely astonishing.

They also tell.

A story here about how she left Cape Bettingfield sort of simmering for two weeks after it came out that Bettingfield had insulted her in some sort of way. Within the piece, they talk about how Harris's numbers are even worse than Biden's. Her approval is in the high thirties, Biden's is at least in the low forties.

Neither is great.

Officials believe that could make her a drag on the ticket. There's zero chance Biden will replace her, but because doing so would be an admission that he boshed the most important decision he made as a candidate. So the White House and campaign team are working to give Harris a boost, which her allies.

Feel is long overdue. Good luck with that.

Biden's campaign announcement video future shot after shadow the President and Harris together, as well as her meeting solo with voters. She's also featured prominently with Biden on the homepage of Biden's revamped website.

Anita Dunn, who.

They describe as one of the most powerful West wing officials I think that's correct, recently directed the White House political and engagement teams to help schedule events with Harris

A real issue for that, it's going to be a big problem.

I am. I'm doing my monologue just on all the statistics on Biden's This is very morbid, and I apologize, but look, he wants to be reality on earth, so we have we owe it at least somebody does to talk about chance of death, chance of developing dementia, chance of serious illness.

While in office.

I mean, the main thing I came away with in doing my research for my monologue was that the difference between seventies and eighties is so substantial that we really have difficulty wrapping our minds around, especially if you're younger.

But the point of that is she doesn't.

She has a better chance of being in charge as President of the United States through his death or through his incapacitation than any vice president in modern American history. And I think people should really internalize that. There's a famous story about Lyndon Johnson. He was one of the most powerful people in America. He was a Senate majority leader, and he took the vice presidency under Kennedy. And then one of his friends said, what are you doing, Lyndon?

Like, I don't want it to be I hope that.

Doesn't happen, but we have to be realistic, and he is asking us to put a tremendous amount of faith not just in him, in his ability to live, in his ability to conduct the job, and then to select this woman as possibly our next commander in chief. I could never pull the lever for her.

I also think it's incredibly irresponsible that his team and him have seen her inability to rise to the moment and have to be aware that she is really not the person that you would want to be in the Oval office.

But out of cube.

Risks and out of a fear of admitting a mistake, they won't make another choice.

You know.

I think that really says something as well, that you know they see all this stuff as just a game, like it's just about the polls and the politics of it, and it's like, no, you have massive power and massive responsibility that should be your first and foremost consideration. Not saying he's any different from other politicians in that regard, but I think it's worth reflecting on that choice.

That they know this is the problem.

They know that, you know, she has failed to even be able to succeed as a vice president, let alone capable of handling the presidency, and yet they choose to stick with their choice just because they don't.

Want to admit a mistake.

Even some of the media is Listen, all the polls show voters seventy percent of voters don't want Biden, Okay, don't want Biden to run again.

That doesn't mean that all those people won't vote.

You know, some of them are going to vote for him because they also really hate Trump. Okay, but seventy percent of voters are like, please, could we have someone else? And a majority of them, what's their number one concern? It's his age, It's we aren't confident that he's going to be able to effectively and competently serve another term. So there has been a little bit of media scrutiny on this question, and he was recently asked about some of these issues.

Let's take a listen to a little bit of that.

You've said questions about your age are legitimate, and your response is always just watch me. But the country is watching, and recent polling shows that seventy percent of Americans, including a majority of Democrats, believe you shouldn't run again to.

Age, you know, and pulling, Dad. I noticed. The pulling dat I keep hearing about is that I'm between forty two and forty six percent favorable rating, et cetera. But every bloody running for reelection and this time has been in the same position. There's nothing new about that. We're making it sound like Biden's really underwater with regard to a I can't even say I guess how old I am. I can't even say the number I've done register with me.

I took a hard.

Look at it before I decided to run. And I feel good. I feel excited about the prospects, and I think we're on the verge of really turning the corner and away we have in a long time.

Brazie's like, oh, voters will have a chance to value and all.

They won't.

No, they won't.

No, they won't because you have rigged the democratic primary. But the states and the order you want them, you're not going to host any debates. So yeah, if you have a full and open democratic process where oh you're sitting for interviews and giving more press conferences.

This is like a very rare one that.

He actually did, and people actually have the opportunity to evaluate you versus the alternatives. And you even acknowledge that the alternatives exist.

Okay, that's a different deal.

But they've gone above and beyond to shut down any sort of primary process. For all their talk of democracy, when it comes down to it, their whole strategy, and this is what I'm talking about in my monologue, in part given Bernie's endorsement of Biden, their whole strategy is to make people feel like you have no other choice, that there are no other quote unquote serious candidates. In the primer, we're about to show you some polling that may say otherwise.

And in the general election, Trump.

Is so bad that it's effectively no choice as well. They don't want a democratic process, they want a coronation. They want people to feel they have no other option.

Yeah, I think you're right.

We're going to talk very specifically about the polling, which is insane, which the media would really rather that you not hear about. And altogether, I just think that the way he has handled it is outrageous. And I also just do want to show everybody a little bit behind the scene, which we always tried to do here.

Put this up there on the screen.

Biden cheat sheet shows that he had advanced knowledge of a journalist question.

That wasn't the question that you had in front of you.

It was actually the next question where he called on a reporter, the La Times reporter Courtney Subramanian. Now the reporter asked him a question specifically about re shoring semiconductor

Now, I want to say this again.

I covered the White House and getting a question before these things. It's a dirty game. The way it works is there's one hundred people there, right, you only get two. It's called a two and two, so two and from the Americans and two from the foreign press. But he's lobbying the Press secretary to get a question. You're already pre selected. I was pre selected many times. That that's how it goes. And also part of the game, though, is they call you and they go, so, what do

I'm not so sure this was a slip up.

I think this was a direct here's what I'm going to ask, and you know why, because look, I think semiconductors are important. But I'm sorry, you get two questions before the president. The first is obviously about the re election. And the second one is about semiconductor manufacturing policy.

Yeah, that's insane, that's ridiculous. Yeah, like you, there are so many more pressing things that you could have asked the man about, and that was the biggest plant that I have ever seen before.

I mean, it's embarrassing for everyone involved. Yeah, clearly his.

Staff, as you point out, every president, everybody's staff.

Try to get a jump on our right.

What are these?

It's all we asked. It's no doubt about it.

But embarrassing for him because there's already these questions about could you handle a question coming out at you that you weren't expecting. Number One, humiliating for this journalist because the question that's listed on the sheet is like verbatim's.

Exactly what you said, which is crazy. She might have emailed it to them.

That's what I'm starting, right, So, I mean it is the verbatim question that she ends up asking, not just some general sense of h she might ask about some countries conductors. No, no, no, here is the specific right that she is going to use. And here's, sir, are your bullet points of what you are supposed to reply, So listen, put this in the context of the president who was given the fewest press conferences, that for the fewest interviews, all of their democracy dies in darkness, liberal

From the media, they'd be freaking out.

If the Republicans were blocking any sort of primary debates, they'd be freaking out. And in fact, there has been lots of outrage coverage about trum is now suggesting, which is not okay either, that he may sit out from the Republican primary debates.

Well, there's lots of outrage.

They can see how that's anti democratic when it's on the Republican side, But when it's Joe Biden, that's all fine and good and it's just what we expect. At the same time, there's huge effort now in the media to once again paint him as like always so electable.

It's going to be shoeing, no problem.

David from with one example of this genre of analysis. Now, put this up on the screen. He's saying the coming Biden blowout. Republicans thought about running without Trump in twenty twenty four but lost their nerve. They are heading for electoral disaster again. Maybe possible, you know, I mean, Democrats did better in the midterms than they were expecting. They still did lose the House, so it's not like it was amazing.

For them there either.

Maybe people are so done with Trump that they suck it up and vote Joe. I think that's a very possible outcome. I also think it's a very possible outcome that we end up with Donald Trump back in the White House again if he ends up being the Republican nominee. And also, by the way, it's not clear to me that DeSantis or another Republican candidate is actually more electable.

Than Trump either.

Maybe again possible, but that is much murkier to me than it is to people like David Frum who apparently learned absolutely nothing from twenty sixteen.

Yeah, these people are nuts. I mean, go and put the next one out there, please on the screen. Like, look at the general election polling, people like, it's not great for Joe Biden.

It has RCP average at Trump one plus three. Now, look, who knows.

The RCP average was off by about four in the Democratic direction in twenty twenty two, it was off by about four in the Republican direction in twenty twenty, so I guess it averages out.

I don't know which way to read that.

What I do know is crystal if it's off by four and so basically, unless you're leading by anything out of that, you're within the margin of error. And if you're within the margin of error, well you can lose or you can win if you're Trump. So maybe have a little bit of humility about what the hell is going.

They are all cheering for Trump to be the nominee once again, and I just they learn nothing. They learn absolutely nothing. And also, by the way, many of these people became very wealthy and famous in opposition to Trump, so they have their own sort of incentive as well for him to be the party nominee.

On the Republican side, absolutely right.

At the same time, so there have been a million polls of the Democratic primary race, and normally what they do, and I have never understood this, is they'll put a whole laundry list of candidates in there who have no intention of running, who have said they're not going to run. I mean, they've pulled like Michelle Obama and all these people who were like, I am.

Not running in the primary. But they'll put this whole laundry list of candidates.

Oftentimes they'll completely leave off Mary and Williamson and now Bobby Kennedy even though they are actually running and they are in the race. Well, now we have a very clear picture of who the Democrats in contention are going to be. They have all now announced. Probably, I mean, I think it's unlikely that you see any other entrance. I don't see anyone else making any noise about it. You've got Mary and Williamson, you've got Bobby Kennedy Junior,

Joe Biden's is.

Sixty two percent, Robert Kennedy Junior nineteen percent, and Marian Williamson at nine percent.

So you've got you know, third, You've got a.

Third, and you've got you know, more than a third of voters who are not backing Biden. Here those numbers, considering the media has completely pretended like these two candidates don't even exist right, anytime they even get mentioned, it's always couch and all this language about they're a long shot, they don't have a real shot, they're not considered serious, they're you know, like all of this language to try

Yes, absolutely, it's stunning. Also just to consider the media treatment. I mean, somebody is pulling in nineteen percent, that is, I mean, in some polls that's almost equivalent to how much Ron DeSantis has versus Donald Trump. So you've got to treat that person fairly. By the way we are working right now and getting RFK Junior, So RFK if you see this, Yeah, trying to have you on the Show've been in communication with people around you, et cetera.

Time on the stage.

You can't not have a debate where he doesn't get to be on the stage and Marianna doesn't get to be there either. They're well over the two percent threshold that they were allowed to be on the stage in twenty twenty in an open primary, and they are rigging this system.

If you think twenty sixteen.

Was rigged, and if this is like another level, yeah of the primary changing the schedule and having no debate, that's genuinely nuts to not allow that.

You know, I may do a monologue on this next week. It was about a week ago. One of the New York Times podcast is called The run Up. They went and they interviewed DMC members about the reordering of the states, and some of them were out right. I mean, they were not ashamed of the fact that, yeah, we did the president's bidding. Yeah we ordered the states exactly how

Debate absolutely real democracy.

We've got an escalation we can tell you about this morning between run de sand and Walt Disney Company. So this is not necessarily a surprise, but put this up on the screen. Disney is officially suing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. This came down yesterday on Wednesday over they say the Republicans takeover of its theme park district, alleging the governor waged a targeted campaign of government retaliation after the company

Just a brief.

Reminder of how we got to this point. Disney has a sizable LGBTQ fan base or customer base. They also have positioned themselves as being sort of allies. So when this quote unquote don't say gay bill passes in Florida, they were under a lot of pressure to say something.

They put out this, you know, sort of late.

And not all that strong statement about it, but in opposition to it. DeSantis takes it as an opportunity to stand up to the woke corporation. And what they take amatt in particular is this reedy Creek Improvement District, which is a crazy It is a crazy So since the sixties, Disney has effective control, Like they run their own town, they tax themselves, they can issue bonds, they can build.

A nuclear power plan.

Apparently they just have control of this whole thing. Now, this has been beneficial in certain ways for the state because Disney's obviously brought brings in lots of tourist dollars and generates lots of economic activity. Uh, they employ tens of thousands of people in Florida. So it's been that's been the partnership. And it's very clear that DeSantis decided

How this is all going to.

Work out for him is after Disney was able to pull a fast one on him and get the upper hand, a lot of his Republican adversary came out, including Nikki Haley, but including most importantly Trump, who said he's getting killed by Disney and this is all a pr stunt, and he really planted his flag very aggressively in opposition to what DeSantis is doing here and also just trying to paint DeSantis's like weak and foolish that he got played in this way. So DeSantis has been scrambling to figure

Have another maybe create a state park, maybe trying to do more amusement parks. Someone even said like, maybe you need another state prison.

Who knows.

I mean, I just think that the possibilities are endless, and so that is now going to be analyzed to see what would make the most sense.

So let me just say, Zagar on the legal merits, I genuinely have no idea, Like, it's very complex.

Like it. You're not Florida property law.

Experts, no, So I have no idea how this will be resolved legally. I will say from my general knowledge of the American legal system, gigantic corporations who can hire, you know, you know, spend billions of dollars on attorneys if they want to, they often have an upper hand in these disputes. And Disney clearly sees this as close to existential, very very important to them.

So that's all I can really say about it.

Here's the issue for DeSantis. You said you were going to pick a fight with Disney. So if you lose, you look weak, and if you come with the King, you best not mess and Disney that's it, you know, they run that state. It's like look at least when the Georgia legislature went after Coca Cola, they actually won. Or with MLB in this case, it's like if you lose, and you have a very.

Good chance of losing.

As I understand, once again, we are not experts in Florida property law and all of that. But if you do it in a haphazard way, and if they can prove that your actions were done in regards to try and silencing free speech, this is also the problem. You know, on conflicted level, I think it's crazy that a multi billion dollar company has self governance inside of a sovereign American state.

Sorry, that's crazy.

I don't believe that corporations, quote have free speech rights because I don't think that corporations are people. I don't think that they should be treated equally under the law. However, many conservative justices disagree that all the way goes back to Citizens United and actually would be very ironic if Citizens United itself is the one that came back to bite DeSantis in the episode.

Very well. Actually, no, like on the.

Merits, if you look at kind of the way, like whether corporations or whatever have free speech rights, I really don't believe that not because I want to silence people's speech, but because that leads to political giving advertising, which comes back to some of the woke problems I think we even have in the first place.

Put that all aside. It politically he made it a thing.

So now if you lose at your own thing, then you look like an idiot, and that's not good.

And the chances again, now you're throwing it to.

A legal fight where who the hell knows if this is even going to be resolved by the time.

I mean, this is we got billions at stake.

And if you think they're not going to fight till the end of time on this case, not at the jury level, at the appeals level, at the Supreme court level, then you're stupid too. So at the very least, like in terms of the talking point Trump and let's put Haley side, doesn't matter. Trump has got what he needs in his Amma, in his back pocket if he needs it whenever he wants a brand out.

Well, the problem for DeSantis is, like most culture war outrage flare ups, people have already moved on from this, and yet he's stuck here now having to go up against this corporate behemoth. So this is gonna suck up a lot of time and attention because the upside at this point, if he wins, the upside is not that great because people have already moved on to you know, blud light or whatever. The next thing is going to be a minute from now. But the downside risk for

For the jugular.

And if he does lose against Disney, or even appears like he's losing against Disney, Trump is never gonna let you hear the end of it. On the polling of how people feel about it already, it's kind of mixed. Put this up on the screen. Only forty four percent of Republicans say that they have a more favorable view of DeSantis because of the fight with Disney, So it's not like this was a clear, gigantic winner for him.

I'm really sure the merits matter at all, to be honest, I just think it's all comes down to optics.

You pick a.

Fight, you're lose. You just look like it's very base. It's like, you made this a thing, dude. You know the bud Light thing is instructive. No governor was like, oh, we're gonna punish bud Light. A brunch of conservatives were like, we're not going to buy bud Light. Bud Light a bunch of its executives and apparently their sales are down

So all you really would have had to do in the Disney case is be.

Like, well, you know, we're not going to stand by Disney, and then Santas doesn't go to some Disney event, you probably would have the same political level of upside that actually winning on this Reedy Creek fight would have had in the first place, without any of the downside politically anyway, an interesting concert.

Let me there's one more thing I want to point out here, and I'm going to pull up some numbers that I was looking at that same Fox News pool that we showed you the Democratic primary numbers on they tested the Republican primary numbers and Donald Trump was winning by a significant amount.

But what is really important to.

Understand is the differences in their coalitions. So if you test white people with a college degree, it's tied tiede Donald Trump is at thirty six, DeSantis is at thirty five, So effective tie within the margin of error. That's college degree holders, white people with no college degree sixty one percent for Trump, fifteen percent for run DeSantis. So why am I bringing this up? That college degree holding were

Yeah, they're more like Romney type.

People that look at this and are like, why are you being anti business? So he's taken a position that's kind of at odds with his own natural constituency. Not to mention the donor Glass hates this sort of thing. They're not on board with it whatsoever. And meanwhile, it's funny because you know the Trump bass would be more likely to view this move favorably, but now you've got Trump coming in to trash to Santis over so they're not going to be on.

Board with you either.

So he's really kind of politically exposed here and wrapped up in something that is much bigger than probably what he really wanted to bite off.

Very true. Absolutely, it looks like a fool in my opinion.

All right, let's talk about Nate Silver, some big news that just fits with so much of what we've been talking about.

Here.

The twenty tens media era.

Is officially over. Go ahead and put this up there on the screen. Nate Silm five thirty eight is out at ABC News as Disney layoffs once again hit the news division. So Nate actually revealed in a tweet that he would be leaving five thirty eight and then five thirty eight employees had been heavily impacted by layoff.

Announcement at ABC News.

For those who don't remember, five thirty eight was an independent political website that was started by Nate Silver after he left The New York Times With the five thirty eight blog, it was very successful, had a good track record up until twenty sixteen started his own website, which was then bought by ABC News as part of the

Five thirty eight. I'm sad and disappointed to a degree that's kind of hard to express. Right now.

We've been at Disney almost ten years. My contract is up soon. I expect I will be leaving at the end of it. I've been worried about an outcome like.

This and have had some great initial conversations with opportunity elsewhere. Don't hesitate to get in touch. I'm proud of the work. Five thirty eight. Staff.

It's never been easy. I'm sorry to the people who have been impacted by this. I put this together with a couple of things, the end of BuzzFeed News, the decline, and let's go back in time. It's twenty twelve. Silver is a rock star. His book was called The Signal and the Noise. That book was like number one on Amazon after his model called the twenty twelve election. This guy is like getting you know, book contracts, and money's being thrown at him. At five from The New York Times.

All these companies.

Gowker's on the upswing, like they're swinging and punching.

And now it's twenty twenty three. It's a decade later.

They're all dead. They're gone, like hollowed. Business insiders still around. I guess if you want to have a paywall for clickable articles. And then wes Is, I don't know what the hell is going on there. They to be fair, I think Wece was the best of all of them.

I loved Vice.

I'll always stand by some of their early content, but I think they very much lost their way, and Jane Smith made some questionable business decisions which certainly benefited him personally, but which necessarily work out for the company. They're still trucking along, I guess, but it's not even close to the level what they were or Look at vox Media. Vox Media was one of the biggest startups of the twenty tens, built on the click model era, and now

There really was no in between for this clickbase media.

So I'm looking at it almost as a metastory just to say wow, like wow, man, the blogger era is dead. All of the big bloggers who everybody thought was going to be the new it thing, they went. They made the wrong bet. They thought that they could sustain themselves on the click model or in partnership with traditional media, and they got burned. The ones who went independent, they're still trucking along and they're doing okay.

Yeah. With regard to this particular business decision, and you and I were talking about this, I honestly from Disney's I don't quite understand it, because i'd have to know, I guess more than numbers. But I feel like Nate Silver is a bigger brand than five thirty eight, like, if anything, And I have to think that the burn for the whole five thirty eight operation would be more than this one guy, even though I'm sure he's very well paid. So I find it a little strange from

So people just don't look to the polls as the gospel that they used. So let's be honest, No, they absolutely shouldn't.

And so I think that, you know, so the core of the Nate Silver philosophy is that this is the thing that you should rely on, that there are models that you can use that can work out pretty well what's going to happen and predict these elections, and that theory has taken a big hit from twenty sixteen and really in every election since then. So I think that's part of the backstory here too.

Yeah, just you know, just thinking about it in terms of like the meta story here.

I feel bad for him.

I mean, I do think he was a genuine talent. He had some pretty heterodoxic views, you know, at some point he was a media critic too, in his own right. Sometimes it didn't necessarily always agree with him. But he had a lot of people into politics.

I'll say that a lot of people got into politics because they enjoyed tracking five thirty eight polling.

I've seen that too. It's kind of like an easy gateway drug for a lot of people.

And I'm sad.

I'm sure he'll be fine, But five thirty eight was a cool thing. It didn't work out. I think they made many, many, many wrong mistakes or big mistakes in terms of their business model, hiring too many people selling themselves to Disney being one.

But it was it was a cool project. And to watch it die, like, I'm not as gleeful as watching BuzzFeed News die. I guess.

Yeah, five thirty eight is apparently still going to be around, but sure without Nate Silver, It's is a really five thirty eight. Yeah, like it's it is funny because I think if he had maintained his independence, they could have shifted to a business model that would work in the current era where advertising rates just aren't.

What they used to be.

And social media distribution isn't what it used to be. Because even though the polls aren't what they used to be, it's still Listen, you only have so much information to go on, so you have to look at what the polls are saying, and then you factor in a margin of error and they who knows, And it's been wrong in both directions in recent elections, so you know, keep that in mind, take it with the big grain of salt, and here are the states that have been the.

Most of it.

And that's the way that we've tried to analyze the polls. But it's still beneficial to take a look at his model to understand what his projections are. And I think there are a lot of people that would have paid to be able to benefit from that service. So I do think there's another universe in which he never sells and which he maintains it as his own outlet. But also, some people don't want to be business people.

They just in the ask yeah, And some people just you.

Know, they want to do the thing they like to do, crunching the numbers or whatever his deal is, and they don't really want to be bothered with the HR decisions and the tax system men, all of those sorts of things, and it's so Yeah, I do feel like it is a loss, and I do kind of feel for him because when you've built this is his baby. Yeah, I know, when you've built that up and then like you're no longer associated, but it's still going to continue on.

We know a little bit of what that feels like.

One hundred percent know what it feels like. That's really tough.

And I look at the cost of dealing with annoying tax problems.

As the cost.

That's the cost of being independent and being your own boss.

Yeah, that's basically how it works out anyway, Christal, where you take a look at this week, the.

Current president launched one of the least inspiring democratic campaigns of all time. He released a carefully crafted video which promised literally nothing in the way of an affirmative agenda, with the tagline finished the job. Left unsaid was what job he planned to finish, since there has been nothing in the way of tangible goals or plan since the

So I'm in to do what I can to make sure that the president is re elected.

Bernie didn't even make a single demand, didn't force a single concession, at least not that we know of. No demand for debates or renewed commitment to living bade Union legislation anything, Bernie instantly bent the knee, and he did it in exchange for less than nothing. It actually gets

What do I mean?

Well, back in twenty sixteen, Bernie's central and most provocative insight was that the only way to fight an authoritarian demagogue like Trump was through expanding democracy, enlisting an energizing new voters, showing that a multi racial, working class centric democracy could deliver on the material needs of its citizens.

Here he is making that case.

You cannot be Trump with the same old, same old kind of politics.

Wow.

What we need is a new politics that brings working class people in Tawa political movement, which brings young people in Tuahwa political movement, and which in Novembo will create the highest vote to turnout in American political history.

This view of politics was actually and still is deeply controversial. At a time when cable news is trying to convince you every single day that your fellow citizens represent an existential threat, Bernie argued that we should go further than ever to put our faith in them, to appeal to them, to bring them into the process. Bernie's policies, from medicare for all to free college were of course different from his opponents as well, but the most vital difference between

And generally evil.

They used this belief to justify in anything goes politics that included rigging the twenty sixteen primaries, rigging the Iowa caucuses in twenty twenty, and the Obama clibern media collusion that foisted Biden on voters in twenty twenty, as well anyone who dissented from this as a fascist or a useful idiot, or a grifter or some other terrible thing. Democratic elites are, of course running this playbook.

Again.

Biden's message, the majority of Democratic voters who don't want him and the overwhelming majority of all voters.

Who don't want him is you have no choice.

You have no choice in the primary because, according the elites in Washington, no quote serious opponents are running, and even if there was an elite certified serious choice, the Democratic Party has already rigged the primaries and killed all debates to try to guarantee a Biden coronation. Similarly, you have no choice in the general election because, just like in twenty twenty, Biden may not get your pulse racing, and may barely have a pulse himself, but at least

But all hope is not lost.

As I report on Tuesday, younger generations, they're not really fooled by these lies, and they're much less likely to be kout and to believe in the arguments of a political class that has done nothing but betray them for their entire lives. Bernie's endorsement of Biden comes at kind of an ironic moment here too. He's just finishing up a media tour promoting his book, It's Okay to Be

And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot Com.

All right, Sciger, what are you looking at?

Well?

We have talked a lot here over the years about Joe Biden's age. It's perhaps the most fraught personal thing about the man. Anyone with eyes can see he's not who we are was, And yet if you discuss his decline, you're immediately maligned as some disgusting agist or a someone who discriminates against old people or against stuttering that miraculously reappeared when he started pushing eighty years old, and that

After his first debate.

It made him just look older and more feeble than he was Reagan and his adviser Roger Ailes, who would later go to It or later go on to create Fox News, understood that he had to make it clear to the American public. He was not only with it, but he still had a killer instinct, and it culminated in one of the most famous moments in American political history.

Let's watch your question to President Reagan.

Mister President, I want to raise an issue that I think has been lurking out there for two or three weeks and cast it specifically in national security terms. You already are the oldest president in history, and some of your staff say you were tired after your most recent encounter with mister Mondale. I recall yet, that President Kennedy had to go for days on end with very little

Not at all, mister trud and I, and I want you to know that also, I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience.

That was it even made his opponent laugh. Country loved it, and he won one of the biggest victories in history. Of course, maybe that shouldn't have been enough, though, because when Reagan left office, he abruptly retired from public lie and he had been suffering from the onset of Alzheimer's or dementia.

There are a lot of questions about that.

The facts are still unclear, as the Reagan family still today smarts at any suggestion that he did so while in office, but the.

Example remains apt.

Ronald Reagan when he left office was seventy seven years and three hundred and forty nine days old.

That was on the day he left.

Biden, on the other hand, was seventy eight years and sixty one days old the day he took the oath of office, extraordinarily old from day one and years later. He is asking us to entrust him not with one or two more years of some ceremonial chairman emeritus role, but the most powerful and demanding job in the world.

The next year.

After that, he would six point five percent chance, a seven point four percent chance a year after, an eight point three chance to the next, and a whopping nine point three percent chance of death his last year in office. I understand this is very morbid, and to be clear, I hope nothing but the best for him. I hope

Note.

I too, have discussed the probability here of only death, which is incredibly high in the ninth decade of life for most Americans. But what about mental fitness like dementia? Here the statistics are also troubling. The risk of dementia grows exponential from age seventy. Only about five percent of adults between seventy to seventy nine years old have dementia, sixteen percent of those adults beten ages of eighty and eighty nine have it, and twenty two percent of adults

Said that if Bo hadn't gotten sick, you would have you regret?

Not right?

No, I don't was the right thing to do for me and for my family.

And look, I both wanted me to run, and Hunt and Ashley they all did. And when Bo passed, Hunt called a family meeting and said, look, will Biden's always do better under pressure? And why don't we use this as a way to rally and stick together and fight through this. And so about August, I said, okay, I'm gonna go look at it.

I'll look at it.

And I went out to go to the Merri Denver, who's a great friend and a supporter, wanted me to run. And it's still there. And I landed a Buckley Air Force Base and military base, and I got off the plane. Make a long story, not quite so long. There was a whole group of military guys and went in as a ropeline. I ran over to shake hands, tell them how much I appreciate them.

He's not the same man. I've got eyes and ears. As to most of you, it's not fun to think about this, and that's a movie story. But people near their last years in life, they have a responsibility to themselves and to others. You got to be honest about your limitations. Biden and the media, they don't even want to talk about this when you have nearly a ten percent chance of natural death, when you have the most

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