This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI A M six forty, The Gary and Shannon Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app. I'm just saying, this show has a lot of fun. We have a lot of fun here. You're having fun. You'd think that the station's upstairs would have more fun because they get to play music right and do fart stuff. Well, maybe it's that in that time that they're playing music they're talked out. Yeah, probably, but we aren't. We're fun all the time, four hours
of fun. Even even in the breaks, we're fun. You know. You think, yeah, oh, I'm sorry. Are you not having fun? Well, it's there are times when, for example, you start going through your purse and I don't have anything to say about it because anything I said would be mean, Like what what could you possibly say that would be mean with regard to me going through my purse? Well, sometimes when you open that thing, it sounds like a closet on a sitcom that's been overfilled
with stuff falls onto the person who opens the closet door. What do you need? You need it again? This CBS receipt, Oh my gosh, I thought that was a pair of pants. How about a face mask. I've had one of those, though, I'm fine with that nature Valley bar Oh, I don't want a nature. Do you guess who has the COVID? I think this is fake news. I think this is a lie to I'm having a hard time believing anything coming from any politician lately. Always that's
listen. It is actually a good rule any politician, you love them, you hate him, you voted for him. You didn't always take what they say with just an ounce of suspicion, maybe more, maybe an ounce and a half of suspicion. But it goes back to the grain of sault saying,
which originated with when you're taking poison right. Several top Democrats have now said that on the heels of the COVID test with President Biden, the rising pressure of congressional leadership now means, according to Axios, they believe that President Biden could drop out of the race as soon as this week. It's gonna be tomorrow. Why my bet is tomorrow. Why because it'll be Friday,
you'll have the weekend. The way that they think is they think that the news cycle will die out and they'll have time to circle the wagons and crown the next leader over the weekend, have an announcement on Monday. Maybe Well, if they're going to do it that quick, their only option is Kamala Harris. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know, but I just
see it's imminent. It is imminent because if you just listen to what the President has said in his interviews to that same question of will you get out if it shows that you cannot win or whatever reiteration of that question he has faced. It went from the Lord all he's got to tell me to I got to be hit by a train, to a medical condition of some kind, and then bam covid and guess what. All three of those have come true. Well, I don't know about if the Lord Almighty has come down
to him. Necessarily, that's between he and the God, the and the God, he and the Lord. But at this point, all three of those appear to have all those boxes have been checked. At this point. There was a woman on MSNBC Joy Reid, Oh, I have that audio, please believe it is unbelievable. Joy Read was trying to find a way to explain that getting shot like President Trump did is the same as getting COVID,
like President Biden did. These two men are both elderly. Donald Trump is an elderly man who, for whatever reason, was given nine seconds to take a iconic photo op during an active shooter of the situation. Weird situation. We'll figure that out one day. But his survive and bouncing right back and going right to his convention is being conveyed in the media world as a sign of string. This current president of the United States is eighty one years
old and has COVID. Should he be fine in a couple of days? Doesn't that convey exactly the same thing that he's strong enough older than Trump to have gotten something that used to really be fatal to people his age. So if he does fine out of it and it comes back and is able to do rad isn't that exactly the same? I mean, it's not exactly the same. It's not same incident, but it's it's an elderly man coming through out of a missage. Okay, Now, if you're just looking at the
actual wound to President Trump's ear, yeah, it's it's a flesh. I mean, it's it's fine, everything's fine. But if you talk about the stress of hey, I almost lost my life versus what appears to be a mild cold. And that's based on what they say his symptoms are. Why is the bar so low that it's at the place of he's not going to die from a cold. Listen, that's a very low bar. And that's not even what we're talking about. We're not even talking about his physical health.
We're talking about his mental health. His mental health is not there. That's the problem. Nobody's saying he's well. People are saying he's old, but not that he's near death. It's just that his mental acuity is nowhere near where it used to be. There was a series of meetings that has apparently took meetings and phone calls that took place between the President and some of his I wouldn't say closest advisors, but important voices in the Democratic Party.
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi obviously came to Joe Biden and she said that Poles show that he cannot win that and that he would take down the House. That is the huge thing, because Pelosi doesn't move without knowing she's going to win, and she still is the puppet master. I believe there in DC, despite not being Speaker, and I think that her that's the final stop.
That's the buckstops there. The other two that talked with him, apparently over the last few days, Haakim Jeffries, the minority leader in the House, met with Biden last week at the White House, and then Chuck Schumer,
the majority leader in the Senate, met with him Saturday in Delaware. And in those meetings they talked about the concerns of the members in their body, whether it was House or Senate, who said they were concerned that having Biden at the top of the ticket was going to deprive them of majorities and make it much much harder to hold the Senate and then retake the House. And
that's the same thing Adam Schiff said. Adam Shiff another one of those very high profile Democrats arguably the highest profile, higher maybe the Nancy Pelosi simply because of who he is and has been for the Democratic Party when it comes to going up against Donald Trump. Doesn't have near the power there that Pelosi has. Not such power. Yes, but at least some of the noise around the Democratic Party has been concentrated on Adam Schiff. But the key perhaps was
the meeting with Katzenberg with Jeffrey Katzenberg. Jeffrey Katzenberg is one of the campaign co chairs and is one of the massive, massive fundraisers for Joe Biden. And without the money, the campaign is going to go nowhere. Well, and it's interesting that he met with Biden in Vegas just hours before the allegendary COVID diagnosis. And I didn't know anybody. I don't know anybody who has tested for COVID. I mean literally, I don't know anybody who has tested
for COVID in probably two years. Steve Gregory did a couple of weeks ago. I rest my case. I don't know what case I made, but I rest my case. The President has COVID. According to White House Press Secretary Karg Jean Pierre, he flew back to Delaware yesterday. He had been in Vegas. He had to cancel his speeches. They say he will be self isol self isolating and will continue to carry out all of his duties fully
during that time. Good boy Joining us now is Tom Dempsey. He is a DC correspondent for News Nation And Tom, have you gotten any sleep in
the past two to four weeks? It has been so stressful and busy covering all these developments because it's you know, this morning in particular, it just looked like developments were just kind of again left and right, and you know, for listeners right now, A long story short in the story I was tracking all morning long for New Nation is that this wave against President Joe Biden
is really growing U So ABC News first reported on it. But you know, private phone calls between President Joe Biden and cene of Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and a House Minority Leader Hakim Jeffries to the highest ranking Democrats on Capitol Hill on they allegedly all on President Joe Biden to withdraw during those private phone calls. Either of them have come out publicly yet, which is important to note.
But again, when you have voices like that coming out and pulling on the president to withdraw, I mean that could be the difference maker in this because the higher up this gets, the more pressure obviously is going to be
building on the president. Just saw a short time ago, the DNC held their own I don't know if you'd call it a counter news conference, but they were in Milwaukee when they held this news conference today and said to the effect of we're not planning for any scenario where Joe Biden is not at the top of the ticket. Is that can we believe that? Yeah, well
that's at least that's being said publicly. So again, this is the This is what is interesting being a reporter at this point right now in DC, because there's a whole thing that's being presented publicly, and then you're getting reports of stuff that's happening privately. Like I said, publicly, we're hearing, you know, President Joe Biden is our nominee and we're going to keep fighting and we're going to keep you know, trudging along and keep fighting through all
this. But privately, we're hearing more and more about these phone calls, you know, meetings with lawmakers expressing concern about the president and how you know, him running for a president could impact you know, the House and Senate races that are happening as well in other states, you know, privately, like I said, Hakeem Jeffries, the House Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, holding private phone calls with the president directly and calling
him on him to withdraw. So a lot of some of these politicians are really you know, walking a tight rope right now, saying some things privately but saying different things publicly, and you know, at least publicly. I will note too, we have seen almost two dozen House Democrats come forward to calling on President Joe Biden to withdraw, but at least privately, I think that number is definitely bigger. I feel like there's a clean team and a
dirty team, and you know, like Hakem. Jeffries gets to keep his hands clean there, while it seems like maybe Pelosi's working in the trees and the fact that her name is surfaced now to me, that's kind of where the bucks stops, or it seems to be. Does she still wield the power that she did? Oh? Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. So I mean there's the big there's the big three, as I like to call him. On the Capitol Hill for the Democrats, you have Pelosi, Schumer,
and Jeffries. So again we heard about these private phone calls with Jeffries and Schumer two out of the three. And then Pelosi allegedly, you know, didn't have any issue with California Representative Adam Schiff, who's running for Senate in California, publicly calling on President Joe Biden to withdraw. So again that whole public private thing. You know, none of the Big three publicly have come forward calling on President Joe Biden to withdraw, but privately we're seeing the much
different game sort of play out. Welcome to DC politics, where you hear one thing, but then you get reports of a different thing. It's just how it works in DCA, unfortunately. But again, this is still very much evolving right now. And you guys say too, as all of this is playing out, President Biden is at home right now or recovering from COVID,
and he can't be on the campaign trail. And it was interesting because the White House is you have lid on White House, you know, as far as public events for the president very early today and for listeners at home. Basically what that means is we're not going to really see or hear anything from the president today because he's recovering from COVID. I think there's either two
things here. They're using COVID as an excuse for him to get out of these monstrous interviews where he has evolved his line of thinking or his line of answering the question of will you step down? You know, it started with the Lord Almighty has to tell me to I need to be hit by a train to some sort of medical condition. It just seems like it just keeps getting worse for him on this interview circuit. Well, that that's interesting too.
You bring that up because you're right to say it. As in, like, you know, the reasons from President Biden, you know, what would lead him to withdraw. But we're seeing kind of a slow drip as for reasons why he would withdraw. You're right, First it was the Lord Almighty, you know, calling on him to step down. Then it was a medical condition. And now apparently, at least according to the New York Times, he's entertaining are not as defensive and conversations about you know, calls
to withdraw. You know, he's a little bit more open to hearing unfavorable polling data and a little bit more open to talking about the chances for Vice President Kamala Harris if she were to become the candidate. So again, it's like a slow drip we're seeing, you know, as far as the reasons that might lead to him with withdrawing, and certainly all these lawmakers coming forward, the more they come forward publicly, that's going to be the more pressure
he's going to face. And you know, I think one other name to keep in mind right now is former President Barack Obama, because if he were to come out and say anything, you know, expressing concern about President Biden or saying you should, you know, entertain the thought of withdrawing, that could be the very last, very very big name to come out calling on him to withdraw. Where Hillary Clinton in all of this, she's been very
very quiet with people haven't talked about her. Does she hold sway in the power of the way an Obama would? I think, I mean, we want to get into power rankings within the Democratic Party. I think Obama probably carries a little bit more weight than the Clinton's right now, but that's not to say I mean Hillary Clinton absolutely has a very powerful voice within the Democratic Party as well. They've been pretty quiet as far as former President Bill Clinton
and former presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and for the first lady. But again, if any of them, the former president Obama or Clinton were to come out, or Hillary Clinton were to come out again, more pressure for the president. Because this wave really is growing right now and it's going to be really interesting to see how the campaign kind of navigate through all this. Sorry to hear about DJ Pickett going to LSU instead of Miami. How did you know?
I was a Miami Hurricanes fan? Is that why you said that? Listen, we have sources, Tom, you can't break news on this show. Tom or dialed into the U. All right, Tom, thank you, thank you you. Bet Tom Dempsey there from News Nation, the Washington d C Correspondent. There's so much. I mean, he makes the good point. Even just this morning, there has been development after development on the Biden on the Biden portion, but there's also the assassination investigation portion of all
of those. There's so much to get to. Did you know that Wendy was I think it was Burger King that has mozzarella fries. That was why I made that face. You thought there was breaking news. I saw mozzarella fries. Yum, all right, Carrie, she like mozrella sticks, but
they're they're skinnier, but they're like fries. Wouldn't be completely distracted now by another fried cheese and random fried recreational cheese, Oh my gosh, yes, search a sound effect for fibber McGee and Molly finally opening a closet that will be perfect for Shannon's purse. Okay, I made a comment about when you open your purse. It sounds like the old sitcom trope of someone opening an overpacked closet and it falling completely. I looked up Fibber McGee and Molly and
found this in your Parkio. I know, but where's my Oh, I know, it's right here in the long clock. You've gone batty, Yes, right now, this closet. One of these days. There's plenty of room in here, by the way, for what room for whatever. Your arm entirely disappears into that thing when you reach in there. It is It's like if I'm going away for a weekend. This is all I need. The shooter in the failed assassination attempt against former President Trump wrote on the popular
game platform stream quote, July thirteenth will be my premiere. Watch as it unfolds. Investigative be trying to figure out more about this guy, what he was doing in the days and hours leading up to the assassination attempt. We know that he visited the location twice. He seemed before the rally. He
seems to be a little obsessed with politics on his phone. There were a number of photos of politicians and public officials, pictures of Trump, President Biden, Fanny Willis, Fawnie Willis, excuse me, who had been prosecuting Trump in Georgia, Hakeem Jeffreys, Mike Johnson as well. Remember yesterda was it yesterday? No, it was Tuesday when we did profiles of assassins, and one of the one of the studies showed that their target moves will move from
person to person. Yeah, that they're not necessarily going after one person, They're just going after the notoriety or the high profile nature of it. Now, what we now know is among the thousands of people who were there at the rally, this guy stood out again. He wasn't never in the fairgrounds. He was always on the outside of the fence. But local officers spotted this guy acting oddly. They notified other law enforcement. The Secret Service was
also notified at the time. He did not appear to have a weapon. They found this guy officers did not know at the time, and they eventually lost track of him. So twenty minutes before the shooting, twenty minutes they spotted him again. A sniper took his picture and then as time slipped through, according to The New York Times, at least two officers were pulled off of traffic detail to help look for the guy, but the Secret Service did
not stop the former president from taking the stage. Eight minutes after he started speaking. That's when the former president was shot. And that's why experts tell you this was a failure from top to bottom. Several top Democrats have been telling Axios as well that the rising pressure being put on President Biden to decide to drop out of the race means that he could decide as soon as this weekend. The eighty one year old president is self isolating with COVID still.
Publicly he's been saying he's in it to win it, and they said privately he has resigned to the mounting pressure, to the bad polls, to the scrutiny, and the possibility that whatever legacy he had is going to be destroyed if he stays in the race and loses not just the White House but also the Senate In the House. Can we talk about the optics of him getting out tomorrow or this weekend. It would be terrible for Democrats because it would
be all but conceding the race to Donald Trump. Because he speaks tonight today is all about Donald Trump at the RNC. I mean it has been since it began. But he takes the stage in Milwaukee tonight. Depending on the speech, I'm sure it's not going to shock us one way or the other. What the tone of his speech is. I hope it. But then to come out tomorrow or Saturday or Sunday and drop out of the race. It's almost like, oh that the speech is the last nail in the coffin.
Yeah. Objects are bad down the optics are bad for Democrats down the ticket. Yeah, because it's like, oh, well, we're not going to beat that. We got to get out well. Last week obviously we
didn't know what assassination attempt was going to take place. But last week I had said, you know, one of the best options I thought would be for last weekend to be the time that Joe Biden announces that he's going to step down, because that takes some of the oxygen out of Milwaukee, right and take some of the headlines back well, and if they were to pitch it, you know, his stepping down and the search for the next candidate,
assuming it wouldn't be Kamala Harris. In this scenario, that generates a lot of electricity. General, it's a lot of energy. Whether it's a positive or negative. It generates headlines. And your plan may have been the plan that got derailed once the assassination happened on Saturday, or the attempt, you know what I mean, Because if they planned to do it, let's say Sunday night, right last Sunday night, and then steal all the headlines
throughout the week from the RNC, that would be a great plan. But you can't do that after the assassination attempt. Good point. Speaking of the assassination attempt, one of the things that the Director of the Secret Service has kind of intimated suggested, but not really leaning into it is the building where the shooter was was supposed to be protected by local officers. And Edward Natali is the Butler Township commissioner, and he's going around basically defending his guys,
defending his police force. At the site that day, there was the Secret Service, the Pennsylvania State Police, Butler County Sheriff's Department, and of course the Butler time Police. I am not here to throw anyone under the bus. What I'm doing is protecting my team for what is a completely unacceptable suggestion. I do hope that the investigation is done rigorously and that the truth comes out, and that's what I want, And he said, I mean,
they have a very small police force. Butler, Pennsylvania is not a big city. The Butler Township Police Department is an honorable department, works hard. Our detail was specifically planned for traffic detail only. There was no security, no protection detail whatsoever. I guess a couple of his officers, well not his, but a couple of the officers were tasked with helping to find the
guy after he'd been identified as at least suspicious at that point. Now, a former Secret Service agent, Mike Matrango also did an interview today and asked, Okay, if we had eyes on this guy, or we thought that there was a suspicious guy walking around, that should have prompted at the very least a delay. I was the former president allowed to take the stage when this individual had not been identified, We did not know where his location was.
That would be my question is why the rush? Why push him one stage? Why not delay? That's protective assignments one oh one. You have a person of interest that is out there that could potentially be of harm that has obviously gained some type of suspicious intent or exhibited behaviors by someone in authority.
Why are we rushing the former president on stage now? I don't know anybody rushed him, but they didn't prevent him from going on en At a rally like that, it would not be unusual to have a delay of a few minutes, sure, or several minutes, I mean, until you could figure something out. Why haven't we seen people get fired over this yet? It should have been swift, It should have been you don't get you don't get an opportunity to answer questions type of a situation. But everybody involved with
this organizational failure should just be dumped. I also wanted to point out that Mike Matronga, again a former Secret Service agent himself, had talked about protective details, but also talked about the ten thousand foot level of what we do. We're not involved, we weren't there, we weren't work in security,
we weren't at the rally. If that bullet would have been an inch to the right, what type of civil unrest not only in the United States that we would have had, but also through throughout the nation and throughout the world. So we've got to do better as Americans at understanding that there's such a political divisiveness in this country that's been created by both parties. And what I
would say is that we've got to be better Americans. We have to understand that when things go bad, we can't solely look at our government to save us. It's going to be our neighbors that do that, and so that's what brings us together. We've got to do better. Oh, that was a nice message considering all of the absolute tornado plus a hurricane and throwing a sharknado of feces that has been going on. Oh. Absolutely, you've been
listening to the Gary and Shannon Show. You can always hear us live on KFI AM six forty nine am to one pm every Monday through Friday, and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.