Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. The most profound moments of American history. Of American political history, Secession, Watergate, Tea pot Dome, the resignation of Nixon, the retirement of Lyndon Johnson, all the rest share one commonality. These stories have each taken on a momentum of their own. They have each reached a tipping point when, whether quickly or imperceptibly,
the other option began to disappear. The momentum in the Biden reelection story changed yesterday, and the tipping point may have been reached. Internal Democratic Party polling in the swing states that you and I were never supposed to see has leaked, and suddenly there are not six swing states that will decide whether America lives or dies, but twelve, and the President is slipping in all twelve of them,
in some catastrophically. The President himself made more confused remarks at a fundraiser last night in which it seemed as if his sense of time had been lost, and Nancy Pelosi, who is if Joe Biden is not the true leader of the Democratic Party, made comments about the president about the president's acuity, about whether or not the president should undergo some kind of examination of that acuity that were so unexpected that a spokesperson later tried to walk them
back with little success. To quote my friend of more than half a century from when I was the editor in chief and he was my new ace news reporter on our high school newspaper, Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer, it does feel like an energy shift in the force. I am suggesting that the events of the last twenty four hours may have made Joe Biden's withdrawal from the ticket inevitable or virtually so, and that this in turn makes tangible the second half of what might happen next.
I'll review these events presently, but I want briefly to jump to that speculative finish line about the second half of what happens next and ask you if this seemingly dire inconceivable outcome is actually, in fact far better than it seems. If the President were to resolve himself to the idea that he has to retire from the ticket, it is not a great leap from that point to believe he would also see the extraordinary value of attaching the title of incumbent to Kamala Harris's name of retiring
from the presidency and letting her become. As Lincoln said, clothed in immense power well before the election, it is arguable that if you feel as others feel, as perhaps President Biden already feels or will feel, that he will not be up to discharging the office six months and eighteen days from now, at the beginning of the next term. If that's true, he's probably also not up to discharging the office right now. His retirement would not, I think, be seen as a defeat, nor as the result of
unseemly desperate pressure. It would be an ennobling act that would resonate in this country among those of his supporters
who are wavering, and especially among independents. He would become, and would remain for as long as the nation lasts, the man who gave up the most powerful position in the world, the man who beat Trump, doing exactly what Trump refused to do, voluntarily surrendering the presidency, and not even when the law and the weight of the nation's history said he had to, but much much earlier to be a president who leaves the office he has spent his life trying to reach solely to ensure that America
beats Trump again. Would enshrine Joe Biden, I believe, among the immortal presidents, And it would instantaneously transform the Democratic campaign from these exhausting months of breath held and fingers crossed and even tears for what Joe Biden has become into something historic and selfless and admirable. It would be the true sacrifice of true public servants. And then there
is the practical consideration. Suddenly, the only candidate left with an age problem would be Trump, The only candidate with an uncertain grip on reality would be Trump. The only candidate to be called feeble or gaff prone or lost would be Trump. In February of this year, an ABC News poll showed that sixty percent of voters thought they were both too old to be president. On Whom does
that sentiment fully fall? On? Whom does that media coverage fully fall If it is not Trump versus Biden, but Trump versus Harris, Trump versus a Democratic opponent who is nineteen years younger than he is. If Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee today, how much older would Donald Trump seem tomorrow? If as I am suggesting here the even fuller change is made and Biden retires not just from
the ticket, but also from the office. Congratulations, Madam President, you are the first woman president of the United States, the first woman of color to hold the office, the incumbent first woman president of the United States, asking the voters to validate her with a full term of office, and doing so when a principal plank of the Democratic campaign has been the Republican's assault on the rights of
every woman in this country, consider that. Well, I have not seen poling on this, but I would be fascinated to learn what voters believe. The top three issues in or about the Democratic campaign happened to be the protection of the democracy from Trump certainly, abortion and other women's rights certainly, but by now among the top three must be the age and health of Joe Biden. And however we got here, who's ever fault that is saying it is not true is not going to get anything done.
It pains me to phrase this in this manner because it will be no secret to you you listen to these that I love this man. But to remove his age, to remove his debate performance, to remove his teleprompter from the campaign to remove the unspoken, unresolvable fear of what problem might befall him next is to create an extraordinary
space in the minds of the voters. The evil, the threat that is Donald Trump is currently being paired with the risk that Joe Biden's age is or seems to be suddenly in the minds of the voters, there would be nothing to mitigate Trump's poison. And who could elevate women's rights more than the first woman president of the United States or even the first woman likely to be president of the United States. And what else from the Democratic Party agenda could rise to the front of the
voter's minds healthcare, economic growth? What will be seen clearly when nothing overshadows the campaign. As I said, each watershed moment of our history has taken on a momentum of its own and had its final turning point. And I think yesterday we reached that space in this extraordinary story. I don't think that's what Nancy Pelosi intended. I do
think it is what she accomplished. Both candidates owe whatever test you want to put them to in terms of their mental acuity and their health, both of them, she said yesterday on MSNBC. She has said this before about Trump, she has now said it about Joe Biden. That she has said it about Biden cannot be ignored. Its impact cannot be ignored. And she said this, I think it's a legitimate question to say, is this an episode or is this a condition? When people ask that question, it's
completely legitimate of both candidates. Wait, I think it's a legitimate question to say, is this an episode or is this a condition? If there or anything Nancy Pelosi could have said about Joe Biden that would do less to contain the issue of his acuity, I am hard pressed to guess what it could have been. And there was a third quote Pelosi said, assessments of what, if anything, to do now have been conflicting. Quote. Some are like, well, how can we subject the process to what might be possible?
Others are Joe is our guy, we love him, we trust him. He has vision, knowledge, judgment, integrity. I trust his judgment. Later in the day, the Pelosi spokesperson was asked to clarify her remarks. Quote Speaker Pelosi has full confidence in President Biden and looks forward to attending his inauguration on January twentieth twenty twenty five. That statement was widely described yesterday is the cleaning up of Pelosi's remarks. Really,
that was the cleanup. She suggests the president take a mental test and says it is legitimate to ask if he's had an event or he has a condition. And by the way, neither of those is a good thing. She says, all of those things, and the cleanup is one generic sentence consisting of seventeen words and jumping all the way through all the crises of the next few
months to the inaugural Forgive me. If you think you have harmed Joe Biden and you need to clean up your remarks, you at least reference what the hell you said. If you don't really want to clean up your remarks and you are somehow speaking in code to Joe Biden, you say what her spokesperson said. And there were remarks by the president last night that required immediate cleanup as well. I wasn't very smart. I decided to travel around the world shortly before the debate, he said at a fundraiser
in Virginia. He then described his arduous travel through fifteen time zone changes for the G seven and D day and how it affected him at the debate, quoting I didn't listen to my staff, and then I came home and nearly fell asleep on stage. What the debate was June twenty seventh. He returned from his travels on June sixteenth, and there was the Texas Congressman Lloyd Dogget, who called in no uncertain terms for Biden to step aside. Dogget said his constituents were ten to one in favor of that.
He said that in the debate, instead of reassuring voters, the president failed to effectively defend his many accomplishments and exposed Trump's men lies. This is one of the underrated disasters of last Thursday night. Nearly a week later, I find myself with this one image. It looked as if Joe Biden could not defend himself, that Trump was hitting
him again and again. And then there are the internal Progressive polls that were leaked to Puck News yesterday about the damage to Biden's support in the swing states after the debate, and more importantly, the reality that there are now as many as six new swing states that were solidly in Biden's camp a week ago. Today, the pollster is open Labs, the progressive nonprofit that does not survey for public consumption but instead for a variety of democratic organizations.
Open Labs is linked directly to Future Forward, which is a Biden campaign superpaw. Their numbers are, to say, the least disturbing. New Hampshire is now Trump by three. Virginia in the wake of the debate is Trump by one
and a half. Their poll shows that President now has leads of half a point or less in New Mexico, in Maine, in Minnesota, shose that Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia, and the Nebraska second District are all Trump by four or more at its seven in Michigan
and in Pennsylvania. The poll in the three days after the debate showing Biden's support dropping by roughly two percentage points in all twelve of these states in a moment, and dropping by two percentage points in Colorado in Minnesota, and that if he cannot recover all of that lost because of the debate, if this is the way it's going to be, and it doesn't get any worse or better from here on in, the Democrats are looking at a loss by at least one hundred votes in the
electoral College, and they also had in Open Labs and equally disturbing deep interior number. In May, one quarter of Joe Biden's twenty twenty voters surveyed told Open Labs that he should drop out. Now the company reports the number has ballooned to forty percent. It also surveyed potential substitute candidates in those swing states, the vice president, Governors Newsom and Whitmer, secretary of boodhaj Jedge. They all pull better than Joe Biden does against Trump, and they pull better
than Biden in all of the swing states. Buddha Jedge would be at fifty percent or better in Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin, Nebraska too, and Pennsylvania. Fifty percent or better in Wisconsin, Nebraska to Pennsylvania and Michigan. Newsome fifty percent or better in Nebraska too. In Wisconsin, Harris at fifty in Wisconsin,
Biden under fifty. Everywhere. There was a less important national poll Yesterday, You Go Yahoo, Eighty four percent of their respondents thought Biden's debate grade was only poor to fare. Sixty percent said Biden is not fit to serve a second term. A month ago, the President led the UGOV poll forty six to forty four. He now trails it forty five to forty three. That is a four point collapse. Since for all practical purposes, Thursday, there is also a
CNN poll. It says of all voters of all parties, seventy five percent believe the Democrats would have a better shot of retaining the White House if somebody other than Joe Biden is the party nominee, and what might be
the last thrust of the dagger of history. The experts at the Campaign Legal Center explained to the website The American Prospect that if Biden does withdraw, then there's only one way for the new nominee and the Democratic Party to get full and immediate access to all the money that has been raised by the Biden for President campaign committee, and as of May thirty one, that was two hundred and twenty million dollars another thirty eight million since the debate,
there's probably much more than two hundred and fifty eight million available or already booked an advertising time. The only way it could seamlessly spend all that money on the new candidate without restrictions and labyrinths and creative bookkeeping. The only way the money could go to the new candidate is if the new candidate is Vice President Harris. I believe, for good or for ill, that this corner has been turned. I am not citing sources, nor even quoting them in
my own mind. Off the record, I do not have access to behind the scenes information or data. I have only a lot of experience watching the stories of my own lifetime unfold and covering many of them, and extensive study of the timelines of American history going back to our beginnings. I am deeply emotionally saddened by what I
think is now inevitable, and I find it remarkable. I would have said none of this twenty four hours ago, none of it, And yet now, because of the relatively small changes, but the release of the information in the polling, the things we did not know about, how bad the damage was, it all rings true now, inevitably, inescapably, and
solemnly true. Now we know why the corrupt bastards on the Supreme Court put in that little time bomb that not only couldn't you prosecute a president for official acts, but you also could not prosecute him for unofficial acts if the unofficial acts involve testimony or details related to
official acts. Trump's lawyers promptly used that argument to get Alvin Bragg to postpone the sentencing in Trump's Stormy Daniels election interference case from a week from tomorrow until September eighteenth. Brag insists the Scotis ruling doesn't have a damn thing to do with his case, but he has no problem with the delay. Before trials started, Trump used the same argument in hopes of moving the entire case to federal court.
A federal judge, Alvin Hellerstein, ruled against him, quoting the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the matter was a purely personal item of the president, a cover up of an embarrassing event. Hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a president's official acts. It does not reflect in any way the color of the president's official duties. I don't know, fella. I mean, if banging a porn star isn't an official act, my name isn't Martha's Stormy Washington.
It is galling to consider just how many things will change because the court didn't just put a thumb on the scales of justice. It put the entirety of Clarence Thomas's porn collection on them. On the other hand, there is a silver lining here in the application to the New York case. Trump could be sentenced to prison exactly forty nine days before the election. Oh, Judge Mershan, give him fifty days while Trump continues to evade justice and
reality and God and whatever. Not. So for Rudy Giuliani, he has been formally disbarred, prohibited from practicing law in New York State? Wait, is that what he was doing practicing law? I'll be damn sure didn't look anything like that. And if you need a laugh, a silver lining something
considered this back to the main story. If we really have hit the point where the president has to retire for health reasons, and Kamala Harris becomes the forty seventh president of the United States soon or not until January, think how much trump forty seven merchandise will have to
be burned in a giant pire somewhere. There will be a July fourth Countdown podcast, and I am hoping there will be enough quiet, just for a couple of days that I can point to the take festival at both extremes of the Biden situation, and god knows, I've been at both extremes of the Biden situation in the last forty eight hours that I can point at them and bring you something for context, underscoring the efficiency with which the media manages to bury its awful takes for all
time in baseball. July fourth is Lou Garrig Day, and he is now uniformly viewed as the definition of courage and tragedy. But when he got sick in nineteen thirty nine and in nineteen forty two, prominent sports writers penned articles in prominent venues claiming A lou gereg was faking his illness and b Lou Garrig had managed to infect all of his teammates. The story of those amazing articles in Why You've Never heard of Them? That's the plan
for tomorrow. We'll see if that's the podcast for tomorrow, regardless, until the next one, I'm Keith Olderman. Good Morning, good afternoon, good night, and good Luck. Countdown with Keith Oldreman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts,